Saturday, April 02, 2005

Invention Friday: What if professional football shoes were better than professional football players?

I know, redundant question.

Modern day football freaks me out a bit. I remember an international level player executing a deliberate foul and was red-carded, and his coach later said that he was proud that the player provided the foul necessary to protect against a goal. Whatever happened to playing by the rules and winning fairly? Sure, more brutality exists in American football, but cavemen mentality has always been part of the game – that and skimpy clad college Spelling majors (give me an “E”!) who think that cheerleading is a real sport. Looks like the last gentleman’s game on the field is rugby – but then all that backward passing also freaks me out. Thus we must reform football, it seems.

Still, this week we introduce the idea of the e-shoe, trademarked the “Yee-Shu” (It’s cheaper to manufacture in China). For the player it adds all that technology can offer – speed, accuracy, grip, and the foot massage while you run.

For the referee, there are additional features. Since the sport seems to resist the American way of camera playback to make a call, it was suggested each player’s shoes should have a “black box” for checking fouls, and the validity of claims of injury on the field. This however, would have taken too much time, and so, instead, a special referee’s shoe is the better choice.

When a player fakes an injury, blaming it on a rival footballer, the shoe picks up the level of complaint by the intensity of the audio and visual elements (factoring in how good the acting was). The shoe compares this with the actual injury (if any). The referee still has to determine the call to be made, but the shoe goes into automatic gear to ensure the injury claimed is accurate – with a swift kick to balance things out when necessary.

3 comments:

~tengman.k.~ said...

hmm... interesting issue! I think I'll do a triple major in uni - Physics, Music and Spelling! how's that? Wait a sec, some of those spelling bees (especially National Geographic ones) can be insane! I'll stick to spelling pneumonoultramicrovolcanocaniosis :D glad I'm not Welsh what with places like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Australian aboriginal names are pretty bad too.
everything considered, I'll leave Spelling majors to geographers and chemists. go see this site. There's no word wrap for an obvious reason:
HERE

~tengman.k.~ said...

Or else I'll go with poetry. That seems better. Shortest poem is apparently by a Stanley Gillian, who wrote 'Lines on the antiquity of microbes' a.k.a

Fleas
Adam
had 'em

~tengman.k.~ said...

Sorry, not Stanley. Strickland