You know, with the dearth of choices available for President over the last few elections I think we are all looking for that dark horse third party candidate to step forward. Someone like Ross Perot, only not as insane or someone like Ralph Nader, except with perhaps more of a chance of winning. As much as I liked him, I thought Nader made Mondale and Dukakis look like they were world beaters! Face it, I didn’t even run and I tied him in the electoral college.

So what’s someone who’s fed up with the whole two party system to do in 2008? Why, you can give your vote - and your allegiance - to General Zod! The campaign site http://www.zod2008.com will provide you with all the information you need, including a Q&A and a Kids page.

Of course, if the idea of an extra-terrestrial as Supreme Overlord….er, President is a bit over the top for you then take a look at Christopher Walken’s campaign site at http://www.walken2008.com.

The sad part of the post is that some of the names that will start being thrown out for President in 2008 will almost be as humorous as the two above - but they will be serious.

You know, there’s something to be said for someone who can take Charlie Brown and H.P. Lovecraft and weave them together. Take a look at John Aegard’s The Great Old Pumpkin over on Strange Horizons Fiction. I came across this earlier this morning when it popped up in my RSS aggregator over at bloglines in my BoingBoing feed.

The tone, the use of adjectives, the descriptions (and yes, the very low amount of dialog) all make this work very….er, Lovecraftian, as the snippet below will show:

The camera fell from my nerveless fingers and into the clouds below as I beheld this blood-curdling horror. Instead of friendly cross-eyes and gapped teeth, into its wide orange visage were sawn jagged spirals of alien script, and though of course I could not read the glyphs, simply witnessing them was enough to understand their meaning. They dragged my mind away to their subject-places, each of them impressing upon me a cavorting pageant of despair and rot. Worse than that was what lay behind those awful incisions, for instead of a candle or (for safety reasons) a lantern, within the Great Old Pumpkin burned a queer kind of furnace that was tended by thready, murmuring minions. This furnace emitted not light and heat but rather madness, and with horror, I realized that its emanations were not illuminating the clouds, but rather that the clouds were fluorescing under them, just as a squid will fluoresce under certain radiations.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an interesting person. Often compared with Edgar Allan Poe, his stories of fantasy and horror did not begin to gain prominence until the late 1940’s, almost a decade after he died in poverty and obscurity in 1937. His stories - some of which were published in small magazines such as Weird Tales from 1908 through 1923 - are full of unspeakable evil, horrors from beyond the grave, and disruptions in time and space. Stories such as The Call of Cthulu, The Lurking Fear, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, formed a large part of my reading during seventh and eighth grade. For some reason I get the impression that the powers that be at good old St. Hilary’s wouldn’t have been too happy if they would have actually paid enough attention to me to notice what I was reading. A somewhat disturbing revelation is that Lovecraft’s works - as odd, twisted, and horrifying as they can be - are all said to be directly inspired by his nightmares.

In addition to the Great Pumpkin/Lovecraft mashup above, the web is full of other Lovecraftian excitement. Whether it is a Lovecraft Mad Lib Generator, a Lovecraft Film Festival, the Cthulu Lexicon, the Wikipedia entry on Lovecraft, or the Lovecraft Historical Society you can definitely get your fill of all things horrible.

I’ll close out with what has become the most famous Lovecraft quote, from one of his signature works The Call Of Cthulu:

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”

Well, the MYF football season has finished up - Alex’s team only managed to win the one game that I blogged about back in this post. But even if they hadn’t won a single game I would have judged the season a success. Above all, this is supposed to be a learning league. The kids are supposed to learn how to play football - how to block, how to run, how to tackle, and how to do it all safely and in a sportsman like manner. To their credit, I believe that the coaches that work for MYF (at least those that I have worked with) strive to live up to this ideal. Sure, there are times when the desire to win starts to push through, and that did happen a few times this year. To me, part of being a good coach is to recognize when you have made a mistake or when you are pushing too hard - and then taking steps to address the issue.

There were things that bothered me about this year, though.

One of the programs in our league (Springfield), prevailed upon the Suburban Football Association to ban another program (Rootstown) from competition. Ostensibly, the matter was the fact that Rootstown was not fielding a Varsity (8th grade) team which was true and is a violation of the league rules. However, the fact that the Rootstown JV squad demolished the Springfield JV squad seemed to be a big part of the reason why this was done. All worked out - Rootstown retained an attorney and received a court injunction allowing them to play - but the whole incident left a bad taste in my mouth. What sort of parents, coaches, administrators, etc would go to the extreme of banning kids (we’re talking grades K-8 here) from play? That in itself is bad enough, but think of all the sweat the kids have put in, as well as the financial outlay of the parents?

