Dear dimwit on the phone

My mom went to middle school with a kid who was recruited to come play baseball for a particular public high school because it had a better track record of getting kids drafted. (This was 75-77 all of you from that era have likely heard of him, although he only made one all-star game and wasn't an A-list player)

 

Caller wanted to know if school in his district would be open the next day. Many schools were waiting until morning to see how much winter weather we had.

I suggested he check the TV in the morning. "We don't have a TV," he said.

That was a new one for me. I found the non-emergency police department number in that town and suggest he call that after he got up.

 

Why not just check the website? Oh, I guess he doesn't have a computer, either.

OK, give him the school number or (like one of former colleagues) the principal's private cell phone number. That should satisfy him.

 

I left out the actual dimwitty part.

Me: "That district will decide in the morning."
Him: "Will it be in the morning paper?"
Me: "Um, no."

 

I get the joke and irony. But it also underscores a significant issue that is killing the industry: the inability to give people the latest news in an up-to-the-second society.

These Olympics are just the latest scenario. US men's hockey game ended at 9:30 am ET this morning. Will it still qualify as news at 7 am tomorrow?

 

That's one place where, it seems to me, AP Sochi coverage is a bit lacking - not enough lookahead stuff. Summer Games coverage usually seems to include more of an element of that.

 

Well, a decent paper's website would have that info online in the morning, but as noted, if the guy doesn't have a TV, he may not have a laptop.

 

No, he'd said right up front that he wasn't online.

 

I put in on my front for Friday's paper ... I know it was pretty darn stale, but I figured people would still want to read about that more than the slopstyle sweep.

And yes, AP is lacking. I was really hoping for some kind of US vs. Russia preview, rehashing 1980 like it was going out of style, but I'm sure that's coming on Friday.

 

To the dimwit who scheduled a cross town rivalry game tonight,

You go to hell. You go to hell and you die!

That is all.

Love,
Spartan's wife.

 

Can we get some context to this please?

 

The two local high schools played a boys basketball game that always turns into a big deal. If it wasn't for the fact it was the rivalry game, I would have skipped any game that was going on tonight for valentines with the mrs.