Bill Simmons is Beyond Out of Control
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Labels:
Bill Simmons,
Sports Guy
Verbosity PersonifiedWe're not Simmons haters here. In fact, we think his ability to seamlessly weave sports and pop culture together complete with a dash of humor and a wholesome portion of sports knowledge (particularly when it comes to hoops) is quite impressive. Whether you believe he was at the epicenter of this whole blog phenomenon thing or not, the man has considerably more influence and talent than we have or claim to possess.
That said...holy f-in sh*%, Sports Guy. Shut the f up already! Seriously, just shut up. Zip it. Mute yourself. Lock down the keyboard. Set a timer. Step away from the laptop. Do something. 7,000+ words? Seven? Thousand?! In one freakin' column? People could write a comprehensive history of the National Basketball Association with that kind of real estate. That 7,000 figure wasn't even including the sidebars.
For those at a loss for what the heck I'm talking about, here's the quick and dirty. Simmons has not been immune from heat within the sports blogosphere. Some of it probably has to do with the fact he's popular and people just feel like ripping the guy. He also has a rep for being a bit smug and self-congratulatory and showcasing other unpleasant personality traits from time to time. We have no clue. No matter.
The other legit knock on Simmons is his tendency to be, how do you say, verbose? In short, his columns are long. Epic. Agonizingly lengthy. But most of the time that means a few thousand words and the need to set aside 20-25 minutes just to make it through. We don't read his stuff anymore, but when we did that was about our max capacity threshold.
However, in riding the bus home late this evening we realized that Simmons has taken his long-windedness to frightening new heights. On the ole Crackberry, ESPN had his NBA "preview" on the home page. So, having a little time to kill we thought it might be worth checking out. Low and behold after the first few paragraphs we were done. Truth be told, we're not that enamored with the NBA and aren't quite ready to jump into the season with one foot, much less two.
However, before we "logged off," we decided to simply scroll through the piece and do a scan for any interesting photos or subheads that popped up. We flicked the little scroll wheel down. And then again. And again. And again. With each wind of the wheel our eyes widened in a mixture of shock, awe and horror. Approximately 20 minutes later, now crippled with Carpal Tunnel, we arrived at the end of the column.
A few minutes ago, we decided to cut and paste the text into a document and do the word count thing just for fun. That's how we arrived at the 7,000 (or thereabouts) number. We're still speechless. I know Mr. Simmons loves the NBA. We're sure the piece was brilliant. But, honestly, much of the wonder of the Web is in being able to quickly and conveniently consume digestible pieces of content and information. This was like trying to take a sip from a fire hose.
Maybe some of you read the column. If not, you may want to take a look. And, if you get through it, let us know what you think. We're around all day on Friday. Chance are you should be done reading by then. Maybe...
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1 comments:
Maybe he's trying to keep up with Easterbrook???
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