Shoulderpads attract pot belly. It's a natural law. It's because of testosterone.
Mostly off topic movie review.
Just finished watching Water Lilies, a very slow subtle gentle French art movie about three young girl's friendships & sexual awakenings in a background of synchronized swimming. Hey, I gotta watch something. Very nice, mostly natural soundtrack without music. Is all that done by foley artists? Whatever. Recommended.
Anyway, the lead character is lesbian, with some explicit scenes(no nudity). But in the last scene, the very last frame, the actress breaks the "fourth wall" and stares directly at the camera. I don't know how, but you can tell she knows the camera is there.
And somehow that seems to break through all the objectification and any possible voyeurism.
Maggie Gyllenhall does the same thing at the end of Secretary, just announcing:"What you have been watching isn't me. You don't know me." and then instantly jumps back into character. Very nice.
"Avoid spilling red wine, because you don't want him to remember you for the wrong reasons."
This video reminds me of this, which I re-read every so often to feel grateful I was born late.
3: Yes, that got my attention. Do I just have an incredibly dirty mind, such that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what possible "wrong reasons" red wine could be associated with? Or do I have a non-dirty mind, such that I failed to come up with even one?
From the title, I was expecting the video to have something to do with prostate exams. Having watched it, I see I was correct.
It's great that that clip ends with the caption "EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE".
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Can't see the video at work, but this looks like a perfect way to prevent seduction ever happening again.
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Astonishingly, this elixir costs a mere $3.99 (£2.65). By contrast, one of its competitors, Chanel No 5, for example, costs more than $80.
Snarky bastards.
"Research shows that 40% of men suffer from shyness." I hope those shyentologists were board-certified.
... and the other 60% were too nervous to respond.
I hope those shyentologists were board-certified.
I hope so too. But I have to say, they sound like rank amateurs to me. Surely a board-certified shyentologist would report that "Research shows that 40% of men suffer from social anxiety disorder."
Isn't Tom Cruishe a shyentologist?
I never knew Buffy's mum was such a font of dating wisdom.
Wasnt there recent article about how kids don't date, they simply hook up with friends?
I watched the entire video, and was still not clear at the end whether it was from a sketch comedy TV show or not. "Isn't that Dan Aykroyd? No...no it's not. Wait, yes it is."
Comedy sketch?! Don't tell me I went out and bought this interesting conversation piece of a necklace for nothing!
But the woman in the video achieved her success with that vibrant yet matronly scarf, not a necklace.
re: 17
Your attempt at trolling hasn't gone unnoticed...
Damn! I knew I should've bought the scarf! Now I'm going to die alone. And with unfortunate accessories, to boot.
22 - throw wine on random men. Don't forget to take it out of the bottle first, though.
21: Had he dressed it up with a nice scarf, he might have gotten somewhere.
Just spill some white wine on someone, Di.
Maybe if you sign all your correspondence
"Vibrant yet matronly,
Di Kotimy"
you would get more action.
Oh, wine! I had an "h" in there. Geez, I'm just no good at this stuff.
Don't believe Di's complaints.
Did you people hear about her and that married guy?
You are so yesterday's news, will. Apparently the updated office rumor is that I am expecting. I can't wait to find out who the dad is!
I told you to get the stripper DDs, not the voluptuous "is she pregnant?" C+ look.
2: Soundtrack was done by Para One, but Vitalic did the music for the trailer. I agree it's a very good film, but I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember the ending. Is it after Marie is rejected and runs home and stares into the camera?
31: Sweetheart, I've had nothing but As my whole life.
Sweetheart, I've had nothing but As my whole life.
Bragging about your report card might not be the best way to get a date Di.
Scarves, wine: good.
Necklaces, whining, report cards: bad
Got it. You guys are the BEST!
Okay, that last was supposed to be signed, "Vibrant, yet matronly, Di Kotimy." Which admittedly wasn't that funny.
Don't listen to this alleged expert; she thinks that my never-fail pickup line wouldn't work:
"My back's been bothering me ever since my ex pushed me down the stairs during a fight about money."
In the very first line that the man says...are we supposed to be understanding him to be saying "She sure looks like a bitch"?
The "EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE" line reminds me of the book AB's stepmother sent her soon before we met: If I'm So Wonderful, Why Am I Alone? AB always notes that this was sent to her then-new office.
When I saw that book on her shelf, I knew I had an easy score.
38: Yes.
In fairness, none of us needs that.
Except Mr. B, I guess.
I've always wanted to try the line "You're hot! You should be in porn!" but I'm a coward and don't want to be kicked in the groin.
Though it occurs to me that "You're vibrant, yet matronly! You should be in porn!" has a certain something to it.
Had he dressed it up with a nice scarf ascot, he might have gotten somewhere.
Just go with "'Face it, honey. You're choices are pretty much down to me or spending the rest of your life in a houseful of cats."
42: Especially if artfully deployed to cover the stains.
I hadn't considered it, but given 42 I now have to wonder what "it" is.
Just go with "'Face it, honey. You're choices are pretty much down to me or spending the rest of your life in a houseful of cats."
I'm practicing that one in the mirror: "I AM better than a houseful of cats! I really am! Doggone it, I am better than cats."
I dunno, Will, it really isn't that comforting when a man sits on your head and makes a rumbling noise in your ear.
43 - problem is, I like cats. I'm going to end up with a houseful of cats one way or the other. Be nice to have some help with the litterbox, tho. And sex. Especially the sex part.
47: On the other hand, most men don't make me sneeze or make my eyes itch.
I trust the cats to take care of their sex without any help from me.
I dunno, Will, it really isn't that comforting when a man sits on your head and makes a rumbling noise in your ear.
That wasnt your ear at the Flophouse?
"'Face it, honey. You're choices are pretty much down to me or spending the rest of your life in a houseful of cats."
"Well, if you don't like cats, you can just fuck off now and stop wasting my time."
The operative word is "houseful", all you self-righteous catophiles.
54: Heh. I was trying to figure out how to make that joke and gave up; I'm very happy someone did.
what possible "wrong reasons" red wine could be associated with
You don't want to show that you're careless with things of value, and it's probably best not to make him think of that scene from Carrie.
If you hear a rumbling noise when somebody's sitting in your head, you should move quickly.
Uh, sorry about breaking the blog.
We're all thinking about that scene in Carrie.
