HOW LONG IS TOO LONG?

Get your mind out of the gutter. This is not one of those e-mails that make false promises. I am talking about sports seasons. We are almost at the All Star break in baseball and the NBA finals just finished. I can recall watching the NBA Finals during Passover – that was in early April. I can still hear my mother lamenting that the soup is getting cold – turn off the TV. It was Lakers and Celtics – Passover had to wait!

Now the NBA winners parade almost coincides with local 4th of July Parades. That is a long season by any standard. They start with the pre-season games. OK, no-one really cares about the NBA pre-season. OK, the tickets to the games may be cheaper – but it is a “so what.” Come October first – the season is on! Let’s get excited and see who is going make the playoffs. Actually, it is who isn’t going to make the playoffs. That is the second season with almost all the NBA teams participating.

Now comes the first day of Spring and the NBA season is still in full swing. Almost six months from the start of the season and the playoff teams have not been determined as yet. Memorial Day marks nearly the end of the second round of playoffs. It is getting late in the year. All Star voting for the MLB is almost over and we are still in the NBA playoffs. My third installment of estimated taxes for the year is almost due and we are still playing basketball. These giants of men gotta be tired. It is eight and a half months of running up and down the court. I truly believe that it is not the best talent that wins, it is the last one standing that wins.

It is hard to get into the NBA season knowing that it is really the second season that counts. If the “Championship Season” was a little shorter – I may find more than passing interest. I save my energy for the playoffs! Maybe that is what is happening. They save their energy for the playoffs. Remind me to ask LeBron about that.

Now comes football. There is talk about expanding the season to 18 games. WOW! Less pre-season games in the summer – start the NFL season earlier, pay the players more (oh, that is still in negotiation). When will the season end? I remember Super Bowl being a January event – now it is played in February. The good news – the NFL season ends before the pitchers and catchers have to report for Spring Training. JUST before the players have to report. Of course, the NBA season is in full swing, so is Hockey. (Just a note: Hockey is a winter sport. The Stanley Cup finals are well after the NBA finals and it is almost July. A game being played on ice after the first day of summer, hmmm?)

The NFL season is still only five and a half months. The players need more recuperation and they need to train for Dancing with the Stars. The DWTS season is only ten weeks!

Baseball is another violator of the expected season. Since they went in to a playoff schedule to determine division winners, league winners and eventually the world championship the baseball season now ends in November! Wasn’t the World Series called October madness? Wasn’t Reggie Jackson called Mr. October? By mid October the series was done and won! Not now. I vision my mother yelling turn off the TV during Thanksgiving. But, Ma, it is the Red Sox and Dodgers (in my dreams).

Can you imagine playing on a field that had to be plowed to remove the snow along the baselines? I love baseball. My son loves baseball, all my grown children love baseball and their kids as well. But playing through Chanukah is a little much.

Is too much of a good thing a good thing? Not so sure. I would love to see basket ball end by April 30th. Baseball end by October 15th, and football by January 30th. Hockey is not my thing, so I don’t really care.

OK, I vented. I am a traditionalist when it comes to sports. I get a real lift February 15th when I see who reported for Spring Training. The weather is getting better, the days are getting warmer and I feel better just knowing the season is about to start. However, it is a little problematic not knowing when it will end.

What do I want for Christmas? Two tickets to tomorrow’s Dodger game! It could happen!

WRITTEN IN STONE – EVEN IN THE CLOUD

Ask Anthony Weiner – he’ll tell you that whatever you put into cyberspace it is there as if is written in stone! Can't erase it! Can’t change it though Palinites wanted to change history on Wikipedia. Put your face on Facebook, it is there forever. Go ahead, try to change your image on Facebook, the old image, the image you won’t want your kids to see, you can try to put a new image on, now they will both be there. Forever! And ever!

Imagine your grandkids seeing you about 30 years from now how you looked at the party –any party! When you are intoxicated you acted stupid. Just look at some of the postings! I will bet Anthony Weiner’s kids, whenever he has them, will Google or Bing him. I would love to hear the explanation – he is a politician – he will explain . . . and explain . . . . and explain!

The point is there is no privacy to be expected when you post on the internet. It is there for everyone to see and it is there forever. What can you learn about someone you don’t know but see their [pages, their tweets, etc? We can know where they vacation, who they work for, their marital status and if they are violating marital trust, who their kids are and of course who they associate with. We know their sports interests, their hobbies and we know more about these strangers than we would if they were our real friends without Facebook. With Tweets we can know the size of their . . . well, you know!

Is it all bad – of course not! The internet is an amazing tool to generate information about anything at any time. From history (that is not rewritten by Palinites), technical data, how to do certain tasks, where to call for further assistance, how to shop for the best price – the list is endless. But, when you shop, the potential for everyone to know where you shopped, what you bought and how much you paid and how you paid is there for all to see – if they want to see it.

Keep that in mind. The internet is like the modern town crier. Except this is a 24/7 worldwide blast of personal information. I post my blog to the internet so you can read my thinking on a wide variety of subjects. You pretty much know my politics, my adventures and my world view. That is OK with me. I never tweet, I only post photos that I would and do show to my grandchildren. I never admit to any wrongdoing (because I never do wrong!) and I never tell you about vacations before I go – only after I get back.

It is tempting to boast on the internet. Be careful, you are not all Anthony Weiners! Everything you do can become and often does become viral – it is the scope of the information that is the problem for most people. You send it you one, you send it to all! Look at You Tube – whether or not you understand, much of the video you see is severely edited, but it is on film and it is “fact.”

Finding people that you haven’t seen or heard from in years is great fun. But you have to ask yourself, why hadn’t you heard from these people in years? To they want to be seen or do they want to hear from you. My guess is they do – unless they owe you some money!

So, my advice is to use caution. Your stuff is there forever, for an infinite amount of time and available to an infinite number of people that wants to know whether they need to know or not. I understand that the US Government watches all this stuff - they say it is great intelligence. Use yours!