Practice Fight, Media Consumption

Practice got a little out of hand today. One guy made a drive to the basket, another guy hit him with a hard foul, and then they got in each others faces. Then, guy #1 had the audacity to put his hands on guy #2’s neck, sort of holding him back, in a gesture that said “im older than you, so you might want to back the F up.” Of course, that sent guy#2 into a frenzy, and fists started flying. I’ve always said that these Israelis get too comfortable putting their hands on and around peoples faces. That kind of thing might send me over the edge too.

So guy#2 was in a rage, and kept calling guy#1 a “benzona” (son of a bitch), which is one of the few Hebrew phrases I understand. Apparently, he was also calling him a “Russian son of a bitch.” For some reason that is hilarious to me. I have never heard of there being any sort of ill will between Russian Jews and any other kind of Jew. Was that a really offensive thing to say to guy#1 and I just don’t know about it? Not sure. Either way, the fight was broken up rather quick and practice continued, sans the pugilists, which is crazy to me. People get in scraps during basketball practice all the time. To me, if you kick them both out it makes the whole situation into a bigger deal than it has to be.

And that is exactly what happened. The owner gave us a big speech after practice about how we need to control our emotions, and then we were instructed to leave and reenter the meeting room, one by one, to tell our version of the events. No joke! It was getting real Law and Orderish around these parts.

Thankfully, things weren’t taken that seriously and people’s testimonies didn’t take longer than a minute. I thought about making things really dramatic. I wanted to ask for the coach’s whiteboard so that I could draw out exactly what happened from my vantage point, and maybe try to fake some tears, but I’m not sure they would have seen the humor. Overall, as with all things team meeting related, it was a waste of time. I bet both players have to chip in for some pizza after practice next Friday and that will be the end of it.

We have our final regular season game on Tuesday, then the playoffs start the following Monday. If anyone happened to find a way to watch our game from last week, which I am not sure was possible, then you would have seen me raise up for a midrange jumper with the game tied and under 20 seconds left, only to airball. Then they hit a buzzer beater at the other end to win it. Not my finest moment.

In order to try and stave off the inevitable week long blues that envelop me after a terrible thing happens in a basketball game, I immersed myself in a TV show and a comic book. I watched every episode of Game of Thrones and read every issue of the Walking Dead. I have become a pro at hyper aggressive media consumption. Once I got over my desire to be a total completionist with things I watch or read, I discovered the beauty of fast forwarding and skimming. I watched all of GOT in like a 4 hour span. I heard enough exposition to get the general idea of what was going on, and I watched the awesome battles. That’s about it. I don’t care about council meetings between the kings and his lords, or monologues to a kid in a coma, or any dialogue involving a character I have deemed annoying (Looking at you, fat guy who joined the dark rangers, or whatever that group was called.)  Don’t even get me started on dream sequences. They get sped through quicker than a stop sign in a gated community. (Those don’t really count, do they? I feel the same way about ones in parking lots. Come on.)

I read the Walking Dead in similar fashion, but I took a little more time with it because it is pretty awesome. I highly recommend it to other adults who don’t really have jobs and can spend huge chunks of their days reading comic books. There was definitely a lot of emotional couples talk I could skim over, but overall I am a sucker for post apocalyptic survival stories.

The comic book is a million times better than the TV show. I don’t understand why the show deviated so far from the source material. You have an amazing, beloved, well reviewed story to work with and you decide to switch a bunch of stuff around? For what? Something that is guaranteed to work is already written for you! It’s like someone adopting an amazing, beautiful child and then forcing it to wear an eye-patch and a wizard outfit every day. Yeah, it’s different, but it’s not better.

Hopefully this next game is better though, because I think I am running out of decent tv shows to drown myself in.