All Hail The Spork!

If you've ever had the good fortune of walking into a KFC, three things probably come to mind. First, there is a 50/50 chance that by the time you finish your meal, you will have dropped dead of a coronary (at least you'll die happy). Second, the odds are less than 50/50 that you will make it home before the Colonel's 11 secret herbs and spices give your intestines the cleansing of a lifetime. And C, you'll get to use a spork, perhaps mankind's most wondrous invention (just ahead of the Awesome Auger).

Ah, the spork. You think about it and you laugh. You say the word out loud and you laugh. But the joke is on you, my friend. I don't believe in much, but I have recently - as in today - come to the realization that the spork will one day save our planet.

First, a history lesson: The spork was patented by Mr. Samuel W. Francis of Newport, R.I. in 1874, although the word "spork" was not widely used until the early 1900's. Also of historical note is that for more than 100 years, nobody has taken the spork seriously (that is according to me).

And until 2003, I was a non-believer as well. And then I met my wife. Now sure, some of you might think I married Jenn because she is pretty, intelligent, can cook and is the only woman in the eastern time zone not to dump me. But you'd be wrong. When I met Jenn in 2003, she was living in a lovely slum in Cambridge with a couple of nice fellas. The kitchen was small, dirty and had ancient appliances. But the utensil drawer was stocked with sporks. Not only was it love at first bite (yeah, I went there), but it marked the beginning of my own personal greenification.

Which brings me to my point. Or something resembling a point. Have you noticed that it's all about conservation these days? Green this, green that. Something about carbon footprints. Not to mention our attempt to put those nice Arab folks out of business by trying to wean ourselves off their oil. But, if society is really about saving the planet, then why the hell are we manufacturing both forks and spoons? How many billions of dollars must be wasted on this redundancy? How many stainless steel and/or silver trees must die in order to feed the world's greed?

Make no mistake, the future is sporks. Consider KFC. Do you think coming up with new ways to kill their customers is cheap? Hardly. Research and development requires a multimillion dollar investment every year and because Colonel Sanders had the foresight and vision to stock his restaurants with sporks, more money could be allocated to the truly important things - like getting their gullible and increasingly obese customer base to shell out big bucks for this:

I know, genius. Now forget for a moment that the sporks at KFC aren't even sturdy enough to scoop mashed potatoes. They thought outside the box and are a better company for it. Beyond that, why haven't airlines embraced the spork? Back in the 1990s, American Airlines decided to eliminate one olive from their in-flight salads and by doing so, they saved a few hundred thousand dollars per year. Today, the airline industry collectively loses about a bajillion dollars a month. If they went the way of the spork, maybe they wouldn't have to charge passengers for the right to yawn.

How about schools? Thanks to an impressive run of sustained incompetence, every town in America is broke. Why are the schools wasting good money on silverware, especially with the slop that the cafeteria usually produces? Buy sporks and save a teacher's job.

I could go on, but I bet you wish I wouldn't. So spread the word far and wide. After nearly 140 years, the spork has arrived.

I suggest you enjoy them now before the government decides to tackle spork reform.

In Defense of Hockey

There are a lot of things that mystify me in this world. For example:

1) Highway drivers who maintain a speed of 40 mph in the left lane
2) Religious extremists who believe that committing mass murder will pave the way to heaven
3) Democrats who spend money that they don't have...and then keep spending
4) Just what exactly my wife sees in me

And then there's this: why is hockey so relatively unpopular in the United States?

Hockey is by far the most exciting sport to watch from start to finish; it is faster paced than any other game; features as much hitting (probably more) than football; has more suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat moments than any other game; and is the the epitome of a team sport.

And yet it is a distant fourth among the four major sports.

Compare hockey to:

• Football: Who doesn't love football? It has taken it's rightful place as our new national pastime (I hear Detroit may even get a team one day) but of the 60 minutes of game time, there is maybe 10 minutes of actual action. Each play lasts only a handful of seconds and after it is completed, the teams take a 30-45 second break.
  

• Basketball: Lots to like about basketball, but the structure of the game makes it way too easy for players to mail it in (see Wallace, Rasheed; 2010). And lets be honest, the NBA has become playground ball. 4 players stand around while the "star" either drives the lane (1 on 4) or takes a ridiculous shot from 20 feet away. More importantly, any contact is deemed a foul which severely impedes the flow of the game. On top of that, NBA officiating...well, it's really bad. And everyone knows it. With the possible exception of the guy that runs the league.

• Baseball: The best thing baseball has going for it is that it's played in warm weather. Oh, and 130 years of history. But mostly the weather.

The media will have you believe that hockey suffers because it is an expensive, niche sport played in cold weather climates. But hold on for a second...does it really matter if you as a fan actually played when you were younger? How many people played football growing up? And conversely, didn't everyone play soccer when they were a kid? Hell, only rich people play golf and that sport pulls in huge ratings on TV.

And as much as I would like to blame the media, I can't. ESPN aired hockey several nights per week for nearly 20 years and the ratings were anemic. First FOX and now NBC airs weekend Games of the Week and yet few people watch. What people do watch are the Olympics, which is hockey played at its best. The ratings for Olympic hockey, especially when the U.S. makes a deep run, are off the charts. But when the Olympics are over, there is virtually no carryover to the NHL. Of course, every 4 years I think that Ski Jumping will become our new national pastime, but not to be.

Goes without saying that the average NHL regular season game can't hold a candle to the Olympics. But the same holds true for any sport. And of the four major sports, even the hockey-shy media will acknowledge that the NHL playoffs are the best in the land. Every year, a decent number of games go into 2, 3 and even 4 overtimes...all of which are sudden death. Hell, most of regulation time is played as if it were sudden death.

So to any non hockey fan reading this, I issue this challenge. Turn on a playoff hockey game over the next 7 days and watch just one period. Just one. If that does not rope you in, then fine. You are a lost cause and clearly have no hope to contribute to humanity.

You know, the same humanity that would much rather watch cars driving in circles.