Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Doldrum Days



Have you noticed that you have a lot more free time at work? Are there long silences during conversations with friends? Is your wallet oddly fatter than usual?

Welcome, my friends, to The Worst Time of the Year for Sports.

Football is over, spring training hasn’t started, basketball is going but we’re only at the midway point, the NHL is going but I’m the only person who cares about that, there’s no Winter Olympics this year, and cock fighting is still illegal.

Nautically, the doldrums are a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Athletically, the doldrums is that time of year when otherwise rational people try to get into NASCAR.

So to keep you from free of sports scurvy (and Pit Lizards), here are some suggestions of things to do while waiting for something besides a Congressional hearing to happen in the wide world of sports:


Get addicted to eBay! Red Sox slugger/cosmonaut Manny Ramirez is selling a car on eBay and donating the money to charity and ESPN.com sports writer Bill Simmons is selling a jersey on the auction site, also for charity. The online auction site has lots of other stuff too.

Read a book! Just kidding. Watch scripted television! The writers’ strike appears to be over. Most new episodes of scripted shows won’t be back until March or April, but a few are coming back sooner. Also, if you’d like to save a sports related show from being cancelled, go here.

Go see a band! A couple “buzz worthy” acts are touring right now, including Vampire Weekend, The Black Lips, The Lovemakers, Black Mountain, Be Your Own Pet, Beach House, Jose Gonzalez, my favorite of this group Tokyo Police Club, and tons more. If you’re not into finding new music, old standbys Radiohead, Kanye West, Built to Spill, Pinback and REM have all announced upcoming dates too.

Go outside! Temperatures in Southern California have been in the 70s for the last few days and the warm weather is expected to continue. If you’re reading this blog and live in New England or some similar cold place … Invest in long johns. Sucker.

Cheat your co-workers! Take advantage of everyone’s insatiable thirst for gambling and tell them you’re starting a March Madness pool. Then, skip town with their cash! (Just a thought. Though I’m sure someone, somewhere, has done this).


That’s all I got for now. If anyone else has any suggestions, let’s hear ‘em!

4 comments:

Red said...

I think you meant there are no Winter Olympics this year. Not to, like, fact check or whatever, but the Summer Olympics start Aug 8.

And Liz, we don't tell other people about our phenomenal weather. It makes more people move here, which means more transplant sports fans and Padres games already sound like away games half the time as it is. We keep these things to ourselves.

Otherwise, awesome list :)

Liz said...

I did mean no Winter Olympics. I shall fix that.

And hey, sometimes awesome people move here for the weather. Like me :-)

Red said...

Well, now that you are here (and the SD awesome quotient is astronomically high) we must discourage all future new comers. I hate to pull the native card, but, well, I guess I just did...

Dave Harrington said...

This is it, I'm finally going to try watching a whole NASCAR race.