WHEN IS HIRING AN ALL NIGHT HOOKER LIKE PLAYING PAINTBALL?

You know – enough with the paintball history.  Its obvious that most are going to ignore it and the folks who bother to comment (most anyways) are so hung up on making their version of the past a reality that you can’t see the forest for the bullshit.

So.  I’ve decided to take the blog in a new direction.

From now on I’m going to concentrate on what’s happening today, this week and the future.  But I do need to tie up a few loose ends.

PSP:  They’re fucked.  Just like all tournament ball is fucked.  Here’s the straight poop:  If your team isn’t in with the ‘network’, you’re NOTHING except a ready source of cash.  No one sees you, or your team’s potential, they’ll never recognize your talent and you’re not going to be standing next to Ollie Lang in the penalty box.  You’re going to spend money you can ill-afford, you’re going to get bad calls, you’ll never get to win your arguments with the refs, you’ll get 15 total minutes of actual play time and end up with a little number posted next to your standings on the web – and that little bit of meaningless fame is going to cost you several THOUSAND dollars.  For NOTHING.

Have you ever really looked at the cost of your ill-considered tournament ball career?  Games are scheduled for five minutes these days.  Most last all of two.  Assuming you stay on the field for the entire length of every game and make it all the way through to the finals, you’ll have been on the field for 60 minutes.  For which you paid between $1000 and $5000 in entry fee alone.   That’s a minimum of $16 per minute – or three dollars per player per minute.

A $1000-a-night-hooker doesn’t even cost that much on a minute by minute basis.  Think about that.  Busting your nuts with a professional GIRL costs LESS than busting your balls in some cow pasture in Florida.  You don’t have to wear funny clothes – unless that’s your thing (and truth to tell the hooker might up her fee a bit if that’s the case), there’s no ref telling you what you can or can’t do, there’s no one else in there screwing around with your good time (unless you count the midget – but he costs extra too) and the electronics rarely, if ever, break down.  But no, you’d rather screw around with a bunch of guys and get ripped off in the process.  (Last time I checked, and it was merely for academic purposes, male prostitutes charge less than women but trannies cost more.  Go figure.  The point being that if you swing that way – which is a closer analogy to paintball than hiring a girl – the cost disparity is even greater.  What the heck – hire five guys and it will be just like stepping onto the field…)

There are two reasons that PSP has adopted its new ROF limit.  First and foremost is the fact that they’re now closer to the mandatory standards that will shield them from many liability issues.  They didn’t do this because they wanted to, they did it because they had to.  The second reason is because they’ve gone way overboard on the cost of play.  Teams just can’t afford to shoot the volumes at both events AND practice that are necessary to be even marginally competitive.  Its a sop to the economics prevailing today and has little or nothing to do with making the game more competive.  If they really wanted to address the issue, they’d go back to pump guns and/or gravity feed only hoppers.  Either or both of those would really bring the tactics back into the game. (Of course, tactical play is not the point of paintball tournaments.  Shooting paint is the point.) But then they’d run into the problem with the paint manufacturers.  Too little paint getting shot and the major sponsors will stop ponying up the little bit of support they’re actually providing. 

I’m not even going to start discussing ’sponsorship’, except to say that if you have to pay even a single thin dime for the support you’re receiving, its a lie to call it sponsorship.

Next posting, I’ll start with the new tack on things.  I’m going to take a look at cheaters (if you know of any, let me know and I’ll write all about it) and bad business practices – like the folks who pass bad checks and then hide behind their professional player status to get away with it.