“It’s the end of the world as we know it”

The world is coming to an end. Here’s how I know:

–The NCAA played three Division 1-A football games last week and have four more scheduled for this Friday. Two of the games this week include Duke versus Virginia Tech and Penn State versus Maryland, okay games for sure. However, there has typically been some rhyme and reason to the football season. Friday night is for high school football, Saturday is for college, and Sunday is for the pros, with the one-off games on Monday and Thursday nights.

I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised. The NCAA is run by the color of green, as in money, money, money and how much they can make off of the backs of college kids. NCAA offices see a chance to make a few Shekels and if they have to walk all over the high school game, then so be it.

Now I’m no purist, I want to throw up when I see some big-time high school football programs in the South in areas like Texas and Florida spend more on their high school football programs then they do on basic education, but I’m worn down. I get that that’s just way life is sometimes, but does four games in prime time in September really make that much of a difference to the college’s bottom line.

I don’t know, but Higher Education can do better.

–I’m like everyone else, I watch very little regular TV anymore. I binge Netflix or Hulu and recognized few of the Emmy winners the other night, but I still watch a fair share of live sports and have been forced sit through more commercials than I would like to watch. In any event, I need some help. Can someone please explain to me why Tide is promoting Sunday as “Laundry Night” as part of NBC’s Sunday Night Football Programming? I watched one Tide commercial with Kenan Thompson and frankly wanted to do anything but buy Tide. Is that really the best that the best marketing minds in America can come up with? Really?

In another commercial over the weekend, Samsung Galaxy hit me over the head with crazy-haired alpacas. Now I like a funky looking alpaca, but have these high priced executives ever heard of the term – oversaturation.

By the twentieth time, the commercial wasn’t so funny and the alpacas weren’t so hip. Frankly, they just looked stupid. I thought the same about Allstate’s Mayhem Cat and Apple’s iPhone 11. If I have to put up with any more of these crazy commercials, I just might have to permanently give up TV. Read any good books lately?

–For the incoming class of college freshman, born in 2001 and known as Gen Z, there have always been smartwatches and the primary use of the phone has always been to take pictures.

Here’s a few more:

• 9/11 is an historical event;
• They have witnessed two African-American Secretaries of State, the election of a black President, Disney’s first black Princess, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
• They have always been concerned about catching the West Nile virus.
• The Tech Big Four–Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google — are to them what the Big Three automakers were to their grandparents.On the surface, pretty minor details, but when you think about it, it goes to show how far we’ve come. The world has to be coming to an end.

The Marist mindset list came out recently and goes on and on with mind bending facts. Read it yourself and you’ll agree, there’s no way that the world is not coming to an end. Damn kids.

–Everyone is trying to kill summer. Starbucks started selling its popular Pumpkin Spice Latte on Tuesday, August 27, the earliest official release date for the drink in the chain’s history. They haven’t been the only coffee maker to go that route. Dunkin’s own pumpkin-centric menu debuted a week earlier and includes a Pumpkin Spice Donut and a Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Signature Latte.

The number of pumpkin-flavored beers on the local beer list have exploded in the past few years too. Craft beers and even the beer conglomerates have jumped in headfirst. For the record, I could go for a good Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale or a Dogfish Head Punkin right about now, but really, it’s not even October yet.

Call me crazy, but I’ve got REM’s song “It’s the end of the world as we know it” running repeatedly in my head. It’s the end of the world and I feel fine.