My ATTENTION SPAN needs repair!

My attention span leaves a lot to be desired. In school, I used to think I was stupid, or I just didn't understand what was going on. Pretty soon every one of my teachers ended up sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher: "Wah Wah Wah...Wah Wah Wah WahWahWah"...like the old joke goes, "I was so broke I couldn't even pay attention!" I've come to the conclusion, though, that my attention span is in about the same shape that Spokane's Monroe Street Bridge (another "span", get it?) was before it got repaired.

I write this because I am, right now, watching game 3 of the World Series. It is the LONGEST World Series game in history! And, I told myself that tonight, I wasn't gonna go online until the game was over. It's my attention span, you see. If I post while the game is on, I miss all the action, even though the TV set is two and a half feet away from my computer. The damn game is in the 14th inning, and ********WAIT! WAIT! Jeff Blum of the White Sox JUST HIT A HOMER IN THE 14TH INNING AS I WAS TYPING THIS...so if Houston doesn't score in their half of this inning, the game will be OVER. (How's that for on-the-spot blog reporting?)

Back in my running days, I wasn't the fastest runner ever. I probably had no business running; face it, my lightest running weight was still over 200 lbs. Me running up a hill was kinda like a Mack-truck, with trailer, going up Lookout pass...slow, agonizing, but eventually the truck makes it to the top. Well, that was me on the hills. My fastest marathon was over 4 hours. I daresay someone who takes 4 hours to run a marathon undergoes a lot more punishment than these scrawny stick-figures who blow through 26.2 miles in 2 and a half or 3 hours! I have to face it, though...I seem to have about a 4 hour attention span at the very longest. At the 4-hour mark in a marathon, I was ready to do something else! Ah, but I still had 3 or 4 miles (if not more) to go.

Well, this *&^$$#% World Series game has now gone over 5 hours! There goes my attention span! So here I am, posting. I COULDN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!!! THE GAME HAS DRAGGED ON AND ON AND ON!!! I LOVE WATCHING BASEBALL, BUT THIS IS PURE TORTURE!!! Oh, the TV is still on in the background, but I'm typing right now, and it's hard for me to focus. I'm one of these people who can't even juggle ONE ball! Some folks would probably call me "anal-retentive", but I think that term is just GROSS. Anyway, I'll type some more stuff below, and maybe the game will end as I'm posting. Who knows?

Note: The game did finally end after 14 innings; Chicago beat Houston 7-5, and it ended somewhere around midnight, local time. It took over 5 hours. I coulda almost driven from here to Seattle in that amount of time! Sportscaster Tim McCarver said that getting through the long game was like "swimming in syrup". Not a pretty picture, but true!
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Funny commercials dept: In tonite's game, there's a commercial where two trucks face off, head to head. One truck faces the other, revving their engines. Well, the "featured" truck revs its engine loudly...and the other truck springs a leak of yellow fluid in its undercarriage. (When you buy a truck now, does it have to be house-trained?)
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Funny commercials dept., part II: In another commercial, it's night-time, and a young doe deer is trotting down a paved road. It comes to a stop. Just then, a bunch of off-road vehicles cross in front of the deer. "Huh?" I thought, and then, SLAP! "Oh I get it now!" The commercial was reversing the old "deer-crossing" concept. Some commercials are so good, they oughta be the main-programming. And then the announcer will say, "we'll be back to our commercials in a moment, after this word from "Will & Grace" or whatever other crappy TV shows are on now."
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We all have our opinions about WAL-MART. I have mine. A huge, gigantic, monolithic corporation that forces other businesses out of business through shady buying practices, and who doesn't seem to care very much about its own employees. But that's just my opinion. Based on documentaries I've seen and newspaper articles I've read. But, an article I read today really stuck with me: Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the heavy-heavy shopping season, it's Wal-Mart's aim to do ONE BILLION DOLLARS worth of business every day! Out of which they'll probably pay $100,000 in salaries. What, "biased", who, me?
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A current Jack-In-The-Box commercial features "Jack" and a bunch of employees wheeling a guy, who is asleep under covers on a gurney, up to a drive-thru sign. The premise of the commercial is that the guy has difficulty waking up in the morning, but it'll be easier for him once he learns about Jack-In-The-Box's groovy breakfast sandwiches. So they get to the loudspeaker, and a female voice blasts loudly thru the speaker, "HI, WELCOME TO JACK IN THE BOX!!!" which startles the guy awake, and he SPRINGS TO HIS FEET, jumping all over the place, scared out of his mind. What kinda shocks me is, he's still in his briefs. He wears no jammies. And there he is, (almost) dangling the "family jewels" in front of everyone. Is it me, or is TV getting VERY LAX these days? Or am I just anal-retentive? (I still hate that term) (Gross!)
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I was going through some old papers today, when I found an old quote, that grabbed me, way back when, and it's pretty interesting, actually. It goes something like this:

"AMATEURS BUILT THE PYRAMIDS...PROFESSIONALS BUILT THE 'TITANIC'."

Thought you'd like it!
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Attention Span, part II: (This post is just kinda draggin' on...) I used to have a LOT of problems in math class. I just didn't get it. Algebra and Geometry were all but incomprehensible to me. I felt like everyone understood it except me. I got a "57" on my Geometry final exam, but the instructor gave me a passing overall grade of "70", just to get rid of me. Well, today, they have things like "Sylvan Learning Centers" which "identifies your child's learning problems and tailors a program suited to his needs", or something like that. WHERE THE HELL WAS GOOD OLD "SYLVAN" 30 YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL???
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Finally...that last item reminds me of THIS item. (I'm really kinda thinking my attention span is shorter than a popsicle stick at this point)...Anyone who has lived in this area will remember the old Spokane TV commercials for "Sylvan Furniture"...which featured a folksy jingle that went something like this..."Good old Smilin' Sylvan...west 2-2-7 Riverside"...anyone besides me remember that? If any of you remember "Starlit Stairway", you oughta remember that "Sylvan Furniture" commercial. And with that...I'll end this "forgettable" posting. AAAAAHHHHH!