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Head Slap Moment

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Today’s post comes from idea man and dealmaker Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.

I’m really excited to be alive today and grateful that I’ve never had a concussion!

I work primarily with my brain and my mouth. If either one becomes damaged or disabled, even for a little while, I’m out of business for sure. It’s a good thing I’ve managed to stay healthy, and an even better thing that people in corporate meetings who want to have the attention of the whole group typically don’t run at the person who’s talking, grab at the microphone with their fingernails and with pounding biceps and flailing elbows do everything in their power to claw away the PowerPoint clicker.

But of course for N.F.L. players that scenario describes what is simply another day on the job. And sometimes they pay the price for it with terribly jangled brains.

At The Meeting That Never Ends, we found these new concussion statistics appalling – and we responded by immediately doubling our bets on last Sunday’s games because it all suddenly became crystal clear what is about to happen. The key signs are there and it all adds up.

  1. The cost of providing the product is outpacing the ability of customers to pay for it.
  2. Yet fans are showing an inexplicable appreciation of on and off-field mayhem and an unshakeable loyalty to certain nicknames and color schemes.
  3. Technology is quickly developing new capabilities lead us to wonder why it’s necessary to use human labor at all.

That’s why we believe the day is drawing near when all N.F.L. games will be played by robots!

Don’t believe me? It took 10 seconds to find this compelling bit of evidence on You Tube.

Once there is a robot model that can run, jump, throw, catch, spit, swear, and pat the behinds of the other robots on the sidelines, people will be completely removed from the equation and the machines will be sent in to battle it out. In fact, we predict the N.F.L. will dress the robots in throwback gear and old-style helmets, just to humanize them a bit.

Thats why our group just bought a leather hat manufacturer!

The Coming Thing
The Coming Thing

Now we realize that some fans will resist this advance, arguing that the physiological and mental differences between individuals is what keeps the game interesting. But don’t you worry – in the world we envision, each mechanized player will still have a human operator on the sideline, or in a Star Box or someplace where we can watch them push buttons and twiddle joysticks to control their alter ego out on the field.

That way we’re convinced the N.F.L. will be able to maintain professional football’s reputation as a game played by human jackasses!

In my business, you win by figuring out how things will change just a little bit before everyone else gets it.   In this case, we at The Meeting That Never Ends were so sure we called this one correctly, we sent our mechanized avatars out on the town to have a drunken celebration!

A few of them did get arrested, but what a party!

Your foresighted fanboy,
Spin

When have you correctly predicted the future?

51 thoughts on “Head Slap Moment”

  2. Does it count if you “predict” the gender of a baby you already have on board?

    Does any child in this country come into the world with its gender a unknown prior to birth anymore? Every baby-on-the-way I know of lately has entered the world with a pink or blue layette already in place.

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    2. Oldest daughter and her husband did not find out gender of their first child, but did for the second one.

      Middle daughter didn’t want to find out the gender of her baby ahead of time, but the ultrasound person let it slip. She also told her that there were twins (“Oh! There are two heads!”) so the fact that she found out the gender didn’t irk her since she was totally in shock from finding out she was going to have twins.

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        1. Daughter was really freaked at the “two heads” exclamation. “My baby has TWO HEADS???” So, in one way, she was relieved to hear that the ultrasound person saw two heads because there were two babies. Having twins is hard, but I imagine having one baby with two heads would be worse.

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  3. I have been good at predicting that some predictions are wrong. I am talking about the predictions that the world would come to an end. I might be one of many who got that prediction right even thought the people who thought the world would end were very sure that they were right.

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    2. There’s a book out there you might enjoy, “Apocalypse Not!” by John Michael Greer. I may have mentioned it sometime before. It’s about failed end-of-world predictions throughout the centuries; an amusing read if you like slightly dry humor. I brought it to a panel on apocalypses at a science fiction convention a couple of years ago, but unfortunately everyone–including the prepper–only wanted to talk about zombies.

