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So, as mentioned, last week followed the costumed and robot chaos of Megacon with ICFA (an academic/writer's conference focused on fantasy/science fiction), the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill (golf), and the almost complete collapse of my ability to use Twitter on any of my remote devices (almost entirely the fault of Apple, but we'll get there.) Also, a Tor.com post about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and some tornadoes!
Which is all just a touch too much for one post, so, first, lessons learned from Arnold Palmer:
1. Tiger Woods may or may not be back. But his crowds? Definitely back. I quote from my Twitter
"A whole mass of people are trailing behind Woods, like a large pack of brightly colored cockroaches."
2. Being right on the edge of the hole when Woods' crowds arrive, and by "right on the edge" I mean "right behind a rope, which is not technically an edge, but edge sounds better here, and I'm losing this sentence, I see, so let me get back to it," is a moderately terrifying experience, and by moderately terrifying, I mean that even with brakes on it will feel as if the masses of people behind you will push you right into Tiger Woods.
3. Your fears that people will push you into Tiger Woods will be easily overcome by fears that a Reuters photographer is about to fall on you.
4. This will in turn lead to something distinctly different about the 2013 tournament – actual, loud, noise on the 7th hole (and to a lesser degree on hole 10 and holes 1 and 9.) Noise distracting enough to cause caddies to frown and call for noise reduction which will end up being completely ignored.
We honestly wondered what might end up happening with that – the noise came from a corporate group who had rented a large air conditioned tent with a balcony and bleachers and also apparently provided a lot of wine. (I am guessing on the wine, but almost everybody on their balcony had a crystal glass in hand and the noise level suggested a certain relaxation level.) On the one hand, golf is meant to be quiet for a reason – a missed stroke can cost someone thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, this was obviously a corporate sponsor. Hmm. I've no doubt something was said, especially since this was hole 7, but whether anything was done is another question.
5. The habit of pretending that you are really at the coffee shop to work, work, work and certainly not to people watch or socialize or anything has indeed spread to the porches, patios and balconies of people with large, elegant homes right on the golf course ostentatiously "working," while constantly raising their glasses.
6. Thanks to modern technology, even the fierce rules of the PGA Tour (NO CAMERAS NO CAMERAS NO CAMERAS ABSOLUTELY NO IPADS UNLESS YOU ARE AN ACCREDITED MEMBER OF THE PRESS AND EVEN THEN WE ARE NOT HAPPY AND YOU MAY NOT, and by not, we mean, ON PAIN OF EXECUTION AND LOSING ALL ACCESS TO THE INTERNET FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER, TWEET RESULTS WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?) cannot prevent people from ALSO following March Madness even as they happily trail behind Tiger.
7. You will go ahead and tweet what's happening anyway, just without golf scores, Just To Be Contrary. (I did feel like pointing out that a grand total of one person on my twitter feed might be interested in golf scores and that one person would be considerably more likely to check, say, CBS, and not me, but I felt this might end up causing more of an argument than was warranted.)
8. Golf is a lot more fun when you have a lot of wind, and by a lot more fun, I mean balls go into trees and into paths and bounce round and round and round.
9. You will not be at all surprised to find that the able bodied man attempting to burst into the disabled porta-potty is the exact same man who was earlier cheerfully smoking a huge cigar right next to people who were pointedly coughing to make him go away.
10. A gator who has climbed up to the sixth hole because, you know, all the water is just too much, will be almost completely ignored by the various very focused golfers, proving once again that Florida residents are hardly the only ones to feel blasé about gators.
11. Rules or no rules, you will end up taking a picture of the gator anyway because, gator on golf course.
12. Because this is your cheap cellphone no one will believe that you took a picture of a gator, because instead of a gator, what they will see is something blurry that might, or might not, be grass, and behind that, something blurry that might, or might not, be water, or possibly a nuclear waste site. This will all be terribly unfair to the immaculately kept Bay Hill golf course.
13. Despite having found in previous years much better food around the golf course than the kinda tragic hamburgers and hot dogs offered at about a third of the holes, you will once again completely forget this and find yourself eating a not very good hot dog. On the bright side this will be on hole 17 where balls often go hop hop hop into the water which is an excellent distraction from problematic food.
14. Despite careful, careful application of sunscreen everywhere and chilly temperatures which cause you to keep most of yourself fully covered, you will still miss a tiny patch of skin just above your foot which will then burn and burn and burn causing all kinds of angst at ICFA, like, WHAT SOCKS CAN I WEAR WITH THIS, and PLEASE TELL ME HORROR WRITERS ARE NOT STARING AT MY FEET GETTING IDEAS. But that's another post.
