I love so many HaaH posts. She's really funny. The Easter Bunny one is great too.
That post is me, to a disturbingly accurate degree, apart from the nachos.
Here is the Easter Bunny one.
This is the one I thought of the whole time I was bedridden with ankle demons.
Way too familiar, except for the cooking and groceries part.
I was actually talking a lot about this sort of stuff with my shrink, and he suggested figuring out how much time you could spend on various tasks on a weekly basis, the ones you avoid that is, then cutting that in half and putting it on a schedule. The key, he argued is twofold: first of all, make sure you don't set tasks like 'clean the kitchen' but rather 'spend twenty minutes cleaning the kitchen', and secondly, absolutely never allow yourself to do more than you had scheduled, no matter how willing you feel. I've been planning to plan this for a couple weeks now.
"Go to the motherf*cking BANK, like an ADULT" resonates all too much. The whole thing is frightfully familiar, really.
I have gotten a lot better about cleaning my apartment with the understanding that I can listen to This American Life episodes while doing so. The problem now is that I have listened to all the This American Life episodes and have to listen to something else. (Open to suggestions, but have already rejected Radiolab for being hella irritating.)
That's why shrinks are so rich. First, they never set themselves tasks like "Cure the patient" but rather "Spend twenty minutes talking to the patient", and secondly, they never allow themselves to do more than originally scheduled no matter how willing you feel.
10: Ha! My shrink went 20 minutes over with me today. I have her wrapped around my finger.
but have already rejected Radiolab for being hella irritating.
I think I agree with you, but two jerks kept interrupting your comment so I can't be sure.
Oh, god. I can't not fail. Please kill me.
m, look, I am an attention-deficit squirrel
What's so wrong with underachievement and squalor?
Best method of keeping your kitchen floor clean: whenever you spill something wipe down that part of the floor thoroughly. This not only makes sure that you eventually clean all of the floor, you also get the bonus of an artistic pattern of darker and lighter areas.
Squalor? I beg your pardon. I vacuumed two rooms plus the hallway this morning, put some stuff away, cleaned some dust and cobwebs, and got the recycling ready to go out. That about took it out of me, since I'd already spent an hour and half reading, and I had to have lunch, but hell, I don't even see squalor.
This not only makes sure that you eventually clean all of the floor
False!
This thread is for Esmé--with love.
got the recycling ready to go out
Putting the recycling out is about to be the only non-work thing I get done today. Oh, I went for a run. I guess that counts?
I don't even see squalor. You vacuumed two rooms and the hallway, of course you don't. I can't remember the last time I did that (also known as vacuuming my entire apartment in one go). Of course the problem is more the pick shit up so the floor is visible and vacuumable than the actual vacuuming itself.
The hardest thing for me is calling servicepeople. Not since my last job have I had reliable 9-5 time that calls can be made. I am always wanting to call the roofer at absurd hours like 10 p.m. But - oh joy! - my fabulous plumber has e-mail! Which he and his wife both check!
So that terrifying recent problem with my washing machine, where the unexplained pool of water made me dread the massive expense that I was sure was coming, was solved with two e-mails and leaving my key out. And it turned out to be loose hoses (which I swear I had looked at, but anyway). Oh frabjous day.
On the OP, I'm no stranger to guilt and avoidance of tasks, but IME the best way to avoid the "I'm not an adult" part of the script is to have been a weirdly adult little kid.
Oh, I went for a run. I guess that counts?
I certainly hope so. Oh, wait, I also folded a towel.
I was a weirdly adult little kid, but not the kind who enjoyed mundane tasks. I was addicted to reading and video games, just as now, I am addicted to reading and video games.
oh joy! - my fabulous plumber has e-mail!
Yeah, I've mentioned before that my landlord works for an HVAC and plumbing company and prefers e-mail. This makes service stuff super easy *and* he just takes care of payment. I should probably pay the rent, seeing as it's rabbit-rabbit day.
I have done lots of stuff today: mowing, clothes washing, washing dishes, rearranging stuff, lots of filing and so on. The problem is, is that this post makes we want to do MORE. RIGHT NOW. So I can prove that... something.
m, i'm want to be a productive human being dammit
HOLY SHIT! I just two nights ago read the original for rabbit-rabbit day, and thought how lovely that was, and what a good blogger E.B. White would have been. And, it was in an essay about atheism. It is like god meant us to have this thread this week.
Apparently not the real original, but the first I ever heard of it, and something that I could well believe E.B. White would originate.
Let me go look for the passage.
this post makes we want to do MORE. RIGHT NOW.
I'm not sure whether it's this post or my impending dinner party, but either way I have been stupendously productive tonight. Take that, alumni magazine! Begone, piled-up correspondence!
Dishes, fridge, laundry, bills...it's funny what you end up enjoying or seeing as a chore. I was talking with a friend recently and she was amazed that I like grocery shopping. But again, I suspect it was the early brainwashing.
Now Megan is making me very much want to dig out my E.B. White essays.
Yeah, it inspired me to do dishes, clean the kitchen, and clear out a nook under my desk that has been gathering random crap and dust bunnies for, uh, six years. Clean all the things!
Also, I will be moving soon, and I'm haunted by how awful that's going to be if I don't do a lot of preparing right now. The longest I ever lived anywhere as an adult before now was two years. I never even lived in the same room as a child for more than four.
In an essay on gradually going to church less:
When I feel sick unto death, I cry out in agony to God; when I speak boastingly, I knock on wood. Here is a clear case divided responsibility, for there appears to be for me a power in wood that God doesn't possess. My boy, likewise, is firm in certain pagan beliefs. One of them is that if you don't say "Rabbit rabbit" on the last night of the old month and "Bunny bunny" on the first morning of the new month, bad luck will attend you. (I can't imagine where he got this fantastic idea, unless it was from me.) He says "Now I lay me down to sleep" each night with a certain sing-song abstraction and an induced piety of demeanor - a far away sound in his voice. But when he says "Bunny bunny" his mind is on his work.
