Some Loyal Readers Hate Clowns

I feel like Charlie Brown from that old "Coasters" song


You got a new pet Beagle?


I sure didn't.

So back in 1958, a group called "The Coasters" put out a song called "Charlie Brown." According to Reliable Sources, the song has nothing to do with the Charlie Brown of "Peanuts" fame, but instead refers to a purely fictitious class clown who's apparently routinely throwing spitballs and gambling in gym class. He may or may not be a giant.

Anyway, today's Sametime Status is actually about Volleyball. My Facebook Friend Danny Kinda teaches us that in beach volleyball, your team gets three hits, two of which are ALWAYS yours. This means that you make the pass, your partner sets, and you hit, rather than you doing the setting, leaving the hitting up to your partner. That involves a level of trust that you shouldn't have. While this is at least partially true, when looked at from the other side of the net, when serving the ball, you always serve the ball to the person you want to have hit at you, since that person will then make the first and third hits. As such, you generally end up serving the weaker hitter. For this entire weekend's tournament, ever team I played against served me almost exclusively. This makes me sad.

At the same time, there's an ages-old beach volleyball adage that if you're getting all the serves, it's not because you can't hit, it's because your partner can't set. Therefore, I've decided to go with that as the explanation for this series of events. Also, for both days of the tournament, I had partnered up with players who can hit like freight trains, so there's also that. Regardless, all of the other teams serving at me all day made me start to think, in a rhythmic baritone voice, "Why's everybody always pickin' on me?"


So this strategy of serving the tall guy...how did this work out for the other teams?


Not especially well. I made it to the finals on the first day of the tournament, and was about to play the semi-finals for the second when Mother Nature decided to cancel the rest of the festivities. We totally would have won, though.