Reader question:

In this paragraph – What a bummer! A study by the British Medical Journal reveals that although the Wii game console offers more activity than passive videogames, it is no replacement¹ for real exercise – what does "What a bummer" mean?

My comments:

What a disappointment! How sad!

A bummer, as in "that's a bummer", means a frustrating² experience, something disappointing happening, especially when you have not expected it coming.

Here's a real bummer – Yao Ming will not play another game for the rest of the season because of a stress fracture in his left foot.

At any rate, that's a major bummer for me, a Yao fan. I was on my way to have dinner with a few friends on Wednesday when one of them asked me to pick a restaurant. "Any will do," I blurted³. "Yao Ming's injured again and I don't have an appetite."

One friend, who plays basketball also, murmured: "I understand." His wife, though, was less sympathetic. "Ah well," she said, "just another fanatic⁴!" Apparently⁵, she thought it was a poor joke – how could Yao's injury, or healthy, affect our dinner?

It was no joke to me. I ate that dinner without relish⁶. You see, the Rockets have just won 13 games in a row – the longest winning streak⁷ by any team in the NBA right now and the Rockets' longest winning streak since their championship years in the mid-1990s.

Then this!

Not that I mind that much about the Rockets winning a championship this year, although nobody would be more deserving than Yao if they did. You see, Yao is tall but never lets his height stop him from becoming better. The guy works hard and cares about his team. The Houston Chronicle calls him "a role model in every sense of the word". Upon hearing the injury, Tracy McGrady, the other superstar on the team, wrote Yao a poem titled Broken Wall...

I ask you to pull a chair, Wall

Stretch and lighten

and peel away your frustration⁸

Create a window

and walk thru to me

They tell me, Wall

that the rings have blinded you

That a red ring chokes you

while the black ring consumes your soul

They tell me, Wall

that the torch weighs heavy

upon your mighty⁹ frame

That your corners ache

not the trembling floor

All they want to demolish¹⁰ us, Wall

I see it, feel it

They take Great pleasure in

cracking our foundation

But one nail can.t break us, Wall

One chip can.t stop 'chips

We will build you again, Wall

Stronger

But until then I shall hold you

Us

Yes, yes

stress THIS

We will rise again, Wall

Oh, indeed, what a bummer, for me, other Yao fans, his teammates, Rockets fans, the Rockets organization and ultimately Yao himself even though Yao has been putting himself last here, which only makes his injury more difficult to take. Upon hearing the injury, which came totally out of the blue for everyone, the first thing that came to Yao's mind was his teammates and his country – he doesn't want to miss the Olympics.

"I'm sorry," Yao kept saying. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry to the franchise¹¹. I'm sorry to the city. I'm sorry to (Rockets owner) Mr. (Leslie) Alexander. I'm so sorry."

The guy's so tall and yet he is so touching¹².

He felt sorry for his teammates when he broke them the news, as though he had committed a flagrant foul¹³.

Then he said he is most afraid to miss the upcoming Olympics in Beijing, calling that – should it happen – the greatest loss of his career.

As though getting injured were a flaw in his character.

Not that Yao is flawless – he does commercials for McDonald's and Coca Cola, but (then, who are we to nitpick? I myself drink the bubbly once in a while and I'm not totally immune to eating junk food either. Besides, if the money's too big to refuse for Yao, I'm sure it must be too big to refuse for anyone. So there) if that's his biggest flaw, then you can't help but love the guy even more.

Alright, let's quit Yao now – any more talk about his injury threatens to make me blurry-eyed.

And I shall quit this column here now also without giving more media examples on the term in question – oh (sigh), what a bummer – as I usually give. Today, no more examples are necessary.