communication breakdown

Unveiling

Let me be the first to announce the debut of the world's newest and best website:

http://www.shaundishman.com

Actually, it's not new at all, that's just a marketing ploy. It's the new address for this site, basically. You can continue using the "old" address to get here, or, if you prefer, go with the shorter and snazzier new name. I recommend the latter, if only because it means people around the globe will be typing my name, which bolsters my starving ego.

I finally broke down and purchased a domain, for several reasons. The first of which is that you never know when it will be nice to have one, especially if I ever want to do something more serious with my website than a blog. Second, I need to start decreasing my reliance on my fraternity's on-campus webserver, and this is a step in that direction. Finally, and most importantly, I wanted to buy up that URL before someone else does. Once I make my fortune and earn international acclaim, a website with my name on it will be a hot commodity. I'd rather buy it now for $10/year than pay $500,000 ten years from now...

Some other interesting things I noticed: I've finally been Googled! My site is now the first link that pops up if you search for "shaun dishman" on Google. And before you say anything - yes, I googled my own name. Don't pretend like you haven't done it. It's like staring at yourself in the mirror for a prolonged amount of time. We've all been there before. Just admit it and move on.

Also, as of the time of this writing, I was the 470th result returned from Google if you searched for "communication breakdown". That's actually pretty impressive, given that that is the title of a very famous Led Zeppelin song, and so most of the results above mine are lyrics pages for the song. Now, I'm probably going to have to defend this one as well. Despite what you might think, it doesn't take very long to look through 46 pages of Google search results, especially if you know what you're looking for. It only took about 5 minutes, and I was actually about to give up, not expecting to find it anywhere in the first 1000 or so. Imagine my surprise.

So, what else has been going on? I'll tell you:

For many people, this is a down time of year for sports. For me, however, May/June is one of the best times of the year for watching sports: you get two Grand Slam tennis events (French Open and Wimbledon) packed into a little over a month. That's four full weeks of high-quality tennis, back-to-back in a six-week span. And it is amplified by the fact that it is Wimbledon, the greatest tennis championship in the world. In fact, in the grand scheme of quintessential sporting events, the top 5 break down something like this:

1. NCAA Basketball Men's Tournament
2. Wimbledon
3. NCAA Football New Year's Bowl Day
4. The Super Bowl
5. FIFA World Cup

Wimbledon was electrifying as always, notwithstanding the conspicuous absence of my boy Andre Agassi. Despite his indomitable work ethic and superior fitness, age is starting to get to him, as it does to everyone. He backed out the week before the event, saying he was still suffering from the intense back pain that put him out of the French championships. It is weird not being able to root for my favorite player - I know that it won't be long until he retires, and that will be really difficult for me. But the game goes on and there were plenty of highlights nonetheless. Here are a couple of comments regarding the fortnight:

• Apparently, the stat of the week is that, as part of the training for ball boys/girls, the children have to stand completely still for 4 minutes. I swear I've heard the commentators repeat that stat at least twenty times. The first time it was an interesting tidbit, but now I find myself thinking shut up about the kids already!. For the most part, the tennis commentators are great, better than most sports - but sometimes I wish they would sit still for 4 minutes... and not talk.
• My favorite stat/quirk of the week: In the middle of the second round match between Marat Safin and Mark Philippoussis on Centre Court, the net inexplicably broke and collapsed, without any direct contact - in fact, Philippoussis was preparing to serve and Safin to receive when it just broke and fell to the ground. It's almost as if it had had enough o the constant beating from The Scud and decided to call it quits. Apparently that's the first time a net has fallen at Wimbledon in 50 years. Typical British perfection... (Runner-up: a ball boy passed out from the heat in an early round match. Not sure when that last happened, but I can't remember ever seeing it in the last 15 years or so.)
• I watched part of the Ladies' Semifinal match featuring Venus Williams vs. Maria Sharapova, and I can say with certainty that it was the loudest match I've ever seen. They have to be the two loudest grunters on tour - pit them against one another, on the biggest stage in tennis, in one of the late rounds of the greatest tournament in the world, and it's going to get even louder. It was way past grunting - these girls took it up a notch into rarefied territory. If you were listening and not watching, you might think two girls were being tortured or something. They said Sharapova's grunting was measured at about 102 decibels, which is roughly equivalent to a police siren going off in your ear. I had to crack out the earplugs when watching from home - I can't even imagine how insane that was in person...
• Match of the week: Gentlemen's Semifinal - Andy Roddick vs. Thomas Johansson. Actually, one of the more notable things about this year's Championships was that there weren't many great matches. Most seemed to be one-sided, and while there were many great players in the draw, there were not many memorable battles. I think this is a result of unfavorable matchups based on the draw. However, the Roddick/Johansson match was as great as it was unexpected. Many people presumed Roddick would walk all over Johansson; part of that is probably typical American bias, assuming that a player most haven't heard of (despite the fact that he was a Grand Slam champion) couldn't hold court with Roddick. But it was highly competitive for four grueling sets as they each demanded of the other to raise their game. Very thrilling stuff.
• Roger Federer - I don't have words sufficient enough to describe how amazing this guy is. "Living legend" comes to mind, but that's still inadequate. I've been watching tennis for about 15 years, and I can safely say Federer is the greatest tennis player I've ever seen. I've been watching Federer since before he was a well-known talent, and it was remarkable how you could just tell that he was destined for greatness. I think some people just are. Federer might not have the hardware (read: Grand Slam trophies) to make a claim to the throne, but mark my words, just give him a few years and he will.
• While I'm thinking about it: I think I've been fortunate enough to have witnessed the greatest talent to ever play in several different sports: tennis (Federer), basketball (Jordan), football (Rice or Montana, in my opinion), and hockey (Gretzky).

