Watching Tennis (Let Me Explain)

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With two freshly grilled hamburgers right off the grill, and a bag of super zesty Hy-Vee Brand "Not Doritos", I was watching Kindergarten Cop on one of the movie channels. This remains one of my favorite movies, so when the on-screen cable guide told me it was a "Two-Star Flick" I had to disagree. I mean, the on-screen guide is totally the law of whether a movie is good or not...

So I yelled out in my very best Stallone-as-Judge-Dredd-voice, "I will not obey the law, I AM THE LAW!"

And yes, I was alone, and talking in voices to the television. Shut up.

Anyway, just to spite the on-screen guide that had the unbelievable gall to say Kindergarten Cop is a Two-Star Flick, I watched it. Funny stuff, that.

After the movie, I started clicking around the ol' HD channels, to see what sort of awesomeness I could view in 51" HDTV glory. No football, no movies, no baseball, some IMAX thing, some other more different IMAX thing on another channel, tennis, Law and Order, wait...Tennis? An actual sport, on HDTV? Yes!

And that's totally how I started watching tennis.

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Now, when I'm looking for something to watch, there's a set of rules that I use semi-regularly and enforce even less-semi-regularly, but whose existence allows me the leeway to not watch something tragically unawesome, and which allows me to sleep well at night. Those rules are:

1) How many things can I make fun of on this show?

2) Is it in HD?

3) Is there a high probability of Awesomeness, either good or bad?

So, you've got It was Andre Agassi against some dude with a shaved head and a beard. That's two things to laugh at right there. Agassi's still playing? Really? When he first started, television had just started broadcasting in STEREO, and he's still playing when its in HIGH DEFINITION? Man.

And the other guy? Seriously. This 'doo was like a bizarro mullet. Actually, it was more of a mullet than an actual mullet is. No hair on top, all scraggly down below. Wait. That's messed up.

And it was in HD. So there you go. I'm watching tennis. The funny thing is, I began to realize that it was one heckuva match. Agassi was down two sets to none when I turned it on, and as I watched, had come back to tie it two sets each, sending it into a fifth set. Good stuff. I was intrigued and now was watching and rooting for the old man. The bald-bearded-dude can't win!

So I cheered for Old Man. And he won in a thrilling tiebreak, making my choice of watching tennis quite astute. If you're gonna pick one match to watch, that would be it. Never cheered during a tennis match before. Maybe never will again. But the perfect storm of High Definition, Old Man vs Bald&Beard, and good drama Continental me in.

I'm not making excuses, just explaining myself. If it makes you feel any better, I watched the NFL opener last night in HD. But again, I strayed and watched a bit of the Jethro Tull concert/documentary on one of the HD channels. What? I've always wondered why they had that goofy flute player. Thought maybe I'd find out if I watched it. And it met all three rules.

After five minutes, I'd exhausted all my flute-player-in-a-rock-band jokes, and was sure it was going to be just a regular, boring show (not Good and Awesome, not Awesomely Bad), so it was back to John Madden and his annoying commentary on the NFL game.

You bet.