Basketball, Beauty and a Beast

    Happy March Madness, everybody. Or, as Snarky Rachel would say, "Yay, SPORTS!" What she'd mean by that is, "Oh my gosh Daddio, are you really watching sports again?" and I'd say something like, "I only watch sports during Baseball, Hockey, Football, and Basketball season. Oh, yeah, and Golf... and sometimes there's the Olympics." I never learned to like NASCAR or Soccer though. I've tried them both a few times. NASCAR bores me to no end. For those of you who love it, sorry. I mean no disrespect. It's just not my thing.  As far as soccer, one time I turned on the game, I think the U.S. was playing some South American country but I forget which one, but what was amazing was, the U.S. actually scored a goal within five minutes of me turning it on the TV. It was incredible. At least that was what the announcer said. I was channel surfing within another five minutes. Sorry Soccer fans. Not my thing either.

Yes! Australian Rules Football! Now THERE'S excitement!

    For those of you who couldn't care a lick about sports like my Rachel, you might want to skip down two paragraphs. Either that, or just skim through them.

    Back to March Madness... the NCAA basketball tournament. I used to love it. It was one of the highlights of the Sports year for me. You'd sit down on Sunday and watch the selection show, taking note of where and when your favorite team was playing, hoping that you wouldn't have to call in sick to work again this year because maybe they were onto you. You bought the paper as soon as possible on Monday morning to look over those brackets and wonder, could this be the year you won the big pool at work? Here's part of the problem for me... up until a few years ago, you had until Thursday to study and waver back and forth on some of your picks. Now the tournament starts on Tuesday for 8 of the teams. These days most pools still wait until Thursday morning before you have to fill out your bracket and turn it in, but somehow, in my eyes, these extra teams have made it harder for me to be interested.

    "You? Not interested in a major sporting event?" you might ask. And I'd reply, "I'm not, not interested. I'm just not AS interested." There are still some great upsets and buzzer beaters that occur every year in this thing, and the drama is much more captivating than the NBA, in my opinion. I did love watching Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and the rest of those great Bulls teams, but the NBA is mostly a yawn for me these days. Anyway, I made my picks and so far, I'm leading my son's pool, but it's small and there's no money involved. Back in the 80's and 90's, I used to work on a large trading floor. The tournament pools were HUGE. Hundreds of people would get in on them. To win one of those was a big deal. Maybe the fact that I'm no longer involved in those is part of the lower interest for me as well.

   

I won't say what trading floor... but its initials were CBOE

    HERE RACHEL. START READING AGAIN RIGHT HERE.
  
    So tonight we went to see Beauty and the Beast in the movie theater. I was only mildly interested in watching, but several of the ladies in the family were excited, so I decided to go along. I'm not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed it very much. Many of the lines were exactly the same as the animated film, songs included, and many new lines  and songs were added. I thought they did a wonderful job, and as a Harry Potter fan, it was cool to see Emma Watson in a different role.

    Now, I've promised that I wouldn't get political here. I'm treading as lightly as I can. There has been a bit of controversy over the fact that LeFou is portrayed as openly gay in this film. I get that some people want to limit their children's exposure to things of this nature, while others don't feel it is anything to worry about. For those of you in the first group, first, know that I am not judging you AT ALL. What you feel your kids should be allowed to see and not allowed to see is your business and yours alone. Not mine, or anyone else's. That said, I felt that the uproar over this character is unfounded. It was very minor, only mildly suggested, and most children will not even notice it. This is a very child friendly film. If I remember right, the Disney cartoon had some scenes of blood and gore. This had only suggestions of it. I hope you go see it.

Th Thi The Th That's All Folks!

Snarky

And The Beast