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EVETV - Sport For Nerds
Your grandparents will be watching golf tonight, so why not watch some sports of your own? If golf isn't your thing, then perhaps multi-ton space vessels slamming each other with lasers and missiles might be more entertaining? Virgin Worlds is carrying some details for the riveting EveTV. Today, the channel is in reruns, but tune in anyway to see some matches from the last few days. Footage from ongoing PVP matches in the space MMOG EVE Online will make your Sunday go by much quicker. From the article: "The commentary is just like a traditional sports cast and the fellows calling the matches seem quite knowledgeable not only on the technicals of play, but also the backgrounds of the competitors. If you have an opportunity to check it out, I recommend it. Kudos to CCP for organizing this event."
cool stuff!
A recent series of programs (possibly on SBS or ABC-TV)
shows an assembly of nerds being converted into a team
of sportspeople (most, if not all, men).
This comes - I think - in response to the series of
programs (on commercial TV) that aim to reform folks
who are:
- overweight (whole family learns to eat & exercise)
- ex-drug or -alcohol abusers (where getting "clean"
& changing diet & lifestyle, including increasing
exercise regime are all on the list)
Of course, there's also a comedy in which a loud,
UK woman (teen?) is sent by her parents to an Aussie
"Fat Camp" to slim down.
In the case of the Nerds learning Sport, it really
felt like Christian conversion:
- found in a state of "sin" (ie, thinking & creating,
rather than playing sport),
- the Nerds are converted & dev'd into sportpeople...
over several weeks... for that Big [end-of-series]
Game, presumably with a team of non-Nerds.
(I didn't watch the series, so someone else will
have to fill-in any missing details.)
Of course, in Australia, Sport is the National Religion...
The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) rivals
the likes of MIT, as a nat'l center of educational
(training) excellence.
Anyone training at AIS for the Sports laity goes there FREE (as in beer),
and comes out - a few years later 100% debt-free; it's tax-payer funded!
Contrast this with those who go to University on gov't
"financial aid" known as AusStudy (except for aboriginals,
for whom it's AbStudy; apartheid alive in Aussie education!
Only the would-be University-educated have any obligation
to pay (or, later, pay back) any costs for training / educations!
This is true, even at a time when successful athletes win
more than points & games; ie, big promotion deals with
major product producers that can (& often do) go way
beyond what uni-educated professionals can expect in pay.
Of course, we NEED more strong bodies (eg, for mining & - in
recent weeks - for war & international policing (in E Timor)
than strong minds. Strong-minded people wouldn't put up with
the racism, children of asylum-seekers in detention, anti-academic
or even anti-union practices of the Australian gov't.
(And, no, I'm NOT an asylum-seeker or even a non-westerner, myself;
'not even Aboriginal, for that matter... I'm just sensitive to
injustice.)
I think AIS's "no-obligation to pay your way, ever" policy
helps create a HABIT of little planning ahead (except one's
diet, gear, training & the wearing of an array of sponsor-
supplied logos & advertising freebies) & low responsibility
for criminal acts (eg, after hours public fighting, sexual-
assualts & drug-abuse or drunkennes).
I would feel fine about the AIS no-obligation financial aid,
if the gov't would restore academic similar financial support,
recently REMOVED & replaced with loans.
We have just as much need for new doctors, scientists & other
professionals... as we do for top athletes.