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  4. It seems like about the only thing I’ve successfully predicted is that the seasons will come again in this order: fall, winter, spring, summer. And maybe that I would graduate from college.

    I certainly couldn’t have predicted my path from home to Minneapolis, or the people who would end up in my life. Who could have predicted this blog?? I guess there was a point at which I predicted that my mom would get Alzheimer’s, or was that just extended worry?.

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    1. Here’s one of the songs Elinor said she’d want to have played at her funeral. Remember that topic back on Trial Balloon, kids? I remember her requesting Tom Waits’, Grapefruit Moon, a time or two. So sad.

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      1. Wow, brings on a whole nother dimension when you pull that up now.
        You’ve got one of those brains Donna? I didn’t know that, I’d better watch out with your steel trap.
        Good choices Elinor.
        Gotta put up grapefruit moon too but m on the iPad and not sure how to do that.
        I’ll work on it.
        And remember her little lulu icon

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        1. http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEVw0YwhhUh54AvFXBGOd_;_ylu=X3oDMTBsa3ZzMnBvBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkAw–?p=youtube+tom+waits+grapefruit+moon&tnr=21&vid=622BF1E7EE2C44D53CFE622BF1E7EE2C44D53CFE&l=295&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608043382284026673%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dqc8nwdkzn_8&sigr=11am2vse2&tt=b&tit=Grapefruit+Moon+Tom+Waits&sigt=10p1t6nnn&back=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Dyoutube%2Btom%2Bwaits%2Bgrapefruit%2Bmoon%26fr%3Dipad&sigb=12jsolpq2

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        2. Not exactly what I had in mind but it works… What a song. Thanks Donna that is a huge addition to her memory
          I love tom waits especially this vintage. We were all young then.
          Hey….
          Look down below ……..

          Clyde’s back

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  6. My roommate and I were able to predict the burst of the real estate bubble, but that was no great feat. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the Great Depression could have seen that one coming with a brass band leading the way. I wasn’t reading blogs as much back then, so the key revelation for me was seeing an interviewee on the evening news declaring “Real estate will never fall in value!” I am just old enough to remember the housing crash in the 1970s, so I knew at once trouble was on the way. I’m now hearing that fracking is a similar bubble, and is due to pop in the next couple of years. We shall see.

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  8. Robot football? Why wait? We already have the N.E.F.L. There are several regional branches of the National Electronic Football League. Yup, remember that boardgame where you set up the little plastic football guys, hit the switch, and the board vibrates moving them around? Well, if you didn’t know, it’s not only back but it’s gone high tech and heavily competitive.

    I think this is the way to go…only life-sized! It adds that random potential upset factor to the game that pre-programmed robots or even having human avatars would lack. And everyone attending the game gets free vibrating massages!

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  9. l’ll predict that Adrian Peterson’s worth more to the NFL than a four-year old boy’s life and that the Vs will keep him active no matter how many of his 7 kids by 5 wives are abused.

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    1. I like Adrian and while I am opposed method of child-rearing it’s scary to think about the fact that there is a large percentage of the population that still agrees with physical disapline that does not have the relatively kind heart that he has.
      The numbers are staggering something like 40% of the population uses physical spanking and thinks that’s okay.
      It was 92% in 1960

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  10. I have always considered spanking barbaric and ineffective, possibly counter-productive. A significant number of folks don’t see it that way, especially African-Americans from the South. While disapproving of what Peterson did, I feel a bit sorry for him. He apparently meant well, although he did something really, really stupid.

    Lest I judge him too quickly, I should remember that my former wife believed in spanking . . . and apparently still does. It was one of many little fault lines in our marriage, and an example of how hard it is to know a person when you are in love and about to marry someone. When we were dating, somehow spanking didn’t come up as an issue, so I was shocked to learn I had married someone who believed in that as a responsibility of parenting.

    As a child I was spanked just once (for eating freshly planted carrots). My sister was a little more defiant and would have been spanked more often. Then my parents learned that when they spanked her, I howled and wept so much it really messed up the message they were intending to send.