My dad used to tell us made-up stuff all the time.
E.B. White, One Man's Meat, the essay title is Sabbath Morn, February 1939.
she was amazed that I like grocery shopping.
Grocery shopping is fun. Finding things, imaging things that you can cook with some veggie, making up recipes on the spot. Lots of variety. Washing dishes, especially without a dishwasher: not fun.
I have been stupendously productive tonight.
So have I, and yet... it's NOT ENOUGH. Gah.
m, in the end the internet ate my entire life
I am convinced that the weapon in "The Supremacy of Uruguay" was not, in fact, some kind of radio thingy (it's been so long since I read the story,* I can't remember), but actually an amplified vuvuzela.
*I could buy the story from the New Yorker for $5.99 (and get the whole issue for one year!) but it's not even peer-reviewed.
Huh. I thought "I hate white rabbits" is what you say to keep the campfire smoke out of your face.
the best way to avoid the "I'm not an adult" part of the script is to have been a marry someone who was this particular brand of weirdly adult little kid.
So we're supposed to say 'rabbit, rabbit, rabbit'?
m, does it work?
the best way to avoid the "I'm not an adult" part of the script is to have been a marry someone who was this particular brand of weirdly adult little kid hire someone to do that shit for you.
Not that that's an option for everyone, but dear God does it help if you can afford it.
Silly rabbit, tasks are for weirdly adult kids.
Silly rabbit, tricks are for whores. I said I was an illusionist.
Heebie, don't click on Justin Bieber's tattoo.
The main voice actors for The Simpsons make $400,000 per episode.
Jesus, did that show up in my status feed?
46: Yeah, it's a spam thing. I clicked on it earlier because it showed up from a surprising source, so I figured there was something interesting to see, but there wasn't, and I wondered about it, and lo and behold, it got to like five of my friends. You can remove it.
But I still want to know what his crazy tattoo is.
According to the picture I finally got to, it's just his initials. I was all, smart weird dude from high school, why do you care?
Oh, there really is a tattoo? I gave up when I had to pick an application or quiz or something in order to continue, and I didn't see a "skip this" button.
What a lame tattoo though. Is it in gothic letters? Or maybe Comic Sans?
It looked like that vaguely Persianish script, J.B., but it might be photoshopped. I don't think they let kids get tattoos.
That post really hits home, and it also leads me to suspect that the main way people turn into "real" adults is that some major change in their lives drastically reduces the amount of discretion they have in choosing whether and/or when to do these things. Having children, for example.
Maybe it stands for something meaningful that coincides with his name. Juicy Bean or Jumpy Bones.
my mom conveniently texts me "rabbit rabbit" at midnight so I don't forget.
Or maybe to rub it in that she got there first.
There seem to be a few of these virus-y FB things going around. I keep getting invitations to join a group called "Movies :-)))))))" or something like that, from friends who I'd imagine know better than to join a group called "Movies :-)))))))."
Maybe "Movies :-)))))))" is the best group ever on FB, but I'm not willing to find out.
Yeah, there's a bunch of those Facebook virus things.
Get off the lawn I'm renting, Stormcrow.
I fought the lawn and the law once.
Oh, heck, FA's around: Any thoughts on the Lebron/Free-Agent-a-thon that's on of late?
No? I've pretty much limited all of my sports-watching to ongoing events in the last few years. So I haven't paid any attention to the off-season stuff at all. I'd like to see him go to a team that can win, but that hasn't won it all in the recent past.
Which reminds me, I actually want to be up for Netherlands-Brazil tomorrow morning, so I should go to bed.
I'd like to see him go to a team that can win, but that hasn't won it all in the recent past.
Somalia's NFL team, then? I'm trying to think of the most improbable sports team ever.
I see, on preview, that you're away. Perhaps the idea will catch fire later.
Teraz's shrink has obviously been reading Flylady. Does he also recommend keeping laced-up shoes on at all times?
Having kids does raise your base line of productivity, simply because they need looking after. But the realisation that the things really do never end is fucking depressing.
oh god. my mom is acquainted with fl/yla/dy.
I can really only be productive by being an asshole, or at least an elitist about the activity. i can't just 'make food', i have to turn healthy non-industrial foods into new recipes. I have to buy or make new clothing items with some frequency or i'll lose desire to do the wash. haven't figurd out how to make rent payments on time, or even reorder checks on time.
i assumed movies:))))))))))) had something to do with sunn o)))
Grocery shopping is fun.
I love grocery shopping, and do close to 100% of the grocery shopping for our household. I get to stroll leisurely through a well-lit, colorful, air-conditioned place with my iPod and no children.
a few of these virus-y FB things
"few" s/b "avalanche".
Can you just say "rabbit rabbit rabbit" aloud when you wake up, even if alone, or do you have to say it to another person, thus enhancing your luck by stealing theirs?
Any thoughts on the Lebron/Free-Agent-a-thon that's on of late?
Epic, literary-scale choice between loyalty and soul (hapless Cleveland, childhood home) and winning championships (Chicago and Miami probably have better pieces to put around him). If Lebron leaves it practically kills the Cavs franchise and piles yet another weight onto Cleveland's history of sports failure, but they put a bunch of has-been vets and marginally talented young 'uns around him that may not be enough for a championship.
Washing dishes, especially without a dishwasher: not fun.
Nah, it's almost as good as video games: lots of little doses of "I accomplished something!" each time a clean dish goes into the dishrack. Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly useless I'll take dishes out of the dishwasher and wash them by hand instead, although I feel a little bad about the water use.
