Superstitions and the power of one

It's funny the little things we do. Some of them are done without really thinking about it. Some of them are very much on purpose. Call them habits. Call them idiosyncrasies. Superstitions, even. But we all have our peculiarites.

I've mentioned before my penchant for stirring Kool-Aid with a wooden spoon and the fact that it never even seemed odd to me until my girlfriend pointed it out. After some research, I concluded that it was a learned trait, as my mother had stirred Kool-Aid with a spoon.

I have other oddities.

I do things in four-counts. For example, if I'm stirring something, I will stir it four, eight, 12, 16, 20, 24, etc. times. I would never stir it 17 times. It's some sort of built in rhythmic harmony that I only just realized about myself. Maybe it's from eight years of playing the trumpet and counting in 4/4. Or maybe I'm just odd.

Milk and sugar has to go in my coffee before the coffee does. I tell myself that this is scientific and that it allows the pouring of the coffee to help mix the ingredients, but I know that it isn't going to matter since I'm going to stir it in perfect measure.

Superstitions and oddities are never more on display that when sports is involved. You see people joke all the time that the Sabres (or Bills or whatever) won or lost the game based upon who was there: "That's is, Martha, you're not allowed to go to any more games. They lose every time you go!"

But that's just joking ... right?

As deeply as you may know that your attendance or lack thereof has no real bearing on how your team plays, you can't help but feel like maybe they would have done a little better if you had gone. Or had you not turned the TV off. Or gone for a bathroom break. I cannot explain, but it's true of me and since I'm a perfect example of humanity, I figure it must be true of everyone.

And it's not just attending/watching the game. You've got to wear the right shirt. And the right hat. And maybe the right pair of socks. After all, who doesn't have lucky socks?

I have no idea if Mitt Romney has lucky socks. But it's my understand that as a Mormon, he has magic underwear. Yes, that's possibly the worst segue in the history of ever, but it's all I've got to switch from sports to politics right now. So stay with me, please.

Willard "Mitt" Romney, as you surely know, will be the GOP nominee for the presidency. Come November we will all have the opportunity to vote for him, Barack Obama, and a variety of other people, the vast majority of whom we've never heard of before.

But if historical data is accurate, fewer than six in 10 of us will actually vote. There seems to be this theory that one vote doesn't matter — or that voting doesn't matter — despite historical evidence to the contrary. Every single election going back 150 years could have had a different outcome had those who didn't vote cast votes for the losing candidate. Every single one.

So I can't help but wonder, why are we all so willing to wear old socks and dirty shirts to "help" our team win when we won't even go take part in a game that we've actually been invited to play? Why do we feel so powerless in a system designed to be powered by us? And what can we do to change that?

Random scary thoughts for the day

The world got a little scarier Monday - and not because it was Halloween. Scientific projections estimate that planet Earth welcomed it 7 billionth concurrent citizen yesterday. That’s a whole lot of of people. Heck, 7 billion is a whole lot of anything. But especially people. 

Think of all those potential voters (and taxpayers)!

I read a piece by CNN’s Bob Greene the other day talking about addiction to electronic devices. He indicates that if your smart phone sleeps in the same room with you, you may have an addiction. I have to confess, I’m guilty of that. I think it comes from living alone.

You may recall about  year and a half ago, I wrote a column relaying my glee with having signed up for cable (actually satellite) television service. Recently we decided to take a break. We didn’t break up, really, but we’re seeing other people - or something like that. 

Having lived in my apartment in Tonawanda since last April, I finally decided I couldn’t live without dedicated internet service. I was using my cell phone as a modem when I needed to log on, but it got tedious and I needed something faster. Unfortunately, in order to do that, I had to scrap TV. I can only afford so many non-essentials, after all.

I’m going on a month without television. And I don’t miss it all that much. I’ve found other things to occupy my time and other ways to watch the things I absolutely don’t want to miss. I’ve also found that I have very little desire to watch the Bills. The Bills won 23-0 on Sunday and I missed every second of it. And I didn’t miss a second of it. 

