Mightier than the Sword


Volleyball schedule format called into question

(GRAY) Months after the unforgiving glare of the international spotlight has faded from West Palm Beach, Florida, and the controversial presidential election that was decided there has all but disappeared from memory, Gray, Maine, plunged into confusion following the release of the so-called "Butterfly Volleyball Schedule." The schedule's unusual layout baffled players and caused problems for those trying to decipher the cryptic date/time slots.

"I was 100% sure my game was on Thursday, December 19 at 4:30 a.m., but when I showed up ready to play some serious ball, no one was there," said entrepreneur and weak side hitter Rob Neilson. "I guess I read the schedule wrong. Again." Officials were working to understand how this could have happened after the presidential election fiasco involving the now-infamous "Butterfly Ballots" placed such intense scrutiny on the design of public documents.

Human factors engineer Harold Raymer shared several key points in the design of the schedule that may have contributed to the confusion. "In defense of my colleague, Dr. John Razsa, who designed the schedule in question, I'd like to state that the overall design, while perhaps unconventional by the current standards of human-schedule interaction studies, wasn't complete and utter crap. His decision to print the majority of the schedule in the standard English alphabet was a good one, and I stand behind that choice."

"However," added Raymer, "I can understand how some subjects found it cumbersome to fold the schedule in approximate vertical thirds, along the dotted lines, in order to obscure the center portion of the schedule, which was in fact fake, so that the two outermost columns were then juxtaposed so as to reveal the true schedule. It worked well for "Mad Magazine" covers, but not so well for a volleyball schedule."

Raymer went on to cite the use of holograms, Morse Code, rebus, and a "Choose Your Own Adventure" format as other factors that could have, in some circumstances, affected the clarity of the schedule. "The part where we had to listen to that "Until I Got High" song backwards to hear the hidden message about who we play was kind of confusing. I couldn't get my CD player to go backwards," said women's league scorekeeper Val Razsa. "I was going to ask my husband to explain it to me... but then I got hiiiiigh."

"If I read the lunar cycle chart correctly, I think we play Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader next week in the quarterfinals," said welfare mother Shannon Doyle. "But I had to estimate the constant in the hyperbolic descent equation because my graphing calculator couldn't handle that level of precision, so I don't know for sure. We're so screwed. Plus someone said Nader has a kick-ass jump serve."

Many teams are expected to push for a ban on the required use of animal sacrifices and sweat lodges to produce 'visions' of the appropriate match dates and times before the completion of next summer's schedule. Clarifications of the concluding matches of the summer league may be released as early as Friday, but Dr. Razsa stated it will depend on how long it takes him to tie those revised schedules to the bellys of the greased piglets who will act as couriers.