As long as the blog's broken, I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy last night, and what a dark, dark, dark book that was. Very much enjoyed it, though.
Or not.
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Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like giggling when they hear Bernie Madoff's name pronounced? Made off! Hilarious.
"Where's your money these days?" "Oh, my fund manager is Rob Yooblind. I trust him implicitly."
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61.PausePlay: Yes. Juvenile, but funny.
62: about the best anyone can hope for, really.
5: Red wine stains are hard to remove. Only spill clear drinks on men you're trying to entice.
4: What scares me is that I was living in NYC in 1973. But I hung out at an upper West Side bar, across from the Columbia campus, which attracted unshaven intellectuals who probably wanted to get laid, but who wanted to discuss the finer points of the conduit metaphor even more.
I don't think the video has bad advice assuming you are the target audience for the video. Hit on shy guys. Learn about your local sports teams. Cheesy but effective.
"EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE" is just the name of the found video footage website.
Learn about your local sports teams.
No good will come of this.
Only spill clear drinks on men you're trying to entice.
But if it's just a few drops of water, a trip the dry cleaners might not be necessary, and thus no number would be obtained. There's a sweet spot to be found here, you see.
"If you think you can't get interested, find a player you think is attractive and at least learn some things about him."
----
"Hey there, I see you're watching the Yankees. That Alex Rodriguez sure is sexy. I bet his cock is much bigger than yours, he's certainly much better looking and richer, too. Oh, dear, that didn't go too well. Let me spill some red wine on you and we'll call it an evening."
I don't think the video has bad advice assuming you are the target audience for the video. Hit on shy guys. Learn about your local sports teams. Cheesy but effective.
Assuming the target audience is bitchy women bitching that "there are no men out there," I think I officially qualify as the target audience. The advice would never do it for me. Learn about my local sports teams? Would that be so I can charm some twit who can't manage an interesting conversation about anything other than Da Bears? Um, no thanks.
Learn about my local sports teams? Would that be so I can charm some twit who can't manage an interesting conversation about anything other than Da Bears?
No, it's so you have something easy with which to break the ice. That advice came in the segment of the video about women being more aggressive in hitting on shy men. That doesn't mean you have to always and only talk about Da Bears, or waste time with guys who do.
OT: Is this prosecutor crazy? Chicago people, what is your take?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-dna-14-dec15,0,5809555.story?page=1
Assuming the target audience is bitchy women
BZZZZT. No. The assumption is insecure and perhaps slightly dim women who have never considered the possibility that they could, you know, ask a guy out.
have never considered the possibility that they could, you know, ask a guy out
Whoa there, miss social revolutionary. I didn't see anything about women asking men out. I think the video only mentions taking the lead in talking to guys, and at them longingly. If that doesn't work you're still SOL.
74: s/b "staring" and at them longingly, stupid html. Why can't the internet be easier to use??
75: surely there's something to be said for talking at guys longingly.
Would that be so I can charm some twit who can't manage an interesting conversation about anything other than Da Bears?
If you run into someone like this, you could easily change the topic to the Cubs, the White Sox, the Bulls, the Black Hawks, or possibly even college sports from the University of Illinois!
Glad to help.
Sewing fear is for seamstresses; sowing fear is for Dear Leader
72: We're talking about the video, no? I didn't see any indication that the hapless heroine was insecure or slightly dim.
If you run into someone like this, you could easily change the topic to the Cubs, the White Sox, the Bulls, the Black Hawks, or possibly even college sports from the University of Illinois!
I'm not actually from the area, but I'd bet a dollar that no one in the entire state of Illinois is willing to sleep with someone who would rather discuss the Blackhawks than the Bears, and that includes members of the Blackhawks and their wives.
77: Sow fear is for the conservatives who stumble across Emerson's farm.
78: Her stilted is no doubt just a product of bad acting, but it does make her sound like she is just not all there.
the Blackhawks
My Chicago-based hockey-watching relatives have all abandoned the Blackhawks, preferring instead to root for The Chicago Wolves.
all abandoned the Blackhawks
Don't make me come down and kick yer ass. Cuz I still can.
http://www.sportsgalleryweb.com/images/hockey/photos/bobby_hull_us_bloody_large.jpg
79: You would be wrong, sir. You were too busy hanging out in your Wicker Park bars, scenester. (Plus there was a while there when all the girls proclaimed their love for Chris Chelios.)
60: I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy last night
Good times. The dos and donts of getting dates gets *really* delicate.
You know, as a guy aspiring to lay down serious tracks in the near future, this video provides me with no end of samples for "aww yeah, get drrrty"-type songs. Thank you Unfogged.
Just sayin'.
86: Be sure to avoid subjects like holocausts and cannibalism. These are almost always turnoffs.
Cannibalism can be a good way to sound out your prospect's boundaries, though.
You'd be surprised how much a well-maintained shopping cart can add ot your appeal.
c'mon. By nearly any standard, so can chainsaws.
92 demonstrates why the failure to set out clear boundaries on cannibalism can lead to potentially upsetting misunderstandings when talking dirty to a new partner.
Actually, "stack wood" is craigslist code for "freebase space mushrooms"
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Are you guys watching the "Day in 100 Seconds" videos at TPM? If not, you should -- they're amazing.
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70 is true, I suppose, but I seriously can't imagine getting past those opening lines.
"Have you been following [Sports Team]?"
"Yes! They are a bunch of bums!"
"Seriously!"
That conversation about the "good news" could not have gone anywhere either, right? His little eleemosynary tiddle at the end doesn't even leave you room to go on to talk about your life, because you'll just sound like a dick.
This is why I don't do small talk. I really can't see a way out of it. My general rule is to start off way too overly intimate and then later figure out if we have stuff in common to talk about.
"Learn about my local sports teams? Would that be so I can charm some twit who can't manage an interesting conversation about anything other than Da Bears? Um, no thanks."
Some people just need something to get the conversation going; doesn't mean they're dim, necessarily.
I used to clerk for an extremely sharp and worldly federal judge, and with her, I could carry on the most urbane and witty conversation covering any topic under the sun. But if I'm standing next to a pretty-but-unfamiliar woman at a party, I can never think of a damn thing to say. (Furthermore, I'm married, so it's not like I'm trying to pick anybody up.)
The male brain is just weird that way for some of us.
