Distraction as Therapy

[cbertsch]

I made the mistake of visiting Google News just now. I'd managed, thanks to a multi-hour internet outage, to take a break from reality. I had a leisurely dinner, washed some dishes and saw parts of three college basketball games. I found myself rooting hard for ASU to beat UCLA, primarily because it would be to Cal's benefit, and for the Wildcats to prevail over USC, for that same reason and other, more complicated motives. And then I cheered St. Mary's attempt to overcome the loss of their best player and defeat WCC bully Gonzaga. I didn't think they would. And they didn't. Too many turnovers. The same was true for the Sun Devils, but their excellent outside shooting more than compensated. And James Harden made a ton of great plays. I've been slow to get on his bandwagon. But the way he was dishing the ball tonight made me a believer. Now I have to gear up my anxiety about this weekend's Cal-Stanford contests. Somehow worrying about something so inconsequential counts as a stress-reducer in the present climate. Maybe I'll shut the internet off more often.

Comments

(like I care)

[chefxh.livejournal.com]

*gasp* badmouthing Gonzaga? Dangerous around here.

Re: (like I care)

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

::grinning::

They're a nice bully. . .

[flw.livejournal.com]

An interesting side-effect of caring about unimportant sports must be getting to know a bit about all those strange cities of 200,000 people. They would be megalopolises at any other time in history and now they seem like small towns.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Yes. Although with college sports, I think 100,000 is more like the midpoint. Places like Bloomington, Indiana and Durham, North Carolina, as well as the Pac-10's Eugene, Oregon. Or Berkeley, even, though its presence in the Bay Area makes it feel less like a stand-alone municipality.

[flw.livejournal.com]

Imagine what it would feel like to walk into a city of 100,000 people in 1900 versus 2000... Needles probably has 100,000 people!

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Yuma is veering towards 100,000. Needles has a long way to go, though.

[flw.livejournal.com]

I can't afford the extra datapoint in my scheme.

Places - between CA and Tucson - AVOID:
1) Needles
2) Yuma

Places - between CA and Tucson - AVOID - population > 100,000:
1) Yuma

Places - between CA and Tucson - AVOID - population < 100,000:
2) Needles.

See? Functionally, it serves no purpose for me. Actually, the category is more like this:

Places - Between CA and Tucson - AVOID
1) ALL.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Yuma has a Starbucks and a Ross!

[(Anonymous)]

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
Near the bottom of the page, just beneath the "All of our animals hate me" post.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

That's funny. Thanks!