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    1. I’m curious as to how you managed to eat freshly planted carrots, Steve. Most people plant carrot seeds – did you eat the seeds?

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      1. The real reason for my spanking is the same as the real reason cops tend to shoot, tase, pepper-spray or otherwise assault people: defiance. As a kid, I was actually too eager to please authority. I wish I had been more independent. But I’ve had a strong need to please authorities all my life. My parents planted carrots. When the carrots were tiny but recognizable as carrots, I discovered how sweet they were. Although I was specifically forbidden to touch them, I pulled up many tiny carrots and ate them (without washing the dirt off, as I recall). That defiance triggered the one spanking I ever got. People who have authority hate to be defied. Parents hate it but also convince themselves that it is good to teach children to fear provoking authority.

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    2. It is one thing to physically correct a child or give a swat to get their attention.

      It is quite another to so lose control of yourself as an adult that you inflict injury on a four-year-old.

      At that point, it ceases to be discipline and becomes abuse, no matter what the “intention” may be.

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      1. From all the reports, Peterson stuffed leaves into the boy’s mouth, stripped him naked, then proceeded to beat him with a tree branch on his arms, legs, back, and genitals to the point of bleeding. The little boy had defensive wounds on his hands and said he was afraid to tell anyone because his dad might kill him. People who’ve seen the photos are horrified. This wasn’t discipline; it was felony assault by a 230 lb man against a 4 year old boy.

        What’s interesting about this subject is that in the decade or so l’ve been posting opinions on the Strib, The average number of posts is around 140. This topic is still going strong at over 3,000 posts. This really hit a collective nerve.

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  11. I am no good at predicting things, but I do have strong enough hunches that I am not surprised by some things.

    For example, I wasn’t surprised that middle daughter had twins.

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    1. I predicted it for him but not for me. During his tenure I have gone completely gray except my eyebrows. I have gone from getting older to being older. I predict next phase will be to get younger, getting older can’t possibly keep progressing like this.
      I predict occasionally correctly but I am wrong on a regular basis too. I predict that will continue to be true.

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  13. What did I predict?
    Exactly this mess with professional sports, especially the NFL, 30 years ago when I quit watching football. It was so obvious if you looked. Athletes become the privileged class, above the law and responsibility. Protected by owners, coaches, fans, sports media. Pro football is a very violent sport. Winning is everything. Decency is not in the heart of competition any more.
    How could we not expect a few of those athletes to take that violence off the field? how could we not, if we reward them for violence and protect them from consequences? How could we not expect players to play to hurt others, and get paid for it? how could we not? How could we not expect athletes who are using drugs to amass bulk, which is the only way they can become what they are, and then get out of control? How can we look at those suddenly much more massive bodies which are much quicker and not ask how this happened?
    It is pervading our culture, or is just part of a culture of hate, name-calling, indifference, and severe lust for money, possessions, power, and sexual prowess? Do we not think those ads are not having that effect? How can we not? It is amazing so few get out of control. I predict the next step will be for pro athletes to be allowed to play unless they are in jail, that the leagues will not even pretend to police the behavior of athletes. Several coaches are saying that, even more honestly and directly than the sniveling weasels who run the Vikings. They should have honestly said that they are about winning and nothing else, as is the truth. One day they will give up that pretense, and soon.
    Why did we not think those athletes who played that violent sport would not end up with short lives, addled brains, useless limbs?
    [Somehow Mankato has become the capital of bad behavior by football coaches and athletes.]
    Why do we let the high-profile college teams use kids, sacrificing some, to amass great wealth for a few men? Why do we think this any longer has anything to do with education? Why?
    Re Mr. Peterson: why do we think a pleasant and giving man can not be a child-abuser? Why do we think in such simple terms about human behavior? He says everything every abuser says about his discipline. I have heard a dozen parents say exactly what he says. Why are we surprised that he can do it and not think he is wrong? When will we face that child abuse is pervasive, done by people we know and respect, our neighbors, parents of our children’s friends. In part because we do not want to deal with it. It is hard thing to deal with, abuse by our neighbors, what is private, after all? Besides we have money to earn for the big house and all those things to run our kids to.
    I also predicted that one day I would pop into the blog as a ranting angry old fathead.
    I came in because I heard about Elinor in a round about way and checked to see what would happen here. Think about Elinor as an athlete compared to all the pro athletes who people think of as the real athletes. Real athletes are like Elinor. May she run forever, Amen.

