Times Select Finally Dies « Cheaper than therapy
Uncle Fester nails it — the last gasp of paid content dies tomorrow. Yay. Cost walls are so Jurassic.
“Paid content walls rarely work and when the New York Times began Times Select two years, putting most of its content behind a paid subscription, I cringed. Admitting the experiment did not work, as of Tuesday at midnight, the Times wall crumbles.”
I pulled #19 out of the water on Sunday’s hightide. It was sad. Now my Friday afternoon hooky excuse is on a trailer, awaiting three other stout backs to lift her off and onto some sawhorses. I think I’ll do some woodwork on her this fall before tucking her away for the winter on the dirt floor boat shed (never store a wooden boat over a concrete floor, all the moisture in the wood desiccates and a dry boat will rot).
Yesterday, while sitting in a dark bar in Oak Bluffs with my cousin, getting myself around a pitcher of Sunday afternoon beer, conversation ceased and attention was paid to the television where a football game was in progress. We agreed we are retarded and not fit to be called American males when it comes to sports.
“How about those Bruins? Getting that touchdown in the 9th inning against the Celtics?”
And to think I once was a bartender in a sports bar, where I couldn’t tell a pro athlete from a state legislator. My fellow barkeeps would torture me by making me serve drinks to people like Harmon Killebrew and Marvin Hagler and then ask me in the presence of said notables to identify them, their team, and their accomplishments. My cause was not helped by the news that I could identify John Updike and Andre Dubus when they entered the bar, and got very excited about that fact.
To my credit, I can name most of the pro peloton in cycling and can tell you who won the America’s Cup. I can watch most sports and follow the rules — save cricket — I prefer “drag racing” sports where the winner crosses the finish line first (e.g. swimming, rowing, biathalon) and detest all sports which involve a costume, music, and subjective judging (gymnastics and figure skating). Team sports bore me and I subscribe to the small ball theory (more intelligence, wile, and skill is required as the ball shrinks in size).
I haven’t watched basketball since the Bird-McHale-Ainge-Parrish-Walton dynasty. Hockey since Orr-Esposito-Bucyk-Sanderson-Cheever, and Baseball since Bill Buckner did what shall not be mentioned. Football baffles me and I’d rather be car sick than waste a weekend afternoon watching that chaos.