(The exception is if I've had 3+ drinks, in which case I become the most gregarious guy in the world.)
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Not at fifteen below it isn't. Playing the Florida card wasn't a smart move. We are chauvinistic and resent being compared to shitholes.
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Forgive me, it's not like I want to turn this into a food thread, but OT bleg:
I seem to remember that it was someone here who pointed to a site where one could sign up for a plan to have a miscellany of gourmet foods (various categories were available) shipped out monthly. This'd be for a holiday gift; I must have looked at the site at some point, but have no idea what it is/was now.
Any candidates for places that provide services like this?
Harry and David are nice for that sort of thing, especially with regard to fruit. If they're a real coffee lover, the luxurious Peregrine Coffee has a monthly option.
For really high-end handmade chocolates, John & Kira.
Wow, I'm kind of startled I could come up with so many that easily.
I was thinking Zingermans, too, but it's pretty pricey. We did one of their cheese clubs once and it was good.
Thanks -- okay, I'm exploring. Maybe Zingerman's is the one I remember someone mentioning ... but the various monthly clubs listed there tend to be for specific foods (olive oil, bacon), excepting the Culinary Adventure Club, which frankly looks a little too adventurous.
There have to be a number of these places! Hard to figure out what to google for. A rather basic crackers, cheese, smoked salmon, dried fruits, say marinated feta, pesto, groovy gingerbread ... that kind of thing would be about right. But monthly rather than a single gift basket. (It's for my brother, and the dude doesn't eat enough, what with the nuking of the chicken patties and the ham-and-american-cheese sandwiches in between playing rounds of World of Warcraft. Alas, fresh fruit would not go over well.)
This focuses the task for me -- thanks. Someone can sign me up for Zingerman's Bread Club any time. oo yeah.
I was thinking Zingermans, too, but it's pretty pricey. We did one of their cheese clubs once and it was good.
Sure, if you join the club of a food that has to be shipped refrigerated, that add to the cost.
Playing the Florida card wasn't a smart move.
Maybe the canvassing board should go door to door and ask everyone how they voted. It might take less time.
Sure, if you join the club of a food that has to be shipped refrigerated, that add to the cost.
It does, yes. But most things you buy from Zingermans is going to come at some markup over what you would pay somewhere else.
This focuses the task for me -- thanks. Someone can sign me up for Zingerman's Bread Club any time. oo yeah.
Actually, I do NOT find that their bread survives the voyage particularly well, no matter what they claim.
Are going to come at some markup, that is.
There's no hurry, and things are more or less on schedule. The new Senator will be seated in January sometime, and if he's late, the republic can limp along OK with 99 Senators.
Becks totally just got a shout out on the Rachel Maddow show. Spencer Ackermann was on and as Rachel was saying goodbye he managed to squeeze in a 'Happy Birthday, Becks!'
(And happy birthday, Becks!)
112: I did notice what we are politely calling the markup. This whole thing is depressing, man. My mother has just told me that for the last few years, my brother has gotten me really nice things, and I haven't really gotten him anything nice. Thanks, mom (not entirely true, either). Y'know, he is able to get me these things because I tell him what I would like; he does not.
I've decided to impose some kind of mandatory Amazon wish list behavior on my family members: you are all going to start one of these things. I will not be bullied! Now, I dislike inviting Amazon into my figurative house in this way, but really, I know there are things you want, so why don't you let me know what they are, because apparently you don't like Northface stuff any more.
Yes, I'm killing the romance of it all, and that's deeply saddening.
114 makes me super jealous. I'm stealing Becks's birthday.
Right, as long as we're talking about presents again, can somone recommend a non-creepy place to get a massage in Brooklyn? That sells gift certificates that one can buy over the phone or online?
118: Elan on 7th Ave isn't bad. I haven't gotten a massage there, but it's a nice spa. There are several others in Park Slope, but I haven't been to them.
If you're looking for something fancy in NYC in general, Bliss is where I used to work, and they have a really lovely environment, but you have to get an appointment well in advance.
Bliss is very nice. As is Soho Sanctuary -- very nice, less well known, a little more woowoo.
120, 121: Thanks. I should clarify that this is for a guy, and it doesn't need to be fancy. The "non-creepy" was just meant to signify "definitely not a massage parlor."
I just ordered chocolates from the John and Kira place in 105. Thanks for the suggestion. I hope they are good.
Is unfogged operating in the future? How is it possible that the last comment was posted at 8:56? I'm confused.
Happy birthday, Becks!
i wonder what PSA means, i know only the prostate specific antigen, still didn't watch the video
coz lazy and i think i know what it will say
wanted to post the translated proverbs but left the file at work
PSA: public-service announcement. You should watch the video; it's a hilarious reminder of 1980s hairstyles and clothing, never mind the rest of it.
(And belated Happy Birthday, Becks!)
124: Whoever controls the time stamps is messing with your head. It's a test.
Happy Birthday Becks!
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Annals of Stupid White white people:
EASTON, Pa. - A supermarket is defending itself for refusing to a write out 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell's name on his birthday cake. Deborah Campbell, 25, of nearby Hunterdon County, N.J., said she phoned in her order last week to the Greenwich ShopRite. When she told the bakery department she wanted her son's name spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.Now go read the rest for the funny part.
max
['OMFG.']
everything is terrible, ha, funny
lame advices imo, i could advice like better
though, sure, a shoemaker
the little Adolf's father strangely resembles goebbels
127: Damn you, time stamps!!
131: A suitable enough response to advance you to the next level. If you're willing enough and able.
128: My prediction is that the children will be homeschooled, but their birthday cakes will never be homebaked, because the parents will want to pull this stunt every year (or at least until they lose custody).
132: Awesome! I'm totally ready.
133: Maybe the whole thing is an elaborate prank on society. Kind of a social tweak.
Maybe the whole thing is an elaborate prank on society. Kind of a social tweak.
Unfortunately, I think B. got it right:
The article, of course, ends up being sad. Lalala, a couple of young people who feel really estranged, acting out in an attempt to figure out what their issues are and get some attention. The poor kids.
134: You have investigated the links on the blogroll?
But that's easy. You have perused the fewer cock jokes at the Unfogged Reading Group?
I seriously can't imagine getting past those opening lines.
"Have you been following [Sports Team]?"
"Yes! They are a bunch of bums!"
"Seriously!"