I'd like to see him go to a team that can win, but that hasn't won it all in the recent past.
that's the team he's on now. City of Cleveland hasn't won a championship in any sport since 1960. Cavs are definitely a champ contender but can't quite get over the top.
I think he should sign a two-year contract with the Miami Heat Rays and then go back to cleveland when everyone is less tense and jumpy.
The longer I procrastinate on returning phone calls and emails, the more guilty I feel about it. The guilt I feel causes me to avoid the issue further, which only leads to more guilt and more procrastination. It gets to the point where I don't email someone for fear of reminding them that they emailed me and thus giving them a reason to be disappointed in me.
I never realized before that this was exactly what I feel.
niggle! niggle!
(this had better be a decent game of football.)
Ah crap. Stupid defender knee injury.
ref's going to have to get a grip on the game soon.
78: I have delayed paying bills because I was afraid to remind some soulless corporation that I was late.
I love that post, and now have a new blog to read. Thanks heebs!
76: City of Cleveland hasn't won a championship in any sport since 1960.
Since the afternoon of Sunday, December 27, 1964. Not that anyone is counting.
My wife, Junie, was once filling out one of those chain email quiz-interviews and in response to the question "What is the best feeling in the world?" she wrote "Quiet productivity." I told her - as if she didn't know already - that we were very different people. (Mine would have been something like "Fleeting moments of satisfying cleverness.")
I manage normal adult responsibilities pretty darn well, at least with the prompts/incentives provided by living with someone else, but, especially professionally, the post is still very much me.
The post is too resonant for me right now, but my version of it includes more work responsibilities and everyone's favorite problem of balancing work and home life. I just got an angry complaint from a student that a test wasn't ready when I said it would be on the syllabus.
A friend of mine once explained that productivity is not a property some people have, but a series of small, often painful decisions. That has helped me.
So now I am making the painful decision to stop commenting and get back to work.
I'm another 78. Had dinner with an old friend last night who I haven't spoken to in over a year, and I was very much in the 'too embarrassed to call' state with her.
||
Minimum wage, hunh? That's bracing.
|>
California budget? We've been on imminent shutdown threat for weeks, but that seems to be over now.
You could sell honey.
the commentator here (fifa generic (i think)) is really, really pleased about that.
Woohoo! 2-1! The Brazilians are stunned.
Selling honey! I could, I have a full honey super. 'Cept that I don't know how to extract it.
9: Radio 4's In Our Times was made for doing household chores. I've find I actually get the housework done -- and quickly -- when I have a good podcast on to engage the brain. If not I keep breaking off to read blogs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/in-our-time/
Also good are
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/
and
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy05
this is looking good for the dutch. brasil look puzzled. commentator v. v. enthused.
Andy Murray's serve is broken. Damn the BBC for not streaming the football!
ooh that was ugly. robben's really annoying the brazilians.
Oh man it's all Happy Samba until you're on the brink and then suddenly your captain is stamping people on the ground.
Holland need to be more phlegmatically Dutch now and calm the fuck down.
re: 98
It's on one of the other British channels, so the BBC don't have rights. Matches are split between two terrestrial broadcasters.
I'm glad I got up early for this one.
It's probably too much to hope that a country that hasn't won before will win this year.
I'd like to see a Spain-Netherlands final if the winner gets Belgium. Ok, now I have to go to work.
Well, great, thanks Holland. Now my neighborhood's going to burn to the ground.
109: Those Dutchmen aren't so phlegmatic in victory, eh?
It's more the brazilians in defeat, around here. Although the mournful car horns seem to have quieted.
109: My sister tells me that every time anyone scores a goal she hears people blowing vuvuzelas all through her neighborhood. Who is playing doesn't matter, nor who scored. Any goal produces the sound of a swarm of angry yet chipper bees.
I look forward to Australia hosting the World Cup. Then everyone can hate on didgeridoos.
54: the main way people turn into "real" adults is to realize that all the emotional turmoil surrounding something is mostly not at all related to that something.
That makes paying the fucking gas bill just paying the fucking gas bill, not a replay of the psychodrama from when one was nine about disappointed Mom & Dad and one's squandered allowance. A few clicks of the mouse or lines of writing, and it's done.
||
There's an event on campus right now called "Rosie's Girls" which is meant to introduce middle school girls to welding and other skills used in heavy industry. I can't decide if this is empowering or a way to trap people in a declining job sector.
|>
Empowering! I would have loved that in middle school.
114: It's a scheme to turn them into lesbians.
One year while I was there someone taught a class during Reed's independent activities period called "Welding for Lesbians" on the theory that if you wanted to be a real butch lesbian you either had to be a welder or a truck driver.
Also welding is a hella cool skill. Few things are as empowering as actually making stuff with your own hands.
The tasks that make me feel like a totally incompetent adult are:
1) My inability to send presents to the nieces and nephews on time for their birthday or whatever
2) My inability to send thank you notes
||
3 Down in today's NYT crossword put me in mind of you all: 15 letters, clued as "It may be picked first".
|>
When I was a twentysomething, I was so proud to write my check to the LA Times. Real grown up. Now I wonder why I am paying those assholes to not tell me anything but the sports scores which I already know from the TV the night before. So I read the comics.
The tasks that make me feel like a totally incompetent adult are:
1. Maintaining a home computer (well organized, virus protected, able to retrieve stuff after a crash).
2. Cataloging pretty much anything (photos, mail, files).
3. I'm a crappy gift-giver, despite being a fairly generous person.
4. Dressing professionally.
Tasks that make me feel like a totally competent adult:
Preparing food for groups.
Leaving phone messages.
