THE ART OF CONVERSATION IS DEAD!!! THANKS TO SPORTS!!!

[Fat Man]

Earlier this week, a friend took me out for lunch at an All You Can Eat Pizza Buffet.

Now, when I'm out eating with friends, it's nice to be able to engage in conversation while sitting down to a meal.

But no!

There was a great big flat screen TV and it was showing a football game, and the volume was turned up to the max. It was so loud, that my friend and I, we were unable to have a decent conversation.

It use to be mostly in bars where they have football on TV and the volume turned up loud, but now, we are beginning to see this in more and more family restaurants.

We are being socially isolated from on another, being unable to communicate, because we have to shut up while sports is blaring loudly in our ears.

It's no longer possible to have an intelligent conversation anymore.

The art of conversation is dead.

[Ray]

I can't think of a more annoying, head-pounding noise than *&^%$#@! FOOTBALL. It's just continuous NOISE! Just 60 seconds of it is enough to give me a headache.

I hope that sometimes it's just some moronic customer who switches the channel and turns the volume up --the way people often do in the electronics section of Best Buy --and not store policy. I can't think of a quicker way to alienate your customers and ruin your business.

You should call them up and tell them you won't be back until they get rid of the sports!

[Fat Man]

I can't think of a more annoying, head-pounding noise than *&^%$#@! FOOTBALL. It's just continuous NOISE! Just 60 seconds of it is enough to give me a headache.

I hope that sometimes it's just some moronic customer who switches the channel and turns the volume up --the way people often do in the electronics section of Best Buy --and not store policy. I can't think of a quicker way to alienate your customers and ruin your business.

You should call them up and tell them you won't be back until they get rid of the sports!

I don't care if people want to watch sports or not, as long as they don't have the volume turned up so freaking loud that it's impossible to hold a conversation with friends around the table.

I can always sit with my broad back toward the screen so I don't have to look at it, and they can at least have the volume down to a reasonable level.

We can't stop people from watching sports, but having the volume too loud can damage one's hearing. They really don't need to have the decibel level up to where it's nearly fatal.

No wonder sports fans are so stupid. They have the volume up so lout it blows our their eardrums and what's left of their brains!

[greencom]

My wife and I used to go to a really nice place for dinner every Sunday afternoon and enjoyed an economical and high quality meal in a peaceful surrounding with classical music playing in the background, I looked forward to this event all week long every week for about six years. BUT, the owners saw fit to make it a SPORTS BAR dedicated to the Steelers. Multiple big screen TV's, a bar and all the usual trappings of a monkey boy playhouse. Screw the owners of this place for turning it into a shithouse. It's things like this that makes me believe this country DESERVES a depression! This is an insane country and I am becoming ashamed of Americans. The public is full of these rabid football fans and there is no escaping them. I know what you mean Fatman, I totally sympathize with you.
Greencom

[Fat Man]

My wife and I used to go to a really nice place for dinner every Sunday afternoon and enjoyed an economical and high quality meal in a peaceful surrounding with classical music playing in the background, I looked forward to this event all week long every week for about six years. BUT, the owners saw fit to make it a SPORTS BAR dedicated to the Steelers. Multiple big screen TV's, a bar and all the usual trappings of a monkey boy playhouse. Screw the owners of this place for turning it into a shithouse. It's things like this that makes me believe this country DESERVES a depression! This is an insane country and I am becoming ashamed of Americans. The public is full of these rabid football fans and there is no escaping them. I know what you mean Fatman, I totally sympathize with you.
Greencom

Thank you Greencom.

Yeah, it's like almost everywhere you go.

I still go to he Village Inn for coffee, and it's peaceful and quiet there, and still possible to converse with other people around me.

But that's because the interior of the restaurant is laid out in such away that it's not possible to set up a big screen TV in such a way that everybody can see it. They would have block up all the windows and have a long row of TV screens. It would take about 30 TV screens along one wall, and that's not going to happen. So, in some places, it's not physically possible.

I have a theory, a conspiracy theory, as to why more and more places are being converted into Monkey Bars.

They don't want people sitting around engaging in conversations, because they're afraid we might be plotting to overthrow the Government or something.

So, they are installing big screen TV everywhere, showing nothing but football, and setting up the volume to the max!

It will probably continue to get harder to find a nice quiet place to enjoy a meal and a drink in the future.

[abitagirl]

No escaping is right.

Note to local blonde weather lady: Quit telling me what the weather will be like when I'm going "tailgating" (I am rapidly getting sick of that word. Tailgating is when some moron drives too close. That's it. Nothing else. OK?), or when I am heading out to "the game." I'm not doing any of that crap. Just tell me the weather. OK?

I hate home games.

Oh, I guess that's not entirely on topic. Sorry.

[Earl]

Hey, there's no need to apologize. Seriously!

[Fat Man]

No escaping is right.

Note to local blonde weather lady: Quit telling me what the weather will be like when I'm going "tailgaiting" (I am rapidly getting sick of that word. Tailgaiting is when some moron drives too close. That's it. Nothing else. OK?), or when I am heading out to "the game." I'm not doing any of that crap. Just tell me the weather. OK?

I hate home games.

Oh, I guess that's not entirely on topic. Sorry.

You're right on topic.

It is, after all, about how it's getting harder to escape from sports blaring loudly at us almost everywhere we go.

Eventually, in the future, there will be nothing but sports on all the TV channels, and they will manufacture TV sets without the volume control. The TVs will not even have an off switch, and the Government will install our TVs plugging them into locked outlets so that you will not be able to turn off your TV or even unplug it from the wall outlet. The volume will be at maximum 27/7/365 and there will be nothing but sports. You'll have to get use to sleeping with the TV blaring away nothing but sports.

In the future, you won't be able to hold a conversation in your own home.

[abitagirl]

You're right on topic.

It is, after all, about how it's getting harder to escape from sports blaring loudly at us almost everywhere we go.

Yeah, that's true. Just recently I went for a walk during a game, and passed by a house with the door open, so I could hear the game (what was up with that anyway?), and a restaurant that had a bar, showing the game, which I could tell because I could hear the damn thing as I walked past it. Next time I'm going in the opposite direction. I'd still have to pass the sports bore's house, but not the restaurant.

The government had better hope those TV's are bullet-proof.

[Fat Man]

You're right on topic.

It is, after all, about how it's getting harder to escape from sports blaring loudly at us almost everywhere we go.

Yeah, that's true. Just recently I went for a walk during a game, and passed by a house with the door open, so I could hear the game (what was up with that anyway?), and a restaurant that had a bar, showing the game, which I could tell because I could hear the damn thing as I walked past it. Next time I'm going in the opposite direction. I'd still have to pass the sports bore's house, but not the restaurant.

The government had better hope those TV's are bullet-proof.

Actually, all the government agencies will have to wear bullet-proof vests.

Better still, bullet-proof pants, because guess where most of them will end up getting shot!

Nah! Most people in Government bureaucracies don't have any balls!