Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Stuffing the Passer - The Mission

At some point in my childhood, my father came home with an enormous box. Barely able to conceal his delight, he informed me that he held in his arms a small chunk of the future - 26 pounds of the sacred covenant of the sustenance, sufficiency, joy, and leisure that was promised us by this new era of technology. It was a Laserdisc player. I'm not sure how the age demographics skew on this blog (exit polling is an inexact science), but you are entirely forgiven if you have no idea what a Laserdisc is if you didn't happen to own a karaoke bar in the 1990's. See, kids, it was one of the gruesome victims of the format wars, and now currently resides in a shallow grave alongside the SCSI cable, the Betamax, and wide-gauge railroad ties.

The thing is, in many ways these historical losers were superior to the foes that vanquished them (except for Laserdiscs. God, those sucked in every possible way). Often, the winning format just won the "ground game" through relentless PR campaigns or, more often than not, some INSANE PSYCHOPATH ELECTROCUTING ELEPHANTS (although, ultimately, Edison's victories were short-lived and now your whole house runs on Nikola Tesla's pachydermicidal alternating current).

What I'm getting at is that while the old Notre Dame Betamax cassette might be big, drab, clunky, and uglier than a rhincerous' ass, there are some very compelling numbers that indicate maybe it's the rational, if not the sexiest, contendor for format war champ. What I'm trying to say is that OREGON AND KANSAS STATE MURDER ELEPHANTS WITH ALTERNATING CURRENT AND SHOULD BE BANNED FROM FOOTBALL FOREVER. Hopefully I made that clear.

Okay, puppets.


Lies from the pit of Beelzebub propagated to deprive us of our glory...