Public Tennis courts are bad enough as it is. Cracks in the court, grass growing in cement and nets that are half torn are only some of the problems encountered at these courts. Usually you can have a good time playing tennis regardless of these issues. But there is one problem that pushes the annoyance of public tennis courts over the edge.
Kindergarten Tennis Teachers
They show up at the court right next to yours. They bring about one hundred tennis balls, and ten very hyper five year old tennis players. The result? A pissed off you.
Its very difficult enjoying a game of Two on Two when you have countless numbers of tennis balls landing in the middle of your court. Eventually you get tired of keeping track on who's ball is whose, and you just pick one up and serve. You try your best to enjoy the game even though your blue court has suddenly turned green due to all of the badly hit shots flying your way. And then you realize, you just can't. Kindergarten Tennis Teachers ruin everyones fun. In fact, the majority of them don't Even know what they're teaching. The only thing they're good at is telling them to form even rows and to stop hitting each other over the head with the rackets. Way to take out the fun from Kindergarten Tennis.
After one kid lost grip on his racket launched it towards us and nearly took off my head, it was time to go. We decided to take every tennis ball on our court out of spite. In response to this, the kindergarten teacher yells out "THE ONES WITH THE BLACK DOTS ARE OURS". In response to that, I smirked and kept putting the tennis balls in our basket. Although we won the battle, we still lost the war. Its time to relocate to new courts.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Your Basketball Friends
The 2008/2009 NBA season is almost here. And you know what that means. That's right, another year of arguing with your friends about who'll win what, who'll beat who, and why your team is only one short winning streak away from establishing themselves as the inevitable NBA champ. To some people, all the arguing and bickering might be tiring, annoying and childish. To that I say: What would following the NBA be like without it? Honestly, if you can't afford to sit court side at every game, what purpose is there in following the NBA? When your team wins, you don't get a ring. You don't get paid. The only thing you get, is the satisfaction of being right when your friends are wrong. Of course with all the personalities you deal with, you tend to realize that they all have certain thinking patterns. One friend always thinks team A is one player away from dominating their conference, one friend thinks Team B is the second coming of the mid 90's bulls, one guy is an all out band wagoner. These following generic personalities can probably be found in every group of NBA following buddies:
The Dreamer: Hope is never on short supply for this fellow. Even if his teams jet (with all the players inside) fell into a bottomless pit and have an estimated 1 year get-out-of-pit time, he'll still believe. This guy heads into the season thinking the Isiah Thomas run Knicks will not only make the playoffs, they will win the championship. He's so oblivious to reality that he will sit there, stare you right in the eyes and say "The Knicks are going all the way", without the slightest hint of him joking. That's because he's not. He's insane.
The Band wagoner: As soon as a team/player has a breakout season/moment you can bet your bottom dollar that Band wagoner will be there rooting for them. These dirty smug characters will change their myspace skins to that of Baron Davis as soon as he helps complete a huge upset against the Dallas Mavericks. Then, only a season later, he will constantly tell you how the Boston Celtics are the equivalent of the 1990's bulls. He'll wear his KG jersey everywhere he goes. Yes, that includes funerals. As soon as the Celtics get beaten twice by the Hawks, he'll tell you how he thinks the hawks are on their way to becoming the second coming of the 1990's bulls. He'll even tattoo their logo on his face, only to remove it a week later upon the hawks elimination. In which case, he will tell you how Chris Paul is the second coming of God for destroying the Spurs in game 1 and 2.
The Thinker: This guy finds meanings within the comments of announcers that you'd never think possible. For example, an announcer might say, "Since Kenyon Martin has been out of the game Kobe Bryant has lit up the Denver Nuggets". With no prior knowledge of Kenyon Martin or Kobe Bryant one might assume that Kenyon Martin is a good defender. That's the astonishing part. The Thinker has prior knowledge of everything, he just interprets it in an unbelievable way. That same announcer sentence would have The Thinker immediately classify Kenyon Martin as one of the best defenders in the NBA, and store it in his brain for life. You could be sitting their and say, "boy, James Posey might be one of the best defenders in the NBA" The Thinker will reply with "Yeah, so is Kenyon martin". Another quality of the thinker is a lack of acceptance to new data. If the Celtics limit Lebron James to 20% shooting for one game, The Thinker will always claim that the Celtics always lock-down Lebron. Lebron scoring 40 two games straight, or 100, will not change the thinkers stance. Nothing will. Not even brutal torture. Eventually the thinkers constant trips out of reality will result in him being alienated from your basketball group, until the season passes that is.
