The Popcorn Stand: I’m fit to be tied over this record

Today’s Popcorn Stand focuses on a falcon, an antenna and guy swimming in a bag.

When I read about this: “Animal rescuers in Wales said they are searching for the owner of a peregrine falcon found tangled in a home’s TV antenna,” of course my first thought was “yes there are still people who actually use an antenna.”

Obviously I’m happy the falcon, which was quite distressed, made it out OK. The falcon was actually found hanging upside-down, but again falcons are tough, and the falcon came out of the ordeal OK.

Maybe the falcon was looking for a sattelite dish to perch on and became confused.

For the Millennials out there an antenna is basically an old fashioned sattelite and yes old fuddy duddys like us remember the days when if the wind didn’t blow just right, you missed your favorite show.

And it’s hard to imagine, but the first Super Bowl was blacked out within a 75-mile radius of Los Angeles because that’s where the game was being played and it wasn’t sold out.

Los Angeles Rams fans figured why pay $10 to watch two teams they don’t care about when they only paid $5 to watch their team. (Yes, how things have changed).

I bring this up because along with the stories of people driving all the way to Santa Barbara to watch the game, there were stories of people trying to rig their antennas just right to catch a glimpse of the game.

This old fuddy duddy has written before stuff that works, all I want is stuff that works. It seems when I try to watch TV today there always seems to be some kind of message about how my signal or something or other is being interrupted.

It’s enough for this old fuddy duddy to long for the days of antennas, rabbit ears and three channels.

But then again I could miss the Super Bowl.

Sticking with the sports theme, I’ve als written before about my amazement on what the human mind comes up with, Bulgarian swimmer Yane Petkov makes the list.

I mean who wakes up in the morning and says I’ll set a world record for swimming with my hands and feet tied — while in a sack.

Now the sack part I really don’t get because it doesn’t seem to really have anything to do with this record. But I guess Petkov thought it was necessary as I guess he was trying to do his best Houdini impersonation while swimming like Michael Phelps.

Anyway Petkov, 64, swam 3,380 meters with his hands and feet tied to set the world record. Now again as I’ve written many times about these types of records, I would’ve thought the world record for swimming with your hands and feet tied would’ve been like one meter. Sack or no sack.

But Petkov broke the record set by Gopal Kharvi of India, who swam 3,071 meters with his hands and feet tied in 2013 — though he didn’t do it in a sack.

So now Petkov has laid down the gauntlet to Kharvi, who found out keeping his record wasn’t in the bag. It’s now in Petkov’s sack.

As I’ve written before I enjoy watching swimming and I really admire what Phelps has been able to do. But who came up with these events?

I mean I understand the freestyle. But the butterfly? Who decided it would be a pretty cool idea to race through water using the most difficult technique imaginable?

At least until Petkov decided to swim with his feet and hands tied in a sack.

My guess is the 3,000-meter tied-up-in-a-sack won’t become an Olympic swimming event anytime soon.

— Charles Whisnand