Who Else Wants to Fix the Calendar?

Tonight marks my 40th post of the year, which was my revised goal (see my post from July 3rd) once I admitted that 52 was not likely to happen. So quit bugging me about 52. If anyone other than my regular commenters is concerned about me dropping below one post a week, then I ask you to put in a little more effort yourself and make some comments. Nothing inspires Little Jackie like feeling he's being paid attention to. Now on with post 40 of the 2010 season.

We are getting near the end of the year and that makes me think of a bone I have to pick with the calendar. Two bones in fact. One about the year and the other about the weeks. Let's start with the weeks, because it is clearly the most glaring of the two annoyances when it comes to the calendar.

According to the calendar (I don't know who makes up the rules for calendars that we all follow so uniformly - and I'm all for calendars being uniform) the week starts on a Sunday and ends on a Saturday. How ridiculous is that? Everyone refers to the weekend as Saturday and Sunday, but on the calendar these two days aren't the weekend. Saturday yes, but Sunday is clearly the weekstart on the Calendar. Why doesn't the calendar week start on Monday like we really all think it does and finish on the Sunday?

This would work way better when planning weekend activities as well because, get this, the two days would be right beside each other on the calendar and not down one line and way over on the other side. Am I right? Can we fix this?

Meanwhile the year begins in January. Why? Well I'll tell you why. It is because that is the date that the new consuls in the Roman Empire took office. Seems like a great reason for us to continue doing it today. Probably just as good a reason for having the calendar week start on a Sunday. That reason? Inertia. Change is difficult. However, people, the time for a change is now!

January is not the start of the year in any real sense. It's the middle of winter in our hemisphere and the middle of summer in the south. Nothing is starting up then. I suppose that makes it hemisphere neutral, but since when have we in the North been worried about that. Let's move it to a sensible time. The start of spring comes to mind. Or how about the start of the school year which seems like the start of the new year in a lot of ways. And not just for the kids and teachers. Then we'd have two big celebrations at two different times of year, not two in a week like we do now. What do you all say? Are you with me??

Okay, maybe changing New Year's is not in the cards, but lets at least do something about the calendar week. Roman empire be damned!

Better Lucky Than Good

Warning: This entry is very hockey puckish.

The last five Stanley Cup winning goaltenders were: Anti Niemi, Marc-Andre Fleury, Chris Osgood, Jean-Sebastion Giguerre, and Cam Ward. What do all these goalies have in common? None of them are considered one of the great goalies in the NHL. Maybe some might say Cam Ward is a top ten goalie, but not better than Roberto Luongo of the Canucks of Vancouver.

When I say that Roberto Luongo is overrated, I don't mean it in the sense that he's not as good as people think (although with the difficulty in judging a goalie that may also be true - see this link: http://www.thegoalieguild.com/?p=4309 ). What I mean is that his value to the Canucks is overrated. Commentators seem to think you need a great goalie to win the Stanley Cup, but that clearly isn't the case. Then you'll hear you need a hot goalie to win the cup, but these 'hot' goalies aren't necessarily the best goalies. So why waste your money on a premium goalie? Just make sure you don't have a bad one.

Bottom line is I'm tired of hearing how Luongo is the difference maker. If the Canucks win the cup it will be because they play solid defensively and have enough offensive talent to beat a hot goaltender. And Luongo will have to play well enough not to lose games for them. Even Marc-Andre Fluery can do that.

Lay Off The Beiber

I vote for laying off Justin Beiber. You see it's not his fault that he's overrated. He's merely taking advantage of the poor judgement of one large sector of society. Same as Hannah Montana. The way I figure it these celebrities have done nothing wrong. All criticism goes to the people who think they are more talented than they are, not the celebrities themselves. What would you have them do? Call a press conference to admit that they aren't really all that good and that people should stop making a fuss about them?

So I say all the more power to Beiber and those overrated successes that went before him such as the Spice Girls, Harry Potter, Britney Spears, and Roberto Luongo.

Trick-or-Treating. Not Just for Kids Anymore!

Halloween night is almost in the books. I'd say it was, but just ten minutes ago something exploded across the street and caused a lot of smoke. All's quiet for now.

I'm on the fence on this post's issue, but I'd love to hear what my readers think. Tonight we got a fair number of trick-or-treaters. I'm going to estimate we had about 25. The thing is of these I'd say only five were under 12 years of age and at least half appeared to be high school students. When did trick or treating become predominantly for teenagers? Is this just a thing in my neighbourhood or is it happening everywhere? Is it harmless fun or is it inappropriate? Should we smile and enjoy these happy teenagers or scowl and tell them to grow up? I don't know. We recently made fireworks a lot harder for kids to get their hands on during Halloween (it used to be a big thing here), so maybe they've replaced that more dangerous and destructive activity with trick-or-treating. If that's the case then I guess it's a good thing.

What I do know is that Halloween has undergone more evolution than any of our other festivities during my lifetime with the possible exception of Boxing Day. Boxing Day of course has gone from the day to recover from Christmas to the day to go out and spend all your Christmas money and that's a big shift, but can you really count Boxing Day as a festive occasion? Christmas has gotten more commercial, but that's just a continuing trend that people have been complaining about for 100 years or more. Easter and Thanksgiving seem pretty much the same as when I was a kid.

