Fictionlet

[the_gneech]

"Um, excuse me," Greg said to the guy behind the bar. "There's a problem."

"Hmm?" said the bartender. "What's wrong?"

"This place is a 'sports bar,' right?"

The guy blinked. "Uh ... yeah?"

"Well you've got the place littered with big-screen TVs, but they're all showing the same thing -- basketball!"

The bartender looked confused. "Basketball's a sport."

"Well, yes, it's a sport. But it's only one."

"What do you mean?"

Greg gave an exasperated sort of half-gasp, and pointed at TV after TV. "Look. Basketball. Basketball. Basketball. Basketball. Basketball, basketball, basketball! What about all the other sports out there, that are so much more interesting? Why can't you show some of them?"

The bartender shook his head like Greg had just told him his nose had fallen off. "What sport is more interesting than basketball?"

"What sport isn't more interesting than basketball?" Greg demanded. "You could show baseball! You could show archery! Team rowing! Motocross! Billiards!"

"Billiards isn't a sport."

"Billiards isn't a--??" Greg rubbed his eyes. "Okay, fine. How about inter-style martial arts competition? Or even just kickboxing? Surely that would be interesting! College wrestling! High diving!"

The bartender narrowed his eyes. "You're one of those people who actually liked to watch curling when the Olympics was on, aren't you?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Greg demanded.

"Okay, fine," said the bartender, as if to a wayward child. "Just to please you, I'll put this TV on something else, okay?" He produced a remote and clicked in a command.

Greg looked at the TV with a flat expression. "Women's basketball," he said.

"It's a whole separate league and everything," the bartender said.

"Women's basketball is still basketball!"

"All right, all right, geeze!" The bartender clicked the remote again.

"Soccer!" said Greg. "Oh for crying out loud. Soccer is like basketball after stripping out all the interesting bits!"

The bartender produced a baseball bat. "Get outta my bar, ya freak," he said. Greg just had time to notice, as he headed for the door, that the bat had been signed by Michael Jordan.

-The Gneech

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Comments

[exatron.livejournal.com]

At least there's supposed to be a cure now.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

For liking curling?

-TG

[exatron.livejournal.com]

March Madness.

[sanity-cheque.livejournal.com]

*snerk!*

That was awesome!

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

-TG

[kylet.livejournal.com]

All around classic, but that last line is teh win XD

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Heeheehee. :) Thanks, sadcodyface!

-TG

[larksilver.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what he said! Way funny.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Danku. :)

-TG

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

I liked watching curling when the Olympics were on. Up here, I think it's a law!

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I liked it too!

I didn't understand a minute of it, but I liked it. ^.^'

-TG

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

It's sort of like shuffleboard on ice. You have to get as many stones into the middle of the rings (called "the house") as you can without the other team hitting them out. You get points based on the number of stones you have closest to the centre, uninterrupted by a stone from the other team.

And curling isn't all that dull of a sport--I'd love to see basketball players send a forty-pound piece of granite down a sheet of ice!

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

So when does scoring happen? After all the stones are tossed?

-TG

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

Exactly. A game is made up of ten "ends," though a game can be conceded after eight or go into extra ends. Each team throws eight stones, and at the end of each 'end' the number of points is given.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

There's also yelling! That's something the curling haters never mention. How can it not register on the cool-sport-o-meter if there's yelling in it?

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Curling isn't that hard to understand - especially when you compare it to a sport like cricket.

I'm APPALLED>>>

[mammallamadevil.livejournal.com]

GREG FORGOT HOCKEY!!!!

and yes, it's NOT a sports bar without HOCKEY this time of year!

MLD

Re: I'm APPALLED>>>

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

What can I say, I'm from D.C. ... hockey is something we haven't thought about since the Carter administration.

-TG

Re: I'm APPALLED>>>

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Heck, even Charlotte has a minor hockey league.

[hallan.livejournal.com]

I agree with Greg. Basketball is my third least favorite sport, just above boxing and football. "Can we please watch a sport that actually requires a brain?"

I like: fencing, figure skating, martial arts...

And yes, I -did- watch curling on the Olympics. And bobsledding. And downhill skiing. And -especially- figure skating.

Hallan

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Bobsledding and luge are my faves, at least in the Olympics. :)

-TG

[laurie-robey.livejournal.com]

How about the one TV showing Boomerang? Is it showing the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon?

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

*badump-TISH!*

-TG

[genecatlow.livejournal.com]

It should also be noted in passing that the bat appeared to have received a good deal of use. And not for baseball.

[confusedoo.livejournal.com]

See, the problem with sports on TV is that usually I'd much rather be doing those sports than watching them. Honestly the only *big* sport I like watching is hockey. I would have liked to see more of the olympics, but I was without a TV at the time. I think I'd like watching highlights of curling, but not whole games. Again, the 'rather be doing' thing.

[spasmsproject.livejournal.com]

You probably know this already, but originally a "sporting house" was a house of ill-repute.

I know this because I went to a restaurant that was housed in the same building as a historical "sporting house" once and commented to the waiter that it was a rip-off because there wasn't any sports memorabilia up.

Then I found out I was eating in a room that had once seen a "sporting" marathon in which a woman took on one hundred men in one evening.

It didn't do wonders for my appetite.

[frostdemn.livejournal.com]

When asked of my favorite sport, I simply shout out with two enthusiastic exclamation marks the name of my favorite fictional sport: BLITZBALL!! :D