Many women get intimidated by sports talk, but most guy sports talk doesnt get much deeper than that exchange.
If you want to drive yourself nuts, take a few minutes and listen to any sports radio call-in show.
"You know, Bob, if our team could have scored more points and held their team to fewer points, we really might have won that game."
Seriously, ladiez, there is nothing to be intimidated about sports talk, unless mind-numbingly trite conversation intimidates you.
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just got back from my bachelor party.
highlight:
bride showed up to karaoke with two friends
all in high burlesque corsetted attire.
also we played rock band after.
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wooo, happy birthday becks!!! that's the coolest birthday shout out ever. after the blago rap too, that boy is definitely kicking ass lately.
140: I'm sure I've related this before, but I tried for a while to teach my sister-in-law the right circumstances under which she could say, "now, that's just good special teams play," since I was convinced this one sentence, combined with some generic content-free fandom, would be enough to make her appear to be deeply knowledgeable about football. I still think it was a good idea. also, woo wrongshore!
Actually, I could use some pointers on sports small talk, too. I simply don't follow sports at all, which has lead to some awkward moments when guys try to do the homosocial chitchat thing, since I also won't swap sexist comments.
I can figure out what's going on in Baseball, and Basketball is simple, but American Football is insanely overspecialized and rulebound - it's like it was designed by a committee of lawyers and insects. All I get out of it is that a bunch of testosterone poisoned ectomorphs in tight pants smack each other on the ass and then jump in a big pile. Also there's a guy called "Tight End" which really ought to be a Bond villain who kills his victims by snapping their cock off with his ass.
Damn you people, it took me forty years to figure out tagging up.
143: That would be an ecumenical matter.
Actually, I could use some pointers on sports small talk, too.
"I stopped keeping up this season since the [insert mediocre team you pretend to support] aren't in contention," is a good all-purpose response.
N.B. this doesn't work as well if you live in the Boston area--bitchez.
For football and basketball, "I really prefer the college game" has broad utility. (If the discussion is about college sports, replace with "the pro game", mutatis mutandis.)
There was an entire episode of the IT Crowd recently in which the main characters tried to appear knowledgeable about football using some basic bluffing phrases ...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NKHyqjHqQLU
N.B. this doesn't work as well if you live in the Boston area--bitchez.
Or Glasgow.
144: Everything you need to know, togolosh.
If you flip through the sports pages regularly, you don't need to read with attention, but watch for names and the kinds of things that get said about them: Jeter is overrated, Manning isn't as good as his brother, whatever. Then pick an opinion and toss it in at random; that's usually enough to make you look knowledgable. It doesn't have to be right, or defensible, just an opinion on an identifiable current sports topic. Generally people won't press you on it -- they may disagree, but if they do they'll usually run with it, and you can grunt responsively rather than having to say anything much.
I used to do this to avoid being shut out of sports conversations at my last firm; it worked pretty well.
N.B. this doesn't work as well if you live in the Boston area--bitchez.
On the other hand, if you live anywhere else in the country then "I hate the Patriots/Celtics/Red Sox and their fucking arrogant fucking fans, wasn't it nice when Brady broke his leg, I hope the surgery gets infected" will work OK as a sports conversation starter.
152: so the rest of the country is filled with assholes with weird issues? You'd think you'd have more friends, then.
You're not being funny, Sifu! Boston sports must get you deep down inside.
If you flip through the sports pages regularly
This is very true. I can sound knowledgeable about NASCAR, golf, and baseball, despite finding all three completely unwatchable.
"I stopped keeping up this season since the [insert mediocre team you pretend to support] aren't in contention," is a good all-purpose response.
N.B. this doesn't work as well if you live in the Boston area--bitchez.
Sure it does, you just need to reword a bit:
"I stopped keeping up with the Celtics this season since the rest of the league isn't in contention."
Also, really football, togolosh? That strikes me as about the easiest sport to understand. (There are plenty of rules, sure, but you don't need to understand any of them to watch the game.) Teams try to get the ball to the other side of the field. Their opponents try to stop them. The end.
Besides Boxing, true. Boxing is definitely even easier to understand. And also MMA, if you consider that a sport. (Which of course you should.)
But among team sports, football is as easy as it gets, I think?
I dunno, football complicates things somewhat, what with the downs, and the three sets of teams, and the kicking and the so on. Basketball, that's pretty easy to grasp.
Also, really football, togolosh? That strikes me as about the easiest sport to understand. (There are plenty of rules, sure, but you don't need to understand any of them to watch the game.)
Sure, if the goal is to watch and enjoy the game, that's fine. But for football talk you need to be able to competently blather on about whether that holding or pass interference or clipping or whatever dumbass call is really justifiable.
Basketball is pretty easy, too, I guess. But I'd think someone might be confused by why they were always boucing the ball on the floor, and then you'd have to explain the rules about travelling, and then they'd be saying "wait, wasnt' that a travel?" every 2 minutes for the rest of the game, and you'd have to say "yes, technically", oh and you'd also have this same problem with personal fouls, etc. And there's the three-second rule. And the three-point line.
122: Aha! Soho Sanctuary is women only. So that won't do at all.
hen they'd be saying "wait, wasnt' that a travel?" every 2 minutes for the rest of the game, and you'd have to say "yes, technically"
To be fair, this still confuses me. How do they decide on the one day a year you can call travel?
Also, if you're feeling shut out of sports conversations, I've always found this line works wonders:
"I dunno, sports are kind of like porn for me: I'd much rather play than sit around watching or talking about it."
Sure, if the goal is to watch and enjoy the game, that's fine. But for football talk you need to be able to competently blather on about whether that holding or pass interference or clipping or whatever dumbass call is really justifiable.
Here are a few evergreen opinions you can offer on the matter:
"The refs never call offensive holding, even when it's really blatant."
"I don't think the receiver had control of the ball when he was down. That pass should have been called incomplete."
"The rules are way too lenient toward quarterbacks nowadays. The diligent enforcement of the roughing the passer rule I can live with, but the fact that the refs never call intentional grounding anymore is like a get-out-of-jail free card for quarterbacks under pressure."
Di has no appreciation for professionalism and mastery of a craft, I see. I guess you'd also rather paint that go to the art museum? And bang away on a piano rather than attend the symphony?
(And there's no rule against doing both, you know.)