Re: adulthood, it reminds me of two separate incidents dating my girlfriend. The first incident was the first time she came over to my place. We had already spent the night or just hung out at hers several times, but I live with three guys and we live down to the stereotype of single guy neatness. I had tidied up some before she came, but I could only scratch the surface. One problem with the mess - far from the most embarrassing, but still worth mentioning - was a heap of unopened envelopes on my floor. (Well, it's on my floor now, but I think it might have been on top of a cardboard box when she was here. But anyways.) It's all the mail I haven't got around to sorting yet and deciding whether I want to keep it for "my records", whether I want to do something with it, or whether I can throw it away. I manage to keep most genuinely urgent stuff like bills off it, and the really obvious junk mail, but even so the pile can get pretty big and once in a while I find stuff in it that I should have dealt with long ago.
I didn't think of that too much until the second incident. After a month or two after that, we were at her place and the topic of my heap of mail came up (apologetically, of course) and she mentioned that she keeps hers in a bag in the closet. Sure enough, there was a plastic bag in her closet full of the same kind of stuff that I keep on my floor or a box. And the thing is, my girlfriend is several years older than me, and her place always looks much neater than mine, and yet that's still how she handles things.
So I learned a valuable lesson that day (and thanks to a few other events as well, but including them wouldn't make as neat a narrative): faking adulthood and organization is just as good as actually having it. Or maybe even: no one is really as together as they look. Or something.
Re: this "hyperbole and a half" blog in general, I've never heard of it before today but I love it.
The other potential lesson is the handling mail is actually difficult, and they should stop fucking sending it to me.
121: Actually hiding it away unopened mail in a bag is potentially much more dangerous than leaving it out in a big pile. Once you hide it away there's a chance you may completely forget about it. I am speaking from experience.
122, 123: Actually writing coherent sentences is difficult too.
It's all the mail I haven't got around to sorting yet
Here's an uncashed check for $50,000.00
118: clued as "It may be picked first".
"YOURFRIENDSNOSE" ?
Thanks for 88.2, rob. I need to remember that.
For me, the cartoon linked in the OP was so on point that it literally hurt to read it.
Boo. Keeper started by going the wrong way on it.
I'm watching streaming at work, so I miss small things, but Kingson looked really pained that it just went over his hands.
I also keep thinking that Uruguay's diving a bit, but that may be projection.
I agree with the anonymous person who defaced Ghana's Wikipedia page: Fuck Ghana.
And blocked.
I'm going to ignore 133 or presume that it was intended as high-minded sarcasm.
Ghana can rot in hell. If Uruguay won 57-0, it wouldn't be enough for me.
Are you from Ghana? I would feel bad if you were, since I have no actual opinion about the country or its inhabitants, but I hate them, the same way I hate Kurt Warner, and the New York Yankees, and the Chicago Blackhawks, and every other athlete or team who ruined my cheering.
For me, the next world cup is about 1) Defeating Ghana, and 2) Winning. If the US beats Ghana, but then loses every single other game, it's a success. If the US wins the entire thing, but fails to play Ghana, then it was a waste.
Now that I've said that, I've guaranteed them a trip to the finals.
135. Walt, in a knock-out contest, you should always support the side that knocked you out. That way you can plausibly claim to be a close second best when they win.
The other potential lesson is the handling mail is actually difficult, and they should stop fucking sending it to me.
Dear lord, motherfucking THIS. Especially Allstate. You motherfuckers. I *am* your goddamn customer. I don't believe that you can save me money if I switch to Allstate because (1) I already have Allstate and (2) I've seen how you spend some portion of my money already and it's not particularly wise.
Walt got burned super bad by a hiplife MC at a rap battle.
I'm not from Ghana, but I've lived there and have a deep emotional connection to the country, its people and, yes, its soccer team. I still can't imagine expressing the sentiments that you do about a team that defeated Ghana or the US. The tradition in which you want the team who defeated the one that you were supporting to go on to success, thereby retroactively validating your own team ("We were beaten by the best") makes more sense to me. I understand that the attitude you express is sometimes called "rivalry" and at other times "poor sportsmanship."
To put it another way: No, fuck you.
Now I've got extra time to enjoy.
I'm just hoping for an all-"guay" final.
136, 139: I tried using that logic to convince myself that I should root for Ghana to win it all, but my Philadelphia sports upbringing is too engrained -- it's less about rooting for your team to succeed, and more about rooting for others to fail. Take all of the greatest players of our lifetimes in any sport, players famous for their grace and amazing achievement -- Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, Derek Jeter -- I hate them all.
Anyway, JP, you seem unusually well-adjusted for a soccer fan. The German fans I know, for example, still hate England for '66, despite winning twice since then. They also derive great joy from the fact that their neighbors the Netherlands have never won it.
Nice save, bro. And then, shit!
OK that little scramble was fun!
Damn. That doesn't bode well for the shootout to come. But, dude, you don't get to use you hands!
WS, thanks for that. Good to know that it's a more general emotional disorder, rather than Ghana specific.
And univision has abandoned me. Must now depend on FIFA updates.
We have just witnessed the biggest moment in Uruguayan sport since some dudes ate some other dudes in the Andes.
Some part of me wants to go back and demand extra penalties for that in-goal hand-ball, but I will try and suck it up and be vaguely gracious.
Suarez is a dirty pig, or sacrificed himself for the glory of Uruguay, depending on your perspective.
Not great for the sport to have a desperate violation of the rules pay off in a big game like that. (But then Ghana should have made more than 2 of the 5 PKs they got).
So does this mean that Uruguay will be a man down going into the semis or just that Suarez can't play?
Both teams played well, aside from the penalty round, which is notoriously uneven (at least Gyan had a chance to redeem himself). And forget what I said about diving above. Urguay threw up a lot of elbows, but both sides were aggressive and not above some drama. Uruguay may well stand a chance against the Netherlands.
