They're forming in a straight line

The World Series of Poker? The World Series of Darts? What? Huh? These are just two of the offerings coming to us on one of the ESPN channels. Now don't get me wrong. I like sports as much as the next person. OK. OK. I love sports, probably more than the aforementioned next person. But poker? Darts? What next? Pool? Fishing? Oh yeah... Sorry. Maybe, just maybe there are too many sports channels. I can't believe I just wrote that! But when bar games are packaged for the consuming couch potato as "sports" there is something wrong. Something very, very wrong. It's one thing to enjoy watching baseball or football, even soccer on TV and appreciating the athletic skills of people who are good enough to get paid for doing something I simply can't do. It's quite another to watch someone throwing a dart. What ESPN, or some other sports channel needs to do is air more real sports, hurling for example. Sticks and a ball called a sliotar (pronounced "slither," I think). No pads. Hockey, rugby, soccer, all rolled up in one bloody gladiatorial mess. Now that would be must-see TV. From the announcements about darts and poker, I was taken to one of the too-numerous-to-count cell phone commercials. The music was "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones. My head began to hurt. "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you -- I mean I'm no, I can't -- I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's, he's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas -- I mean --" Was it really 30 years ago? Hey ho, let's go--