Halloween meanwhile has undergone considerable evolution besides just the teenagers-as-trick-or-treaters phenomenon outlined above. Today I went for a walk in the neighbourhood and was amazed at the number of houses that were decorated for Halloween. That used to be very rare when I was a kid, but now there are lots of houses that do it. That's okay, but I'm not joining in. The other thing is the sexualization of Halloween costumes. That was pretty much non-existent thirty years ago (or at least it was waaaayyyyyy more subtle). This seems pretty strange and you`ll be happy to know I`m not joining in on that either.

This is nothing like the witches I grew up with.

Have You Heard the One About the Lawyer...

There has been a lot of talk in these here parts about a corruption trial in our province of British Columbia. Two bureaucrats were investigated for corruption and were found guilty. As part of the plea bargain they only had to pay back the money they accepted and they didn't have to pay their legal fees. A lot of letters to the editor in our paper have expressed outrage that the $6 million in legal fees will have to be paid by the taxpayers.

You know what bugs me. It bugs me that it took seven years and $12 million dollars in legal fees to get to the point that you could get these guys to take a plea bargain. If it takes that much time and money to prove they are guilty you have to question if it is worth the fight. Why not just fire the guys and move on. The real crime here is a legal system that can milk the taxpayers for $18 million between the prosecution and the defence. If these lawyers are so good at their jobs that they deserve this kind of compensation then they should be able to prove their case in less than seven years.

Our province has recently changed the way it deals with drinking and driving. Instead of trying to prosecute drivers with breaking the law of drinking and driving, fines and impounding cars are the new way to penalize people caught with a high blood alcohol content. The driving force for this change is the time and cost involved in prosecuting such drivers. In this case the lawyers priced themselves out of the job. Maybe the government is on to something and should see where else they can do an end run around our over-priced justice system.

My, that's way too serious waters for Little Jackie Showers to be treading in. By the way, I know this one lawyer, Sue L. Her rates are very reasonable.

Let Go of That Hand

By popular demand, or at least one person sort of implied I should, I have another sports topic. It has sports, but perhaps it is not so much a commentary on sports as on another of the problems with our society today. Nothing quite as annoying as when a cashier asks you if you have anything planned for the weekend (yes, it happened to me again today!!!!), but still a problem if you ask me.

I know what you're saying, "C'mon, Showers get on with it, what is your shirt all in a knot about now?" It's simple. Holding Hands Soccer. Yeah, that's right, soccer played while holding hands. I don't think it's officially known as Holding Hands Soccer, but it is definitely an outrage.

I accompanied a friend recently to his son's first soccer practice of the year. When we arrived the age group below my friend's son was on the field. These children were four and five year olds. They were having a little scrimmage, but much to my consternation the players were holding the hands of their parents. The parents would run along with the kid and the kid would play the game. A couple of problems here might immediately come to mind. What if your parent is slow afoot? You're at a serious disadvantage in this game compared to the players with perhaps younger, fleeter parents. "Damn it Dad, get the lead out, I'm trying to score a goal here." Secondly, what if one of the parents is a little too competitive and starts dragging his kid along behind him as he races down the field to get to the ball? The kid's all covered in mud and grass and bouncing along like a rag doll hanging off his pop's arm. Yet these obvious problems are not what I am here to take issue with.

The problem is, what the heck are kids doing holding their parents' hands while playing the game? It was explained to me that this was to teach them positioning and other fine elements of the game. C'mon. If the kids need someone holding their hands to play the game then they are clearly too young to be playing the game. At least at an "organized" level. Take your kid out and kick the ball around with him, sure, but don't drag him around by the hand to play a "real" game. Besides the beauty of little kids soccer even at the six and seven year old age group is the preferred strategy they use, which I like to call the beehive formation.

What are kids that young playing organized sports for anyway? It's because if they don't offer soccer to little kids then maybe one of the other sports offers a program for little kids and then they become hockey or rugby players instead. Soccer has to compete to keep the athletes coming to them because as I've already complained about in an earlier post, this has become the age of sports specialization (see today's Vancouver Sun for more on that) and once kids get into a sport it takes over their sporting lives and they don't get to try other things. If you don't get them first then you might not get them at all. Someone needs to step in and tell these sports to back off and let the kids reach a sensible age before slapping a uniform on them. That same someone needs to tell parents to give their head a shake and not sign up for Holding Hands Soccer.

And if you are one of those parents then let go of that hand and go kick the ball around with your kid. Then when you're done teach them how to hold a hockey stick and hit a baseball. Sure they might not make the pros in any one sport but they'll be really good in high school gym class while everyone else can only do one thing. Unless of course their parents show up to hold their hands.

Do You like your Kernels Burnt?

Are you like me when you step up to a microwave oven other than your own familiar one? Which button do you hit first. Some want you to put in the power level first, some the amount of time. Some want you to do who knows what. Can't we have a standard microwave operating procedure? Is that too much to ask? And trust me, you don't want to use that "popcorn" button, at least not for popcorn.

That's all I got. Anyone got a good microwave anecdote?