Pardon my ignorance, but does a red card always mean you sit out the next match in World Cup play? What about in other play, like MLS or the various leagues? I thought you were just out for the game during which the red-card infraction occurred .
There's no way Suarez was thinking that strategically. He was in the moment. Especially with all the volleying back and forth that was going on.
Sure would've liked to see Ghana go on. Oh well. They all seem like such nice boys.
I'm just hoping for an all-"guay" final.
Man, that would drive the anti-guay-marriage crowd right up the wall.
Huh. I didn't know Diego Maradona played defense for Uraguay.
165: It is not in the "Laws of the Game", but rather a league or competition rule. But it is basically always done. (From Wikipedia, FIFA in particular has been adamant that a red card in any football competition must result in the guilty player being suspended for at least the next game without the right to appeal.) There are, of course, situations where the "next game" can be bit ambiguous.
Stanley, a red card always results in "sending off" as well as missing the next match--and can be more, even, if it is particularly bad (but that is not decided by the match official). But I don't know what happens if a competition ends without your suspension completed... I would assume that it carries to the next competition by the same sanctioning body (that is to say, in this case, the next international game).
This relates to something so far upthread I might as well just pause/play, and is a bit pointless besides, but "veggies" and even more strongly "veggie" in the singular has the unfortunate effect on me of making me picture beets/ramps/whatever with googly cartoon eyes. This is why I almost always just spend the extra air and say "vegetable." This has been Your Moment of Mild Psychosis with Mister Smearcase.
Is Mister Smearcase be-childed? I can just imagine it.
"No, young Madison. But you may watch *Vegetable* Tales."
Suarez is a dick, Forlan is loathsome, and Ghana should have won.
I really want to like watching soccer, but it's very hard for me to get past: 1) The inadequate number of referees, 2) The resulting very poor officiating, 3) The fact that the rules concerning penalties are so dumb (including in this case that they don't just *give you a goal* if there's a handball on a ball with a clear path to the goal).
Tied in with the inadequate number of referees is the resulting flopping.
I wish they carded the flagrant floppers.
Suarez's big whiny fake flop was so bad the refs just rolled their eyes, and he went all Disney-princess-petulant. I hate him.
178: I'd like to see that policy instituted in basketball as well.
I forgot to mention Muslera. I despise Muslera.
178: It's really too much to expect one person to be able to tell who is flopping and who isn't. I've seen people given yellow cards for flopping, but if the ref has a bad angle how's he supposed to tell?
It seems to me that Soccer should have 3 on-field referees (one for each side, and the main referee who does both) plus the current two linesman, plus a person dedicated to figuring out whether the ball went into the goal (see Brazil v. US and England v. Germany).
Actually these two goal people could easily be turned into one with cameras, as they only need to be paying attention to one goal at a time. Forget video *replay* you could just have them do live calling of goals by video.
180: Agreed! Basketball is not well refereed either (though because it's higher scoring the influence of referees on outcomes is less annoying blatant).
137: The other potential lesson is the handling mail is actually difficult, and they should stop fucking sending it to me.
Dear lord, motherfucking THIS. Especially Allstate.
Dunno about Allstate, but Verizon FIOS. Jesus christ. Enough already. I've heard about it, I've heard, okay? I really really don't need like 3 mailings per week for a freakin' year now. Stop that! I just throw it away, you dummies. You're killing trees, also.
My credit cards can also stop sending me mailings including pseudo-checks allowing me to write checks from my credit card account. That's okay, thanks. Cut that out.
I'd like to see that policy instituted in basketball as well.
I think basketball is very gradually moving in that direction, but we'll see if things actually improve.
174 Mister Smearcase is emphatically barren. Besides which Vegetable Tales, tut tut. Isn't that the one done up on SNL as "The Religetables?" My friend DZ once said to me "when you talk about religion, you start reminding me of Pol Pot." No absence-of-a-child of mine is being subjected to that. Little Lack-of-Skylar will have to settle for the adventures of secular foodstuffs.
Especially Allstate.
Oh, I know. I have both home and auto with them, and I swear that they have NO RECORDS. I get at least a half-dozen mailings *and phone calls* every year trying to entice me to "switch." I already have them both with you! And given that you publicly announced you were raising rates on people who didn't, because they were "bad risks," I'm now wondering if you are failing to give me my supposed "discount" for buying both. Arrrrrrgh.
My credit cards can also stop sending me mailings including pseudo-checks allowing me to write checks from my credit card account. That's okay, thanks. Cut that out.
Amen to this to. I cannot believe Bank of America. I live in fear that I will fail to tear up the checks sometime and someone will have a shopping spree on my "cash advances."
188: It always strikes me that the credit card companies should be responsible if such a thing occurred. *You* didn't request the checks. It seems more than reasonably foreseeable that sending these things every month will lead to shenanigans.
184: My credit cards can also stop sending me mailings including pseudo-checks allowing me to write checks from my credit card account.
Those, and the ones from Amex telling me I can add someone to my "company" card.
And the friggin' magazine renewal notices that start a month after I've subscribed to a twenty year offer. "You have only 239 issues of 'Incomprehensible SciFi Printed on Cruddy Paper' left!! Don't miss a single issue..."
I shred everything with numbers on it. Then I mix that chad with the used kitty litter. Then I dump that in the storm drains to kill off any life left in Santa Monica Bay. Friggin' sea lions! Bah!
I get mail from my bank every other day trying to get me to opt in to the at-their-option overdraft protection they're no longer allowed to enrollscrew depositors inwith absent their consent beginning August 15. I am counting the fucking days.
Then I mix that chad
Run away, Chad! The old guy's gonna get you!
