Welcome To The August 19th Edition

• Netflix Top Pix- Halt & Catch Fire
• The Rio Olympics
• Spuditorial: The Loneliness of The Toronto Sports Fan

The Rio Olympics

OK so I don’t have a lot to say about this. We jumped around and caught all kinds of events. But the one that we followed the most closely was the Usain Bolt saga.
Mr Bolt is a genuine bad-ass who is a hell of a lot better at what he does than anyone in the world right now. And he has proven it once again in Rio. He is the Michael Phelps of running.
Watching him in his qualifying heats and then taking the gold in the 100, 200 and probably in tonight’s 4 x 100 relay, too he will have racked up 9 Olympic gold medals in his career. That’s pretty awesome.
The rest of the Olympics was great, but between Mr Bolt on the track and Mr Phelps in the water, history was made and made again.

Netflix Top Pix- Halt & Catch Fire

This is an AMC drama about the development of the first PC laptop computer. I know that sounds a bit like a yawner. But it’s really more a character study of all the crazy, obsessed nerds and slick hustlers it takes to pull off something like that in the first place.
This series, which in the process of putting together its third season, is some of the best TV I have seen in quite some time. The writing, acting and storylines are all extremely compelling. All the characters have their own kind of appeal and the depiction of the period is not so much about the flavour of the era as it is about the real feeling of pioneering and breaking new ground in technology.
In short…it surprised the hell out of me that I liked it as much as I did.

Spuditorial: The Loneliness of The Toronto Sports Fan

Being a sports fan in Toronto is like being the patriarch of a dysfunctional family. You love your kids, but they just keep fucking up when everything is on the line.
There are six big league sports teams in Toronto. But to me, there are actually only four if you don’t count soccer and lacrosse.Three if you gave up on the NHL franchise years ago. And two, if you have tried, but still don’t understand why Canadian football needs to be different than the NFL.
That leaves baseball and basketball.
Over the past couple of years both the Raptors (basketball) and the Blue Jays (baseball) have provided us with some pretty exciting games. They have done well in their divisions, even their conferences.
Last year the Raptors went to the playoffs and lost in the second round to the Cleveland Cavs who went on to win the NBA title in pretty amazing fashion. The Blue Jays also got beat by the team (Kansas City Royals) that went on to win the World Series.
So that puts both these teams in the upper echelons of their respective leagues. But to a hard core fan, of which there are many in Toronto, as we lead both the NBA and MLB in attendance, close only counts in horseshoes.
Both teams need to take it up a notch this season, because the time is actually right for them to do that.

The Blue Jays who are the only one of my two teams who are active at the moment are winning,  but they are not playing with anywhere near the awesome power that they did last year after a series of trades made them to team to beat in the American League.
As a fan, I have become conditioned to being skeptical and leery about my teams. It’s kind of like, you have met this beautiful woman. You have been dating for a while. You really want to make love to her and she appears to feel the same way. But for some reason she just can’t get all her clothes off without breaking down and telling you she can’t. She just can’t.
You nod sympathetically and tell her you understand, but deep inside there’s this little voice that’s screaming WTFs over and over again. But you have a huge affection for this lady and you think she might be the one and so you keep on dating. And she keeps on refusing to make love to you.
I know it’s kind of a sexist metaphor, but you know what?…I think it’s valid. Because real fans are passionate about their teams. For a lot of them, a championship is pretty much up on the same level as making it with a beautiful woman. Or vice versa for the women.
As we move down the stretch run, the Jays hold a nebulous lead in the AL east. But their record is not quite as good as the leaders in the other AL divisions.
They need to win way more than they lose to get home field advantage. And they really need to start hitting. Because it’s one thing to have great starters,  middle relief and closing talent. But it’s another thing to put run s on the board more often than the guys you are playing.
The Jays have been winning, but they are squeaking out the wins and not dominating. So what happens is…we worry.
That’s how it feels to be a Toronto sports fan. I’m sure if you’re a sports fan in New York, or Philly or any major city, you probably have felt the same way about your teams from time to time.
I’m not sure why I keep on caring. They usually end up just breaking your heart and leaving you crying in your La-z-Boy recliner. Such is the nature of fandom.

That’s all I have time for this week. Heading down to Fort Erie tomorrow for a pool party at my brother’s house. Which really means a bit of swimming and a lot of eating because my SIL, the lovely Bette, is an amazing cook.You have to show up at my brother’s prepared to drink several beers and put on the feed bag big time, and that’s all there is to it.

Have a great weekend, everybody. Because you’re worth it. Please feel free to comment and share this post. It is social media after all.

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All content copyright 2016 Jim Murray. All rights reserved.

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