Absence Makes the Heart Something Something

It has been over a year since I have written an article for this blog of mine. One year. We can call it a sabbatical, but I am still not entirely sure what that means. Let’s call it a sabbatical, though.

There are many reasons that I could offer you as to why I have not written in this blog for a year. For one, things have been pretty busy. My regular job has gone from one where I play the Wii and write sexual innuendo for the purpose of selling vitamin supplements to one where I respond to 2,500 emails a week and dream of the days I used to write sexual innuendo. I have also taken on a second job, much like a whore might work for two pimps to pay for all of those Star Wars toys that her bastard children so desperately need. With these and many other things going on, it has been hard to find time to write though it is what I love to do.

It isn’t like anything has happened during this 2010-2011 season anyway. I mean, I went deaf for about a week. I also split my jaw open with the business end of a crowbar. I had what was single-handedly the weirdest day of my life with a certain former star of a zip-code-based television show from the ‘90s. I went to Disneyland. Again. Like a sucker. I had dental surgeries performed under the guidance of Tactics of the Spanish Inquisition for Dummies book. I also was about as sick as I have ever been in my life over the joyous holiday season. Oh, and I also went deaf. Did I say that already?

You would think that all of the various and sundry miseries would be perfect fodder for some good blog articles. But, as the fates would have it, the miseries themselves were what would keep me from writing on the blog. Not that the whole year was completely miserable. There were some good things that happened to me. Something in October, I think. Yeah, there were definitely a few minutes in October that went alright.

But much like the peacock in the backyard that spurned me on to write, like, two other blog posts last spring after taking a comparatively short hiatus, I have also had several other events that have made me specifically think “this is something that would be perfect for Bag Stranded.” Yes, it is always nice to share my misfortunes with others so that you all can laugh and feel better about whatever inferior problems you happen to be going through. But I also like to share my opinion about certain matters, as I am planning on doing in the future. In my mind, there are few people whose opinions I genuinely value. My father, for one. A few wizened friends. My wife, because I have to. I really don’t put much stock in my own opinion. But that won’t stop me from sharing it.
Like Australian rules football. What is up with that? Am I right? I had a hard time sleeping one night so I tried to find something on television that would help me on my journey to a fitful night’s sleep on my microfiber couch. I found just such programming on the delightful ESPN2. They were covering an Australian rules football game with two teams that were the best of the 1,434 teams playing in the league. This rousing match was between the Staewell Swifts Baggies and the Mitiamo Superoos. I know—an incredible match, by crikey!

If you have never had the chance to see a game of Australian rules football, set your DVRs to stun. The game is an interesting mix of American football, rugby, soccer, foosball, jai alai, and Maximus Meridius reenacting the Battle of Carthage in the Roman Coliseum. As much as the Australian people might try to distance themselves from the idea that their country was formed as a penal colony for the worst brand of criminals, their national sport keeps bringing them back to the crazy.

This is an actual legal move in Australian rules football, known as "huck the wallaby".

I watched the match for a solid hour and came to the conclusion that there were absolutely no rules to the game whatsoever. It seemed like one team would try to get the ball to the other side of the absurdly long and oblong field. However, once they got to the other end, they would either kick the ball, throw the ball, touch the ball to the ground, bite the ball open with their teeth, place the ball gently in the awaiting pouch of the end zone kangaroo, or just turn around and start running like mad toward the other goal line. If the ball should make its way out of bounds (represented by one of the countless squiggly, indiscernible lines spread out across the field) the referee is the one to throw the ball back in. But, in the interest of fairness, the referee is forced to turn his back to the field of play and throw the ball behind him, like a bride with her bouquet if the bride was deranged and the bouquet had to be thrown in a 50-foot vertical arc to the bridesmaids, all sloshed from a few cans of Fosters, who would fight for it to the point of biting off earlobes just to get a completely arbitrary amount of points for dropkicking the bouquet at some hidden area of the wedding dance floor.

The facts that things like Australian rules football exist fill me with a boyish fascination for what else the world has to offer. Not only what it has to offer, but what I can experience, summarily fail at, and then make fun of. It has my hope that sharing those experiences, as well as the countless other embarrassing experiences from my past, will keep me continuing to write on this newfangled media known as a blog (or LAWG, I think the B might be silent). I would also like to publish all of these painfully plagiarizable articles into an actual bound book, even if it is spiral bound. That way you can take Bag Stranded with you wherever you go and the internet does not yet exist. Getting published would be a long shot, but sometimes you just have to throw everything up in the air, behind you, in a 50-foot arc, and hope someone grabs onto it.

And hopefully sharing these experiences will also keep you coming back, though you have been so disappointed in me before. So, as my way of thanking you for waiting for me this past year, I would like to share with you my most embarrassing moment. It is important that you understand how big of a deal this is for me, though. When I first started my current job, I took part in the tradition of sharing my most embarrassing moment in the weekly department meeting. As I had done in nearly every instance before or since, I shared some little trite affair that was perhaps only marginally embarrassing. Those embarrassing moments were not an affront to God and man as my actual most embarrassing moment actually is. This is the very definition of embarrassment and it will be my pleasure to share it with you.

In my next blog post. Which should be up on Friday. As long as I am not too busy. Maybe let's just plan for the end of the year. The year 2012, just to be safe.

If this is how the Australians teach their kids sport, what chance have we, America?