Biohazard, I fear that may be overkill. But if it works for you, okay.
I'm not sure it's possible to overkill Santa Monica Bay any more but perhaps you're right.
The totally wasteful junk mail makes me angry. Amex should have, or their computers should have, after almost thirty years, figured out I'm not putting someone else on my account. Citi is just as bad about the checks with the various terms. I've never used the damned things.
They do have my email address, I get all sorts of notifications that way. Why are they also sending paper?
(Just in case someone is tempted to try it, shredded paper is not good for kitty litter all by itself. It's too light and clingy and gets tracked all over the place.)
||
Yggles' California thread is pretty hilarious.
|>
The totally wasteful junk mail makes me angry.
Absolutely. There are ways to opt out of receiving junk mail in a general way -- I signed up for that a few years ago, along with putting the household on a do-not-call list, though I couldn't tell you now what was involved. Did it result in fewer solicitations? Yeah, I think so. But no, it doesn't stop the junk mail from organizations you actually have a relationship with (like the bank and insurance agencies and magazines -- though I really only get dumb things form the bank/credit cards).
Well. As blogs goes, the thing about this one is that it's so quiet.
m, anybody in there?
I think they might have gotten a life or something.
All out celebrating Ghana's defeat.
Sorry, I was off being productive. If you call "dusting the pocket doors" being productive.
The thing about guests is that they give you a reason and a shape to your cleaning. And a deadline. How clean the house is when they show up is how clean it's going to get.
Anybody have ideas for good hot-weather hors d'ouerves? Or drinks? I favor mango lassis, but I'm not sure my guests are going to go for something that tame. Not that I know useful anything about buying alcohol.
Anything useful, that is. The piano has been drinking, not me.
I was off looking at the sky, since I'm outside NYC. My God--it's full of stars!
204: State U is getting serious about that.
Anyone who would turn down a well-made mango lassi on a hot day is too utterly vulgar to be a guest of yours, Witt.
The piano has been drinking, not me meets Fernwood 2 Night.
207: Hm, now there's a way I've never thought of it.
208: Recordings: Humanity's way of reminding ourselves that humor does change over time. (Although whew, totally did not realize the younger TW was so curiously magnetic.)
205: Awesome! Adaptive optics! 30 meters! When I was a kid the 200 incher was the hottest new thing in astronomy. This gadget is something out of a space opera.
Credit card "checks" that come with the bill: Every CC company I've had has been willing to stop sending those when I called them up and asked; they didn't even try to talk me out of it. Now that space on the paper just says "Thank you for your business" or something equivalently bland.
176 et seq.: I'm afraid Spain-Paraguay didn't do anything to assuage those who have concerns about how soccer is refereed.
I don't see why anybody faults Suarez for the handball. The ball would have gone in, he batted it out, got red carded and Ghana got a penalty kick. Those are the rules so no complaints on the ref for that one, and if Suarez was consciously thinking he did exactly the right thing.
Suarez was consciously thinking he did exactly the right thing.
No, breaking the rules deliberately is not the right thing, even if there are provisions (as of course there are) for what happens when a rule is deliberately broken and thus the rule-breaking can to some extent be thought of as "part of the game" (it's not as if he did something wholly unanticipated by the rules). Strategic manipulation of these sorts of possibilities is always the wrong thing, is extremely unsportsmanlike, and those who engage in it ought to be reviled.
(It's the same, of course, with flopping, or with deliberately fouling someone who seems to be about to do something bad for your team (depending on how light the penalty is), with manipulating the refs generally, etc. It's utterly low and disgusting.)
(It's also the same with concern trolls, for instance.)
My favorite spectator sport is the NBA and I've always been annoyed if my team doesn't make an intentional foul, up three with the clock running out. And the punishment for something like this is far, far harsher than in basketball. A penalty with its very high chance of scoring a goal in a game where goals are at a premium, playing a man down, and suspension for the following game.
I am with nosflow on this, with the understanding that 213 assumes that the primary value of sport is to win by any means, while 214 assumes that the sport and its rules constitute a kind of ethos that may be separate from and greater than winning by any means.
Wasn't this some of what the racist trash-talking was about? If you can intimidate your opponents into getting angry and fouling, and it helps you win, doesn't that make racist trash-talking, if you can get away with it, a good strategy? Of course not.
There are other sports in which I'd say it seems a lot more reasonable to fuck with the rules for the purpose of winning, but those tend to be individual sports, rather than world-league national-team sports.
Analogies spring to mind, but I will refrain.
I am with nosflow on this, with the understanding that 213 assumes that the primary value of sport is to win by any means, while 214 assumes that the sport and its rules constitute a kind of ethos that may be separate from and greater than winning by any means.
You can't make it so easy. Obviously you don't mean "win by any means" if that excludes the sport and its ethos entirely, because no one thinks that it constitutes winning if you, say, shoot your opponents, even though it would be very easy to score goals if the goalie is dead. Perhaps the legitimacy of "accidentally" breaking an ankle or cutting with cleats at the achilles tendon or something like that is less clear-cut.
Here's a parallel: the rules of a game pertaining to its penalties are like a contract. Just as the other rules say, for instance, if you get the ball into the goal, such-and-such happens with your and the other team, so too these rules say that if you handle the ball with your hands, such-and-such happens to you personally. And so it's kind of like a deal: you're allowed to handle the ball with your hands; it's just that, unlike other things you're allowed to do in the game, to perform this action you have to be willing to give something up.
This is a misleading parallel, though. Ideally, the rules exclude certain actions from being part of the game at all. If you're playing soccer it's just not cricket to handle the ball with your hands. (Couldn't resist.) But it would be extremely laborious to have to call a game and start over every time something officially excluded from being part of the game in the first place took place, since, among other things, events so proscribed will through human frailty inevitably take place anyway. So the game is allowed to proceed but allowances are made.
