Celebrating the holiday by turning left....

Here is a change that happens when you get married, or just find yourself in a relationship in general. A few years back I made it a tradition of live blogging the Indy 500. This basically meant sitting in my apartment alone, typically hungover from the night before, and while watching the race I would write down my thoughts and typically a few really bad Danica Patrick jokes. (You know, she doesn't have to continually keep her left blinker on the entire race.) Last night, seeing that the Monaco Grand Prix was going to be broadcast live on NBC I realized I could spend the entire day watching Monaco, Indy and the Coca Cola 600 and just write about sitting on the couch and watching auto racing all day. Then I remembered that I am married and would like to remain so. Thus, I've just watched parts here and there while doing gardening and other things. Still, here are my thoughts.

1) I really expected a better finish by Tony Stark at Monaco this year. You would think that he would have been able to modify his strategy to address potential attacks by Whiplash but apparently he is still susceptible to attacks by an unkempt Mickey Rourke.

2) I was lucky that Monaco was delayed by a crash so I actually got to watch the end of the race live. It is an amazing race to watch just because of the sheer insanity of it. Cars running on incredibly narrow, continuing twisting city streets and several tunnels. It is a video game level come to life.

3) There are three songs you need to hear every May. My Old Kentucky Home, played before the Derby, Maryland my Maryland, played in front of a crowd suffering from acute alcohol poisoning at the Preakness, and the undying zombie that is Jim Nabors belting out Back Home Again in Inidana.

4) Really happy that Tony Kanaan won Indy. I've watched the race for 30 plus years now and over the last ten years or so he has done everything except win the race. At least once he was in first place when the race was stopped for rain and would have won if it kept raining. Other times he just got caught in wrecks that weren't his fault. He always seemed like a nice guy and someone who everyone in racing liked. Awesome.

5) And as always, congrats to the Indiana Dairy Board for the most bizarre tradition in sports. You've just spent three hours in a car, wrapped in a safety suit to prevent you from catching fire and what do you do when you are finally done? Have a sip of warm milk.

6) The NASCAR race is still going on but we already have our story of the night. A cable on the Fox Sports Sky Cam broke, fell on the track, was run over by several cars, damaging those cars and injuring fans. Fox Sports, were just like Fox News except with slightly more injuries.

Sunday Night Music Club: Please remember what tomorrow is truly about. If there is any song I can think of that expresses the way is this one by Jason Isbell. Remember those that didn't come home and help those that did.

Sithin Ain't Easy

Ah, nothing beats good old ComiCon. Here I am rocking my classic Boba Phat outfit. Some say that when you fall into the Sarlaac Pit you suffer a painful death that lasts a thousand years. I just say it is one big thousand year party.

(Tip of the hat to io9 and the other websites that posted this image. For the record it actually isn’t me though I can neither confirm nor deny that I have a full stormtrooper costume complete with blaster rifle and rank as a 2nd lieutenant in the Delaware chapter of the 501st Legion. Some things must remain a mystery.)

I watched a good portion of the Brickyard 400 yesterday because, well, I’m the type of guy who will occasionally sit down and watch a Nascar race on a Sunday afternoon. I still contend that I watch Nascar in the same way other people watch golf: it is something that you have on for a few hours and if you happen to fall asleep on the couch while it is on when you wake up you’ll realized that you haven’t missed much. The thing that stunned me was not the race itself but how many empty seats there were. Here you are racing at Indianapolis, the most important track in the US, and the place looked like it was half filled. This when just a few years ago people were wondering if they should have Nascar take the place of the Indy Cars for the Indy 500.

The drop in Nascar popularity has been rather stunning in recent years. Five or six years ago I would come across a lot of fans who were knowledgeable about the drivers and the tracks and the rivalries. Now even though the sport is popular in terms of the total number of people at events I don’t know of anyone who is really a fan. They race twice a year at Dover and I never come across anyone who is making their way to the race.

There are a few reasons for this. For one, the sport has become more boring over the past few years. The cars are all the same, the drivers are all the same, and there just is no overwhelming drama. I know the Chase format was supposed to create drama but instead it has resulted in a pretty meaningless middle of the season followed by ten races in which by the last five you only care how three drivers are doing. Plus, the age of having drivers who were actually characters has ended. I’m not talking just about Earnhardt or Gordon when he was a brash young kid. I miss the days of Dick Trickle always getting his finish announced on Sports Center. Hell, I miss my personal favorite driver Johnny Benson who was just a nice guy who drove a clean race and had the worst luck of any human being I have ever seen. Seriously, the guy could be leading the race with ten laps to go only to have five cars spin out right in front of him and he would get caught up in the wreck and finish 37th.

I do miss having racing as one of the major sports. I grew up in the golden age of Indy Car with the Andrettis and Mears and Foyt and Rutherford all of whom made every race seem like an event. One of my favorite computer games ever was a Nascar racing game that I even bought a steering wheel for my computer to get the full experience. But now, for some reason, it just seems boring. And I’m not quite sure how they go about fixing it.