163: I've wondered that as well -- how refs draw the line between the kind of travelling it would be hopelessly gauche to call attention to, and the kind of travelling (like, tucking the ball under your arm and running down the court) that they'd have to call.
167: depends on the player doing it, no lie.
There are plenty of rules, sure, but you don't need to understand any of them to watch the game.
Well, not to just sit there and watch the people running around. You can say the same thing about any sport, but to get anything out of it you really need to know the most of the rules. Otherwise you end up with constant deus ex machina type things interrupting the narrative.
168: Sure, but there's got to be a line no one's allowed to cross, or it'd be rugby with hoops. Given that the line isn't where the rules say it is for the real stars, figuring out where it is actually drawn has got to be a headache for the refs.
Come to think of it, that's got to be neat from the players' point of view: you start out as a no-name rookie who has to follow the rules, and then one day you realize "I've really made it -- I can foul with impunity now!" Like finally learning the secret handshake.
167: It's completely unintelligible. One rule is that the big stars get more slack. The second rule is that you don't really call the written rules, though you have to know what they are. The third rule is to not let things get too far out of hand, whatever that means.
166: No, I have no artistic ability and I am tone deaf.
bang away on a piano rather than attend the symphony?
160: Sure, if the goal is to watch and enjoy the game, that's fine.
This makes me think that I watch sports in a completely different way than most people. Is it really enough to just have action take place and know that one side or another is winning or losing without knowing why and how this latest development affects what might happen next?
173: well are you a professional-caliber athlete and lover? If not, watching great professionals at work can still be entertaining.
There might be a rule that players who look exciting and graceful when they're travelling or fouling get slack even if they're not stars. B-ball is entertainment.
176: Okay, I admit it. I'm not the athlete I once was.
176: And help you improve your moves.
Anyway, Brock, I'm really just messing with you. But you see how you got diverted from talking about sports to talking about whether or not there is value in talking about sports.
I can't believe you were just messing with me, Di. I was being dead serious.
And help you improve your moves.
I assert that the average man is more likely to degrade than improve his lovemaking technique by imitating pornography. I leave open the possibility that it might be helpful for some women, but largely because men's expectations are in part a product of pornographic displays.
Er, 183 to 181. At least originally.
"The refs never call offensive holding, even when it's really blatant."
Defensive holding, maybe?
I'm bad to ask about this because I find football easy to understand, but stuff that comes up in conversation now tends to be about who you think will win the playoffs, or who will get the last playoff spot, and that takes two minutes at ESPN.com to figure out. It's not technical knowledge of the game or the individual players, but it's timely.
The parallels between sex and sports are indeed compelling, but the analogy starts to break down when it comes to the question of society's attitudes toward being a youth league coach.
187: "Hey there Bobby. Let me show you a different grip that I think you will find more effective."
Even aside from the dictionary-sized rulebook, I'd say football really is one of the most difficult sports to really understand because, much more so than the other major sports, it's a coaches' game more than a players' game. Even people who watch a lot of football often have no idea what's going on at the line, aside from guys crashing into each other.
Even people who watch a lot of football often have no idea what's going on at the line
You think this is more difficult to understand than, say, teams working to set screens in basketball?
192: yes. There are more people involved and they are barely even moving, just trying to pull and push.
I'd really say that football is really one of the most difficult sports to really understand....
Fixed
Hockey seems really difficult to get the hang of watching to me, largely because of the speed of the puck -- you can't watch the puck, you have to watch everyone, everywhere on the ice, because the puck could be anywhere two seconds from now. I've never understood a hockey game at all.
RICK WARREN?! Fuck that fucking fucker. Fuck you, too, Obama.
more difficult to understand than, say, teams working to set screens in basketball
Sure. I could show most people a screen getting set, and they'd understand both what happened and why you'd use it. But try to show someone a football defense stunting and it's hard to even pick it out on the screen, never mind explaining why you wouldn't use it if you thought it was a running play.
You could save all this discussion by admitting that all US-centric sport is crap in comparison to soccer and rugby.
Togolosh, don't feel compelled to know about football. "It's below my threshold of vulgarity" should be sufficient, unless you want to sleep with just anyone. Also, if you want to talk about baseball and you'd rather not just go home alone and masturbate, don't bring up fantasy leagues.
Soccer kind of confuses me, too. It all seems to be going perfectly well, and then next thing you know people are getting corner kicks or free kicks or whatnot.
Rugby does seem like it would be fun to watch.
196: Um, maybe it's a purely symbolic gesture of reconciliation or some shit like that, and he's never going to listen to Warren about anything controversial? But I know exactly how you feel.
200: Pickup rugby is fun to play, although I haven't since the Peace Corps. It seemed more forgiving to not having any skills or any idea what you're doing than touch football.
I've played football a bunch of times (actually, I'm not at all bad at it), but what's going on in a professional game on TV completely escapes me. Big yellow line, giant arrow, tweet of the whistle, hustling around, tweet of the whistle, conference among referees, head referee makes some incomprehensible hand gesture accompanied by a jargon-filled statement, and then it starts over. When someone catches the ball and runs into the end zone, that part I get; it just never seems to happen on TV.
Rugby is fun to watch and it looks like it would be fun to play.
My sun was on the Reed rugby team for a year. The Reed boys were not as competitive as the Reed girls.
re: 200
The rules to both are simple and can be explained in about 2 minutes.
corner kicks - one of the team whose goal is being attacked has kicked or pushed the ball out of play at their goal end
[if it's one of the attacking players, it's a goal kick]
free kicks - someone has been naughty. The referee gives the opposing team a free kick. There aren't that many ways to be naughty -- violence or a foul; touching the ball with your arms/hands, etc
Off-side is the only complicated rule in soccer.
Someone explained offside to me when I was coaching Sally's soccer team, and I've clung to that one tiny piece of understanding as the only thing I know about soccer.
It wasn't much use, because they didn't enforce in the little-kid league my kids played in, but it allowed me to explain to other parents this year why what Newt was doing -- hanging out in front of the other team's goal -- was not in fact kosher, and that I was going to have to speak to him about it after the game.