Things would be very different if the proscribed actions weren't actually proscribed but just came with a cost attached. There would be no call for anyone to be indignant when someone performed such an action, since they'd just be availing themselves of a recognized opportunity. But there would still have to be rules regarding what those actions are (how they're singled out from similar actions, e.g.), when they can be performed, etc. And some things would still be for-real proscribed, as in, not recognized as actions in the game (though still mentioned in the rules so that one knows what to do should they take place). Otherwise the identity of the sport would be dissolved.
In conclusion, teraz is no different from a Republican media operative and we should all bear that in mind henceforth.
Of course, I would be tempted to say that if you deliberately foul an opponent when you're up three and the clock is running out, and the other team doesn't make up the point deficit, you still didn't win, and moreover you weren't really playing basketball at all.
thus the rule-breaking can to some extent be thought of as "part of the game"
"To some extent" is way off. You're coached, in youth soccer, to get a handball over letting a goal go in. It is an integral part of the game and strategy.
Those coaches are all moral cretins.
Teraz is completely right, in other words.
222: They're more scared of you than you are of them.
the rules of a game pertaining to its penalties are like a contract. Just as the other rules say, for instance, if you get the ball into the goal, such-and-such happens with your and the other team, so too these rules say that if you handle the ball with your hands, such-and-such happens to you personally. And so it's kind of like a deal: you're allowed to handle the ball with your hands; it's just that, unlike other things you're allowed to do in the game, to perform this action you have to be willing to give something up.
Exactly. It's a well-understood transaction.
If what you are saying were true, the rules would provide for an automatic goal for any handball in the box in addition to the red card. Your analogy of this as basically the same thing as shooting another player... well, I guess the ban really is there for a reason.
I like my "exploit" characterization in 162. It acknowledges that it is unfortunate, but is free of the taint of whiny morality and hopeless idealism that neb exhibits. As teraz explains, the rules do extract a steep penalty although one which becomes less severe the further into the game you go; in this particular circumstance the rule violation occurred at the "worst" possible time on that count.
And basketball would be better if "intentional" fouls were called in those situations, with the ball reverting to the fouled team. They already have that mechanism in place, but don't use it because entertainment rather than justice is the overall aim.
I like all of my comments, too.
Actually, I didn't draw that analogy at all, teraz, I just said that if you thought "winning at any cost" was the goal, you shouldn't distinguish between the means you might take to win. Of course if you actually shot people the game would probably be interrupted for other reasons. Maybe it would have been better to suggest surreptitiously drugging your opponents, since then you might well get all the way through the game and have won at any cost.
If what you are saying were true, the rules would provide for an automatic goal for any handball in the box in addition to the red card.
That is also not true. The rules can provide for whatever penalty they like. (It wouldn't make any sense to provide for an automatic goal if the handball didn't affect the trajectory of the ball or was an instance of putting a hand on a ball that was definitely not going into the goal, for one thing, but that really isn't an essential point.)
Exactly. It's a well-understood transaction.
That may be how you think of it, but I struggle to see why anyone actually should think of it that way. I mean: suppose some innovative new way of pitching in baseball is discovered. Actually, to make it easier, let's say no one had ever thought of the spitball until yesterday. There would, perhaps, then be a debate: is this novel kind of pitch to be considered part of baseball or not? If it is, no problem; people can use spitballs.
If it isn't, then what? The really high-minded route would be to just call the game and have the teams start over; alternatively (slightly less high-mindedly because maybe both pitchers were throwing spitballs) to give the game to the team opposing that of the caught pitcher. Spitballs are banned, but that isn't the way they're treated. (The pitch is called a ball, I believe, and something happens to the pitcher, too, but I'm not sure what.*) Of course what you'll say in response to this is just that, contrary to what everyone thinks, spitballs aren't banned. It's just that you run a certain risk in throwing them. This tends to reduce all acts in games to three categories, a, the ones you can do no problem; b, the ones you can also do no problem if you're willing to put up something in return; c, the ones no one's thought of yet (the spitball prior to its invention, e.g.), regarding which people aren't yet sure which of the other two categories to put it in. It makes it such that no move or act is in fact against the rules, since they all conform with the rules, just in different ways.
However (this is the argumentative coup de grace), this is a totally batshit way to regard what a sport is. (I really don't see, anyway, why anyone who endorses this way of looking at a sport wouldn't also say that you shouldn't contravene the rules whenever it will give you an advantage if the advantage outweighs the penalty times the probability of the penalty being given, which basically amounts to endorsing cheating outright, but obviously I'm very old-fashioned.)
* this makes some amount of sense owing to the more-or-less discrete nature of baseball as against soccer (cf. chess, where if, sensing I'm about to lose, I upset the board, it can, if records have been kept and someone had an eye on the clocks, be restored precisely to its previous state; if the game isn't timed we can even go back to a previous state if several moves later you notice that I "adjusted" the position of one of the pieces), though base-stealing might be affected.
227: 226 is obviously to me, heebster. Do keep up.
whiny morality and hopeless idealism
My idealism is indeed without hope, JP, but I object to being characterized as whiny.
As teraz explains, the rules do extract a steep penalty
I find puzzling why this fact is supposed to be relevant.
Ok, you sensible knaves, I haven't given up yet! Having thought some more about it I identify in my opponents a fallacious assimilation of a penalty attached to an illegal/against-the-rules move (/action) and a cost attached to a legal/permitted-by-the-rules move, perhaps motivated by the (insane) thought that a set of rules has to contain as an instance of being in accord with the rules contravention of the rules.