Speaking of the Bills, I see they have a new idea on how to hold the area hostage, wanting  the state and Erie County to pay for significant improvements to their current stadium in Orchard Park in exchange for the team promising to stay in Orchard Park.

Gee, so they’ll stay our friend if we pay them? That’s what it sounds like to me.

Personally, I’d consider this deal if the team actually wanted to play in Buffalo. But the city has very little - if any - economic benefit to home games being played in the Southtowns.

I have nothing against the Bills. I’ve been a fan since birth. Kind of. But the economic blackmailing being done by one of the richest men in Western New York is atrocious. The fact that anyone is considering it, is worse.

This deal is exactly the type of thing that the Occupy movement is about. There should be no doubt that Ralph Wilson is one of the richest guys in the area. And he’s going to make sure to stay that way by forcing us to pay for his stadium upgrade. He gets to stay rich and we have the privilege of having a football team. 

I can’t wait for the politicians to tell us what a great deal this is for us. Thank God there’s 7 billion people on planet earth now to help us pay for it. 

The questions that don't get asked ...

Sometimes questions that don't get asked are the ones that should.

I'm not sure how or why, but I was talking about politics with my oldest daughter on Sunday and she asked me, “what's the point of political parties?”

I attempted to explain it the best way I could, telling her it was sort of an indication to others of who your friends were. “It's kind of like football jerseys,” I said. “It's so you know who to throw the ball to.”

Except, that's a horrible explanation.

And the more I attempted to think of a metaphor for the reasoning for political parties, the more frustrated I got. Because, honestly, I just can't.

As the lame ducks in Congress convened in Washington yesterday, the Democrats pushed to get certain things done before the end of their session, knowing that come January when the Republicans take over, their ideals will be put on hold for at least two years.

Many political pundits are split over whether the Democrats will get anything meaningful accomplished in the next month and a half. Some think they'll ram some legislation through and others think they'll simply bicker, much like they have been doing for the last 22 months.

So here's a question that seldom gets asked aloud: Why do we have an election and then wait nearly two months to put the people we elected into office?

Sure there are some races that remain undecided. Votes need counted. And recounted. But for the most part, we know the winners and losers of the mid-term election. Ironically, the losers get a month and a half back at the controls.

In a manner of speaking, each election, we have a pre-planned revolution – a mutiny of sorts. And then we tell the captains we had just revolted against that they have six more weeks at the helm. Why don't we throw them out on their behinds immediately?

For some masochistic reason, I looked forward to watching the Bills game on Sunday. Every week the Bills frustrate me, and yet, I as hoping to watch the game. Unfortunately I couldn't because it was blacked out locally.

Football fans understand the blackout. If the game doesn't sell out, we don't get to watch it. Have you ever thought about the logic in that? If not enough people think the game is worth paying to watch, you don't get to watch it for free.

NFL: “Sorry, but your team is horrible. The only way you can watch them is to pay.”

Does that make sense to anyone?

Some questions, I guess, don't have good answers. And sometimes it takes a 13-year-old girl, a dysfunctional group of middle-aged white men, or a shoddy football team to make you realize that.

Be sure to read next week as we learn why we drive on a parkway, but park on a driveway. Plus, why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?

Railing on rails ... and more

This is one of those weeks where there's a lot going on in my head, but only one column to get it all out there. As such, I present to you a semi-random stream of consciousness.

I suppose I should say something about the election last week. It went exactly as I expected. Cuomo trounced Paladino. The Republicans crushed the Democrats in Congress. And I voted for two winners.

Okay, so I wasn't sure I'd vote for any winners, but sometimes you get lucky, right?

Although the thought of having another Cuomo in office frightens me, I was impressed by the governor-elect's acceptance speech. Let's hope he can really do some good because we're stuck with him for a while unless he ends up being "Client 10."

I'm looking forward to having a leiutenant governor from Western New York. Hopefully Robert Duffy can remind Cuomo that we exist occasionally.

I know Rochester isn't technically Western New York, but, come on. It is.

I like the city of Rochester. I don't go there as often as I'd like to. Maybe if we had a better transportation system, I would.

