Tiger, Obesity, Tv Trends

          What a nice Tiger weekend. He proved at The Players’ Championship that he can compete in, probably even win, a PGA tournament. His last two rounds—a 65 and a 69—were signs of the old Tiger, and indicators of a new Tiger, one who could win not just any old event but one of the majors, like this year’s Open where he could hit those vaunted stingers he made famous in his last Open victory. I and a bunch of other lovers of golf hope so. He is undeniably a shot of adrenaline in the arm of golf. He will next play in Jack’s Memorial Tournament in three weeks, an event he’s won five times. Maybe he’ll make it his sixth.

          Food and Fatties Revisited. I’ve written several times about the obesity epidemic in our country—too many grossly overweight people dining too often on high-caloric foods, junk foods, our worship of consumption that we see in all the eating contests—hamburgers, hotdogs, pancakes, pies, steaks, chicken wings, pizza, etc. That leads me to a question about fat-food hamburgers. Why have so many fast-fooders gone to bigger and bigger burgers stacked higher and higher in a bun? How can anyone even this his mouth open enough to consume it? Here’s a picture of several prize-winning burgers shown in the Arizona Republic.

Doesn’t that look awful? Just the sight of it makes me want to vomit. The usual stacker these days is made up of two beef quarter-pounds, several slices of cheese, two or three onion rings, two or three slices of bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a slice or two of jalapeno pepper. How can anyone eat that much? Why would anyone even want to eat that much? So, we publicly acclaim huge burgers and eating contests while too many in the world are starving.

          Television Trends—shorter and shorter series seasons, longer and longer waits between seasons. I just read that The Orville won’t start Season 2 until December 30. That’s nearly a year since Season 1 ended. I may have forgotten what I was watching after that long. The Americans is another one that took so much time off between seasons that I wasn’t able to keep the various plot lines straight. I’m glad they’re ending it after this season. I can’t see any way to end it except with Elizabeth and Phillip getting killed in a shootout with the FBI, probably headed by their across-the-street neighbor Stan Beeman, with daughter Paige’s move to Russia with their Russian handler Claudia, and with son Henry’s being comforted by Stan. How else can Elizabeth, in light of her killing so many people, end up anything but dead? Another sad bit, the sudden end of The Last Man on Earth, Will Forte’s really strange series with which I fell in love. The very last episode . . . ever . . . has the group surrounded by hundreds of gas-masked people. What should have been a cliff-hanger leading into the next season becomes a cliff without any hanging on.

Countdown: Although my stamina remains pretty much the same, way down there, I now have to realize that most of the things I used to do are no longer available to me: like going on any vacations, no Vegas to see Penn and Teller, no Disney Land to see Snow White, no trip to the zoo, no trips to CostCo or the Arrowhead Mall, no movies at Harkins, no swimming. In other words, I’m now resigned to a life within the confines of our house. The days now become a set routine of coffee, toast, the Arizona Republic, a blog every three or four days, televised sports, letters to friends and relatives every two or three weeks, saved tv shows, watching the antics of Charlie and Tiger, and then to bed. Pretty much the same every day. That’s a description of how restrictive my world has become.