I had cooked green beans. Just plain beans. I said, “no” to green bean casserole. I’ve only had it once, my brother brought it, the year before his partner learned she was sensitive to onions. Maybe it wasn’t good green bean casserole, dunno, but i found it pretty unappetizing.
Yeah, it was like the L.A. Kings in the early years. And their practice rink was the ice skating rink two blocks from my high school. We’d ditch occasionally to watch practices. Sometimes when a visiting team couldn’t get Forum ice for practice, they’d come to this same Culver City rink. I saw some cool teams and fabulous stars very close up.
The trick with any puzzle is to not give up. So, yes, I can solve a Rubik’s cube. Someone upthread mentioned the “15” puzzle. I own a variation on that one but it has letter instead of numbers and says “Rate Your Mind Pal” with each word on a separate line. The trick is to show someone the solved version, then scramble it moving the R at the end of Your up to the upper left corner. Lazy humans will just leave it there and starting from that point, the puzzle can’t be solved.
Regarding sportsball teams, the Detroit Lions are currently in the midst of an already historic season, breaking records that have existed for 70 years or more. For those who don’t know, they have long been the poster-team for losers, with many, many pitiful seasons (not that long ago they became the first team to go the entire season without a win).
Anyway, here’s the thing. This situation has wide-ranging, positive effects that reach beyond the world of sports, and beyond Detroit. The area is buzzing with positivity, local businesses are benefitting, and strangers are bonding - even if it’s just for a moment - over a shared interest.
However it ends up this year, the good stuff that is happening is palpable.
mmm
West-coaster here, and with the 9ers season circling the bowl, we’ve found a different team to keep the season interesting - go Lions!
I don’t follow sports at all, and not only do I not have a favorite sports team, I don’t really understand the IDEA of having a favorite sports team. I mean, an analogy might be music – I have some bands that I call my favorites because I love the way they play. But I’ve often heard people say things like, “my favorite team really sucks this year”. I don’t get it; if you don’t like they way they are playing, why are they your favorite team? Is there some kind of rule that once you pick a “favorite” team, you’re stuck with them forever?
No, of course there’s no such rule.
But, for sports fans, in many cases, they follow a team that they grew up following: it may have been their home-town team, it may have been the team that their parents or other family members followed, or it may have been a team that they fell in love with when they were kids, because, at that time, the team was successful, or had good players.
No team is perpetually good; part of being a sports fan is often having to deal with the bad seasons (and even bad decades). In sports fandom, there’s the concept of the “fair-weather fan,” or the “bandwagon fan,” who only follows the team when they’re good – and that sort of fan isn’t particularly respected by the fans who have stuck with them through the lean times.
My wife, who grew up in the Chicago area, is a lifelong fan of the Bears (NFL) and White Sox (MLB). Both teams have been pretty bad in recent years, and the Sox were bad at a record-setting level this past season. Even if they frustrate my wife, and she doesn’t follow them as closely as she might when they’re successful, she’s still a fan of those teams.
If one of your favorite bands puts out an album you don’t like, or makes a personnel change you don’t like, do you decide that they’re no longer your favorite band?
Well, yes, of course. If the band is playing material that I don’t like and no longer plays the stuff I did like, I’m not going to attend their concerts anymore. A good example is the Grateful Dead, who was my absolute favorite band in the 80s and 90s. I would go to great lengths to attend their shows. However the current incarnation, Dead and Company, although it still has 3 of the original members, IMHO does not play with the same energy and improvisational skill that the original band had. I stopped going to their concerts several years ago, even when it would have been easy and convenient for me to do so. Going to a concert to hear music that I don’t like makes no more sense to me than attending or watch sporting events in order to see a team play poorly.
As I think about it, that’s probably an important difference between being a fan of a music group, and being a fan of a sports team.
It’s the nature of the beast that a sports team’s personnel and leadership evolves over time. Athletic careers, in most cases, are pretty short, and if a team performs poorly on the field for a few years, team leadership/ownership will clean house: fire the management and coaches, and get rid of some of the players.
Yet, fans of sports teams follow them for decades, even though all of the players have changed – and, in many cases, the coaches, the owners, and even the stadium where they play changes, too. Fans will reminisce about their favorite eras for their teams (e.g., the “Lombardi” Packers of the 1960s, the “Bronx Zoo” Yankees of the 1970s, etc.), and try to not dwell too much on the down years for their teams, but even though the personnel and performance changes over time, there’s something enduring about the team itself that transcends that, for many fans.
Conversely, to use your Grateful Dead example, my understanding is that the band, as its fans truly loved it, died when Jerry Garcia died. I think that, compared to sports teams, bands are much more closely a function of the specific members of those bands, when it comes to whether fans not only enjoy the music, but that it still has the feeling of what the band actually “is.”
