#322 - Fixing Sports, Definitions, Pictures

Motto: DC, KC, ABQ, and stuff

Part of the reason I don’t write “Features” all that much anymore is that they take me a LONG time, and they push out other things I’d normally write about. I have an MCU update coming sometime.

Also, I’ve just been too busy for Aaron Projects. I’m writing this after retroactively filling out two full weeks of “Life Tracker” data. You might wonder “How good is that data if he’s filling it out after two weeks?“. The answer is: not much. I basically just look at my photo reel and try to piece together what I did each day. Thankfully I take a video every day, so I can at least remember one bit, usually.

Alright - here’s some stuff I wrote down to write on here…

FIXING SPORTS
Basketball:
- Two 10 minute halves
- Each team gets two 30 second time outs (per game)
- Shot clock is 30 seconds
- Fouls NEVER give an advantage to the fouling team
- More clearly defined rules for blocking/charging fouls
- More clearly defined (or universally applied) travelling rules
- A sliding “run rule” where the game ends if one team clearly won’t win

Football:
- I don’t know enough about football to fix it

Baseball:
- 5 innings or 2 hours, whichever comes first
- Introducing delay-of-game rules
- Computerized calling of balls & strikes
- You can get a player out by hitting them with the ball (baseballs would be made a bit softer)

Soccer:
- Two 10 minute halves
- Each team gets two 30 seconds time outs (per game)
- All soccer is now indoor soccer
- Courts are sized between a tennis court and a basketball court
- 5 players to a team
- Nets are slightly bigger - for more goals overall
- Fouls are verified by instant replay, if you fake a foul you’re ejected from the premises

Volleyball:
- All volleyball is beach volleyball

Boxing:
- Just turn boxing into MMA fighting

Golf:
- Less expensive
- Less formal

Tennis:
- Scores go by 1, games are played to 5 (still gotta win by 2)
- Matches consist of 3 games
- No do-overs for bad serves

Pool:
- Everyone plays by the same set of rules… the ones I prefer to use

…And that concludes my segment on how to fix sports.

By the way, pool is definitely not a “sport”. Golf probably isn’t either, to me. Those are games. Sports involve running, in my mind. If you consider pool a sport, then you have to consider darts and bowling sports. Then, if you’re going to do that, you gotta do poker. Then if you’re going to do that, you gotta do other card games and stuff. What I’m saying here is there should be a commonly agreed upon definition for “sports” and it should be distinct from “games”.

Speaking of commonly agreed upon definitions, here are some other ones I’ve been wanting to write about for a month.

AARON DEFINES VAGUE THINGS
”Tall”
- For girls, 5’10” to 6’1”
- For guys, 6’3” to 6’6”
- Anything over that is worthy of the “very” qualifier, or other more colorful descriptions (such as “Sasquatchian”)

“Weekend”
- Friday after business hours until Sunday at bed time

“Bed time”
- when you normally go to sleep, I’m not so presumptuous that I think my bedtime should apply to everyone

“Next weekend”
- This cannot be any time within the next 7 days, Saturday and Sunday within the next 7 days are called “This weekend”

“Literally”
- Literally means literally

…and there were supposed to be more, but I’ve forgotten them.

ANOTHER THOUGHT AARON WANTED TO WRITE ABOUT
I re-watched a Bo Burnham special on Netflix the other day. He looks like me. Maybe me mixed with Nick G. Maybe not.

ALRIGHT!

I went to Washington DC to visit my friends up there. It was a perfect vacation. I got to see and do stuff without having to worry about logistics. It was like a cruise, but without the ship bits. I could talk at length about what we did and how awesome it was, but I’d rather just tell you in person. Ask me about it if you’re curious.

I will show you some pictures, though. HERE GOES

Top 5: Pictures from Last Week (in Random Order)
5. This is what the eclipse looked like for us.