Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Perspective Check: I Have Two Functioning Legs AND I Own a Digital Camera

So I left the office in the middle of the work day to pick up my not-so-instant digital pics at Walgreens. I make my way down Mission in downtown San Francisco on a perfectly gorgeous fall day, walking briskly, without a care in the world and contemplating how fucking cute my pictures will be and calculating exactly when I will be able to make the Ikea trip to get really cheap frames - which will also be really fucking cute. And I am consciously sucking in my belly, in an effort to work out my stomach muscles and it is there, at Portico's Italian Restaurant (free smells!) I pass a young man, traveling by wheelchair. But he wasn't just in a wheelchair; he was also wielding one of those retractable seeing-eye poles. Not only was he UNABLE TO WALK. He was also UNABLE TO SEE. Jesus H. Christ on a Cross, Goddamn. I vowed then and there I would stop complaining about my psoriasis (...even though it's really bad, you guys.)

A Super Bowl RING? A Gaudy, Slumlord, Guido Ring? a...and... That Picture of Jim...

This past Sunday, as the Colts taunted and then tortured Carolina, my good friend, fellow football fan, and leader of the Colt's free world (as far as the boundaries I know personally), Ryan, clued me into upcoming news - "a big announcement" he called it- to be made by the Colt's Owner and CEO Jim Irsay this Tuesday, October 30. Ooh, what could it be?
I had no guesses.
Then I found out, a Super Bowl Ring: What a fucking let down.
Don't get me wrong, the whole "donating to charity" angle is a thoughtful and inventive one. However, winning one of five of those ball-bustingly huge, design-impaired pimpster rings is not something I'd liken to finding a Wonka golden ticket.
Compounding my perplexity over the whole thing is the "Stages" of the contest, they read like a prescription drug warning. Hilariously, one cannot purchase tickets online. (I get why: It localizes the winner, keeping Indiana-defectors, like me, from stealing the competition and flying my prize back to Oakland - forever keeping a piece of Colts history thousands of miles from anything actually Colt-ish.)
Further, I found this part of the Stage 2 Indianapolis Treasure Hunt particularly controversial (the lawsuits are already writing themselves): "The top 10 performers, as determined by the sole discretion of the Ravenchase Adventures LLC judges, will advance to the third and final stage." But, admittedly, I do love me a good scavenger hunt. Too bad I don't know jack about the city of Indy (outside of it being large and boring). Finally, the ten worn-out, subjectivel-deemed "best performers" - total quacks I'd imagine - get their mugs on TV during halftime of the game December 2, and even then five of them won't get to lug home the crappiest piece of sport's memorabilia ever minted and given away to NON-PLAYERS.