Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Banshee is Alive
Wild Banshee is not dead. In fact, the Banshee is not even sick. And, as you probably already heard on the news, the Banshee did not get elected pope.
In the time since the birth of this blog, Wild Banshee graduated from school, got a job, and then did the unthinkable crime of taking on some actual responsibility and stress at that job. Hence, the lack of posts. The next month is going to be even busier for me than the previous month has been. However, June should bring about a new calm in the Banshee's life. It is my intention to bring back regular posting sometime during that month. In the meantime, Banshee Blog's regular contributors may continue posting.
Wild Banshee will send out an email to this blog's standard mailing list when posting resumes. If you wish to receive an email and think you're not on that list, please send an email to Wild Banshee, and I will add you to the mailing list.
In the time since the birth of this blog, Wild Banshee graduated from school, got a job, and then did the unthinkable crime of taking on some actual responsibility and stress at that job. Hence, the lack of posts. The next month is going to be even busier for me than the previous month has been. However, June should bring about a new calm in the Banshee's life. It is my intention to bring back regular posting sometime during that month. In the meantime, Banshee Blog's regular contributors may continue posting.
Wild Banshee will send out an email to this blog's standard mailing list when posting resumes. If you wish to receive an email and think you're not on that list, please send an email to Wild Banshee, and I will add you to the mailing list.
Where's Banshee?
[*The views expressed in the following post do not reflect the opinions of Wild Banshee or any other person affiliated with this blog. In fact, the author only claims to kind of agree with 7% of what he's written. Most of that 7% is punctuation.]
Two coincidental events have prompted me to write this post. Two events so mysterious and so coincidental that I am sure that they have not passed without raising every one of your right eyebrows. (For those of you with uni-brows, this was surely quite an undertaking.) I speak of 1) Wild Banshee's absence from the blog and 2) the election of the new pope via "conclave".
Yes. The timing is too eerie to be a mere accident. As many of you have already surmised, I believe that she is in Rome "conclaving". Did I make up that word? Yes I did. But none of you complain when sports announcers use words like "three-peat" and "winningest" do you? I'm not even sure if the noun "conclave" is the proper word for this occassion. I thought it was a style of lens - You know, when one side is flat and the other side is curved in....or maybe that's convex. Regardless, Catholics shouldn't be allowed to run around making up words. If they can make up nouns, I'll go ahead and make up verbs. Today it's "Conclaving". Conclaving is the act of shipping all the Catholic cardinals to Rome so that the children of Boston have a chance to run a hide.
The logical conclusion is that Wild Banshee is running for Pope. It's true that the Pope must be a Roman Catholic. I'm a Southern Baptist, and my calculus in this matter is pretty simple. All those who eat Jesus at church are eligible. Those of us who don't eat Jesus are ineligible. I remember a few years ago at the esteemed University of Notre Dame, one student, finding out that I was Southern Baptist, said to me, "ewwwwww. Southern Baptists take the Bible way to literally." I responded, "What?!!!! Hello? We don't eat Jesus." He soon realized that eating Jesus was a much more literal take on the Bible than our no-dancing policy, which is not in the Bible at all.
Banshee's most challenging rival will be Cardinal Ratzinger. If I remember correctly, he's a German. Ratzinger was, as were all German children, part of the Hitler Youth. Banshee's got a good shot at beating him. She need only pull the "freak-out" card - that is when we all freak out when we realize that a German is going to run the Vatican. Suffice it to say, we will all feel safer with Banshee as our pope. Her new papal name shall be Pope Harold Goldstein.
God bless Banshee. We miss you already!
;)
Two coincidental events have prompted me to write this post. Two events so mysterious and so coincidental that I am sure that they have not passed without raising every one of your right eyebrows. (For those of you with uni-brows, this was surely quite an undertaking.) I speak of 1) Wild Banshee's absence from the blog and 2) the election of the new pope via "conclave".
Yes. The timing is too eerie to be a mere accident. As many of you have already surmised, I believe that she is in Rome "conclaving". Did I make up that word? Yes I did. But none of you complain when sports announcers use words like "three-peat" and "winningest" do you? I'm not even sure if the noun "conclave" is the proper word for this occassion. I thought it was a style of lens - You know, when one side is flat and the other side is curved in....or maybe that's convex. Regardless, Catholics shouldn't be allowed to run around making up words. If they can make up nouns, I'll go ahead and make up verbs. Today it's "Conclaving". Conclaving is the act of shipping all the Catholic cardinals to Rome so that the children of Boston have a chance to run a hide.
