Guest Column By Cathy Elliott - I’m not great with numbers, but I know enough to know that only a fraction of the people on the planet have experienced the feeling of being the very best at what they do.
For those of us who have lived our lives in the mediocre-to-slightly-above-average demographic, this is inconceivable. How does it really feel, even for a single day, to be the richest, the smartest, the prettiest, the funniest or, for our purposes here, the fastest? We can only imagine.
But on the flip side, once you have experienced the ultimate thrill and reached the highest summit, how does it feel to lose it?
The answer, if you were paying close attention to Tony Stewart’s post-race comments at Michigan International Speedway on August 21, is … not good. Very bad, in fact.
Stewart, who hasn’t won a race this season but still has managed to hang on to a spot in the Top 10, basically remarked that if he is unable to truly compete for the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title, he would rather not be in the position of simply taking up space.
"It really doesn't matter whether we make the Chase (for the NASCAR Sprint Cup) or not because we are going to be occupying a spot … that somebody else that actually can run for a championship is going to be trying to take because our stuff is so bad right now,” the Stewart Haas Racing driver-owner said.
As a fan, I always appreciate seeing a combination of fierce competitiveness and good sportsmanship. But as an admirer and supporter of Stewart, this remark made me a little uneasy. It sounded like that familiar groaning sound you make when you can’t finish a crossword puzzle or get the lawn mower to crank. You know you have the tools, but you just can’t quite make them work properly. It’s frustrating.
NASCAR drivers threw out the old “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game that counts” adage a long time ago. Anything less than victory is unacceptable. NASCAR poured fuel on that fire by adding a Wild Card component to the 2011 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup qualification system. A single win can mean the difference between championship contention and the dismal phrase, “Great try.
The headlines suggest that she's actually making a point about the way the media portrays her, but she more than lives up to that media portrayal here - in a very entertaining way. When you're Beyoncé, nothing quite says "If you liked it,
Too bad that, in this ambitious mix, Aaliyah's voice amounts to little more than another toy for the mad scientist to play with. "I Care for You," penned by Missy Elliott, is a torchy near-miss, while "Extra Smooth" is a playful booty shaker.
Iconic football coach Vince Lombardi went through professional cold spells – one might call them frozen tundra spells -- more than once, and had this to say about it: “I have been wounded but not yet slain. I shall lie here and bleed a while;
Yes, it's the theme song to the original 1985 "Fright Night," performed by none other than the J. Geils Band. And, yes, I know the lyrics from memory — though until last weekend, I hadn't seen the film in more than two decades. But in the mid-'80s,
Cons: The song's central lyrical conceit, “You taught me how to hate a bitch,” is more than a little bit too mean-spirited for such a melancholy-sounding ballad, though it does at least make for a funny title contrast with one of the songs coming later