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that you still enjoy listening to the Dead’s music (from when Jerry was still alive), even if you wouldn’t willingly go to a Dead and Company concert today. One of my favorite bands is Foreigner; one can still go to a “Foreigner” concert today, but it’s essentially a cover band: none of the guys who were members of the band in their heyday in the '70s and '80s are still active members of the group. As a result, I have no interest in going to a Foreigner concert anymore.
It’s not exactly a Christmas tree. It’s several branches cut from evergreens growing on the property, stuck into a fancy vase, and decorated mostly with blue and silver ribbons but also with some Christmas tree type decorations. I put it up on the day of winter solstice and take it down on January 2nd, and put the branches back out by the trees I took them from.
Good points there. I do enjoy listening to recordings of old Grateful Dead shows. On the other hand, I don’t get the impression that many sports fans spend a lot of time rewatching videos of old games, even games from their favorite eras. Maybe I’m wrong about that.
The point about sports fans following a specific team, even though everything about it has changed, is another point that I just don’t understand. What is it about such a Team of Theseus that keeps their interest? Is it just the team name? (But teams change their names and even their home cities too, right?) Years ago I believed that, for example, fans of a Chicago team felt devotion to the team because the players were all from their home town. Then one day I was talking to my sister who was a big fan of the Bears, and was shocked to learn that almost none of the players were actually from Chicago. I don’t get it, but there’s a lot I don’t get about sports, and I accept that.
We have a really nice artificial tree we use most years, but if my Wife’s store has a fresh cut one, she might splurge a little.
You might be surprised. I think it might be more common for older fans like me, but the NFL Network regularly runs films of old games, and old season retrospective films, of various teams, and one of their most popular original series, “America’s Game,” is a series of hour-long documentaries of each Super Bowl winning team, going back to the 1960s. (As a Packer fan, I own DVDs of the ones they did for the Packers’ championship teams.)
Probably in part a sense of history (i.e., it’s the team I’ve always followed, it’s the team my parents followed), and a sense of tribalism, too.
Sometimes. It’s more common to move cities than to change nicknames (though sometimes they do both); it’s common that, if a team changes cities, a lot of their fan base from their old city stops rooting for them, out of a (justifiable, IMO) sense of being jilted or divorced.
For instance, the A’s baseball team has been based in Oakland since 1968 (prior to then, they played in Kansas City, and even earlier still, in Philadelphia). The A’s had been making noises about moving for several years, as they couldn’t come to a deal on building a new stadium; finally, last year, they announced that they would be moving to Los Vegas. Their fan base had already been dwindling – in part because they were playing poorly, but largely because even the loyal fans could see what was going to happen. I know several A’s fans, and while they’re very sad about losing their team, they have little interest in being fans of the Las Vegas A’s.
When we first got married, my wife insisted on a real Christmas tree. Her family had a tradition of getting up at the crack-of-dawn on the day after Thanksgiving, driving to a Christmas tree farm, cutting down a Christmas tree, and bringing it home.
Probably about 20 years ago, we decided that a real tree was just too much hassle, and we bought a pre-lit artificial tree. That one lasted about 15 years, before the lights started to go, and we bought a new one.
We also have a smaller artificial tree, which my wife has nicknamed “the Geek Tree.” It’s the tree on which I hang my various nerdy ornaments: Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Marvel Comics, etc.
I have 16 house cats. I am not putting up a tree!
Growing up in Chicago, we always had an artificial tree, as did everyone I knew. The whole idea of cutting down a real tree and bringing it home was something I only knew from TV and movies, and seemed like something from olden days. I didn’t think anyone actually did it anymore. After I moved to California and my son was born, I started getting real trees. But since he moved out, over 20 years ago, I haven’t had any kind of tree. My wife and I have a small tree-shaped decoration with lights, about 12 inches high, that we set out during the Christmas season, but I’m not counting that.
I’m not putting up a tree this year, because I’m traveling to visit family for Christmas. If I won’t actually be here on Christmas I don’t see any point in putting up a tree.
If it was reversed and people were coming here for Christmas, I would put one up, and it would be artificial. Many years ago I went to Wal-Mart the week after Christmas and got it for half price.
We put up a real tree. Getting it tomorrow. Maybe if we had more storage we would get a nice fake one.
We do lights indoors and a few little seasonally appropriate things. I don’t think I would describe Christmoose as “cutesy” (he’s a rather crude wooden moose-headed angel whom I love for his weirdness). We also pin up the Christmas cards.
I have no idea what “holiday crockery” is.