Twitter to Stream Thursday Night Football
This headline was delivered to me on multiple media sights, and even some free newspapers I found on the table of coffee shops I visit. I understood the last three words of the headline, but didn’t understand the first three words of this six-word bulletin. In my experience when you read six words and don’t understand half of them, you have got a lot of learning to do.
I will start with the words I understood, so you don’t start making incorrect conclusions about my mediocre intelligence. In the end, you may question my sensitivity to important universal concerns, which will probably effect my chances for sainthood, but I am more than certain the current British monarchy is not interested in my blogs, so my impending knighthood is still a real possibility
I am relatively familiar with the word Thursday. As I recall, it is a word to describe one of the days of our seven day week . It is the fifth day of most weeks, and is the day most people stop thinking about their important work, and start thinking about their important weekend.
Night is word a lot of people use to describe the time of day when it is getting kind of dark, and if you don’t start putting the lights on in your residence, you inevitably start bumping into your furniture. When night becomes day a lot of people like to wake up, and then show all the people they know the bruises on their legs, hoping there will be no follow up questions.
Football is a sport that, because of our ever expanding global economy, describes two very different activities depending on where you live. If you live anywhere but North America, this word describes a game where people kick a perfectly round little black and white ball, in the pursuit of putting that ball into the opponents oversized goal. As you run down the field kicking that ball, you continually fake injuries, so the referee will stop others from bothering you.
In North America, football is a game where they decided that not using a perfectly round ball would somehow make the game way more appealing to the more sophisticated New World audience. Because most of the players are so embarrassed by this decision, they choose to wear helmets to cover their identity.
Okay those are the words I understood from this headline. Now I will examine the other half of this foreboding announcement .
Twitter is something I have read a lot about, and has replaced talking, as a way to connect with people you couldn’t care less about. It limits your conversations to 140 letters, which will be perfect when describing the highlights of a typical football game. Twitter has a verb form which is tweet. It also has a user term, which is Twit. Now this is joke older than Napster, but it does not make it any less accurate.
Years ago we used to have large family social interactions, without any support of social media, where we were compelled to invite every relative we knew. We still do this but we call those wedding and funerals now. The reality was, we were forced to invite even the relatives nobody liked because they were family and that is what decent people always did. These relatives would drone on endlessly about topics nobody cared about, just like Twitter. Unlike Twitter, nobody had the patience to follow what they were chatting about and trust me it took much longer than 140 characters to tell their stories.
Because a Sunday get together gained even more popularity as way to try different recipes for potato salad, these unpopular people kept getting invited to all of these functions. Let me remind you, people were decent in those days and felt obligated to include everyone at their social events. Unfortunately these annoying relatives were even more encouraged by these invites, and prepared even more boring information to share as they defined each of those invitees as followers. So I guess Twitter has simply replaced family social obligations, but instead of feeding about 25 people, it feeds the world. This surprising discovery has given me a much greater respect for Twitter and I support their impressive pursuit of feeding the world. The popularity of Sunday family picnics eventually disappeared, so I will boldly predict Twitter will disappear for the same reason. Not too many people cared about Uncle Fred’s opinion of whatever he was talking about, unless he had improved the taste of potato salad. Feed the world Twitter, but keep potato salad off the menu. If I have misunderstood the purpose of Twitter I apologize. If it is just a bunch of annoying uncles, saying a bunch of annoying things to annoy a bunch of annoying people, I will simply yell “Uncle!”
Word two in this headline was not too concerning for me. To, the third version of this word, is a word that is always followed by another word. To be or not to be, To All the Girls I loved before, To whom it may concern, and To and fro (okay nobody says To and fro anymore) are typical uses of this preposition. Be careful out there, as if you start any idea with the word “to”, you will always be obligated to say a little more about that idea.
Stream is clearly where the headline caused my greatest bewilderment in comprehension. I show bewilderment by a facial expression that increases the deep wrinkles on my forehead. Normally this look only happens when I am asked if I remembered to empty the dishwasher?
I see so many promotions on TV these days, celebrating the fact that whatever show they are promoting, they are also streaming it. I am beginning to think that one’s ability to understand streaming, is becoming much more important than your ability to understand the discounts your Blockbuster membership card will get you.
Because I was still in a bit of a confused state, I did what I always do when I feel stupid. I called my brother, not because he would understand this, but more because I always feel smarter after I talk to my brother. Predictably he was unable to help however he offered even more confusing information to ponder.
It seems last week, he was out in the city, for an evening of merriment and gaiety. As he walked down the busy city street he was aggressively approached by a homeless man. Now my brother isn’t bright, but he is kind. He reached into his pocket and gave the poor guy a bunch of loose change, nickels, quarters and dimes.
The homeless man seemed a little angry at his contribution and said. “Hey you know things are pretty expensive out here these days.”
After my brother thanked the man in a filthy overcoat for his financial insight, he said the following, “Beggars can’t be choosers”
Here is the confusing part that only scholars will be able to resolve. When you use the cliché “Beggars can’t be choosers” to a beggar who is being a little choosy, is it still a cliché? I look forward to hearing from the intelligentsia at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Sheridan College for any help with this one.
I started by saying I have a lot of learning to do. I now have even more learning to do, and I suppose if I don’t smarten up, my potential knighthood is in serious jeopardy.
Cue the Blong; Now an oldie but a goodie… Let’s Talk
Breaking Well 