Which is all just a touch too much for one post, so, first, lessons learned from Arnold Palmer:
1. Tiger Woods may or may not be back. But his crowds? Definitely back. I quote from my Twitter
"A whole mass of people are trailing behind Woods, like a large pack of brightly colored cockroaches."
2. Being right on the edge of the hole when Woods' crowds arrive, and by "right on the edge" I mean "right behind a rope, which is not technically an edge, but edge sounds better here, and I'm losing this sentence, I see, so let me get back to it," is a moderately terrifying experience, and by moderately terrifying, I mean that even with brakes on it will feel as if the masses of people behind you will push you right into Tiger Woods.
3. Your fears that people will push you into Tiger Woods will be easily overcome by fears that a Reuters photographer is about to fall on you.
4. This will in turn lead to something distinctly different about the 2013 tournament – actual, loud, noise on the 7th hole (and to a lesser degree on hole 10 and holes 1 and 9.) Noise distracting enough to cause caddies to frown and call for noise reduction which will end up being completely ignored.
We honestly wondered what might end up happening with that – the noise came from a corporate group who had rented a large air conditioned tent with a balcony and bleachers and also apparently provided a lot of wine. (I am guessing on the wine, but almost everybody on their balcony had a crystal glass in hand and the noise level suggested a certain relaxation level.) On the one hand, golf is meant to be quiet for a reason – a missed stroke can cost someone thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, this was obviously a corporate sponsor. Hmm. I've no doubt something was said, especially since this was hole 7, but whether anything was done is another question.
5. The habit of pretending that you are really at the coffee shop to work, work, work and certainly not to people watch or socialize or anything has indeed spread to the porches, patios and balconies of people with large, elegant homes right on the golf course ostentatiously "working," while constantly raising their glasses.
6. Thanks to modern technology, even the fierce rules of the PGA Tour (NO CAMERAS NO CAMERAS NO CAMERAS ABSOLUTELY NO IPADS UNLESS YOU ARE AN ACCREDITED MEMBER OF THE PRESS AND EVEN THEN WE ARE NOT HAPPY AND YOU MAY NOT, and by not, we mean, ON PAIN OF EXECUTION AND LOSING ALL ACCESS TO THE INTERNET FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER, TWEET RESULTS WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?) cannot prevent people from ALSO following March Madness even as they happily trail behind Tiger.
7. You will go ahead and tweet what's happening anyway, just without golf scores, Just To Be Contrary. (I did feel like pointing out that a grand total of one person on my twitter feed might be interested in golf scores and that one person would be considerably more likely to check, say, CBS, and not me, but I felt this might end up causing more of an argument than was warranted.)
8. Golf is a lot more fun when you have a lot of wind, and by a lot more fun, I mean balls go into trees and into paths and bounce round and round and round.
9. You will not be at all surprised to find that the able bodied man attempting to burst into the disabled porta-potty is the exact same man who was earlier cheerfully smoking a huge cigar right next to people who were pointedly coughing to make him go away.
10. A gator who has climbed up to the sixth hole because, you know, all the water is just too much, will be almost completely ignored by the various very focused golfers, proving once again that Florida residents are hardly the only ones to feel blasé about gators.
11. Rules or no rules, you will end up taking a picture of the gator anyway because, gator on golf course.
12. Because this is your cheap cellphone no one will believe that you took a picture of a gator, because instead of a gator, what they will see is something blurry that might, or might not, be grass, and behind that, something blurry that might, or might not, be water, or possibly a nuclear waste site. This will all be terribly unfair to the immaculately kept Bay Hill golf course.
13. Despite having found in previous years much better food around the golf course than the kinda tragic hamburgers and hot dogs offered at about a third of the holes, you will once again completely forget this and find yourself eating a not very good hot dog. On the bright side this will be on hole 17 where balls often go hop hop hop into the water which is an excellent distraction from problematic food.
14. Despite careful, careful application of sunscreen everywhere and chilly temperatures which cause you to keep most of yourself fully covered, you will still miss a tiny patch of skin just above your foot which will then burn and burn and burn causing all kinds of angst at ICFA, like, WHAT SOCKS CAN I WEAR WITH THIS, and PLEASE TELL ME HORROR WRITERS ARE NOT STARING AT MY FEET GETTING IDEAS. But that's another post.
