Thanks to Mal of Team Gherkin for reminding us, amid all the crazy commercialization and other pressures at this time of the year, that today December 23rd is the feast of Festivus. Happy Festivus to you Mal. Have a good one.
One of the most charming of the Festivus traditions is the Airing of Grievances which normally takes place immediately after the Festivus dinner has been served. It consists of lashing out at others and the world about how one has been disappointed in the past year.
So in the spirit of the season I would like to invite you to air your sailing-related and sailing-blogging-related grievances in the comments to this post. Maybe you're still fuming about that guy who ruined your finish by T-boning you in a blatant port-starboard foul just before the finish line in the most important regatta of the year. Or perhaps you really want to vent about that race committee who were so slow in setting up the course that they missed the best wind of the day. Or maybe there's some sailing blogger who drives you to distraction with his pathetic attempts at humor and his sappy posts about his granddaughter. Whoever it is, now is your opportunity to express your disappointment with them in a seasonally appropriate way.
Let me start the ball rolling by airing two of my grievances...
You people who maintain websites that look like sailing blogs but that don't allow comments are annoying the hell out of me. Sure, you write well-informed articles about sailing and often have strong opinions on various topical sailing issues. But that just makes it worse. Your posts are sometimes so stimulating that I have a strong urge to write a comment agreeing or disagreeing with your point of view. Then I find there is nowhere to leave a comment. Who do you think you are? Are you so egocentric that you don't care what your readers think? Don't you get it that blogging is all about participation and interaction? I could name names, but you know who you are. And so do most of my readers. You have disappointed us big-time.
Anonymous. Yes you. And you. You people that leave comments on my blog and refuse to sign them are intensely irritating. If you want to preserve your online anonymity, I understand. But you don't have to use your real name. On a Blogger blog like this there are lots of ways you can tell me who you are. You don't have to have a Google account. If you have an AOL/AIM, Live Journal, TypeKey, WordPress or any OpenID identity you can use it to post your comment. Or you can just click on the Nickname radio button and make up a nickname, with or without an associated URL. It's easy. Just pick a nickname and use it when you leave comments here. That way I and other readers will get to know you by your comments and we can respond and interact with you as a individual. Anonymous comments are like graffiti on my garden fence. Please sign your graffiti and stop disappointing me and others.
Aaaah. That feels better. I just love this time of year.
So now it's your turn. Get in the spirit of the season by airing your sailing grievances in the comments. After that, please feel free to celebrate the season by singing Oh Festivus and wrestling the head of your household to the ground.
Happy Festivus everyone!
23 comments:
Tillerman, Proper Course is my grievance. It's been three years now of excellent reporting on laser sailing and marathoning. By all reasonable measures, there is only one place this blog can go. Laser Marathoning, 26 mile Laser races. Get with it man, it's the natural extension of your training.
Hmmm. 26 mile eh? How would I do that? The circuit of Jamestown Island might not be quite that far. Cape Cod to Nantucket must be about that. Or a wild ride from Third Beach Newport up the length of Buzzards Bay to Woods Hole?
Only question is, do I need a Mommy Boat to come with me? Or are there any other Laser sailors out there fancy joining a small group for one of the above next summer?
My DD is 9 this January. We both now have Lasers. I still need to a 470 rig for hers, and a red diamond for mine. I'm thinking I want to get a Laser fleet going on our lake near Lincoln, NE. Wish me luck, cause I''m going to need it.
My grievance is all those rotten retired types who wake up in the morning, look at the forecast, say "What a great day for sailing" (or hiking, or paddling, or extreme crocheting), and then actually GO sailing, or hiking, or whatever.
Related grievance is of course against the entire American way of doing business in which it just doesn't matter if the 2 nicest days of a week happen to be, say, a Tuesday & Wednesday, and Saturday & Sunday it's supposed to be raining cats and dogs and ferrets and mice and maybe a penguin or two & it just doesn't matter.
Clearly the people who set this system up weren't boaters.
There. Now I guess I have to go wrestle myself to the ground.
Well, for a start, there's one marathon-length race already that maybe you could latch onto -- Southhold's "Around Shelter Island Race."
If they still have the two classes, it's Sunfish and Catamarans, (Cats start much later) -- so Lasers would be a cinch. I'd ask Joe.
They have a support boat that follows around at the end, and the start/finish and committee would be already set up.
Sometimes they have wind all the way around.
