Bill Simmons poll

External Since: Feb 20, 2005 Posts: 92

It's Sunday, I'm bored, and I'm procrastinating cleaning up the
atrociousness of an apartment that has fallen into disrepair from the week
that my wife has been away on business. So, rather than clean, I read
through several of Bill Simmons' gargantuan articles on page2. Now, I find
Simmons stuff ranges from "mildly amusing" to "pretty hilarious", but I
generally always enjoy reading his stuff. But I also know a lot of people
have a serious hate-on for him. I'm curious what everyone else thinks. Keep
in mind - I don't read Simmons for insightful sports "journalism", I read
him for the amusing 90210 and Karate Kid references.

Thoughts?

--
"I wouldn't be surprised if Madonna made that African boy into a coat and
wore him.for 15 minutes, and then threw it away." - Morrissey

External Since: Jul 16, 2007 Posts: 25

On Jul 16, 12:09 pm, Fistpout Trebuchet wrote:
> In alt.sports.basketball.nba.tor-raptors on Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:36:21 -0400
>
> Kenzaburo wrote:
> >It's Sunday, I'm bored, and I'm procrastinating cleaning up the
> >atrociousness of an apartment that has fallen into disrepair from the week
> >that my wife has been away on business. So, rather than clean, I read
> >through several of Bill Simmons' gargantuan articles on page2. Now, I find
> >Simmons stuff ranges from "mildly amusing" to "pretty hilarious", but I
> >generally always enjoy reading his stuff. But I also know a lot of people
> >have a serious hate-on for him. I'm curious what everyone else thinks. Keep
> >in mind - I don't read Simmons for insightful sports "journalism", I read
> >him for the amusing 90210 and Karate Kid references.
>
> >Thoughts?
>
> Yeah. I don't understand punditry. I mean, Simmons may be a funny guy, a
> good writer, and a perceptive observer -- but I can't seem to summon the
> energy to read any of these guys on a regular basis. If I need opinions,
> I'll head to usenet.
>

--- It's energy best expended when you have none left for more
"challenging" material. I probably pop into "Page 2" about once a
month for a giggle.

> There is a larger point in the previous paragraph. Why do people care about
> other people's opinions? I mean, I care about yours, because, after all,
> we're here talking to each other. But reading Simmons is like a one-sided
> conversation, and I'm on the listening side. What fun is that? I have
> opinions too! Listen to me!

--- You bring up a good point that speaks also to the notion of
"blogs" in general (which is really all that Simmons' stuff is.) -
But, could you not expand that to include editorial writing of any
kind (Blogs 1.0)? A few years ago, I found myself drawn to certain
editorial writers (for un-named newspapers) whose opinions closely
matched with mine. I loved it! "See, look, I *am* right about all that
stuff!!! I AM SO SMRT!!!" After a while, the pointlessness of solely
reading those who think *just like you do* occurred to me (not that I
would say that that was exclusively what was garnered from those
readings), and I now seek out any and all opinions, purposely looking
for perspectives different from mine so that I can either challenge or
alternately learn from them.

Back to your point: I would say that if you find sources that you can
trust (reasonably) on topics meaningful to you, learning is what is
gained from OPO.

And there's always the letters to the editor...