The story behind the name:

One evening, at the Old Broadway Grill in Fargo, North Dakota, my brother caught the end of a Mountain Dew commercial. In the commercial, a Mountain Dew drinker was riding a shark in the ocean. My brother exclaimed in surprise, not realizing that it was a commercial. When I told him he declared "All I saw was a guy coming out of the shower with a shark." Of course, he meant water, but the idea of showering with sharks has been with me ever since.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Inconducive for Slamming

Wow, I am tired today. I got up early this morning and headed to St. Cloud for the Ice Box Classic, a college speech meet. When I got there, I judged four rounds in a row, with an hour off for lunch, which I spent sitting by myself and thinking that I need an assistant coach. Not for my small team, but for me. I really need someone to hang out with during my down time on these things!!

The bright side of the hour-long drive to St. Cloud was the fact that I just bought the audiobook Fade Away by Harlen Coben to listen to in the car. First, if you haven't ready any Myron Bolitar novels by Harlen Coben -- go out and do so immediately. They are excellent. Second, the person that reads the book captures the characters so well that it is immensely pleasing to listen to these particular books. I am a big fan of audiobooks and I have come to the conclusion that the person reading the story can really make or break the listening experience.

As far as the speech team goes, I'm not sure if I'm too old school to really appreciate the "new" style of some events. For example, it seems like everyone is doing programs now. What happened to finding a quality piece that met the time limit? It seems like everything now is patched together from smaller pieces that may or may not relate to each other. And don't even get me started on impromptu! I'm so tired of people doing a shoddy job on their quotation interpretation. They bend and twist the true meaning of the quote and then plug in juvenile and pointless examples to support their mangled interpretation. When a speaker does manage to accurately interpret the quote I want to jump up and celebrate!!

When I got home from the tournament today Mark cooked us some delicious fake chicken nuggets and some Zesty Fries. Then we watched the movie War with Jason Statham and Jet Li. It was a good movie -- lots of action and plot twists -- until the very, very end, which was abrupt and sort of dumb.

Oh, before I sign off for the day... Today at the speech meet I heard a speech about how our collective penmenship is degrading. The speaker posited that this degeneration of penmenship was a result of an increase in computer-mediated-communication and a decrease in the emphasis on handwriting in school. I, too, happen to believe that CMC, especially texting, is ruining our ability to communication in writing (which doesn't mean that I don't ALSO send text messages). So what? you may ask. Well, so this... According to the speaker, poor doctor handwriting causes all sorts of deaths every year because people mis-read or can't read prescriptions or instructions. In light of this speech, and because I have often lamented the state of my own handwriting, I have decided to mindfully attempt to improve my handwriting (as soon as I'm done typing this blog).

4 comments:

  1. Ha! What a co-ink-ee-dense! At this very moment, Helen, Tony, and I are watching "War" with Jet Li. How about that. And I corrected the (second) spelling of your name on contentiousintrovert--so there!

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  2. Ha! What a co-ink-ee-dense! At this very moment, Helen, Tony, and I are watching "War" with Jet Li. How about that. And I corrected the (second) spelling of your name on contentiousintrovert--so there!

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  3. I love blogs... I've been thinking about starting one. I do need to tell you that I have beautiful penMANship and the titles of movies should be italicized... I don't remember the story about Jared and showering with sharks... I have a sense of it, but not the details. By now I'm sure you've guessed that this comment is Mom, not Dad...

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  4. I was totally impressed with Barry's comment and was thing wow...I would totally read Barry's blog. But then the thing about titles of movies being italicized gave it away....Jane is so smart :)

    I think you have beautiful handwriting too :) And don't forget that your boring lunch hour included a highly stimulating conversation with your truly :)

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