As always, the Friday column is for things I find amusing/interesting but don’t warrant a post on their own. Enjoy!
Also, it’s probably a cry for help but I do quite enjoy when folks leave comments. I can see stats to see that folks are in fact reading these, so that’s nice, but interaction is even better. Holler at your boy!
When I grew up, like most children I had a bevy of irrational fears. Most of them were generated from the media - and I say this without blaming the media whatsoever. But I was fairly worried that at some point in my life, I’d be framed for a horrendous crime and face prison time for something I didn’t do. I was deathly afraid of killer bees. And I was also terrified that wandering around on my own, I’d inadvertently slip into and get sucked under by quicksand. Quicksand!
And it turns out … it’s actually almost impossible to die via quicksand.
Quicksand—that is, sand that behaves as a liquid because it is saturated with water—can be a mucky nuisance, but it’s basically impossible to die in the way that is depicted in movies. That’s because quicksand is denser than the human body. People and animals can get stuck in it, but they don’t get sucked down to the bottom—they float on the surface. Our legs are pretty dense, so they may sink, but the torso contains the lungs, and thus is buoyant enough to stay out of trouble.
Also, has anyone ever actually SEEN quicksand? I sure haven’t. Could someone teleport me back to the mid-1970s and shake some logic into me? Thanks in advance.
Reddit can be a trashfire like any social media site, but occasionally it fuels some fun thoughts or discussions. Earlier this week, someone posted this question on r/movies: “What Oscar winner had the worst post Oscar career?” Meaning, whose career didn’t improve after winning this prestigious award…and many folks mentioned Cuba Gooding, Jr., who seems to have maybe the worst sense for what movies to choose or Mira Sorvino who got blacklisted by the human cesspool that is Harvey Weinstein. I sort of expected those answers. But then someone else mentioned Hilary Swank, and it caught me by surprise.
Cause she’s won TWO Oscars, and aside from those movies and her being in The Karate Kid 3, I realized I didn’t know anything else she’s been in. And that’s for a reason - it’s ALL bad. Aside from a cameo in the fun “Logan Lucky,” it’s sort of insane how little she’s done of merit. I’m also someone who actually didn’t think “Million Dollar Baby” was that good of a movie, but it’s wild even to me that she’s really not found another vehicle to do well in. Who else fits this bill? Halle Berry, maybe? Rami Malek and Roberto Benigni are other good choices. It certainly FEELS like one should see his or her career arc upwards after winning an Oscar, but it’s not guaranteed, that’s for sure.
This absolutely slayed me - the sideline reporter for the NFL has long been a truly useless and thankless job. I’ve never actually been on the sidelines but I know folks who have and it’s HECTIC. There are dozens of gigantic humans running on and off the field, very stressed out coaches and players and officials moving quickly … and someone - usually, an attractive female they refuse to let actually call the game - is down there trying to glean insights from whoever will actually talk with her. Recently, Charissa Thompson admitted (not for the first time) that she’s simply made up conversations before and nobody knew.
“I’ve said this before,” Thompson noted. “I haven’t been fired to saying it, but I’ll say it again. I would make up the report sometimes, because A, the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime, or it was too late and I didn’t want to screw up the report. So I was like, ‘I’m just gonna make this up.’
“Because first of all, no coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over and do a better job of getting off the field.’ They’re not gonna correct me on that. So I’m like, it’s fine, I’ll just make up the report.”
I mean, this is genuinely funny to me that nobody ever questioned it, because the ‘reporting’ is so banal, so milquetoast, that Thompson could just use her own analysis of what is going right or wrong for a team and just made it up when she had to. This SHOULD be a signal to broadcasters to either do something better with the employee down there, or save the expense. But, then, these are the networks that hire six guys (usually just guys) to do a pre-game and midgame report, when literally one guy would be enough.
Quicksand! It’s out there just waiting for someone to fall in. Scary!
Don't ever say a bad word about Charissa ever again. She's only human Matt. Can't we all just get along?