You've foiled me, FTL

It's seven a.m. and I'm playing a brutally difficult video game that cost me less than $5. And I'm not even winning.

Even for someone with a weird blogger schedule, that's a pretty deplorable situation. That's exactly the scenario I was in earlier this week, as I was getting my ass handed to me by this wonderfawful game, "Faster than Light."


"Tough" video games come in many breeds, but I've always appreciated the ones that reward critical thinking over reflexes. (Probably because I have opposite-of-a-cat reflexes.)

"FTL" is in that vein, although it adds an element that makes it kind of like life: unfairness. Cruel, cruel unfairness.

And at some point, I've realized that I plateaued at the game. That's right, "FTL," you've defeated me.

At least until I boot it up again and start the cycle all over again ...

A fantastic run-on and a worrisome phrase

The Internet probably hates Grantland because the Internet hates just about anything. Particularly anything attempting something vaguely high-minded.

Personally, I find Grantland to be one of my go-to leisure reading sites, whether I'm hanging out with nothing to do or on the John. Sorry if I lose hipster points, then.

(Self-defeating aside: I do call it Horace Grantland from time-to-time, if that helps.)

By sheer chronological luck, I've decided to single out Jordan Conn's piece on Bret Bielema (whose name almost seems like it's begging to be Dan Bylsma).

Overall, it's a great read - overcoming the fact that my interest in college football comes in at about a 4 out of 10 - but it contains one especially thrilling and fantastic run-on sentence a few graphs after an enraging phrase.

First, let's start with the phrase that drives me a little bonkers:

And now here we are, with the SEC more than halfway to a decade's worth of consecutive national titles,

(my emphasis added)

Look, I'm all for flowery language. It would be hypocritical for me to say that you shouldn't write or say things in an artsier and less efficient way.

On the other hand, as someone who merely views the SEC's rampage as a blur of Nick Saban's banality, I actually don't know if Conn means five or six years when he writes "more than halfway to a decade." I'm guessing six, but maybe it's five titles but the fifth one happened months ago so inawayit'smorethanhalfwayto10?

I don't know, because it's confusing.

Apologies if it seems like I'm picking on Conn, but it's really because the rest of the article is so damned captivating. This delicious run-on practically gave me, well, a different kind of -on.

It's a staggeringly efficient orchestration. There are men hitting each other, yes, but then there are men holding cards that instruct them how to hit each other, standing next to men holding clipboards to chart how well they hit each other, standing next to men who give them water to fuel their hitting of each other, standing next to men who yell for them to hit each other harder.

No, Mr. Conn, that run-on sentence was a staggeringly efficient orchestration. Bravo.

But, seriously, is it five or six years? I'm guessing it isn't seven ...