Happy Panic Productions

The Appeal of Fantasy Football: General Theory #1

So picking up on my thought from yesterday... oh wait: Jim pointed me toward a UK-based online fantasy cricket league. So there is such a thing! But we have yet to see evidence of the fantasy sports phenomenon in non-English speaking countries. I could ask my friend who's getting a doctorate in anthropology, but I'm sure it doesn't exactly relate to her thesis. I've never studied anthropology in any capacity, but if I were to do so, I could see myself writing a term paper trying to find the reasons for the widespread appeal of fantasy sports. (Maybe this would be actually be a sociological or psychological study, which shows you how little I know about anthropology.)

I mean, how do you explain the appeal? (I will tackle the entire fantasy sports phenomenon first, before I investigate why football has emerged as the most popular fantasy sport (the Special Theory of the Appeal of Fantasy Football).) The only reason I've consistently heard participants give is that it "involves" them more in the sports-watching activity. This, I guess, is just an extension of the team-rooting phenomenon, in which the spectator personally identifies with one team and claims their victories as his own. There is usually a social pressure to select the team to identify with based on geographic proximity: e.g., in Chicago, you'd better be a Bears fan. One outcome of this social pressure is that the team's losses also become the spactator's losses (through no fault of his own); common sense dictates that, to increase one's enjoyment of watching sports, the spectator should try to only identify with a winning team, but the social pressures strongly dissuade this behavior, attaching the stigma of "fairweather fan" to anyone who would dare be so disloyal.

Fantasy sports, then, can be seen as a means of subverting the team-loyalty pressures by allowing the spectator to align himself not with other teams, but only certain individual members of other teams. If the spectator's team is performing poorly, he can still get enjoyment from identifying with individuals who are performing well, and feeling like he is participating in their success. It is very much like the team-rooting phenomenon, but diluted (or diversified) to allow the spectator a higher probability of "success" (or return on his sports-viewing investment). Furthermore, this player-rooting does not carry the social pressures of loyalty as does team-rooting; on the contrary, no loyalty to a particular player is expected, and in fact it is entirely expected that any given player will be "disposed of" as soon as he no longer helps his "owner" "succeed" (we will revisit these terms in Theory #3).

General Theory #1: Identification, in summary: fantasy sports appeals because it increases spectators' chances of rooting for a winner.

Up next: General Theory #2: Simulation.

toy boat toy boat toy boyt toy boyt

So when my dad went to get his boat out of storage, it turned out the motor woasn't working because they hadn't stored it properly. The storage place was suppoed to winterize the engine, remove it from the boat (it's an outboard), and store it inside for the winter. But they left it out in the cold. This would have been bad enough, but it so happens that wasps infested the boat, building a nest inside much of the motor. It seems that in the autumn rains the nest absorbed some water, and in the winter the water froze, and expanded... and the result was a whole lotta wasp's nest (say it ten times fast) gumming up the works. They also got into the cabin and built another nest in the drainage pipe from the sink. (Surely there must be a special naval term for a kitchen sink? Like "head" for the bathroom? I have to imagine, that if you're in the middle of an ocean voyage, battling a fierce storm, you would at all costs want to avoid the word "sink".) Those wasps are reminding me of those breaking-and-entering-and-partying teenagers. Next we'll find out that they put the boat in the water and sailed up to the Hudson River. Why, I bet those wasps had... had... sex! On my dad's boat! Oh, the nerve. Well, we treated those wily wasps the way you always treat unruly rapscallions of a lower social order... we blasted them with water from a hose.

Fantasy Football... now?!?

Here's the first in what is sure to be many updates on what's happening to me in the world on that great American Pastime, fantasy football. (I have sometimes wondered... is it uniquely American? The fantasy sports phenomenon, as I'm familiar with it, first became popular with baseball in the early 1980s, until football for some reason surpassed it in popularity (perhaps because football surpassed baseball in popularity generally?). Now it branches out to include fantasy basketball, and I believe even fantasy NASCAR. But do people in other countries participate in, for instance, fantasy football [soccer to you and me] leagues? Do they have fantasy cricket leagues in India and fantasy ping-pong leagues in China?) (And is that really the correct spelling of pastime? Surely it's not pasttime, but oughtn't it to be? Was it once past-time?)

Well, my parenthetical was so long, I haven't made my point and I'm going to miss my train....

A Critique of Criticism

So, has everyone seen The Matrix: Reloaded yet? I liked it, but I thought it was pretty confusing! I mean, what's the deal with Hugo Weaving? You never see him weaving anything! And Laurence Fishburne, you never see him burning a fish! And what's up with Carrie-Ann Moss? You never see her carryin' moss.... Thank you, I'll be appearing at the Target across the street, doing some shopping after the show.


Actually, I found M:R pretty good and pretty interesting, but what I'm really finding interesting are other people's reviews of the movie, especially from the people who are getting paid to do it. To sum up the review in the Michigan City News Dispatch: this move has one of the best fight scenes ever and the absolute best car chase ever, putting The French Connection to shame. Two and a half stars.


