Miscellaneous Musings

Things I've collected that I need to get out of my brain.

Often on a Friday, I create a post full of things I’ve thought about or made a note of but don’t warrant a full post. When this post gets reasonably full, I share it with all of you, and we’re all a little bit worse for it. Better! I meant better for it. In any case, here’s what crossed my mind over the last week or two.

1. A former Jacksonville Jaguars employee is accused of embezzeling over $22,000,000 from the team.

   

   The story is behind the paywalled Athletic website, but here’s just one delightful paragraph:

   The court filing states that Patel “used the proceeds of this scheme, in whole or part, to place bets with online gambling websites; to purchase a condominium in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida; to pay for personal travel for himself and friends (including chartering private jets and booking luxury hotels and private rental residences); to acquire a new Tesla Model 3 sedan and Nissan pickup truck; to lodge a retainer with a criminal defense law firm; and to purchase cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens, electronics, sports memorabilia, a country club membership, spa treatments, concerts and sporting event tickets, home furnishings and luxury wrist watches.”

   Bold face is mine. This guy stole money from the Jaguars and used part of that money to PREPAY for his defense. What an absolute mad genius.

2. I honestly can’t remember what the context was, but the word “misandry” was in something I was reading and I had to pause so I ensured I understood that definition. That definition is: a hatred of men. (Do yourself a favor and do NOT google this as you will find a lot of men’s rights groups who absolutely adore this word.) It’s a somewhat antiquated word in my opinion but I wondered why it felt familiar. And then, I realized yet again that I’m an idiot. Because it felt familiar due to this character from Game of Thrones.

That is Missandei, which SOUNDS similar but is a different word, of course. But Missandei - like many female characters in GoT - has been horribly treated by men and has understandable issues with many of them by default. This is obviously an intentional character name by George R.R. Martin and I missed it completely despite reading all the books and watching every episode.

3. I recently was looking back at the last few years of my posted scores on GHIN - mostly to get a sense for how many rounds I’d played - but realized that over these last three years my handicap has basically been “stuck” at a 13-14. That’s a perfectly fine index, and one I would have been excited about even just five years ago. And certainly, progress as you try to get better at golf slows down. This is the quandry that the Chasing Scratch podcast has found itself in. But to have zero change in three years isn’t great.

This is a prettier plateau than my handicap.

This is just to serve as a warning that you’re gonna get a post in the next few weeks outlining my goals and plans for golf in 2024, to get it onto the record and to, well, have a plan in the first place. You have been suitably warned.

4. Henry Kissinger mercifully died last week and because this site is intentionally politics free (or lite, anyway) I won’t get into why so many people think of him as a monstrous human. But with his passing, I’ve learned a few things about him that genuinely surprised me. One, his real name is was Heinz Alfred Kissinger. Heinz! Had no idea that was ever a name for human beings. And two, Kissinger was an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters. I’ll pause while I let you shake your head, read that sentence again and digest this information.

This, from Wikipedia:

What a list! Kissinger, Bob Hope, Whoopi Goldberg, two Popes and Bill Cosby, among others! My word.

5. Jon Rahm’s defection to LIV Golf has been written about by a lot of folks, including me, but nobody may have summed up his reasoning better than the esteemed Kevin Van Valkenburg:

I understand, in a micro sense, why Rahm went back on his word and took LIV’s money. He almost certainly looked at the mess that is the PGA Tour and realized he was under no obligation to support that clusterfuck of ego and uncertainty.

“Clusterfuck of ego and uncertainty” is perhaps NOT the brand a sports league - or, really, anything else - is looking for. But it absolutely made my day.