I love this. One of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld
Grievance #1: So called bloggers who grovellingly ask for a link to their blog but don't have the common curtesy to return the favor and then try to squeak out a few bucks with Google ads on their pathetic drivel
Grievance #2: People who use comments on blogs to advertise their own blogs or sites. "Ooh great post Man! For posts like this check out my site http://totallycrap.blogspot.com
Gaaaah!
Right! Now I am going to decorate the steel pole.
Good one Adam. BTW did you know there really is a http://totallycrap.blogspot.com/?
While buying new deep cycle batteries for the boat today, I mentioned Festivus to the West Marine clerk. He quickly aired a grievance to his boss; then, as I was picking up the batteries to leave he said, "and now for your feat of strength". This festivus thing is taking off.
hm. does rolling a kayak in 41 degree water count as a feat of strength?
Or is that just a feat of kay-whacker stupidity?
:D
Thanks for the laugh, everyone. I needed a good belly-ache today! Many cheers!
My gripe... one more-senior member of our small friendly little sailing club practically guilted a small number of us non-stop, week-after-week, for about 18 months, to get out and sail Lasers.
Then he turns around, sells his Laser, and gets a kayak! What the...?!?
He's a lovely guy, just sometimes rather... erm... domineering? heh heh
Now... for my feat of strength... I will wrestle with and sink my Laser - using only the results of too much chocolate weighing my body down! "This is *NOT* a submarine, you fools!" hahahaa.
Thanks again, master Tillerman.
Cyalayta
Mal :)
anne - good look with the Laser fleet in Lincoln.
bill b- hmmmm - round Shelter Island Race - another reason to get back into Sunfish for me. I never did that race all the years I owned a Sunfish, but I'm tempted...
bonnie - you win the feat of strength competition. No wonder some people think kay-whackers are nuts. (Not me.)
Thanks to everyone for not being Anonymous.
Re: http://totallycrap.blogpasot.com
There would have to be
Grievance #1: Bloggers that write opinionated posts and then have no place for comments.
Grievance #2: Bloggers that post images hosted on Photobucket, which my network administrator apparently thinks is a pornography site.
Grievance #1: Sailing bloggers who have no idea how well they have it compared to windsurfing bloggers. Windsurfering blogs are all stuck in the '90's...half don't link to anybody but themselves, and re advertisting some simply ask that you give them your credit card to send them money. Why do you think I'm hanging out with all you sailboat geezers/geezettes?
Grievance #2: Posts about goldfish.
Grievance #3: Not enough posts about racing and rigging and rudders and rhode island and vang tension.
And by the way and as this is the most active place in the 'hood.
Merry Christmas TMan and Merry Christams All!
cheers
Adam
Bonnie, that's definitely a feat of strength!
My sole grievance for '07 is that I didn't achieve my goal of heaving-to in order to kiss a boy.
I guess there's always '08.
Merry Christmas and Happy Festivus!
Grievances? No, not really. There is always stuff that iritates but on balance I think I am greatly blessed. So I am going to buck the trend and just thank all those folk who have made life worth living this year, on the water and off. Too many great moments to count but if I have to pick one it was winning a race in the West Norfolk regatta at Wells-on-the-sea. That felt great.
Well, there's this marvelous loving person who, however, doesn't let me get away with whining about not getting enough time on the water....
There was a spinnaker that ripped last summer when it had absolutely no business doing so.
There was the wind that failed to show up until 20 minutes after, having waited almost two hours, I signaled abandonment on the last day of a regatta. (It did wimp out an hour later, but if we'd known what it was going to do we could have snuck a race in.)
There was the mark boat that showed up without a VHF....
And the race on a shifty mountain lake in which every leg was upwind for us and downwind for the boats behind us.
But then, Carol Anne tells me to count my blessings. If I didn't break 12% sailing days for the year, that gives me a nice goal to exceed for 2008. The spinnaker ripped during practice, not during a race, fortunately. The race management adventures were still part of some fun regattas. No one got hurt seriously or went overboard in our group.
Grievance #1
Relatives who come to your house, ask to see the new boat you got for christmas then examine it and act as if they know what they are talking about.
Grievance#2
people who complain in comments to blogs.......
My grievance is people who get a new boat for Xmas and still find something to complain about.
well it was second hand, and i bought it with my own money, im complaining about relatives not the boat, i love the boat....aptly named khaos
Hey, Michael - can't help you with the whole list but did you see Tugster had a whole POST about rudders?
I already made the hideously obvious pun over there so will restrain myself here.
Total absence of goldfish over there, too.
you can air your grievances at this site top peeve TopPeeve.com it lets your gripe and complain about your 'pet peeves'
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