The application of the rules for the Suburban League continues to be a sore point with me.

It started back in flag, when we were told numerous times that “the kids are not allowed to wear any sort of cleats”. This was all well and good, but in a game against Mogadore their entire flag squad was wearing spikes. The reason why? Well, a few of the communities didn’t know - so they bought their kids cleats and it just isn’t fair to have them buy new shoes. So we went through a whole season of watching our kids get pushed around by the other teams - we were still bound by the rule, but apparently no one else was.

This year, my major concern was with the enforcement of the weight limit (each level has a maximum weight) and the age limit (each level has an age limit as well). For example in several games we have played teams who have players who look to be either near or over the maximum weight (based on comparison with our players, who’s weights we know). In other games we have played teams who have several players who told our coaching staff they were 9 years old - this is a 7 and 8 year old league, with allowances made for players who turn 9 during the season. However, I find it hard to believe that on a squad of 30 players the 7 players who told us that they were 9 all fell in that window.

Officials have been a problem as well - basically, we have only had 3 or 4 games where we have had real officials. Every other case we have had to either provide our own officials - usually people working with the program, either ours or our opponents. I think that in order for the kids to learn properly we need to have real officials - this is nothing against the volunteers in the program - I just feel that they should not be in the position of having to officiate a game that they have a potential conflict of interest in. For example, in our last game of the season against Springfield the coaching staff for the other team spent quite a bit of time yelling at and complaining to the officials. Phrases such as “you have to call it both ways” and “of course that call goes to Manchester” show the crux of the problem - you need independent referees.

Next year, I would like to see a bit of an emphasis on the enforcement of the rules, as well as having the rules for the league more readily available to the parents and athletes. In the three years I have been involved in the program I have often heard of these rules, but have never actually seen them or reviewed them. Making these available - either at the MYF website, the MYF office, or through each coach - would go a long way in quelling some of the confusion regarding them.

Finally, the attitude of some of the other coaching staffs and parents were an issue for me as well.

In several games parents, and in some instances coaches, would yell things to players such as “get in there and hurt someone” and “get your helmet on that player”. Parents and coaches would scream at their players on the sideline when they made a mistake.

Last year against Ellet, I had several parents come up to me and ask me “who’s your star”, “do you have your stats”, “what’s your record”. When I told them I didn’t know they started telling me about their “star tailback” and their “star receiver” and how they were undefeated. Then - for some reason - they told me that they were going to beat us.

All of this is enough to make you want to pull everyone into a big huddle and remind them that these are 2nd and 3rd grade children. This isn’t’ the NFL. It’s not the NCAA Division I-A. It’s not even High School. They’re 7 and 8 years old. They’re kids. Take off the pads and they are running around playing tag. Note to parents - stop living vicariously through your kids. Just because you loved the sport, or because you were good at the sport doesn’t mean that they will. Just because you want them to be a football star doesn’t mean that they will.

Does this mean that I feel that our parents and coaches are perfect? No, just like I don’t feel that all of the other coaches and all of the other parents are as over the top as the ones I described above. Most people can maintain a degree of perspective - some can’t.

Personally, I’ve gotten upset at games - Cuyahoga Falls, when the referees missed what I felt were some very blatant clips on a touchdown run by the other team; Kent when one of our backs was hit late and out of bounds by the other team; Springfield when I was sure we had a safety but the ball was ruled down. A few times I wanted to start yelling - but I always managed to remind myself what I was watching.

Personally, I’m inordinately proud of my son - I love watching him and his friends play. I hope he keeps playing for years. I probably go over the top talking to him about football and working with him on football. However, I don’t base our relationship on it. If he <shudder> would come to me tomorrow and tell me he didn’t want to play anymore I would be able to deal with it.

Equipment turn-in was the other day, and the football banquet is in a few weeks. One final time to celebrate what the kids have achieved this year, and then we turn away from football for 9 months. Next year Alex will be on B-Team, and one of my plans is to get more involved with the program this year. This may be in helping organize the operation or working the concession stand - it doesn’t matter to me, I just want to provide some support.

So what are we doing with our new found freetime? Well, now we’re on to basketball. This was entirely Alex’s idea - he’s already had one practice, and he’s already learning. It’s a joy to see him picking up things so fast. His intensity is something else - and we can trace that right back to his football coaches.