Category: Fourre-tout

A few days ago, I happened to be in the vicinity of the Albert Park Bocce Ball courts in San Rafael and out of curiosity I dropped in to see what was going on.
Let me say right away that the place is inviting, well groomed and family-friendly.

I have always been under the impression that bocce was a form of exercise catering to the geriatric set, but to my surprise I discovered that most of the people in attendance were youngsters under the age of forty.

By comparison, most of our members look like yesteryear models with quite a few miles on the odometer… but let me haste to add that old jalopies are sometimes more reliable than more recent models.

Bocce and pétanque have many similarities, but they also differ in many ways. At first sight it seems that bocce is a more civil game than pétanque, but it also looks that pétanque is more challenging.

To start with, bocce requires carefully groomed lanes whereas pétanque doesn’t. The game can be played just about anywhere (pétanque sauvage) and for purists, the more challenging the environment the better it is.

It also seems that in bocce, you don’t need a great variety of shots to bring your ball close to the jack (boccino or pallino).
In pétanque, you have to pay close attention to the ground and gauge your shots to fit the existing topography. If you see some gravels or debris in the ball’s path, you might have to use a lob shot or a “curved shot” to avoid them. I have never seen such tricks in bocce.
If the field shows some incline you might also need to apply some backspin to your ball to slow it down.

Then in bocce I have never witnessed “au fer” shots. I didn’t even think that it was done. In petanque, such shots are common.
I had to go to the Internet to check that such  shots existed in in bocce. And they do.

But to sum it up, the people –and it is very important- that I saw on the bocce courts looked much more buffed than the people on our own courts.
Damn!

One of our 78-year-old member is known for saying “I don’t like to play with old people”… and that’s why maybe he doesn’t play with too many people.
I think that in casual games most people would rather team up with younger players rather than old geezers, but tournaments are a different story.
If you are competitive, experience definitely trumps looks.

The question is, would you rather play with a pretty young thing and lose, or team up with with an arthritic old geezer and triumph?
It is up to you to decide.

Alain

PS: To see a full scale shot of a photograph, click on it.

Thanks to Jacques Gautier for showing me the following video. To get the full effect, watch it in “full screen” mode.

In the old days shopping was simple and painless.
When you needed something, you walked to a nearby store and picked what you wanted. Shopping was not yet a hobby and was never mentioned in polite society.

Buying an item was easy since there was only a single brand of pickles or vacuum cleaner and no Chinese knock-offs.
As Henry Ford said: “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” It was simple indeed.

Today, shopping is a tad more complicated.
Thanks to globalization, the consumer now faces an embarrassment of riches and it becomes increasingly difficult to pick the right article.

To get the best deal and hopefully the best product, the wise consumer ought to start by scouting the Internet.
Far from the sound and furor of a shopping mall, he can leisurely compare and evaluate products. But before committing himself, the astute buyer should also read reviews written by professionals and previous buyers alike.
And it is not that simple either.

Just like politicians, professional reviewers don’t seem to be able to agree on any single product.
I have never seen two camera reviewers or two vacuum cleaner reviewers agreeing on a single item.
What’s great for some stink for others and vice versa. Previous buyers are not any better either. Some rave about a product, while some others denounce it.
What is a guy to do? (I am saying “guy” because “guyettes” don’t seem to have this kind of problem).

When zeroing on a product I first start looking for an item that generated a lot of reviews and comments. Then the number of positive reviews has got to be vastly superior to the number of negative reviews. If positive and negative comments are equal, it is wiser to ditch that product altogether.

I am often more interested by the negative comments than the positive ones. Why does a customer bad-mouth a product? Is it too flimsy, too heavy, unpractical, not politically correct?
I want to know…

When it comes to shopping, it is difficult to trust anybody, even close friends. When somebody you know recommends a product, you should ask this person if he/she had carnal knowledge of the vendor. If the answer is positive, this person is obviously biased and cannot be trusted.

To sum it up, shopping has become a gigantic pain in the wazoo and I wouldn’t inflict on my worse enemy.

But it is like a colonoscopy.
Sometimes you have to do it.

Alain