I've played football a bunch of times (actually, I'm not at all bad at it)
At last, we get to the real reason why chicks should learn something about football. It's not to have a conversation-starter for talking to men ('coz that would be weird; how would it strike a woman if a man broke the ice by talking about mascara?). It's about being able to join in games of pickup touch football at the park on Saturdays. A 20-something female who does this is stacking the deck in her favor: she's advertising her quirky distinctiveness (and can show off her athletic bod, if she has one); the gender ratio is favorable; the awake-and-active on a Saturday factor screens for a variety of undesireable traits; and the after-game beer can blend seamlessly into a kinda-sorta evening together.
Sort of exposes the lie of the dumb jock. Sure, he or she didn't have to take calculus, or Latin or chemistry, but can you do a defensive read on a spread offense or figure out how to stunt against zone blocking? Didn't think so.
Off-side isn't that hard, either. An attacker can't be the furthest player (not including the goalie) on the opposition's side unless he actually has the ball in possession. Have I got that basically right, or are there more complicating factors?
re: 206
Yeah, the offside rule has an unfair reputation as being complicated. It really isn't [although recent iterations of it in professional soccer have made it a bit more subject to interpretation].
There aren't that many ways to be naughty -- violence or a foul
The body of common law jurisprudence on what distinguishes a clean tackle from a foul in soccer is at least as complicated as the pass interference rule in American football. It's just that the American rule is codified.
I am in perfect agreement with togolosh on the subject of football.
209: I could be wrong, I'm relying on a memory from a couple years back, but I think you're allowed to be anywhere you like, you just can't come into possession of the ball (receive a pass, steal from the other team) if you're the furthest player not including the goalie.
re: 209
If you don't have the ball, there have to be two opposing players between you and the goal [one of whom can be the goalie] at the point the ball is played to you.
So you can't hang about in front of the opposition goal waiting for the ball.
209: Oh, really? I didn't realize the player in possession could jump out in front. They just started enforcing offside in Rory's league this past season and I was perpetually confused!
I like watching hockey. I think the secret is that it is actually much easier to follow from the cheap seats.
The key to watching hockey is to keep an eye out for where the puck is going to be, not where it is. Glad to help.
The rules for a pickup game of touch football seem to have absolutely nothing in common with the professional game, though. When the QB says "hike," you run into the opposition's field, and when the QB throws the ball to you, catch it and run. If you're defending, run after people and try to catch the person with the ball. It's basically a game of tag with an awkward ball to pass around. And again, it seems like a totally different activity than what those beasts are doing on TV.
Running around on a Saturday morning is a Good Thing, though. My sports-obsessed brother-in-law organized a touch football game the morning before his wedding to my sister. It certainly broke the ice between the families.
And yeah, 213 is right.
You can be in an offside position as long as you run back in to an on-side position before receiving the ball.*
Some players get very astute at working this rule. Hanging around making the defenders nervous in an offside position and then making the right run to just pick up the ball onside before turning and heading back towards goal.
* it wasn't always this way. It used to be that you just couldn't BE offside. Now you can be offside if you don't have the ball.
It's also complicated by the fact that if you are off-side and are judged to be in active play [e.g. by obstructing one of the opposing team] it can still be a foul even if you don't actually have the ball.
It certainly broke the ice between the families.
So the hard feelings about what happened to Granny when she forgot to signal fair catch on the punt return are all in the past now?
On the original question of sports talk as means to pick up guys, it occurs to me that the "dumb girl who doesn't understand the rules" schtick actually works okay. "Gosh, I have just never understood the off-side rule, can you explain it to me you big manly man who understands manly things like sports?"
re: 221
There was a girl at my college made extensive inquiries about joining the rugby team.
"Sure, the girl's team are signing up over there..."
"No, the men's team"
"Er, no"
"You don't have some sort of associate membership for girls, who just like rugby [eyelash flutter]?"
"Er, no"
A version of this gambit, applied to whatever the guy in question does for a living, used to be called "Cockroach farming is so in-tresting!" in my college peer group.
221: In that sense, sport is no different from any other topic, except perhaps the proper use of femine hygeine products, and maybe not even that.
222: Now, a really inclusive organization would have encouraged her to buy herself a cheerleader's outfit and show up at the games with beer.
re: 225
Yes. it was clearly to all and sundry that it wasn't so much the sport as the people who played it that had caught her interest.*
* not that this is uncommon, but the transparency of it had people [other women, mostly] giggling about it for weeks ...
You mean my wife really doesn't care about my day? She's just being nice? Feminine wiles, I tell ya.
221.---I have tried this with about 20 British-Empire-type chappies, but I still don't understand cricket.
It's just that the American rule is codified.
Astonishing how deeply the civil law tradition extends, isn't it?
"Cockroach farming is so in-tresting!" in my college peer group.
The male version is "You mean, you love Toni Morrison too?!?!"
I still don't understand cricket.
Cricket is the only game where you don't have to run after you hit it. You get to decide if it's safe to go, then make your dash. Very British in that regard.
To get all serious, I actually like listening to people talk about stuff they're obsessively interested in and knowledgable about and I'm not -- if they're interesting people, I don't care what specifically it is they're talking about. In a dating-type situation, "Explain offsides" would be as good a gambit as any to figure out if the guy in question was or was not going to bore the crap out of me.
You mean my wife really doesn't care about my day?
I suppose this is why I'm single. "Yeah, dude, I really don't want to hear about the game. Or your day. No, I can't at least fake it."
re: 228
I mostly understand it. It's quite fun to play. But I wouldn't choose to watch it.
I understand cricket until one of the batsmen suddenly has to stop batting for some reason. There appear to be three reasons for them to stop batting which are recognizable from baseball (the ball goes right by them into the sticks; they hit the ball and someone catches it; or the ball gets thrown back to the infield before they are safely at one of the two wickets.
But it seems like most of the time the batter's inningseses are over for no reason at all.
In a dating-type situation, "Explain offsides" would be as good a gambit as any to figure out if the guy in question was or was not going to bore the crap out of me.
I do something similar with candidates in interviews: ask them about something they ought to be really well informed about (i.e. their thesis topic), and see if they can convey the subject matter to a non-specialist in a structured and compelling way.
I had this idea that in cricket the batter got like twenty pitches with which to do what they could?
I mostly understand it. It's quite fun to play. But I wouldn't choose to watch it.
Pretty good summary of sports, that.
232: ditto. It's a combination of admiration for their passion and pleasure in learning new things.
232/239
Absolutely. But this is pretty much the opposite of learning enough about something to talk about it, just to talk about it.