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    1. Thanks for sticking your head in Clyde do it when the urge strikes. Are your hands working, you voice recognition kicking in to allow a rant or are you just putting up with it seeing as kits quarterly instead of daily discomfort.
      I agree with you assessment of both sports and neighbors and am sorry to realize that it came up previously on a seems regular basis. It sounds to me like a severe case do doing what you’d always done without regard for thinking . It always amazes me that intelligent people don’t think.
      Good to see you again. Hope all is well
      Elinor has been missing a while but will be remembered as a wonderful contributor when she was here, kind of like you Clyde only kind of.

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    2. Gosh… what a great ending to my day… a Clyde rant. THANK YOU CLYDE!!! I completely agree… AND not only do we pamper them and reward them, we also isolate athletes from the real world, so that they don’t really know what real relationships should be like. I suppose the surprise is that it doesn’t happen more often.

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    4. How nice to hear from you, Clyde. Anytime you want to be a ranting, angry…um…person here is okay by me.

      I’ve learned that “nice people” often are really not nice at all. I know someone who did something that would totally blow the minds of the people who think they know him. How can someone who seems the total opposite of the kind of person who would do something like that – do that??? It still blows my mind years later. (Sorry to be vague; it isn’t appropriate to be specific here.) And I’ve read of many cases of child abuse by parents who claim to be just administering loving discipline – often the same way they were disciplined as children. My dad was an attorney (and a judge for a while) in a small town…he didn’t talk about his cases, but I overheard enough of his general talk with my mom to know that a lot of seemingly normal, nice people weren’t normal or nice at all. This is easier to see, perhaps, in a small community when you know a lot of people. I am saddened by the AP case…how sad that this kind of “discipline” is normal for so many people. I hope that this case helps many people re-think how they parent.

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  14. Hi all. Being in corporate America, I’ve made quite a few predictions. Unfortunately I usually keep them to myself. But about 8 years ago, they dragged everybody in the company to a LONG training session for some new company-wide process. About half way through, the put up a big chart of the process and where it would start. With the sales folks. No offense to sales folks, but in my environment I knew that this was a no-go. And in this case I actually said something to my boss about it. We never heard about this process again. Ever. About 3 years later, my boss said “you know, you were right about…..” Very satisfying.

    On a happy note, I survived my sister’s visit. They left earlier than anticipated to break up the drive home (10 hours is a lot for one day). No fights or blow ups and I’m feeling particularly proud that a couple of times I just shut my mouth and let something pass. Medals, parades, awards???

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  15. When I was back home, the news from Sioux Falls talked about the trial coming up for the man who murdered Adrian Peterson’s young son last year. You would think the experience of losing a child to violence would change a father’s subsequent treatment of his surviving children. I guess that prediction is wrong.

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  16. A late night entry, too late for most of you to read, if not all of you. But in for a penny in for a pound as Adeline used to tell me all my youth.
    1. Sorry for the rant. I looked in to see re Elinor and saw Dale’s funny post, which touched two old sore nerves. One I could have resisted. Two, no. I feel like Cassandra on these topics. I think I saw truth and said so, of course, which lost me a few friends back then. Nuff said. Sorry. But if you remember how Cassandra ended up, then you can see my end.
    2. I check in every 3-4 days to follow Dale’s humor, which seems even sharper and more joyous lately, and the status of all yous guys, in MN Speak, or youses guys in North Shore speech.
    3. Sorry Renee. but what a pair of lives your parents lived. Wow.
    4. Glad you are settling in, Steve. I have lost my connection to the great NW. Enjoy it for me.
    5. No tim only bad hands and little time.

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