Now, I've never been much of a baseball fan, and I doubt that anyone who likes NASCAR will ever see this post, but bear with me because I have a few interesting theories.
The Curse flipped?
I don't know if I'm the first one to suggest this, but based on recent developments I'm starting to think that the legendary Curse of the Bambino has not only been reversed, but "flipped" so that the Red Sox will be the new team to beat for decades to come while the Yankees will struggle for another World Series championship. Think about it: Although the Yankees were like Dallas Cowboys or Minneapolis/L.A. Lakers of baseball from the time Babe Ruth was traded until the Curse was broken, but the Red Sox have now won two World Series titles in less than 5 years while the Yankees haven't made it to the biggest event in baseball since then. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
NASCAR's Curse of the Bambino?
While the Hendrick Motorsports stable has been one of the most dominant teams in NASCAR with three of it's drivers winning a total of 7 championships ever since Jeff Gordon rose to fame in the early 90s, they may have started what one might call "The Curse of the Busch-bino". With Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving his stepmother's race team at the end of 2007, Hendrick Motorsports elected to drop then-lackluster performer Kyle Busch in order to make room for Dale Jr. However, Kyle Busch then signed with the Joe Gibbs Racing team and has been on fire as a breakout star from the beginning of 2008, currently leading the Sprint Cup points standings 5 races into the season. Meanwhile, Dale Jr. is the only Hendrick driver currently in a Chase advancement position at 6th, with 4-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon and defending champ Jimmie Johnson struggling to perform after a dominant 2007 season. A coffee table book about the golden age of Trans-Am calls 1968 "Camaro and Porsche - The Mark and Tony Show"; Perhaps 2008 will go down in NASCAR lore as "Hendrick and Toyota - The Dale and Kyle Show". [Joe Gibbs Racing currently runs Toyotas.] Or maybe Hendrick Motorsports will become to NASCAR in the 21st century what the Red Sox were to baseball in the 20th century. Only time will tell.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Predestination and you, pt. II
I hate to beat a dead horse here, but if you were intrigued by my previous post on predestination and you missed the Futurama movie on Comedy Central last night, then I urge you to see it next time it comes on. I don't even know where to begin describing it without giving spoilers, but the possibilities presented on time travel paradoxes are pretty mind-blowing.
Oh yeah, and birds evolved from a group of feathered dinosaurs, so the egg did in fact come before the chicken.
Oh yeah, and birds evolved from a group of feathered dinosaurs, so the egg did in fact come before the chicken.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Don't drink the water!
I know they say don't drink the water when you go to Mexico, but apparently we're not much better.
Got pharm?
Cheers!
Got pharm?
Cheers!
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Predestination and you
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the original Terminator and Back to the Future Part I.
The other day, something got me thinking of predestination/determinism (i.e. the idea that all things in the universe are set in fate) and its use in popular culture. While predestination usually deals with a specific type of determinism in a religious context, (i.e. who will be saved and who won't), I'll be using this term because the word "determinism" itself is pretty obscure, unless of course you were a college philosophy major and ended up either becoming a professor or working at Barnes & Noble.
Now, let's get to the point. A wise character (I believe it was Neo from The Matrix, although I'm not sure) said "I don't like the idea of fate, because I'd hate to think that I wasn't in control of my own life." When my random train of thought hit this particular station over the weekend, I realized how often the predestination paradox and similar concepts come up in fiction. Remember the classic song "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry? In the first "Back to the Future", while Marty McFly is back in 1955, he joins the band onstage at the prom, performing Berry's classic hit (which didn't come out until 1957). Although everyone who's seen the movie remembers how he finished the song by borrowing from every band from AC/DC to Hendrix to Van Halen, leaving the 50's crowd shocked ("I guess you guys aren't quite ready for it, but your kids will love it!"), something else happened in that scene. In the middle of the rendition, the band's regular guitarist Marvin Berry calls his cousin Chuck so he can hear that "new sound" he's been looking for. This means that, within the fictional "Back to the Future" universe at least, no one actually wrote the song and that it just exists in the time-space continuum, that it just is. Furthermore, those who remember the original Terminator know that the guy who the future John Connor sent back in time to protect his mother before he was born was also the one who impregnated her with John, meaning that the leader of the human resistance, was bound by fate to exist, creating a "chicken or the egg" paradox.
We've all heard the cliches about this, like "If you shoot your grandfather before your dad is concieved, will you fade away?", but these movie scenes have really got me thinking. I'm not a philosopher, and I don't claim to know the meaning of life or understand the concept of God, but what if we really are just pawns in a predetermined series of events? What if we really don't have any control over our lives, and whatever will be will be regardless of how much control we think we have?
Metaphysics is a bitch, isn't it?
See Also
The other day, something got me thinking of predestination/determinism (i.e. the idea that all things in the universe are set in fate) and its use in popular culture. While predestination usually deals with a specific type of determinism in a religious context, (i.e. who will be saved and who won't), I'll be using this term because the word "determinism" itself is pretty obscure, unless of course you were a college philosophy major and ended up either becoming a professor or working at Barnes & Noble.
Now, let's get to the point. A wise character (I believe it was Neo from The Matrix, although I'm not sure) said "I don't like the idea of fate, because I'd hate to think that I wasn't in control of my own life." When my random train of thought hit this particular station over the weekend, I realized how often the predestination paradox and similar concepts come up in fiction. Remember the classic song "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry? In the first "Back to the Future", while Marty McFly is back in 1955, he joins the band onstage at the prom, performing Berry's classic hit (which didn't come out until 1957). Although everyone who's seen the movie remembers how he finished the song by borrowing from every band from AC/DC to Hendrix to Van Halen, leaving the 50's crowd shocked ("I guess you guys aren't quite ready for it, but your kids will love it!"), something else happened in that scene. In the middle of the rendition, the band's regular guitarist Marvin Berry calls his cousin Chuck so he can hear that "new sound" he's been looking for. This means that, within the fictional "Back to the Future" universe at least, no one actually wrote the song and that it just exists in the time-space continuum, that it just is. Furthermore, those who remember the original Terminator know that the guy who the future John Connor sent back in time to protect his mother before he was born was also the one who impregnated her with John, meaning that the leader of the human resistance, was bound by fate to exist, creating a "chicken or the egg" paradox.
We've all heard the cliches about this, like "If you shoot your grandfather before your dad is concieved, will you fade away?", but these movie scenes have really got me thinking. I'm not a philosopher, and I don't claim to know the meaning of life or understand the concept of God, but what if we really are just pawns in a predetermined series of events? What if we really don't have any control over our lives, and whatever will be will be regardless of how much control we think we have?
Metaphysics is a bitch, isn't it?
See Also
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