Making a name for oneself (or others)

Earlier today I was at Barnes and Noble.  As I was leaving, I passed the maternity/baby section, and one title caught my eye: 100,001 Best Baby Names. I didn’t have time to stop and check,* but I’m really hoping the last name on the list was “Irrelevant”.**

* Actually, I did have time to check, but the names were listed in alphabetical order, not rank order.  The last name in the book was “Zygmunt”, which while being a bad name for a baby, is certainly not worse then “Dweezil”.

** For those who don’t follow football†, the last person selected in the NFL draft each year is given the nickname “Mr. Irrelevant”.  He is always cut during training camp, but as a consolation prize, his mother gets a nice picture of him in his NFL uniform.

Trigger warning: “Trigger” did not make the list of the 100,001 best baby names.  It came in at 100,003, right behind “Cruella“.

† By “football”, I of course mean football.  The kind played in the United States and Canada (and London in weeks 4, 7, and 8).  You’re thinking of “fútbol” (pronounced “SOCK-er”), which is an endurance match in which a dozen men see how long they can run around a field in shorts without scoring any points or doing anything interesting.  The current record is 60 minutes, plus two 15-minute overtime periods, held by every soccer game that ever went into double overtime.

Notice of Total Justification Anecdote:  One time at the gym, I was on the treadmill, and the TV in front of me was showing a World Cup semifinal match between a European team and a Latin American team.  (I believe it was Germany vs. Argentina, but it could have been the Holy Roman Empire vs. the Incas for all it matters.)  There was about 5 minutes left in the game, and the score was tied 0-0.  I walked away as fast as I could, but as I was on a treadmill, I didn’t get far.

So I watched the rest of the game, rooting for a final score of 0-0, so that the semifinal game of the world’s most inexplicably popular competition would have to be decided on penalty kicks.  (For Americans, this would be the equivalent of having the NFC Championship game end 0-0 and be decided by a punt, pass and kick contest, or the NBA semifinals end 0-0 and be decided by a game of Horse.)  I knew little about soccer, so when they announced at the end of regulation time that there would be an overtime to break the tie, I was very disappointed, but I was still on the treadmill, so I kept on rooting.  Eventually (15 minutes later chronologically, 7 weeks later subjectively), the overtime ended at 0-0.  I was devastated to find out that there was another 15 minute overtime period, but at least it would be the last.  To my great dismay, one of the teams (either the Toltecs or Austria-Hungary, I don’t remember) scored with less than 2 minutes (subjective time: 3 months) remaining.

I remember two things that reinforced my preconceived notions of soccer (the best kind of notions):

1. Since the purpose of soccer is to avoid scoring points, one of the important statistics they maintain is “shots on goal”, the number of times a player accidentally kicks the ball toward the goalie.  In this game, at the end of regulation time, the Mayans had 0 goals on 12 attempts, and the Merovingians had 0 goals on 13 attempts, for a combined Futility quotient of 0-25.
2. At one point, the color commentary guy (who was British, or possibly English), made the following statement after a missed shot on goal:

That would have been a splendid goal had it occurred.

When you have been reduced to subjunctive commentary, it’s time to go watch cricket.  At least it’s confusing enough to hold one’s attention.

Public service announcement: While searching for a baby wearing Carolina Panthers gear, I stumbled upon this picture of a baby wearing a Cleveland Browns helmet:

The child is clearly waiting for the Browns to make the playoffs, or possibly got confused and is watching fútbol.  Child Protective Services has been made aware of this abuse in either case.

Author’s note: This post was written in the style of Edgar Allen Poe, who apparently didn’t like soccer either.

Self-serving the community

This morning when I went to Barnes & Noble there was a fire truck out front. There was no fire. Apparently there were no fires anywhere this morning, because the firemen were talking with kids, passing out plastic fire helmets*, and posing for pictures with kids next to the fire truck.  (Disclaimer: A “picture” is like a selfie, only someone else takes it — kids, ask your parents.)

I wish to take a stand in support of holding a fire safety program right outside a giant building full of paper.

* Disclaimer: The plastic fire helmets were black.  This is an odd choice of colors, unless you are attempting to recruit anti-firemen to drum up business.  My stand for this is substantially less supportive.

Author’s note: I walked into the store behind a young father and his 4-year old son.  Before we had even gotten through the airlock (that space between the inner and outer doors where they put the table of unsellable books they don’t care about you stealing), the boy took off his black fire helmet, handed it to his father, and said, “Can you hold this?”  I could feel the waves of regret emanating from him as he took the helmet.

Fine tree stand dining

The other day I was at Barnes & Noble, and I heard a couple guys in the next aisle mocking one of the books.  This struck me as unusual, because the only places I normally hear mockery in public are in my head and coming out of my mouth.

As I went around the corner, I saw two employees put down a book and go back to whatever they were doing.  Thankful that I didn’t see myself already standing there, I walked over to where they were standing and picked up the book they were looking at.  It was called “The Camping Cookbook”.

Now, I have never been camping in my life.  If you’ve been following along, you know that Mother Nature and I are mortal enemies, and we have a simple “live and let die” policy, where we don’t directly attack each other, but neither of us will lift a finger to help the other.  Camping would be unnecessarily provocative, like firing rockets into a neighbor’s yard.

In the shadow

While I was at Barnes and Noble this morning, I noticed a new book on the shelf in the sci-fi/fantasy section: The Fall of Arthur by J.R.R. Tolkien with his son Christopher Tolkien.  I find this unsettling on two counts:

1) J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973.  It took him 40 years to write this book.  What else did he have to do for the last 4 decades?

2) On the assumption that Christopher Tolkien did most of the work, it just seems sad that he still got second billing.  That’s going to make for an awkward Thanksgiving dinner, even considering the fact that Dad is going to want brains again instead of turkey.

Disclaimer: I have no opinion on the question of whether Christopher Tolkien is real.

Sports?

Reposted from Facebook:

The other day at B&N, the sports shelf prominently displayed the books Alive and 127 Hours.  My first thought was, “Cannibalism and self-amputation are not sports.”  (I’ve read Alive, and there’s no soccer in it.)  But then I figured it out.  What better way to subtly convey the message, “It’s dangerous outside!  Stay home and read a book!”  Brilliant marketing, Barnes and Noble!