8/4/10
Softball: Considerations of Species in Future Recreational Endeavors
Dear People,
Chris Fure’s team exploited subtle tears in the aptitudinal fabric of my own side, and thus we went down, and went down hard, 15-10. Actually, some of the tears weren’t all that subtle; I recall the bottom of the 5th, with no outs, one on and the game tied at 4, when Mary smashed a crisp ground ball straight toward Pace at short, who promptly scooped up a mitt-full of air as the orb scurried ever onward, directly under his glove. Fortunately Tom and Paul H immediately converged from the outfield, but in an unseemly outbreak of apparently contagious river blindness, both athletes spazzed out on cue and overran the bouncing sphere in question.
The fact is that by the time that buttery little ball was thrown back to the infield, it had penetrated three layers of precariously feckless defense, thus allowing the Maryinator to joyously dart into 3rd. At that point, and for reasons I don’t pretend to understand, Ehud hurled the ball over Dave Ross’ head and into the tundra behind the left field line, and in so doing, he personally handed Mary the rich and moist rewards of the most pitiful 4-error homer in the history of the universe. To be sure, the whole ghastly episode raises the most chilling of philosophical conundra, and I’m not saying that just because I like to season these missives with an occasional foray into current issues in culture and literature.
The point is that I just happen to be walking out of the Cal Engineering Library yesterday when I noticed a particularly intriguing volume in their Featured Books display case, specifically David Levy’s Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships (I shit you not; See http://www.amazon.com/Love-Sex-Robots-Human-Robot-Relationships/dp/0061359750 ). In all candor, I don’t think this is the venue in which to wax poetic on all the tender advantages of having your next lover be a foxy Borg-like piece of insatiable digital machinery, but as a softball-playing people, I do believe that we have to face the admittedly discomforting implications.
Now look, I’m not saying that the next generation of robots will be “better” athletes than our error-prone selves. And even if they were, I’m hardly implying that this means that the level of our communal play would improve if carbon-based bumblers like Pace, Tom, Paul and Ehud were actually replaced by Mr. Circuithead and his borgopals. Yet as a keen observer of the rapidly evolving interplay between artificial intelligence and the recreational arts (amorous, aerobic and otherwise), I think that we are rapidly approaching the day when we will have to grab the bull by the contemplative bionic balls and embrace a humble match of softball as the proper and obvious forum in which pure human beings and robo-athleticus can unabashedly blend. And therefore there will be a game at Codorinces this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning….Ray
PS: Three cheers for the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment: I originally posted the video below a couple years back, but it should be of particular relevance later today…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixkck8QnjY
8/6/10
Softball: Where Have all the Regular Aerobic Flowers Gone?
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, and as of now we only have 14 commits. In the old days, I would’ve gotten down on literary knee and begged you to play, tossing away my dignity as if it were nothing more than a scrap of used tissue. I’m obviously not going to do that this time, but I would gently remind you that if we’re still fewer than a minimum 18 confirmed players as of tomorrow, I’ll have no choice but to make a lot of degrading phone calls as well as shave off my armpit hair in protest.
Would that make you “happy”? No, I didn’t think so. And yet that’s the grave situation that we now face as a people, so if you’re on the fence and paralyzed by abulia, do the right thing and make that commit. You’re also welcome to commit anyone you know as long as they’re not a psychopath (this week, all your family members, personal therapists and embittered ex-lovers have a recreational home with us).
$4 for the field/See ya Sunday…Raymond 845-7552
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