Do we really need any more sports channels?

I remember how it used to be, back when we had ABC Wide World of Sports and the "agony of defeat", a few college football games on Saturday, a few NFL games on Sunday, and Monday Night Football. Now, we have ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN U, ESPN Classic, ESPNews, FOX Sports Net, The Golf Channel, MLB Extra Innings, NBA TV, NFL Network, and others. We have Monday Night Football on Mondays AND Thursdays. You can watch an entire season of NASCAR races (right turns not included). Baseball, cycling, hockey, moto-cross, skateboarding, and surfing are all televised.

Do I like all the sports channels? Of course, but I think we're running out of sports to televise. ESPN is broadcasting their own movies. ESPN Classic shows old sports movies. And for some reason, you can watch fat, sweaty guys playing poker. Well, unless it's celebrity poker, and then you can watch thinner B-list celebrities playing poker. Badly.

I was prompted to ask whether or not we needed more sports channels when I was channel surfing last week. First, I stumbled across the National Paintball Championship. I've played paintball before, and I'll be the first to admit that it's fun, but I sure wouldn't watch my game on TV. I imagine it would be like watching paint dry. Literally.

And second, after switching off of the riveting paintball match, I ended up watching the World Dart Championship. There were player bios, the exciting dart-cam (where you could see the shot from just behind the dart in super slo-mo), and actual fans in attendance. I imagine most were family and friends, but who knows, maybe there are dart groupies out there.

Right now, I'm trying to negotiate a contract with ESPN 8 (The Ocho) to televise my church-league softball games, but they're balking at my stipulation that they only show games in which I play well.

They've determined that only amounts to one game every three years.

The physics of weed-eaters

A couple of weeks ago, after I mowed both the front yard and back yard, I wanted to run the weed-eater around the driveway, the sidewalk, the house, and the fence. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it started. Since this was the first time this spring that I had used my gas-powered weed-eater, I figured it might need a new spark plug. After all, it was three years old, and a bad spark plug would explain why it wouldn't turn over.

So this evening when it finally cooled down, I mowed the front. I decided to try the weed-eater again, because I didn't think I would have enough time to mow the back before it got dark. But after 20 minutes, I still couldn't get it started. I took a look at the spark plug, but it looked OK to my untrained eye.

At that point, I realized it was out of gas. I guess that would explain the whole "not starting" thing.