My brother watches curling on TV and second-guesses the announcers. He's really irretrievably Canadian now.
re: 237
No, in full test matches [that go on for days] they can be in forever. Days.
In shortened matches there's a fixed number of balls that can be thrown. The limits are imposed on the bowling not the batting.
Other things the batsmen can get put out for -- if they stick their leg in front of the wicket [i.e. if the ball would have hit the wicket except for them standing in the way]. This is to stop people just standing shielding the wicket [the sticks].
241: Wait a minute; Arm chair announcing is at least as American as it is Canadian.
I do something similar with candidates in interviews: ask them about something they ought to be really well informed about (i.e. their thesis topic), and see if they can convey the subject matter to a non-specialist in a structured and compelling way.
This is quite good. There are those who will do their best to inflate the subject and make it sound as complex and difficult as possible so as to make sure you know they are superior to you, and those who understand it well enough to explain it in a way that makes you believe (even if only momentarily) that it really must be the most interesting thing ever!
244: works well on dates that way, too.
or not-dates, for that matter.
I've watched some cricket matches on TV, and the announcers don't tell you why the batter is out! They just say "Oh, a glorious innings for St John-Polevaulter, really he accomplished what he needed to there." But why did it end?
Are most of these situations leg-before-wicket?
In US sports TV nothing like that can happen without the announcers talking about whether or not the officials made the correct call, and showing replay after replay. I would expect that in a judgment call like "was he shielding the wicket", they would show video replays and say "I don't know, Bob, looks to me like he was playing by the rules." "Well, Jim, if you try a different angle, you see that the rightmost stick was definitely blocked, at least from the trajectory that Gopalakrishnan bowled that one." And have an immediate internet poll on the TV channel's website about whether it was the right call, etc.
Name to watch for: Leticia Van de Putte.
Everything I know about cricket comes from Murder Must Adverstise.
And also Murder Must Advertise. That's a good one, too.
Cricket, explained, succinctly, in French
237: You're thinking of 20/20, the faster and more exciting version - it's 20 overs (an over is a session of 6 balls from a single bowler, followed by change of batting ends) each. Much less tactical than the 5 day test.
247: We don't need to do that as we have Hawkeye which can answer the question objectively. The fact that some lbw decisions are shoddy is part of the game, and aggressive (but not too aggressive) appealing and working the umpire is a key skill.
No, I can't at least fake it
This may be more of the problem, Di. Male ego, and all that.
I've watched some cricket matches on TV, and the announcers don't tell you why the batter is out! They just say "Oh, a glorious innings for St John-Polevaulter, really he accomplished what he needed to there." But why did it end?
He might not have been out - the team might have declared, he might have run out of partners at the other end, run out of overs in 20/20 or one-day or it might just be time for lunch.
Stopping for lunch is the best bit about playing [I say after having played one whole cricket match in my entire life].
Oh, and in 242 ttaM neglected to mention that of course you can't be out lbw if the pall pitches wide of leg stump (basically to stop spin bowlers from exploiting the lbw rule by constantly bowling inswingers out into their body), which is why you will regularly see good batsmen "padding away" deliveries they don't like the look of.
It really is a ridiculous, wonderful game.
There are those who will do their best to inflate the subject and make it sound as complex and difficult as possible so as to make sure you know they are superior to you, and those who understand it well enough to explain it in a way that makes you believe (even if only momentarily) that it really must be the most interesting thing ever!
There is also the class of brilliant, striving, modest ones who say something like, "I was working on a study to determine the neurochemical pathways involved in the transsublimation of hypomoronic g-string striptase. It probably will never have any practical application, but it's a fascinating topic and my advisor has recommended it for publication in the Journal of Neurochemistry.
These ones I have to can on the grounds that they can't bullshit properly: "I was studying a class of proteins in the brain that many experts in the field believe could hold the key to curing schizophrenia, tourettes syndrome, and chronic hicupping. My specific research broke new ground in explaining how these proteins are created, and what specific genes may be involved in turning the process off and on."
It really is a ridiculous, wonderful game
What was weird to me was how as the bowler you can't bend your elbow during the delivery. Easy enough once you practiced, but a bizarre concept.
Samuel Beckett was a near-top-level cricketer, and look what happened to him.
Samuel Beckett was a near-top-level cricketer, and look what happened to him.
He got stuck jumping into other people's bodies?
He lived a long and successful life, punctuated by bouts of driving Andre the Giant to school?
Even aside from the dictionary-sized rulebook, I'd say football really is one of the most difficult sports to really understand because, much more so than the other major sports, it's a coaches' game more than a players' game. Even people who watch a lot of football often have no idea what's going on at the line, aside from guys crashing into each other.
One of the things I picked up reading Football Outsiders was that a lot of this is due to the fact that the best angle to figure out what's going on on the field (high up from one end zone) is one that the live broadcasts refuse to show. ESPN has a show that often includes breakdowns of plays, and they pretty much only use that angle.
He got the Nobel Prize. He was not pleased by that. He was seldom pleased.
262: yeah, The Blind Side talks about that a lot. Coaches never watch game broadcasts because there's no way to understand what's going on.
André was never arrested for the incident, presumably since local police officers had a hard time believing four inebriated men's story about an angry giant having overturned their car....He has been unofficially crowned "The Greatest Drunk on Earth" for once consuming 119 12-ounce beers in 6 hours.
Please forgive a quick thread-jack; I excuse myself on the grounds that some folks here are coastal elites: students have occupied the New School.
Vote of no confidence in the extremely unsavory provost Bob Kerrey, of small-massacre-in-Vietnam fame; solidarity with Greece, generally crappy times for academics, particularly in NYC.
Speaking of which, have you seen what's going on in Greece? I mean, riots boil up and they die down; my point isn't wow-man-the-revolution-is-here; it's just remarkable the level of discontent and radical analysis fueling events. (Anarchists FTW!)
Even aside from the dictionary-sized rulebook, I'd say football really is one of the most difficult sports to really understand because, much more so than the other major sports, it's a coaches' game more than a players' game. Even people who watch a lot of football often have no idea what's going on at the line, aside from guys crashing into each other.
Is there a good book that explains the details of football? I watch a lot of it and still have no idea what a "cover two{" is for example.
