He does this all the time - usually when I reading something else...but I digress.
When I thought I might post something on JR about it I asked him for documentation and he cited the Wall Street Journal (I couldn't find it in their archives but did find it on the highly-respected website OMG Facts! It's possible that hubby actually reads OMG facts but I doubt it.)
Anyway, apparently studies have shown that in a standard 3 hour baseball game there is really only about 11 minutes of actual playing time. I have long believed that baseball games (much as I love my Yankees and Mets) are riddled with long stretches of grown men spitting or scratching themselves and announcers reduced to filling air time by saying "our producer's lovely wife Jeanette just gave birth to twins," and "Paul O'Neill's son just became a doctor.") But really...only 11 minutes?
It seems the same is true for NFL games.
But they're running back and forth the entire length of a football field or baseball diamond! How can this be? Well. There's a lot of standing around and talking. Switching teams. Pre and post-actual playing time.
Like a lot of things. Kayaking for example - the gear, the loading, the drive, the landing. Actual time in the water? An hour and a half usually...for an all-day outing.
Then there's sex. Do we even want to go there? Let's just say for most men (not you honey!) 11 minutes is generous.
So what about writing? I shudder to think what the ratio of non-writing to writing time is. Standing around and talking. Switching teams. I don't spit but I have scratched.
At a time when writers are also publishers, publicists, marketers, travel agents and shipping clerks it's sometimes scary how much time is spent on non-writing activities.
Any guesses? What's your ratio?
(I was going to run a pic of a baseball diamond but then I found the Derek Jeter pic and he's such a cutie...please g-d let's never find out that he's taken performance-enhancing drugs.)
