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Handshakes, sumo flights and Napster

Guy Speckman by Guy Speckman
September 3, 2020
in Ponder the Thought
Sumo Wrestlers
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I would gladly sit in the middle row of a transatlantic flight between two sumo wrestlers at this point in the pandemic.


Funniest high school football moment of the weekend? In some games, the pandemic protocols called for socially distant coin flips. In one that I saw, each team only sent out one player for the coin toss and only one referee was part of the process. The players could not shake hands and out of instinct they started to and then pulled their hands back. Immediately thereafter, the players spent the next couple hours playing tackle football; where it is necessary to touch each other often.

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The common sense train has left the station; all aboard.


My understanding is that handshakes or high fives are also no longer a thing in volleyball action that gets rolling in full steam this week. The “new” protocol is to stand on the back line and wave to your opponent at the end of a contest.

I’m not making this stuff up. If you were reasonably sane in 2018-19 ish, it is very possible that will not be the case by 2021.


In case you were curious, the Royals are not good this year. In fact, they’re awful. Luckily, attendance has been better than expected.


Napster sold for $70 million dollars this month. Yes, Napster. You remember when you were stealing music from hard working artists and recording companies. I have not checked with Prosecutor Eric Zahnd, but I’m thinking we’ve reached the statute of limitations and you can freely admit you were a music thief in the late 1990’s when Napster hit the scene. Heck, Zahnd might have even downloaded some easy listening jazz tunes without paying a fee; I’m not judging. On second thought, he might be one of those heavy metal listeners or a TuPac guy that you never expected. I have digressed.

Napster is still a thing and was apparently worth $70 million dollars still, so that is a happy ending to this story. I say you can forgive yourself for stealing the music at this point and throw on some TuPac to celebrate.


Barry Manilow may or may not have been my most stolen music off of Napster. Don’t judge me.


Tik-Tok is in all the news of late. My daughter encouraged me to take a look at Tik-Tok this summer despite my contention that we need less social media and not more. I am officially addicted. If you set up your feed just right, it’s a mix of jokes, songs and laughs that can last for hours. You don’t have to read your 80-year-old former neighbor’s opinion on Donald Trump or read your liberal relative’s slobber fest on Kamala Harris. You don’t have to look at pictures of dogs or kids or so called “friends.” It is literally a sit back and laugh app and I highly recommend it if you like fun more than political bickering on the internet.

For the record, I don’t care if China is spying on me through Tik-Tok. Facebook has been spying on me for a decade and that hasn’t done much for them or me. If China is worried about my movements, then we’ve got bigger problems than Tik-Tok.

(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or downloading music off of Napster)

Tags: eric zahndplatte county
Guy Speckman

Guy Speckman

Guy Speckman is a Landmark contributing columnist with his Ponder the Thought column. Speckman is the former owner of the Savannah Reporter, where the column appeared for nearly two decades. Speckman is a former city government manager, serving as city administrator in Maysville, Plattsburg and Savannah before entering business. He is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University (1989). He is originally from Plattsburg, Missouri. He and his wife own and operate a real estate valuation firm and a daily legal newspaper and are the parents of two grown children.

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