Maybe if we get some of the $1.2 billion in high-speed rail funding that Ohio and Wisconsin have opted out of, we can improve that transportation system and I can go to Rochester.

Last week, the governors-elect of those states said they didn't want the funding that had been planned to go to their states and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter offered to take it off their hands.

I've been a fan of the concept of high-speed rail since before it was a national discussion. Other places have it. Why can't we?

The thought of being able to hop a train and be to New York City in a few hours is quite compelling, don't you think? Our current train system takes approximately four years (only a slight exaggeration) to get from here to there. Seriously, though, it's faster to take a bus.
That just doesn't seem right.

I've seen the proposed map for high-speed rail. It goes from New York to Niagara Falls and then up to Toronto. This will make it easier for Jets fan to commute to Bills games and root against the "home team."

The Bills game on Sunday was disheartening. Of course, the loss was sad, but not unexpected. The bigger disappointment was the number of Bears fans in attendance. Or maybe they weren't Bears fans. Maybe they were just Bills detractors.

It seems like every game that's been played in Toronto has had just as many (if not more) people rooting against the Bills as rooting for them. To call it a home game is a joke.

Not that this year's Bills had much of a chance, but it is a little frustrating that every other team in the league has eight home games and eight away games. Ours, meanwhile, has seven home games and nine away games. It's like the 2005 Saints, except instead of a natural disaster forcing the team out, it's the economy.

Maybe Cuomo can fix the economy. If for no other reason than to stop the Bills from having to play in Toronto any more.

Reality kills conventional wisdom

When I do something, I go big.

And in this space last week, I went big on being wrong.

“At the end of the day, I imagine we'll find that Lazio's downstate support will be too much for Paladino's upstate support to overcome, despite the fact that typically downstate Republicans usually stay home for the primary.” - Scott Leffler. September 14, 2010.

What we really found at the end of the day last Tuesday was that Rick Lazio had little to no support anywhere and Carl Paladino had a ton of support on this end of the state.

Now I'm hesitant to even think about predicting the general election. Conventional wisdom would say that New York is a blue state and Cuomo will wipe the mat with Paladino. But my prediction last week was based on conventional wisdom, too. And you see where that got me.

I've heard before that the vast majority of the time, a professional poker player will beat an amateur, because the pro is simply more knowledgeable. But sometimes the amateur will win because he's unpredictable and won't do what he's “supposed to” do.

That could happen. Or the conventional wisdom thing could happen. I'm not going to guess. At least not until late October.

Thus far this season, conventional wisdom has worked with me calling Bills' games. I thought they looked bad in preseason. And I was pretty sure that would carry over to the regular season. It has. In a big way.

I watched the game Sunday. Well, to be honest, I halfheartedly watched it. But I feel good about that because I feel like they halfheartedly played. Actually, I hope they halfheartedly played, because if they put in a full effort and still looked that bad, I'd be really concerned.

As many of my sports friends have said recently, “Thank God hockey season starts soon.”

Anyone who knows me knows that I've always been a bigger hockey fan than football fan. And I most certainly get more excited about the Sabres than I do the Bills.

I was certainly excited on Saturday when I took the kids to the Sabres' annual Puck Drop event so the team could unveil yet another new jersey. Goodbye slug. Hello new road whites and … royal blue thirds.

I like the road whites a lot. The royal blue thirds with the script lettering? Not so much. I've grown accustomed to the darker blue on my Sabres gear. It goes with everything I wear. The royal blue is just going to screw up my wardrobe, so I'm boycotting it.

I'm also boycotting the new license plates. I got my registration renewal in the mail the other day and learned that I don't have to get the new ugly cash-grab plates. So I won't. I get two more years of the old ugly cash-grab plates.

Remember how excited we were when we originally learned that Niagara Falls would be on those plates? Only to find that it would be a tiny, barely visible Niagara Falls in the upper left corner? Just another one of those things that New York could have done right, but didn't.

I have so much more to say, but, again, only one column a week to do it in. For random daily thoughts, photos, and more, follow me on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scottleffler