The logical conclusion is that Wild Banshee is running for Pope. It's true that the Pope must be a Roman Catholic. I'm a Southern Baptist, and my calculus in this matter is pretty simple. All those who eat Jesus at church are eligible. Those of us who don't eat Jesus are ineligible. I remember a few years ago at the esteemed University of Notre Dame, one student, finding out that I was Southern Baptist, said to me, "ewwwwww. Southern Baptists take the Bible way to literally." I responded, "What?!!!! Hello? We don't eat Jesus." He soon realized that eating Jesus was a much more literal take on the Bible than our no-dancing policy, which is not in the Bible at all.
Banshee's most challenging rival will be Cardinal Ratzinger. If I remember correctly, he's a German. Ratzinger was, as were all German children, part of the Hitler Youth. Banshee's got a good shot at beating him. She need only pull the "freak-out" card - that is when we all freak out when we realize that a German is going to run the Vatican. Suffice it to say, we will all feel safer with Banshee as our pope. Her new papal name shall be Pope Harold Goldstein.
God bless Banshee. We miss you already!
;)
Friday, April 01, 2005
Confessions of a (previous) College Basketball Non-fan
This is a very hard post to write. I try to stay away from subjects which I know nothing about, and NCAA basketball is one of these subjects.
Not only do I know very little, but, until a few weeks ago, it didn't bother me that I knew very little. I wasn't bothered that I was one of the rare few in my state who didn't have a preference between Duke or UNC-Chapel Hill, or that I couldn't tell you the difference between the "ACC" and the "Big Ten." Until a few weeks ago, I'd spent way more time thinking about dryer lint than college basketball.
Then why, tonight, do I find myself anxiously, excitedly awaiting tomorrow's Final Four games? Why have I consciously rearranged my schedule to make certain I don't miss a minute? What has brought about this change???
In a sentence, I tried it. In the past few weeks, I've watched about 8 games. At least 5 of these games were decided in the last 3 minutes, and 3 of them went into overtime (sometimes double). Any of these games could have easily been the best sporting event I have seen in the last year.
I absolutely cannot believe I have been missing out on this experience, this"March Madness," for the entirety of my mature life. It's so much more than sports - it's life. The total desperation of teams in the last few minutes. The looks of complete sorrow and tragedy on the sweaty faces of benched players in the final seconds of the loss. The exultation of players, crying and screaming like they've won the NBA Championship even though it's just a college semi-final. The ingenius yet simple idea of a single elimination, non-paid tournament of college kids produces entertainment that is just...priceless.
So to all of you whom I've ignored, scorned, or laughed at when you talked about the excitement of college basketball, I apologize. You were right. But I won't miss out again.
Not only do I know very little, but, until a few weeks ago, it didn't bother me that I knew very little. I wasn't bothered that I was one of the rare few in my state who didn't have a preference between Duke or UNC-Chapel Hill, or that I couldn't tell you the difference between the "ACC" and the "Big Ten." Until a few weeks ago, I'd spent way more time thinking about dryer lint than college basketball.
Then why, tonight, do I find myself anxiously, excitedly awaiting tomorrow's Final Four games? Why have I consciously rearranged my schedule to make certain I don't miss a minute? What has brought about this change???
In a sentence, I tried it. In the past few weeks, I've watched about 8 games. At least 5 of these games were decided in the last 3 minutes, and 3 of them went into overtime (sometimes double). Any of these games could have easily been the best sporting event I have seen in the last year.
I absolutely cannot believe I have been missing out on this experience, this"March Madness," for the entirety of my mature life. It's so much more than sports - it's life. The total desperation of teams in the last few minutes. The looks of complete sorrow and tragedy on the sweaty faces of benched players in the final seconds of the loss. The exultation of players, crying and screaming like they've won the NBA Championship even though it's just a college semi-final. The ingenius yet simple idea of a single elimination, non-paid tournament of college kids produces entertainment that is just...priceless.
So to all of you whom I've ignored, scorned, or laughed at when you talked about the excitement of college basketball, I apologize. You were right. But I won't miss out again.
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