Your Archenemies: This particular guy always pisses you off. You'll talk about how you're glad your teams looking like they will, Archenemies will tell you how it seems like a long shot. And when he's right, he'll make sure to remind you. But when he's wrong, he will simply doubt the next step following whatever achievement your team accomplished. Made the playoffs? You won't make it past round one. Made the western finals? You wont get any further. Made the finals? Yeah that's all you'll make. Won the finals? Yeah enjoy it cause it will never happen again. Its possible that this guy is just extremely cynical. Or maybe he just likes pissing you off.
The guy who just wants player X to win a ring: This guy loves the NBA, but doesn't love a team in particular. He just wants guys to win rings. In fact, if it was up to him, there wouldn't be one NBA champion. There would be thirty. Since that's impossible they usually root for whoever they feel is due for a ring. These players include but are not limited too: Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Grant Hill and Tracy Mcgrady. Last year, the common "just want him to win a ring" player everyone was rooting for was KG.
The Stat Cruncher: Its quite possible that every single basketball related stat is memorized in this guys brain. He'll have complete confidence in his predictions, and bombard you with stats when you oppose his prediction. He'll tell you that the combination of Kobe only averaging 25 ppg on 3 days rest and Kevin Martin having his best games off 1 days rest will result in the kings smashing the Lakers. He'll tell you that Tuesdays the day that Darko goes from a waste of a lottery pick to a decent 12 points 10 rebounds performer, and that will be the X factor that gets the grizzlies past the bobcats. Avoid having one of these friends.
Well, there you have it. A pretty well rounded description of what I will be putting up with until the NBA finals are over in June 09.
The Dreamer: Hope is never on short supply for this fellow. Even if his teams jet (with all the players inside) fell into a bottomless pit and have an estimated 1 year get-out-of-pit time, he'll still believe. This guy heads into the season thinking the Isiah Thomas run Knicks will not only make the playoffs, they will win the championship. He's so oblivious to reality that he will sit there, stare you right in the eyes and say "The Knicks are going all the way", without the slightest hint of him joking. That's because he's not. He's insane.
The Band wagoner: As soon as a team/player has a breakout season/moment you can bet your bottom dollar that Band wagoner will be there rooting for them. These dirty smug characters will change their myspace skins to that of Baron Davis as soon as he helps complete a huge upset against the Dallas Mavericks. Then, only a season later, he will constantly tell you how the Boston Celtics are the equivalent of the 1990's bulls. He'll wear his KG jersey everywhere he goes. Yes, that includes funerals. As soon as the Celtics get beaten twice by the Hawks, he'll tell you how he thinks the hawks are on their way to becoming the second coming of the 1990's bulls. He'll even tattoo their logo on his face, only to remove it a week later upon the hawks elimination. In which case, he will tell you how Chris Paul is the second coming of God for destroying the Spurs in game 1 and 2.
The Thinker: This guy finds meanings within the comments of announcers that you'd never think possible. For example, an announcer might say, "Since Kenyon Martin has been out of the game Kobe Bryant has lit up the Denver Nuggets". With no prior knowledge of Kenyon Martin or Kobe Bryant one might assume that Kenyon Martin is a good defender. That's the astonishing part. The Thinker has prior knowledge of everything, he just interprets it in an unbelievable way. That same announcer sentence would have The Thinker immediately classify Kenyon Martin as one of the best defenders in the NBA, and store it in his brain for life. You could be sitting their and say, "boy, James Posey might be one of the best defenders in the NBA" The Thinker will reply with "Yeah, so is Kenyon martin". Another quality of the thinker is a lack of acceptance to new data. If the Celtics limit Lebron James to 20% shooting for one game, The Thinker will always claim that the Celtics always lock-down Lebron. Lebron scoring 40 two games straight, or 100, will not change the thinkers stance. Nothing will. Not even brutal torture. Eventually the thinkers constant trips out of reality will result in him being alienated from your basketball group, until the season passes that is.
Your Archenemies: This particular guy always pisses you off. You'll talk about how you're glad your teams looking like they will
The guy who just wants
The Stat Cruncher: Its quite possible that every single basketball related stat is memorized in this guys brain. He'll have complete confidence in his predictions, and bombard you with stats when you oppose his prediction. He'll tell you that the combination of Kobe only averaging 25 ppg on 3 days rest and Kevin Martin having his best games off 1 days rest will result in the kings smashing the Lakers. He'll tell you that Tuesdays the day that Darko goes from a waste of a lottery pick to a decent 12 points 10 rebounds performer, and that will be the X factor that gets the grizzlies past the bobcats. Avoid having one of these friends.
Well, there you have it. A pretty well rounded description of what I will be putting up with until the NBA finals are over in June 09.
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