Every time I think North American news has even the slightest chance at a few days of reasonable coverage (minus FOX and fiends, of course), something ludicrous happens. Leave it to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show to fuel my fire.

I was in Toronto this past weekend celebrating a friend’s 30th birthday, and everytime we would turn on the television or pick up a paper I would see a smattering of articles and photos about Tiger Woods and the low impact, non-critical, car accident he was involved in on Thursday evening.

When I first saw the report on CNN, I watched for a couple minutes, they announced Tiger was not in critical condition, and so I changed the channel to probably something like Mad Men.  No big deal.

Umm.. wrong.

Apparently, its the biggest deal ever.

Apparently, the fate of the world is now resting on the fidelity and personal life of Tiger Woods.

Wait a minute? It doesn’t?!?  Well then why the hell does anybody care about this?

So Tiger Woods was in a car accident? Umm… WHO CARES?!?

So Tiger Woods possibly cheated on his wife… is anyone really surprised? Is this the first spouse to ever be unfaithful?

The media and interest in this subject is completely unbelievable to me. When will people wake up and stop assigning any sort of importance to professional athletes?

THIS article is a perfect example of the idocy and general uselessness of athletes.  Ron Artest admits to drinking Hennessey at  half time during NBA regular season games.  I can’t even decide what’s dumber, the fact that he drank during games, or the fact that he is now admitting it publicly.

The deep fascination with sports and athletes continues to boggle my mind, however Tiger-mania has certainly taken the cake recently.

Tiger Woods is just like everyone else, except he has millions of adoring fans, millions of dollars and a publicist.  The fact that he has to apologize to people for his private actions is appalling.  It doesn’t matter if Tiger Woods is sleeping with a harem of women outside of his marriage, he’s not, and never claimed to be a moral authority.

He’s just a dude that hits a tiny ball, into a tiny hole, over miles and miles of wasted green space.

World Series Game Six 1993.

It was the bottom of the ninth and there was one out. Rickey Henderson was on second base and Paul Molitor stood on first as Joe Carter approached the plate. The Phillies were up 6-5 and would play Game 7 at home if the Blue Jays couldn’t close the door. I was 14 years old at the time, so besides showing up for school without my homework completed, this was as intense as life got. As Carter looked like a house league rookie swinging at a 2-1 slider, it didn’t look good for my Blue Jays and I dropped to my knees in desperation. I didn’t want to have to go through this anguish again in Game 7. The same day I had been crushed, finding out Alyssa Milano was dating some TV heart throb punk, my heart couldn’t take anymore of a beating today. But then it happened, the next pitch Carter lifted into the left field stands and the Blue Jays had won their second World Series in as many years, I jumped in the air and screamed in joyous relief, there would be no Game 7.

“Michael, keep it down, some of us are trying to sleep” came the bellows from upstairs, and so began the hour long one man parade and silent celebration.

Thinking back to that day, and excluding major soccer tournaments, that might have been the last time I was excited to watch a sporting event on television. I’m just talking about your typical north american televised sports (NHL, NFL, MLB, and NBA), because personally I cannot even begin to understand the interest behind events like Cricket and Nascar.

To each their own, but Cricket has games that can sometimes go for six hours a day for 5 days, and Nascar just seems like a bunch of guys turning left for four hours while wasting ridiculous amounts of gas. I think Nascar would be more appealing to me if in the corner of the screen I could see how many barrels of oil have currently been used and its equivalent dollar value. That’s a tally I’d TIVO from time to time.

I do enjoy the energy of live sports (to a 3hr max.) and the feelings that surround the experience. No matter if I love or abhor the game at hand, I just like seeing people having a good time. Friends and family enjoying the day and cheering their favourite teams to victory. I love the atmosphere; but put me on a couch or even a bar stool to watch that same game and the experience is immediately as interesting as watching clips of The View, and I begin concocting escape routes and fakeable illnesses. Mind you, at least at the bar I have the choice of downing shot after shot of sambuca until the commentators actually sound engaging. Read the rest of this entry »