Boxing day blues

I spent most of Boxing Day telling myself it was the best day of the year and the only day I felt completely comfortable doing nothing until about 5 pm when all the nothing flipped over into nihilism and self-loathing. I could only raise myself from the couch to lower myself into a bath, where I spent most of the rest of the evening. Nihilism, mmm. People say the spirituality has gone out of Christmas but I think it still packs a fair existential punch, especially with the kicker of New Year.

The cricket. Last Tuesday I looked up from the articles about Joe Burns and said: "Ed Cowan must be spewing." In a brainy, urbane sort of way, of course. On reflection, however, it is probably Chris Rogers that Ed would see as occupying his crease: the brainy mature opener in a balancing act with Warner. 

Joe Burns gives me two birds in one: he looks a bit like Ashton Agar and needs to mind his hair. Take away my lookalikes and hair talk and there's not much left to this blog.

Grumpy old men, verse 54
Jim Maxwell, Terry Alderman and Geoff Lawson have had a grand old time this series getting worked up about people who walk across sight screens. Terry threw down quite a gauntlet to Ticketek by saying tickets should not be sold in those areas to people who are not knowledgeable about cricket. Perhaps it could work like the Australian citizenship test. Never mind that these people are often ground staff. Jim was plunged into cognitive dissonance at one point when the problem turned out to be a stray beach ball, he had to reconcile his irritation at sight-screen interference with his competing irritation at overbearing crowd control policies regarding such things as beach balls. He actually showed a little forbearance.

Geoff Lawson had an unexpected spray at Quentin Hull for calling Steve Smith a "stand-in captain". The qualification "stand-in" makes him livid, Steve Smith is captain full stop. Okay, Geoff, but are you saying Steve Smith would not step down if Michael Clarke came back? So how would you distinguish someone in that position from other captains? Meanwhile Quentin Hull dealt with the stand-in-or not-stand in by finding a wrinkle in the time continuum: "You think you're getting a glimpse into the future but maybe it's just now come a little earlier than expected".

As I write Henry is making me uncomfortable by talking about "wear areas" on cricketer's boxes.

Wealthy entities being dickheads just because they can:
- The Nine network not not coughing up for HD bandwidth on Channel 9 (though it somehow manages for GEM). Would it have happened on Kerry Packer's watch?
- Cricket Australia randomly cutting off my free family radio streaming to show me an ad for paid streaming (why would I be interested?) or switching over to Channel 9 commentary.

Ads
- McDonalds appears to be advertising a new ice cream by graphically depicting what it will look like smashed and melting.
- NSW transport appears to be trying to encourage people to have a "Plan B" instead of driving home after drinking by making every possible "Plan B" look as unattractive and unlikely as possible.
- I will never not hate the Bunnings ads.