It's worth mentioning that this week was the grand opening of Atlanta's first IKEA. For those who don't know, IKEA is a scandinavian company who specializes in contemporary and stylish, yet inexpensive, furniture. Most things have to be self-assembled at home, like furniture bought at Target or Wal-Mart, but the quality is definitely higher and the styles are much more sleek, clean and simple. It is the perfect place for a college student, single male, or any bargain shopper in general. While furniture is their focus, they also sell anything you could ever want in terms of housewares.

The coolest thing about IKEA is its size. The stores are absolutely enormous. I mean, come on, the new store here is 366,000 square feet! They usually have two floors: the ground floor is the cafeteria (yes, they have full-blown cafeterias, offering American/Scandinavian treats), furniture pick-up area, the complete housewares/gardening departments, and checkout. The top floor is reserved for showrooms, and there are just a ton of them. Most are small, reflecting the typical Scandinavian style, but they are each interestingly decorated, price-tagged, and available for pickup downstairs. It's like drive-thru furniture shopping. It's such an American idea that it's hard to believe it came from Europe.

Anyways, I've been to an IKEA grand opening before - I went opening weekend to the Twin Cities store when I was living in Minneapolis - and it's absolutely crazy. There are soooo many people that you can barely walk around in there. I'm sure things were no different at this one, and since I didn't really have a need, I figured I could wait a few days for the crowds to go down - but I've heard estimates that it might take six weeks for the crowds to die down completely. That just blows me away. They've been doing some heavy advertising though - my favorite tactic were trucks driving around town with an IKEA banner on top, carrying fully-furnished showrooms in glass boxes on the backs of the trucks. In some of them, actual people were sitting in the showrooms, lounging, reading the newspaper, etc. What a cool idea.

There is one other thing I wanted to ramble about: I happened to watch an episode of the new show 30 Days, created by Morgan Spurlock, the man behind the groundbreaking documentary Super Size Me. Like the movie, in which he ate nothing but McDonald's for 30 days (and suffered the consequences, believe me), the show focuses around a new topic each week, during which somebody does something for 30 days. In the one I watched, a Christian man went to live with a Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan (apparently, a Muslim-heavy population). The show was very well done, using the slick, witty and creative narrative style in "Super Size Me" combined with an interesting real-life scenario that is often educational in the way only a documentary seems to be.

However, I bring all this up because, naturally, one of the focuses of the show was the similarities and differences of the Christian and Muslim religions. As part of the guy's task, he was expected to do everything that a Muslim would typically do, including eat properly, dress appropriately, and pray five times a day. I learned some interesting things about halal, the Muslim dietary laws. But most striking were the man's struggles with the Muslim religious principles, and the lack of answers he got for most of the show. Naturally, he was concerned that facing Mecca fives times a day and praying a Muslim prayer might be compromising his own beliefs. He attempted to meet with his appointed "spiritual adviser" to try and sort it out, but the imam, to me, seemed intentionally deceptive and unwilling to help. He kept dodging questions and giving roundabout answers - what kind of a spiritual "leader" does that? For example, take this very simple question, and the so-called answer:

Q: Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God?
A: (delayed, and smirking) ... Spiritual son, yes.

Who gives an answer like that? It is intentionally misleading, and was an attempt to "ease" the man into Islam without giving him a straightforward answer. What he should have said was "No, we believe Jesus was a prophet of God and a great man, but not the Son of God". That would have been truthful and helpful. But instead the Imam seemed satisfied to dodge serious questions.

The other thing that got me was the Imam's insistence that Muslims, Jews and Christians worship the same one God. He attempted to use this as the basis for suggesting that the man should have no problem going to the mosque and praying to "God". I find this absolutely ludicrous and falsified logic. You see, it's very easy: Christians worship one God, whose son Jesus was also part of the Godhead himself. If Jews and Muslims worship a God who does not have a holy son named Jesus, than are they not serving a different God? It seems straightforward to me.

While I learned many interesting things about Islam throughout the episode, I couldn't help but leave with an unfavorable impression of the religion based on the dodginess of their spiritual leaders. Any religion unwilling to be completely truthful and straightforward with someone who is searching for the truth must have something to hide or have ulterior motives.

Am I being irrational about this? Anyone care to comment?

Posted by sdishman at June 30, 2005 1:29 AM

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