Quotes I Like

Every so often, I read something on the internet that I think is pretty groovy. Here are some (stolen) quotes:

Fake Brokeback music plays as Janelle convinces Paula to seek professional help for her eating disorder. This show should seek professional help for its boring disorder.

-- Stee, Television Without Pity, about last week's episode of the Real World: Key West

"It really only hurts when I swing and miss," he said. "So, I'm going to try not to do that."

-- Brewers Rookie Phenom Prince Fielder, coming back from an elbow injury.

I loved it that George Clooney is proud to be out of touch with the rest of us. I loved it that he’s proud to be part of an elite, obscenely wealthy cadre of bleeding hearts that somehow manage to delude themselves into thinking they represent the little people as they parade in their million-dollar dresses. I loved it that he’s proud to be part of a group that will gleefully and tearfully visit poverty-stricken Africa and disaster-strewn New Orleans but don’t dream of relocating there, because they have tropical islands to buy, Bentleys to drive, and, oh yeah, great art to make. I loved it that he’s proud to be one of the many souls gracious enough to give one-thirtieth of their yearly income to the people who need it most.

-- some dude named "T", on The Onion AV Club Blog Comments

Finally, a quote from Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink, on why he doesn't like baseball anymore (taken from his Page 2 conversation with Bill Simmons):

It came after the Blue Jays (my team) won the second of their World Series titles. Economic reality hit, and they basically stopped trying to compete at the top level, and I wondered to myself: Why do I care so much about a sport where some teams have $200 million to spend and some teams have $20 million to spend? I know, I know -- as Rob Neyer and others point out -- that there is no necessary correlation between payroll and success. It is possible, as "Moneyball" reminds us, to win with less by being smarter. But the point is not that if you have more money than someone else you automatically win more games. The point is that if you have more money that someone else you're playing a different game than they are. Wal-mart is not competing against mom-and-pop corner stores. They're in a different business. And it isn't fun, at the end of the day, to watch a mom-and-pop compete against Wal-mart. It's painful and pointless.

I've been searching for something that puts my meandering anti-baseball thoughts into words, and this is the best statement I've found so far. "Painful and pointless" sums up my feelings towards watching baseball quite nicely. Maybe after I finish The Third Policeman (don't ask, let's just say I'm not going to let Lost sucker me into a book again) I'll read Blink. He goes on:

...But do you think that Billy Beane, for a moment, wouldn't trade his situation with Theo Epstein or Cashman? To me, the hard cap in football -- and, to a lesser extent, the soft cap in basketball -- are what makes those sports so interesting. It's what makes them sports. Contests where one player has significantly more resources than another are not sports. They are marketplaces. To root for the Yankees or the Red Sox is the functional equivalent of rooting for Microsoft or General Electric. No thanks.

No thanks indeed. I'm glad the White Sox won last year, however. That's literally the only thing fun about baseball for me now -- watching longtime Sox fans like my father-in-law celebrate.