Good evening once again, hope your holiday weekend is off to a good start. Can't say that the weekend is off to a rip-roaring start in Bony Scribe world. Remember yesterday evening when I said I was going to take the bus? Well, that didn't happen--Mother Nature decided to do what she does best in Central Florida this time of year, she trolled the hell out of us. A constant threat of storms all day today, and since I would have to walk about two miles to get from my house to the nearest bus stop (which would take me about an hour and a half in my condition and my age), I figured it wouldn't be worth the trouble. Dammit. I was really hoping to see the woman I'm interested in currently. Those hopes would be dashed anyway with what happened later in the day. A sudden family emergency arose, and it pretty much lasted the afternoon, along with the rumble of thunder (but no rain). Good news is that the emergency situation was solved in a couple of hours, and my blog entry is now being typed after planning on doing for earlier this afternoon. I just hope the rain hits sometime tonight so that I won't get bombarded by #FloridaMan shooting off fireworks for the sake of shooting fireworks. Man, I miss North Carolina sometimes...
The first thing I wanted to rant about tonight is news that broke Friday in the world of college football. UCLA and USC are leaving the Pac-12 Conference...for the Big Ten. Yes, you read that correctly. The two major colleges in Los Angeles are joining a conference where the nearest member institution, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, is 1,250 miles away. This comes after the Big Ten just a few short years ago, added Maryland and Rutgers, not only grabbing a foothold on the east coast, but also grabbing the nation's largest media market. Now, not only can the Big Ten lay claim to being a truly bi-coastal conference, but they now have the THREE largest media markets, Chicago, New York, and now Los Angeles.
But realistically, does this make sense to anyone? Anyone who has followed college athletics for a long period of time knows that the Big Ten conference is a Midwest-based league, and their core members are in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and the Upper Midwestern states. Heck, a few years ago, I blogged about what I thought the "Power Five" (reformed to "Power Six") in college football should look like. Now, with Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC next year; UCF, BYU, Cincinnati, and Houston joining the Big 12; and now the UCLA and USC news this week, the "Power Five" may be just now the "Power Four." I guess it would make sense as far as determining a national champion in football; the four conference winners would make up the playoff. But when it comes down to it, college football has become drunk with money grabbing. Like Courtney Kramer pointed out on Twitter this week, maybe the NCAA should dissolve the conference and start fresh.
Speaking of traditions being abandoned, NASCAR has for a couple of years now decided to hold their Independence Day race somewhere other than Daytona, and to me that is just wrong. Since 1959, when Daytona International Speedway opened its doors, there had always been a 400-mile race held over Independence Day weekend. But in 2020, the year almost everything started going sideways, NASCAR decided to move the second Daytona race to the end of August, and the end of their "regular season." Indianapolis's race, the Brickyard 400, took Daytona's spot until this year, when it was moved again, this time to Road America in Wisconsin. I'm sorry, but mother than Dave Marcis and the late Dick Trickle, I have trouble associating NASCAR with Wisconsin. I thought Wisconsin was near the heart of cart and open-wheel racing. Damn corporations ruining everything in the name of television. Like Grace Slick once sang, "someone's always playing corporation games," and I don't like this particular path NASCAR is going down.
Speaking of racing, did anyone catch qualifying for the British GP earlier today? Carlos Sainz won the pole position for tomorrow's race at Silverstone, and in what has to be the equivalent of me scoring a prom date with the homecoming queen, back marker Nicolas Latifi of Williams Racing actually made it to Q3. But those events didn't catch my attention; what did was an advertising board there for Paramount+, the streaming service for CBS Entertainment. Among the slides shown were for SpongeBob SquarePants and South Park. Think about it, the world's best drivers being greeted by Sqwidward Tenticles in the pit area awaiting them to order a Krabby Patty with extra cheese. Will Mrs. Puff blow up like a balloon if any of the cars slide off track, or worse yet, crash? Is Mr. Krabbs driving the pace car? And what about the South Park gang? Is Stan Marsh doing the grid walk? Will Eric Cartman provide pit analysis by Weight Gain 3000? And will Kenny McCormack get killed when...you know, I better stop while I'm already behind. Just an odd juxtaposition if you ask me.
Well, I had more to write, but the dolts in the West Linden subdivision are reenacting the battle of Bunker Hill with all the fireworks going off, much to me and my sisters' dismay. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and remember to be safe.
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