After the feast we cooked up last night, which started with champagne and presents to celebrate Sasha’s birthday and ended with a bottle of 1977 Dow to accompany the ice cream, peaches, toasted almonds and Grand Marnier desert, I passed out on my bed at about 11, leaving clean-up duty to others.
The chef could not be bothered with such things. More accurately, negroni, champagne, red wine, white wine, grand marnier and port left my eyelids feeling like sandbags. Useless, but satisfied, I passed out.
I woke up, well rested, to the sun rising in the east, a picture perfect beginning to a glorious labor day weekend day. Could it be the perfect weekend? Arrive Friday night to swordfish and wine. Relax Saturday during the day and cook a huge family dinner that night. Wake up to a beautiful Sunday knowing that the girlfriend in transit and arriving imminently to enjoy the beach weekend. Half the long weekend is complete. It’s been perfect. Only another day and a half to go. Can the perfection continue??
Finishing my morning coffee, which was as satisfying as the 75 degree sunny day outside, I settled in to the New York Times, eager to be challenged, provoked and enlightened by the millions of dollars the NY Times spends each weekend to create quality reading to satisfy people just like me.
Whether on the toilet, the train, in bed, or, as in today’s case, outside enjoying a view of passing sailboats and the sounds of crashing waves melodically playing with the rocks below, I have appreciated the NY Times ability to deliver time and time again.
The ever dependable NY Times seemed like a lock-in to deliver and help me continue my pursuite of a 100% satisfying long weekend. Perfection was within reach. The four variables (people, food, weather, activities) were all working in my favor.
Long weekends are the only weekends that can score a perfect 10. On Sunday, you don’t have the Sunday blues because Monday is a day off as well. No other weekend has the scoring potential of a long weekend.
Alas, my run at the perfect weekend was ruined at 9am this morning by an unsatisfying NY Tmies article. The offending party is Jonathan D. Glater, author of Billionaires Yacht Rivalry Spills into Courtroom.
The author drew me into his article by using big names and big words such as “Larry Elison”, “Billionares”, “Courtroom”, and “Lawsuite”, and then left me hanging by not explaining the most important fact around which the story is built, namely why is Billionaire A is suiing Billionaire B? It’s nice to know that there is a lawsuite. That’s kind of essential to the story. But what is the focus of the lawsuite?!?!
As Michael, our ScribeMedia.org Editor in Chief says, they should have provided this critical element somewhere after the 3rd paragraph, where they first mention the lawsuite, just not what its about.
A bruising yearlong legal battle has so far blocked his effort to challenge for the cup. Mr. Ellison’s nemesis at sea and in court is a fellow member of the billionaires’ club, Ernesto Bertarelli, the former head of a Swiss company whose team, Alinghi, won the last two cup races.
Give us one paragraph that neatly ties up what this lawsuite is about.
For those of you who were left equally frustrated by the missing critical element required to make the article complete, I’m going to find out what the lawsuite is about. But not until after I get back from the beach. I can’t lose focus from my pursuite of maximum weekend satisfaction.
Like Alicia Sacramone bungling her approach to the balance beam, I can only hope to recover enough to have a pretty good day, but not the gold medal day I was hoping for. The beach will hopefully get me back on track.
As my dad just pointed out, he’s been reading the NY Times since high school, when he was introduced to it by Miss Meeker, his high school English teacher in Fort Lee New Jersey back in 1945. He looks forward to paying $1.50 every day, which is why he deserves to get good articles. He was not happy not knowing what the lawsuite was about either.
Jonathan D. Glater, if you don’t do it for me, do it for my old man! Or the Construction worker in Dubuque Iowa who just got laid off but still finds inspiration in the NY Times weekend edition. Or the single mother of 3 in Okmulgee Oklahoma who depends on you for your quality story telling. Or the PTA hockey mom in Wasilla Alaska. These are the people who need you to step up and deliver quality journalism. Me? I can recover.