If we had just now invented a soccer-like game, and decided to make it more exciting and challenging that only the goalkeepers would be allowed to touch the ball with their hands but, since we were not very good at thinking ahead, did not yet attach any penalty to the contravention of this rule, then, I assume, all sides would agree that handballs would be illegal. We could probably play a lot of games like this, too. It might then happen that someone accidentally does touch the ball with his hands (it's not as if being against the rules means that it can't happen), and that we would then not really know how to proceed. (Only the goalkeepers can touch the ball with their hands—yet he is not a goalkeeper and did just that—a puzzling occurrence!) Some bright person might then propose that in such cases what happens is that the contralateral team gets possession of the ball, and that if it seems as if the rule has been deliberately contravened the contralateral team thrashes the person who handled the ball. (It's only like soccer.)
I claim that what has just happened is that the move remains illegal but now its illegality has been given oomph in the form of a specific penalty. AFAICT, teraz and heebie think that it has been rendered legal. (Sort of as if shoplifting were a legal way of purchasing an item, only you pay with the temporary deprivation of your liberty, rather than an illegal way of gaining possession of it, with an associated penalty.)
In that case, though, there doesn't seem to be any content to calling a move legal in soccer (or whatever). All the moves that I would call legal are legal, of course. And anything that I might adduce as an example of an illegal move (an adduction which I would substantiate by pointing out that it is penalized) is transformed into a legal albeit costly move. So, basically, anything goes; it is not possible to break a rule and the only rules that remain are those that pertain to e.g. when someone has scored. But there are no illegal moves and it is impossible to break a rule. (Certain things—poisoning the contralateral (or even ipsilateral) players—might nevertheless be illegal in the real world, if it remains possible to maintain such claims there, but we're talking about soccer.)
It is not clear to me why this is thought reasonable in soccer or other sports; certainly it's sociopathic elsewhere. It seems much more plausible to think that, in fact, there are rules in sports that one can break (just as there are laws one can contravene); the existence of set penalties—of whatever severity—doesn't change that. Nor does the fact that, evidently, many coaches of youth soccer leagues are willing to accept the penalties that come with breaking the rules as part of the cost of doing business. It still seems to me that in such a case what they're doing is telling their charges that they should break a rule when the gain thus to be won is great enough, and I don't think it's all that whinily moralistic to disapprove of that, or of adults who engage in like behavior, on or off the field.
(It really is the identical move of the insincere discussant who contravenes norms of, like, sociable inquiry to score cheap points by bringing up irrelevancies, uncharitably interpreting his interlocutors, etc., or of, say, debt collection agencies who treat the fines they accrue as just another bill to pay in the process of running the firm.)
I endorse 235. The rest of you are wallowing in nihilism.
I support nosflow in email comments.
237: wallowing in nihilism.
Flirting with nihilism, I'll grant, wallowing not so much, and to live is to flirt with nihilism. Presumably you decry the 5 seconds left, up by 3 foul in basketball, as well all the analysts and coaches who discuss the pluses and minuses of that strategy.
Neb's position does have a certain glib surface appeal. Perhaps a new religious movement should adopt this is as a core tenet, "By our revulsion of Suarez you shall know us".
To illustrate the depth of my flirtation with nihilism, even though I dislike flopping in soccer and find it a cause for concern, I think it is an understandable tactic (although given the implicit deception, a more questionable one than Suarez's handball) in the face of the lack of help the offense gets when they are being fouled. For instance I did not have total sympathy with New Zealand on the enhanced fall by the Italian player to get a PK since the Italian player *was* being held by the shirt, which is definitely a foul, although one that is rarely called. So by all means, book the divers, but I think FIFA might get further by calling all of the shirt pulls etc. even when the player stays up--the play would adjust (it is not like there is ever a legitimate reason to pull someone by the shirt; it makes for a nice binary decision).
You're right; they should play shirtless.
I'm going to ask: I know what diving is, but what on earth is flopping?
enhanced fall
Just want to point that out.
243; Flopping is the same as diving.
244: "Embellished" would perhaps have been a better word.
241 is not just a good solution, it is the only solution. Someone start a write-in campaign. Maybe an orange titled post?
245.1: Damn. I was hoping it was diving done more theatrically. With a flinging up of arms or something.
241: happens in the women's games, too. Sauce, gander, etc.
Shirtless flopping in women's games doesn't necessarily strike me as a positive thing, TJ.
It's not the flopping but the playing.
249: I think the patriarchy begs to differ.
I think that doesn't make any sense. But teh humorless is kicking, so I'm off.
I think the idea is that people might like seeing bqqbies, or at least bras.
I would like to see a bbq materialize in the backyard. I could really, really go for some grilled skirt steak right now.
So apo and nosflow also disapprove of jingle mail/strategic default on mortgages? It seems like much the same argument.
I could really, really go for some grilled skirt steak right now.
IYKWIM.
So apo and nosflow also disapprove of jingle mail/strategic default on mortgages? It seems like much the same argument.
On the contrary. That would be a case where one of the allowable moves is, give up the collateral rather than pay the remainder of the loan.
I give my blanket endorsement to nosflow.
I don't know enough about the culture of soccer to say whether Suarez' handball is cheating, but nosflow seems obviously right to me about the bigger question -- something doesn't become retroactively okay because there was a punishment for it. The existence of a punishment is basically unrelated to the question of whether or not Suarez cheated.
259. The culture isn't unanimous on this. There is an argument that Suarez' primary responsibility was to stop the goal, and that with the rules as they stand he was right to do what he did for the team and suck up the ensuing ban. This then leads to a further argument about whether the rules need changing, usually with reference to this.
There is also an argument that Suarez is a cheating bastard who needs his nuts ripping off with a plastic picnic fork. I've heard both positions argued with equal vehemence at the same party.