First it was darts, then dominos, then backgammon, then chess, then poker, then eating contests and now folks, it's Rock Paper Scissors. That's right, the USARPS League combines big prizes, beer, women (former PMOY NSFW) spokeswoman, and now National Television coverage on ESPN to bring you the finest in 1 on 1 strategy. Ridiculous you say? I think not. I've been asserting as fact for almost a decade now that RPS is the ultimate and most basic combination of strategy, wit, guile, nerve and marbles and is the only real way disputes can be fairly settled.
Not only must you know yourself, and know enough to stay within yourself and not overthink your moves, but you must know your opponent what they have a propensity to throw, if they like to lead with say, paper, or if they're as surprised as anyone as to the shape their hand takes as "shoot" is called. (I could never understand those people who threw on "three" or "scissors" during the cadence, it just feels wrong). For those of you who are not familiar with the RPS hierarchy (more like a cycle), here it is.
Looking at the games history, co-commissoner Matt Leshem stated in a recent interview, "this is a game played since the beginning of recorded history. Back to the caveman days, it was known as rock rock rock. The discovery of new materials led to a change in the approach. "For a time, it was known as rock papyrus spear, which you may have heard of before." How true. Rock, Paper, Scissors too bland for you? Fellow AoF editor T.D. Xerxes recommends you try a variation of the game "CFNB" or "Cockroach, Foot, Nuclear Bomb" (upon further research I have found allegations that this game originated on "That 70's Show". Seeing as how I never watch it nor seen TDX watching it I feel obligated to apply the independant source doctrine in this matter.) Regardless of the spin you put on it, you've gotta believe that it'll make for some of the finest minute thirty, possibly two minutes of television entertainment.
Lastly, I think it was about time that ESPN embraced the sideways suggestion in the movie "Dodgeball" in which the tournament in said movie was aired on the ficticious ESPN channel "ESPN 8" aka "The Ocho". Brilliant. Now I'm not saying that ESPN needs to go ahead and create 4 more channels just to get there, but how about we call it ESPN Gaming, or ESPN programming for people who hate the Big 4 Sports (Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey or NASCAR (sort of) (if you really believe ESPN a la covering Barry Bonds as if there was never a cloud of suspicious surrounding his use of performance enhancing drugs) ). Seriously, there are times when ESPN and ESPN 2 look like to sports what MTV now is to music videos. I suppose this is inevitable when your programming consists of 3 or 4 decent shows and 1 Sports news show repeated about 30 times a day. You're going to have to have something to fill in for the times when all that's in season is Arena football and the WNBA (which do we care about less - check the sidbar poll). Anyway, back to RPS on ESPN. Think about it. You could have Harold Reynolds calling the matches, Kenny Mayne, throw a little Johnny Mac in there for good measure and BAM, you've got a formidable Monday Night RPS broadcasting team.
Come to think of it, does anyone else think that we've been seeing a lot of Stephen A. Smith since the departure of Harold Reynolds? Maybe its just me, but SAS is a bit over the top. Besides, Reynolds got a raw deal, the least you could do is give him The Ocho. I was perfectly cool with him when I ran into him at a California Pizza Kitchen near Bristol. I just hope that the Stephen A. experiment gets curtailed a bit.
But for now, Rock, Paper, Scissors...Shoot! (sweet online game)
I'm going to have to credit With Leather for bringing this to my attention. (if you do not already know of With Leather, and AoF is not fulfulling your internet procrastinating needs, I highly recommend the site. They do excellent work over there full time.)
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