I never thought I'd say this about anything published exclusively for the Michigan City News Dispatch, but this seems pretty representative of the national response. An action movie that delivers incredible action, and people act like they yawned through it. It makes me wonder: what were these people expecting? How did professional film critics allow their expectations to get so inflated? And why can't they remember the movie they're basing those expectations on?


The most common criticism I'm hearing is that the movie has too much talking and takes too long to get to the action. How long has it been since you've seen The Matrix? Here is the extent of the action in that movie, with my unoficial estimates as to the screen time each is given:


Trinity at the very begining of the movie: about a minute
Morpheus and Neo training (note: about a half hour later in the movie): 3 minutes?
Morpheus vs. Agent Smith: less than a minute
Neo and Trinity in the lobby/on the roof/with the helicopter: 7 minutes?
Neo vs. Agent Smith: 5 minutes


And that's about it, plus about a minute of Neo running. Basically 3 real action sequences, plus two little ones. Less than 20 minutes altogether I'm guessing. And what, do you suppose, was filling out most of the rest of the 131 minutes? A whole lotta talking! The way people are writing about M:R, you'd think the first one had non-stop action. That's just not the case. Their faint memories are getting the better of them.

There's more to say, but I don't have time.

Quatrice

I could've used that word in my last blog entry, instead of tetrice. It wouldn't have mattered, since there's no word in English to follow once, twice, thrice... and if you don't believe me, go to the source.

Tonight I'm going to Michigan City to help put my dad's sailboat in the water (it's been in dry storage for a few years). Last time it was in the water, I seemed to get more sick everytime we went out on it. Funny, since half the time we went out there was no wind, and I don't seem to get sick on motorboats. I have had trouble reading on the train lately -- I have to look out the window quite often or my stomach gets upset. It comes with age, I guess -- the equilibrium is the first thing to go.

Egads

I just noticed that I'd used the word "egads" twice since I started this blog. Whoops, make that tetrice.

Prime the Pump

Every day (well, every workday) I go to the same handful of blogs looking for a way to alleviate my boredom and simultaneously feel like I've somehow made personal contact with my friends. And most days those blogs don't contain any new content. And yet every day I return to them, like a dog returning to its vomit, except that I keep returning every day and the dog only returns to the vomit once, because he usually eats it.

The exception is my sister-in-law Christine who has a new post almost every day, and almost always has a funny anectdote and a story about a co-worker or a medical professional whom she has given an amusing nickname. I salute you, Christine! You regularly brighten the doldrums of library work, if only for a few fleeting moments each day. More should aspire to contribute such readable repasts to our daily web diet. And yet, with this, I must recognize that I have not been holding up my end of the bargain. And so begins my New Mission.

The New Mission coincides nicely with the beginning of Operation Summer Freedom, which basically amounts to a tactical retreat from any and all academic undertakings for the length and breadth of the season. The objectives for this summer are to get more writing done. Principally, a new episode of the Complacents to take the form of a comedy CD. For it to actually get recorded and onto a CD, it needs to be written and to not suck. Fortunately, I don't need to be the only one writing for it, but obviously I'd like to make a quality contribution. So I need to get those writing wheels a-turnin', go I've got to grease that axle. So I guess I've got 2 pumps to prime: my own writing pump, and your blogging pump. To kill both of these birds, I propose to use this blogger as my unclogger. So be warned: no telling what might come dislodged in the process!

Which reminds me of my motto in college: Writing is a process, not a progress.

My detailed post about my final exam has been swallowed. Blogger can suck it.

Short version: the final was open-note, which caused me to do worse than I would have otherwise. IRONIC.

Master of Broomball Science

Spent the weekend driving to and freom Dearborn, MI, with some time spent in Dearbron in between. My sister-in-law got her Masters in Information Systems and then threw an Argentinian-themed party, but this one wasn't as intensely themed as some of her past parties; I pretty much ate grilled chicken and a green salad. But it was good.

Most of you missed by birthday, which was too bad since we played broomball at this little rink that's about half the size of a regulation hockey rink. In L.A. we used to play on (and they still play on) a full-length rink, so when we walked in this rink looked rinky-dink if you will, but it turned out to be much better: less running, which allowed for more intense playing. And 6-on-6 turned out to be perfect: about 22 adults showed up to play, so fresh subs were aplenty, and I think everyone got at least as sore as they wanted to be after just 2 hours.

My team beat Catherine's team 4-2. I had a hockey assist on one goal (I passed to Mike S. who immediately passed to either Sandy or Chip, it's all a blur) and I didn't allow a goal during my 15-20 minutes or so as goalie. Cath tended goal for 45 minutes straight and I'm not sure if she even gave up a single goal -- but I can't really remember who scored. I'm a little surpirsed we won so decisively, since Mike S.(different one, from my 5th grade class) had looked up strategies and would actually take the time to set up in the crease and try to receive a pass; and toward the end of the game, Vince and Bob (who had turned coat (or in this case, removed jersey) and gone over to Cath's side) were actually using teamwork on offense, forcing me at times to defend both of them by myself! The victory is testament to our staunch defense. The First Annual Morse Cup is mine! (If only it actually existed!)