The Distract me from 2020s P&CE Thread Part Deux

You Dutchies are psychopaths

 

Neg rep.

Some mutants are putting galamad & rigatoni on the pizzas now. I blame Hawaiian pizza guy.

 

Some heroes don't wear capes

Saving me time & clicks, hero

— Jeff Lebowski (@FarOutMan1998) March 12, 2023

 

I could use some help...

Six years ago I started writing for a UVa fan site called HoosPlace, originally to cover men's basketball. All of us on the site knew that we were in the golden age of men's hoops and that it was a matter of when, not if, the men won a national championship. Shortly thereafter I started covering women's soccer because soccer is my game, and with the advent of the ACC Network, I could actually see about every game. For the last five years, I have written about the women.

Two years ago, stunned as many were by the Sedona Prince tweet about the inequities at the NCAA tournaments for men and women, I decided that I was going to add coverage of the UVa women's basketball team to my schedule.

This year I moved to another fan site, StreakingTheLawn.

It started out as a quixotic vanity project, but it has become something more: I want to give the women equal coverage of their game. They shed the same blood, sweat and tears as the men do, and I want them to receive the same recognition as the men do. I've become sort of messianic about it. That's my goal.

To wit: Two weeks ago I went to Greensboro, North Carolina for the ACC women's basketball tourney. I wrote four pieces about the tournament as a whole and one separate game report for the one UVa game. I wrote the pieces in the style of Bill Simmons' diaries that he popularized on ESPN and then Grantland. I thought these were fabulous articles. Now, I know that I am not funny, but I hope that I have conveyed the scene of 14 games in 5 days.

The thing is, I came back absolutely beat. Part of it was that I had hit the road at 5:45am on Wednesday for a 7-hour drive. I chose to stay with a friend of mine an hour away, so that meant a longish commute each morning and every evening. That first day, I got there around 12:30, watched the Virginia women, wrote the game report between the other two games, drove an hour to get to Mark's, and then wrote the daily piece after midnight. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I drove half way home on Sunday, wrote the report at a McDonalds, and didn't get home til around midnight.

I'd wanted to do this for a couple of years, but the thought of doing it next year unnerves me. I took three days of leave, spent $350 for tickets, parking and food, and have decided that I would need to get a hotel room much closer so that I can get to sleep before midnight.

What I'm asking... Was I any good? Would any of you want to read this? I don't really know who my audience is. I don't know if it is people who look me or STL up for coverage of the women's game, or if it is folks who come for the men's hoops and stay for the women's coverage. I just know if I suck, I'm not going to make that kind of investment again. I really was beat.

So these are the four days I wrote (I was too tired for Saturday's report, so I titled it Championship weekend and lumped the semis and the final into one column.) You can PM me, or reply here.

Thanks.

Day One: https://www.streakingthelawn.com/20...ia-cavaliers-acc-womens-basketball-tournament

Day Two: https://www.streakingthelawn.com/20...-tournament-diary-recaps-day-2-cavinder-twins

Day Three: https://www.streakingthelawn.com/20...iary-virginia-tech-duke-louisville-notre-dame

Day Four and Five: https://www.streakingthelawn.com/20...-weekend-diary-recap-virginia-tech-louisville

 

Didn't read them all but for anyone who follows the ACC women it is worthwhile reading. A friend did a Mets blog for a bit about 10 yrs ago but he was one of dozens so it didn't go very far.

We went to Jadwin Gymnasium last week & saw Princeton men come back to beat Penn in OT. Happy they won the Ivy today to make it in. Rutgers fans I know are pissed that they got snubbed.

 

North Carolina are the first preseason #1 team to miss the NCAA tournament entirely since the tournament expanded in 1985 pic.twitter.com/SKIKmvDQIv

— SB Nation (@SBNation) March 12, 2023

What a difference a year makes

 

I like this, but I’m not a consumer unless it was of my own niche interests around Utah sports. Basically, you’re an abbreviated 1-man BigSoccer Pre-PBP-Post Thread with all quality content and no filler, which I personally love. It feels intimate and insightful, focusing on what I miss outside of casually watching the game myself at home.

I think that the only way for you to make this remotely sustainable is to find a small group of similarly-minded fans to produce this content instead of taking it all upon yourself.

Have you had good interaction from readers? Maybe a couple of them would be willing to cover a few games to reduce your load, and you could just edit&publish their content (or if it’s real-time, just publish it).

BTW, I’ve definitely missed your contributions to BS. Which is to say, I think your content has value.


Also, WTF was up with streaking in the 70s? F’ing weirdos!

 

Due to reasons beyond my control I haven't played soccer for two months and the rains have spoiled my other exercise options. I can feel myself turning into a lump. So even though it's raining again, today I said screw it I'm biking to the store 5 miles away to get some hummus. Things started badly when my biking rain jacket fit a lot tighter around the waist than I remember.

But once I got going.. no, it was still terrible. It was hard to see. After 10 minutes my grips became slimy because who knew you had to clean those things more often than never. And somehow I had never before noticed the tectonic shift that raised the hill between my home and downtown San Rafael to over 10,000 feet.

It's the first time I saw the new section of bike lanes they put in only 42 months ago. You get to go through San Rafael's scenic back end of warehouses district bordering Lawn Chair Creek, named after its most notable wildlife. I would also like to thank past me for putting a mask in my panniers. It was one of those disposable ones that I only wore early in the pandemic, so that dates my last visit to a store on bike.

The way back was even worse because through some as-yet unexplained phenomena it's a lot harder to climb hills when your panniers are stuffed with groceries. And before you think the downhill was easier, there is a light at the bottom that always, always, always turns red just when you get there and my hands are still sore from applying 4 tons of grip force to get my wet 30 year old brakes to stop a panic-inducing number of millimeters before the path of oncoming traffic.

I don't really feel any sense of accomplishment. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

 

I would recommend David Byrne's "the Bicycle Diaries."

Yeah, he was on the Oscar's last night. But he travels a lot and he tries to default to bicycles for travel.

 

Good one.

 

Stern used to do a bit about his father and Roquefort.

 

From what I saw they needed a few wins down the stretch. But like Rutgers did not the job done.

 

When you need something weird yet palatable for Middle 'Merica, there's always David Byrne

 

Definitely throw in a Roby comic strip or two or even a hand drawn picture of your own.

 

I'd believe the person if they told me Covid started at a country music show.

 

Hey - don't shortchange country's contributions to crabs and chlamydia!

 

Stop picking on me!

 

I also wouldn't be surprised if a new STD was started at a country music show.

 

Reminds me of this classic tweet:

Really y’all? You did this in front of Jesus!? ON A SUNDAY!?? pic.twitter.com/vjP8YfqoWp

— ILLENIUM (@ILLENIUM) November 1, 2022

 

Festivals always tend to bring more extreme things but still. Arena workers have seen plenty of stuff happen at these places that it hardly fazes them.