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Tom Brady made headlines again. This week it was for restructuring his contract. Why it was notable was that he agreed to take less money. It was a refreshing change from the I-deserve-more attitude that’s prevalent today. Mr. Brady’s action garnered a bunch of positive comments, because he is putting the team’s needs before his own. By taking less money, he allows the team to spend more on other players and make the whole team better.

It certainly sounds about right. Brady has all the money he needs. His competitive desire is not for more money but for another Super Bowl victory.

All that news broke and was being reported before it was confirmed. That got me thinking “What if it’s not true? What if it’s a PR stunt or something?” And that made me think of this, the point of today’s post:

What if a team could indirectly coerce a star athlete into taking less money by leaking reports of his unselfish contract restructuring?

This could work for any team whose league has a salary cap. An athlete on the team is taking a disproportionate amount of the salary cap, but there are no negotiations to change that. An unnamed source from the team leaks a news report about how the athlete is agreeing to take less money for the good of the team. Headlines the next day tout the unselfish attitude of the athlete, radio call-in shows are buzzing about how nice the athlete is, blog posts abound with comments of how we need more people like him.

Later that day the athlete, his PR firm, and his agent meet. Their first reaction would have been to issue a statement saying the report is false and the athlete will be abiding by the terms of his current contract. But they realize that all the goodwill he has gathered that day will be lost and the public will turn against him and thus his spokesmanship earnings will be at risk. So they decide to issue a statement that says the contract is still is negotiation and the terms are not final. The athlete ends up taking one for the team, but not because he wanted to.

That would be underhanded of the team, and it would probably work only once. And if it did work, then what’s to stop the athlete from getting back at the team the next year? Maybe by leaking a false report that the first 500 people who show up at the manager’s house on such-and-such a date will be entered into a drawing for a free luxury box for the season, or call the team offices today for free jerseys, or – sticking with the monetary theme – the team will be lowering ticket prices 10% this season.

I wonder why navy seals get all the publicity.

I think gray seals are just as good.

But if you think seals should be blue, here are some other options in the blue-ish family:
Cyan Seals:

Royal Blue Seals:

Aqua Seals:

And, my favorite name, Teal Seals:

Deodorants are well named. Their names evoke connotations that relate well to their purpose and sway you to buy them (or at least think favorably of them). I thought I would invert their names and see what happened.

We’ll start with an easy one:

Speed Stick

versus

(more…)

Pretty much all the road signs used to be words that people could read. Then, for a variety of reasons such as accommodating the illiterate, the non-English speakers, and the hard-of-sight, road signs began to be produced with no words – just symbols.

However, symbols can be more ambiguous than words. Here are some of the most interesting road signs, according to me:

Warning: Striped Cigarette Nearby

This is supposed to mean that the pavement ends and the road turns to dirt. That is not the first thing I think when I see this sign.

Warning: Two Lanes Become Closer Together

This is supposed to mean that the right lane ends and only the left lane continues, so the driver is supposed to merge into the left lane. But does this sign really show that? No! At the bottom of the sign are two lanes, and at the top of the sign are two lanes. Nowhere does the one lane merge into the other lane. I find this sign to be especially misleading.

Warning: Stop Sign is in That Direction

or

Warning: Stop Sign is Rising

True story: when these signs first started appearing, I actually stopped at them because I was so well trained to stop at a red octagon. When I realized that it was a “stop ahead” sign, not a stop sign itself, I became annoyed at them. I still don’t like them. And almost as bad as these signs are the “AHEAD STOP” warnings painted on the road itself.

With the demise of the penny in Canada, the penny is surely doomed here in the US. It is just a matter of time before it is discontinued.

But once the penny is gone, there are a lot of phrases that won’t make sense. So here, without further ado, is my list of updated phrases to be used when the penny is no longer legal tender.

• “I’m giving my 10-cents’ worth.”
• “A nickel saved is a nickel earned.”
• The Beatles‘ song would have to be re-released as Nickel Lane
• People would wear nickel loafers.
• Small wind-up cars would be nickel racers.
• Maranatha will have their nickel fair.
• “Nickel wise, fiver foolish.”

Would Nickelback then be promoted to Dimeback?
What would happen to penne pasta?
Any other phrases?

Just in time for election season, here is a fruit and vegetable stand after the political groups’ PR firms adjusted the signs.

I suppose that we can call inanimate objects as we see them, because there is or was no agenda – just identification. How much of a person’s physical appearance are we allowed to use to identify him? Hair color is probably still okay, but skin color makes at least some people pause.

I think oranges are one of the safe items in that I can’t think of a politically-charged term to which a committee could change it.

I thought about including blackberries, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for you, the reader.

Related Note : Most of the black students at my college were from Jamaica. They were neither African nor American. Just by looking at someone as we passed in the hallway, I could not tell his national origin nor his citizenship. That’s why I prefer to call things, and people, as I see them.

And no people are the color of those potatoes, by the way, unless they are sunburned.

In our recent travels, we passed by some state parks. Just outside one of the state parks, some enterprising homeowner was selling wood. The sign on his front yard looked like this:

CAMP
FIRE
WOOD

I think they took the easy way out.

If you were to write the word(s) to indicate wood for a fire for a camp, how would you arrange those words?

Campfire wood ? Sounds like the name of a forest…
Camp firewood ? Sounds like a happy place for children…

Such a dilemma – how to make a compound word out of three words. Which word draws the short straw?

Here’s my answer:
Wood for a fire is firewood.
Fire for a camp is a campfire.
Wood for a fire for a camp is campfirewood.

Why limit a compound word to only two words?