Since there is so little to look forward to, let’s use today's time by having a look back.
Updating previous items, part one – proofreading rules of thumb
I started the June newsletter with my ‘writing rules of thumb’. Of course, in terms of a TOA post, writing is only half the battle. In the editing and proofreading stage, I try to keep my mind on the following basic ideas:
*Uhhh... do I need this adverb?Updating previous items, part (u)2 – concert review
*Is this pronoun clear?
*A subject must do things!
This could turn into one of those fabled TOA ten thousand word posts if I’m not careful so let’s try a one-sentence review of U2’s concert at the TD Garden:
I’m definitely going back. -TOAUpdating previous items, part three – world cup update
I write this on the morning of June 24, just a couple of hours before Japan takes the field against Senegal with its biggest soccer opportunity since blowing a penalty shootout again Paraguay in the 2010 tournament – with a win, Japan is sure to advance out of the group stage. I put the odds at 25% chance of a fluke win, a 50% chance of a humiliating loss, and a 25% chance I have a heart attack while yelling ‘HONDAAAAA!!!!!’.
With just about two-thirds of the group stage completed, here are two-thirds of my impressions of the action thus far:
1) It’s the right time to expand the tournament.
I was always against this as a matter of principle but after noting the long list of recent World Cup fixtures missing from this tournament – Italy, Netherlands, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, USA – and noting how well almost every team at the tournament is performing thus far, I think a bump to 40 or even 48 teams is feasible without losing any of the quality in the competition.
2) This tournament is wide open.
Of the top favorites, no one has strung together two good performances. Hipster favorites Belgium and Croatia have looked strong while traditional dark horses Uruguay, Switzerland, and Mexico have all looked up for the fight. Brazil, Germany, and Columbia were top teams in 2014 and should not be counted out while France was a finalist at Euro 2016 and could get going. I think any team can win this (except Japan) and it is going to be a sensational knockout round.
Updating previous items (sort of), part four – hubway steals my idea?
The recently renamed Hubway is rolling out a new rewards-style program called ‘Bike Angels’ to encourage riders to balance out full or empty racks. This works via a rewards points system for members who take bikes out of full racks or dock bikes at empty racks.
Coincidentally, this program works exactly like an idea I emailed them about a year ago during their annual member survey.
Updating previous items, part five – workplace behavior
I’ve officially given up on drying my hands after washing them. The realization came soon after I resumed working when I noticed the mountains of paper towels piling up in the bathroom waste bin after my colleagues patted their just-washed hands dry with 37% of the material. The amount of waste was simply staggering and eventually I think it broke my green heart and led to my new behavior. These days, I just walk out of the bathroom with wet hands that dry naturally by the time I get back to my desk.
Are air dryers the option for me? I don’t think so. I never quite got the hang of using the air dryers and I don’t think the twenty seconds I spend standing there thinking about global warming while rubbing my hands under the jet of warm air is worth having my hands dry thirty seconds faster than if I simply let them dry naturally.
Updating previous items, part six – TOA book of the year
Ummm… I’ve been too busy watching the World Cup to look at this… maybe next time?
I see… so anything new this month?
Not really – see ‘part six’ above. I haven’t got much done around these parts in June.
Well, can you at least finish the third World Cup impression from earlier?
Sure, boss…
3) I think the winning team will have two characteristics.
First, whoever wins must have a goal scorer capable of reliably capitalizing on those lucky breaks that come a team’s way once or twice during a game. Second, the winning team should have a dominant goalie or defender who can clear the danger in such moments (in other words, a player who can counteract the effect of the first type of player). In such a tight tournament, the margins between winning and losing are so narrow that having players who can reliably capitalize on luck might make the difference.
The top nations generally have these players with perhaps France and Brazil best fitting the bill. Breaking news: this is why they always win. Among the dark horses, I think Croatia is the best example. Some of the other countries have one or the other which means they might win a game or two but are unlikely to win in four straight knockout rounds without falling victim to some fluke incident that everyone talks about for the next fifty years.
OK, so obviously this newsletter is light because of the World Cup… I’d thought you would have blamed U2, at least…
Hey, four Irish dudes, they are probably into the tournament more than I am.
I was going to ask if you left the apartment, but obviously, with the exception of U2, probably not…
It’s been a slow month.
No links this month, then?
Well, to bring it all together, I suppose, here’s the video ABC put together after the 2006 tournament. It’s basically a lazy highlight reel set to ‘One’ which is probably U2’s best song.
At the time, I didn’t realize ABC had cut the song down by 20%. And when I rewatched it just now, I realized the 2006 tournament wasn’t very good – the quality of the games has really improved in just twelve years. Somehow, though, after that summer I got into both U2 and soccer, so maybe this mediocre video had something to do with it.
The strange thing is that if I were thirty when that 2006 tournament rolled around, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into soccer or U2.
Anything else?
Let’s wrap up by… finally… looking ahead a bit.
As longtime readers know, I’ve tinkered with the TOA format to an unfathomable degree over the past two and a half years. In those experiments, I’ve learned a few things that I think should form the foundation of how I organize the schedule:
a) Readers prefer short, daily posts to infrequent long postsTranslating these into basic rules of thumb for the blog schedule:
b) Readers like long posts more than short posts
c) Readers think Sundays are a good day for longer posts
d) Readers have a weekly word limit before they'll give up on TOA
a) Go back to daily postsBringing all of this together, I anticipate two small changes coming to TOA over the next couple of months. First, short posts (anything under five hundred words) will come after any long post and the length of the long post will determine the number of consecutive days I’ll have with a short post. For now, I think every five hundred words or so would mean one day of short posts (if I write a two thousand word post, the next four posts would all be under five hundred words).
b) Continue to write long posts
c) Make decisions about Sundays based on word count
d) Keep an eye on the weekly word count
The second change will be the end of Sundays as an exclusive ‘reading review’ day. I guess today is the first example of this change. The reason for this adjustment is simple – Sundays are a good day for longer posts but not all the reading reviews are very long. Although I will continue to favor posting reading reviews on Sundays, I’ll probably opt for something else if I have a long post ready to go.
There is also a big change coming - I think we'll get back to daily posts. Not yet, but soon. More to come on that one, I'm sure.
Thanks for reading in the first half of 2018.
See you in July.
Tim
In the next month of... True On Average...
1. We learn how I put people to sleep.
2. Twenty percent inflation at Subway!
3. Some remarks on a ten year anniversary... maybe?
