Whipped Cream Difficulties

There are some things you can always count on as the seasons change:

• The return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano. (Sort of.)
• The return of the buzzards to Hinkley, Ohio.
• TMQ’s haiku predictions column.
• WCD pointing out that many of TMQ’s haiku are not actual haiku, as they lack a seasonal reference. (We counted two out of 32.)

Now that we’ve nodded in the general direction of the eternal verities of the universe, let’s get started after the jump…

If youth leagues, public school districts and colleges that are already in the red on sports start paying brain-damage awards, they’ll stop sponsoring football. They won’t have any choice — insurers will drop them.

And thus go the first 1,004 words of this week’s column. It isn’t that we disagree with TMQ’s point here. Of course he’s correct. The problem now is that TMQ, and lots of other folks, have been making this same point almost since the beginning of the current concussion awareness campaign. You’re not bringing anything new to the table, Gregg, just restating the obvious.

As we note every year, we’re not going to deal with every one of TMQ’s haiku predictions individually, since a) there’s not really a lot to say about TMQ picking the Bills to go 4-12; that’s, like, his opinion, man, and II) we don’t do haiku. We will highlight those that we find particularly noteworthy.

Now TMQ asks, why are there preseason games, period?

Follow the money, Gregg.

Yes, owners like the added revenue from ticket sales and concessions. But money is not the NFL’s core problem.

Perhaps not, but do you expect them to leave preseason game income on the table without getting something back? Like, oh, we don’t know, maybe extra regular season games?

The Last (Defenseless) Defender of Camelot. (We just want to say: Roger Zelazny died too damn young.)

Speaking of “why are there” questions, why is there a TMQ “New York Times Corrections on Fast-Forward” item when there are so many other places that round up corrections from the NYT?

Once again, some “cupcake” schools unexpectedly upset their supposedly stronger opposition. This happens often enough that we wonder if it isn’t time for TMQ to retire this item. (Oh, who are we kidding? TMQ never stops beating a dead horse, even long after the point where there is no horse left.)

Chicken-(salad) punts: North Carolina.

Widely predicted to cause awful economic distress, instead across-the-board spending cuts have been accompanied by economic improvement. When the sequester began, unemployment was 7.9 percent and the most recent quarter had shown only 0.4 percent GDP growth. Now unemployment is down to 7.4 percent while growth has climbed to 2.5 percent. Perhaps these improvements would have happened anyway; perhaps trends would be even better without the sequester. All that can be known is that politicians and pundits said the sequester would be terrible for the economy, and instead so far it’s been a positive.

You don’t say.

…the highly insulted, conveniently anonymous federal employee “told a carpenter who was going to build bookshelves in the living room that the $5,000 job will have to be put off.” Federal official faces delay in custom bookshelves — oh, the horror!

We know a guy who would probably do it for much less than $5K. Contact Lawrence if you’re interested.

So how about that concussion settlement? TMQ’s thoughts pretty much reflect the standard wisdom we’ve heard elsewhere:

• The NFL benefits by not having to open their books, by getting this out of the way now, and by getting the story out of the newspapers quickly.
• The players benefit by getting money now, not after the lawsuit is settled (and running the risk of losing their lawsuit).

With about 18,000 retired NFL players eligible to apply for a check (some won’t), the typical award may work out to $50,000 or less.

$50,000 is a chunk of change. But it doesn’t buy a lot of medical care.

In Hell’s Sports Bar, TMQ tells us, there are “28 widescreen hi-def TVs”. Since there are a maximum of 13 games being played at any one time, what’s on the other 15 televisions? Actually, 16, since:

On opening day, the fantastic Green Bay at San Francisco matchup will be blacked out in Hell’s Sports Bar.

TMQ is burying the lead here. We have a location for Hell, and it is within a 75 mile radius of San Francisco. This explains…well, a lot, actually.

Tune in next week, when we’ll get to hear TMQ plug his book again. No word yet on whether he plans to take a week off during the season, but if he does, we might use that week to run a review. (First, though, we have to purchase and read it.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Books, Neuroscience, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.