Bowling The Way It Outta Be.

Twenty pink pins, ten tight skirts and two occupied lanes. IF it's March, it must be women's college bowling season. Forget your brackets and dreams of a rookie pitcher making the big leagues. There is nothing like Alabama A&M vs. the ladies of Prairie View State. The drama, the tension, the rivalry!

My Nook's library includes "Those Guys Have All the Fun", the 700 page volume on the history of ESPN. Back before 24 hours of Sports Center and Stuart Scott trying to sound slightly relevant the 4-Letter used to fill their programming hours with obscure college sports. This was a little before my formidable years so I am going to take their words for it since I don't have eyeball proof. But after watching ESPNU's coverage of the SWAC Women's Bowling Championship the other night, I have a good handle on what a typical programming block may have looked like.

Let me pause here to assure you I am not railing against bowling, women's sports, or the schools involved. Today's rant is purely about the absurdity of what I saw on tv the other night. In fact I happen to enjoy bowling, sports, and women. (I have no strong feelings about the schools involved).

I'm trying to reconcile these things:

1) Did ESPN run out of games (live or recorded), movies, infomercials, and Football Follies to air when they landed on this gem? I know that we are in between rounds of the Men's tournament, but the women are playing and what about airing some classic games from years past? I'd like to see Santa Clara from the early 90s with Steve Nash or Duke vs. Kentucky with Hill to Laettner. Hell even a good Vince Offer  infomercial would have provided more excitement.

2) How is bowling (men or women) a college sport? Do you get a scholarship for this? Are there big-time recruiting wars for the top bowlers? Do high school bowlers have signing day press conferences where they coyly reach for the hat from Tech but then grab the State hat and slam it on with a smile on? Anything I can do while drunk is not a sport. Just remember that. Again I need to remind you that I'm not against women's sports. These girls hit 150 in the 7th frame I hit it in the15th frame (if I'm lucky). They would whip my ass no doubt but then again I'm not trying for a scholarship...I go bowling for the beer and the second hand smoke.

3) The SWAC (Southwestern Athletic Conference)? Really? The last time I heard of the SWAC, SMU was on a football death penalty, Texas Tech was led by Billy Jo Toliver at QB. I didn't think it even existed anymore. Low and behold...it's still alive and kicking. Yeah for college athletics!

These are valuable questions. Democrats blame Republicans, Republicans blame Women, and Women...well they bowl. But is this the downfall of our society or is it white bread?  I report, I decide. You should just be happy you get to hear me.

Was My Waiter Shamwow’s Vince Offer and That’s Rabbi Sista to You!

Happy Anniversary to the wife. She deserves nothing but the best but instead got stuck with me, who intern got stuck with an inherited bad sense of humor and receding hair line so everything is fair an balanced. We also want to thank the ‘rents for the gift which we used last night to go to dinner at a very nice area steak house.

We were treated very well and sat in a booth (as requested) but who comes over to tell us about the menu and take our order? None other then Vince Offer himself! Well, maybe it wasn’t Vince but our waiter, Mike, was about as close as you can get. The only thing he was missing was the headset and the cheap made for TV towel system. That aside, he was very nice and helpful and generally very hard working except for the terrorist fist bump to celebrate when we first met him. Even though he wasn’t really Vince he still sold us a pretty good bill of services so maybe Mike has a career in infomercials. Not really sure where I’m going with this line of discussion but wanted to share.

Well its not Dothan, Alabama but the Jewish community in Greenville, North Carolina are about to welcome Alyssa Stanton into their mix. Alyssa, is about to be ordained by the Hebrew Urban College as the country’s first black, female rabbi. I have to say that not only am I impressed at anybody achieving this status but for such a rarity as a black woman it’s even better (nothing to do with her race except that black jews in general are a rarity). I wish her nothing but the best (as well as a hearty Mozel, Mozel) and I hope she instills pride and a zest for life in her congregants as well.

Sham Wow?

Does it really do that? It’s something we’ve wondered (sometimes aloud) while watching a late night infomercial or even checking out the latest offerings on QVC. But is it really worth it to go and buy that crap, decide if it works or not and then return it? Besides you might not get your shipping and handling charges back, then what? You’re stuck with a chopper that can cut through a tin can but not make it through the tomato as promised.

One of these products that I’ve seen lately is the ShamWow. For those of you who haven’t seen this guy (Vince Offer) hawk this space-aged shamy towel with his headset and haitr arms...A) you are really missing a true piece of TV History...better then Ron Popeil pushing the fuzzy hairspray B) You get to buy a product from a true “Jerk” (Slate put it best by saying, “Hey, this guy's a douche. He needs a better haircut.”) and C) you don’t know that at $19.99 it’s better then paper towels (which, according to the commercial, you are going to spend $20/month on....who the hell spends $20 on paper towels for a month??? Maybe for 2-3 months work if you buy that extra large, Costco-sized version). Anyway I saw this wonderful product in a local home store the other day (the one that has Bed and Bath products as well as a “Beyond” section), and I contemplated dropping a Benjamin on it but pulled back at the last moment. How do I know if it really works like that? I don’t have a fancy headset and a small swatch of carpet that I can pour soda on to test the absorbency of this futuristic fiber.

Fortunately for me and all of you who have the same lack of faith in these so called “wonder products”, the good folks over at Popular Mechanics magazine have tested a number of these and give their impartial reviews. You can see the results here.

The over-hyped, washable rag did just ok...it didn’t meet all expectations but it didn’t fail miserably either. I think the take away here is that I don’t need it for $20 as much as I need either 20 Carmel Apple Empanadas from Taco Bell, or even this stuff.