Words of Truth

The difference between baseball and just about any other sport is that with other sports, almost every game has meaning. Case in point: NFL teams play 16 regular season games. Every game counts, because just one game is worth 6.25% of the season.

But with Major League Baseball? They play 162 games. That’s ten times as much. So if an NFL team has an 0-7 record, it’s pretty much impossible for them to make it to the playoffs, but if a MLB team starts out with an 0-7 record, it is totally possible for them to make it to the postseason.

That’s why tonight’s game is fun to watch: It’s the first baseball game of the year that actually determines something based on the outcome of this one game. I know if the Cubs had won one more game, they would have gotten home field advantage, but that wasn’t one game where you could watch and think “If they win THIS game….”

But tonight’s game? The team that loses is done until spring training, their quest for a trophy is over. The team that wins gets to move on and play the Royals. This is what makes tonight’s game exciting.

But I confess, as a Cubs fan, I am mostly looking forward to the game tomorrow night that means something, the one where (hopefully) the Cubs beat the Pirates to get the opportunity to go up against the MLB team with the best record in baseball:  the St Louis Cardinals.

So there’s been another shooting. Another person with a gun decided to break the law and shoot people that didn’t deserve to be shot.

I want you to use your imaginations for a minute.

Let’s set the stage. Imagine you’re in a large, gymnasium-sized room. There is one door. There are a bunch of people standing around. There is a table on your right that has some guns on it. There is a bunch of chairs on the left with a sign that says that guns aren’t allowed in the chair area.

Suddenly a person walks into the room and starts shooting people. People scream and try to run. He guns them down. All of a sudden, a loudspeaker starts blaring instructions, “Everyone, there is a shooter in the room. Proceed to the gun-free chair area for your safety. Do not pick up a gun. Just remain calm and have a seat in the gun free zone.”

What do you do?

I submit that anyone with a lick of sense would defend their own life, and the lives of those around them against someone so evil as to take lives without cause or legal right. Those who would sit in the chairs, placing their trust in the “no guns” sign are fools. The shooter BY DEFINITION is not following the law, and therefore hiding behind a law is not only foolish, it’s deadly.

The answer to people who break the law is not “more law.” The answer is “more guns.” Deterrence. If every teacher and student in a college had a pistol and had been taught how to use it (perhaps a required class in freshman orientation), anybody (including one of the teachers or students I just mentioned) who tries to shoot a bunch of people will only succeed in shooting the first couple before being shot in return.

How long will we let this madness continue?

This is ridiculous sensationalism of the worst sort. It’s practically lying on the part of WTHR (the Indianapolis NBC affiliate).

The title reads “Northern Indiana Pizza Shop Unknowingly Caters Gay Wedding, Despite Christian Beliefs.”

Someone at WTHR has a funny idea of what exactly constitutes “catering.” I worked as a caterer in college. There is a process in catering where the customer asks the restaurant to deliver the food, set it up, serve it, and take everything back down, cleaning up afterward. That’s catering.

What happened here was that someone from the wedding decided they wanted to go get a couple pizzas, walked in to Memories Pizza, ordered a few pizzas, paid for them, and walked out. That’s not catering by any stretch.

WTHR, after you get done looking up the definition of “catering”, perhaps you could look up “yellow journalism.”

I took my son in to get his new phone last month. He got the Galaxy S6. I was so impressed by it that I started investigating the differences between the iPhone and the Samsung phones. From what I can gather, the Samsung S6 is a better phone than the iPhone 6 (and quite possibly, the 6s which comes out later this month). Verizon just changed their plan structure, so I asked them, “When can I get a new phone?” They said, “you can get one now if you switch to our new plan.”

That sounded good, so I waited until we had enough money for me to cover the taxes on the new phone (they divide the cost of the phone over 24 months interest free while they cut your monthly plan payment in half from $40 to $20). While I was waiting, I did some research and finally settled on getting the Galaxy Note 5. I really like the multitasking abilities of the android system that I’ve seen my son use. The ability to have my note taking app open at the same time as my Bible really appeals to me.

I went into Verizon this morning to get my first ever purchased android phone. After waiting about ten minutes, a lady came over and got my phone number and checked my ID. When I told her what I wanted to do, she said, “Well, it says here your current contract doesn’t run out until November.” I said, “I know, but they said I could come in and get a new phone on the payment plan with no contract.” She said, “Well, that’s true, but if you do that, you have to trade in your iPhone, and we’ll give you nothing for it.”

Just so the reader understands, this is a 32gb iPhone 5s, which is going for between $300-$400 right now on eBay.

My options are:

1. Go back to Verizon, hand them my $350 phone, and get my new phone.
2. Wait two months, go back to Verizon, get my new phone, and make $300 (ish) dollars on my old phone.

So while it was true that I could have walked out of there with a new phone today, I still feel lied to, because the implication was that I was free of the old contract because of the new plan. I will now wait until November (only two more months) and then get my new phone.

Who knows, maybe the iPhone 6s will come out and have better specs and have true multitasking. I doubt it, but Verizon may have just done me a favor. We’ll see.