266: I think it's a predictable outcome. I'm actually surprised that in retrospect that leftists didn't plan ahead for it. The popping of the housing bubble was sure to cause large economic dislocations, which would open a space for more left-wing politics.
266: I don't think radical analysis is what's going on *at*all* - It's just pissed off people smashing shit because they can't get to the real source of their problems, which is the horribly corrupt right wing government.
Also, setting human beings on fire is bad.
268: The Blind Side that I mentioned above isn't primarily focused on that, but when it does explain things it does a pretty good job, and a lot of it's stuff you're not going to necessarily intuitively understand (the west coast offense, the value of left tackles, the evolution of passing offenses generally).
Starting with Madden and his pen, the "color" commentator on the TV broadcast has become more technical and jargon laced. I don't know who this is supposed to appeal to, other than those who want to feel "smart" about the game. I think it loses the casual viewer.
268: Check out Football Outsiders (linked in 262), particularly the Strategy Minicamps. They do a better job of explaining the details of the game than any other resource I've ever found.
Are there a lot of casual viewers? I personally know only two types really; those for who it's occasionally background noise and something to watch with the family at thanksgiving, and those who know a lot of detail and like to talk about the impact of particular hypothetical trades, etc.
Heck, the most valuable part to most viewers is the betting advice in the pregame.
274: I dunno, I like football, and watch it fairly regularly, but I have not once (actually, I take that back, exactly once) considered the impact of a hypothetical trade.
Hey, look, Cover 2 explained! Good call, Josh.
276: It was an honest question --- I don't know what the distribution was like, just my personal acquaintances seem to be pretty divided.
RICK WARREN?! Fuck that fucking fucker. Fuck you, too, Obama.
There may be a deeper game being played there. Also.
270: The way I'm hearing that incident, there was fire and there were police officers and one, er, caught fire. Quickly extinguished, the Boston Globe reassures us. There have also been protesters burned, attacked and shot--and they don't have the advantage of riot gear.
But yeah, urban insurrection is pretty heavy-duty and I would be scared if I were there, speaking as an anarchist and someone who has attended some fairly militant protests. The thing is, when there's violence people get hurt; when there's a corrupt and violent government which has close ties to neo-nazis and which kind of grows out of the various Greek fascist movements (and it looks like the neo-nazis are joining in on the police side in these riots)....well, you get riots.
One thing I notice--every time there's mass insurgency, everyone (even on the center left) hastens to deny that the people involved are actually political; it's just "people burning shit down". Now in a sense that's true--there's a big difference between someone with a general longing for a just society and someone with an ideology about a just society--but it tends to take agency away from regular people, often working class people. If you think there's no theory involved, consider this statement by the workers who have occupied the government-union building.
I'm not enchanted by violence, as anarchists go. I don't think this is a civil war. I don't think that urban riots are the best way to achieve things. But I do feel pretty confident that when you get lots and lots and lots of regular people involved like this there's a real, deep longing for radical change, a fact that is often denied by the right.
Oh, and on the not-just-burning-shit-down front--people are occupying schools and government buildings and media offices. It's not that people are saying "hey, let's burn things! That's the best approach!" Also, everyone always talks about all this stuff as if somehow no one on the left had tried anything else, like it's a quick cut-to-the-chase from "hm, the government doesn't seem very responsive" to "I know! Let's riot!" If that were the case, we'd have riots everywhere all the time. People have to be pushed pretty hard to act.
Starting with Madden and his pen
I love that. I laughed hysterically one time when he circled the moon on the telestrator and said, "There's the moon"
Really? Wow!
I don't know what the issues in Greece are at all -- your first link assumed some level of familiarity, is there something you'd advise for the really out of touch?
280: Has the mysterious anarchist leader Βοβ Μκμανωσ showed up in Athens yet?
One of the things I picked up reading Football Outsiders was that a lot of this is due to the fact that the best angle to figure out what's going on on the field (high up from one end zone) is one that the live broadcasts refuse to show. ESPN has a show that often includes breakdowns of plays, and they pretty much only use that angle.
Oh, man. It makes me so mad. Even forget the long high view--the wire cam thingie would be perfect. Does anyone know why they refuse to broadcast a useful angle?
The Greek riots, at least according to Peter Moskos, may not be as bad the the pictures make them out to be. (Moskos is the sociologist who spent some time as a Baltimore cop as part of his grad work)
http://www.copinthehood.com/2008/12/worse-than-average-greek-riot.html
I actually like listening to people talk about stuff they're obsessively interested in and knowledgable about and I'm not -- if they're interesting people, I don't care what specifically it is they're talking about.
Yes, yes, yes.
I think I've said before, one of my implicit criteria for friends is that they have to be interested in something enough to want to talk about it in detail.
Despite its reputation for violence, rugby is an elegant game. Like this. It helps that repeated passing makes plays longer, and not having padding probably provides an incentive to avoid play-ending, bone-crunching tackles as in (American) football. Also, the rules aren't appreciably more (or less) complicated than football's. I'm convinced that a coach with a rugby background who incorporated more lateral passing plays into football would be very successful, at least until opposing teams caught on.
282: Honestly, I've been piecing things together a bit myself--incredibly high unemployment, left-over conflict from the civil war, real genuine neo-nazis attacking immigrants and progressives, an incredibly corrupt and ineffective government cutting health care hugely while bailing out the banking sector, a strong and organized anarchist movement that looks pretty capable and persuasive (from years of organizing) compared to the cops.
This blog has a lot of messy things but there's some useful information linked from the very, very long post:
here
Here's a mediocre story with some summary in the Independent.
Now, I certainly do admit that there's a lot of stupid activist chest-beating in the US that's basically "Burning police cars! Cool, dude!" But that doesn't mean that the people in Greece, or anarchists generally even, are being silly and trivial instead of "peacefully" organizing for "real social change" (like people have been trying to do for years and years and failing!)
It's also rather hilarious that there's a photo of anarchists at a demonstration in Greece with a caption "Greece's anarchists are pejoratively known as...'balaclava-wearers'" and none of the anarchists in the demo are masked! The only people whose faces you can't really see are the riot cops. (When cops are anonymous, like the ones in MPLS who hide their faces cover their badge numbers at demonstrations, it's an awesome, completely appropriate policing tactic and no one is ever punished even though the whole point of democracy is supposed to be transparency; when anarchists mask up it's because we are all, every last one of us, terrorists.)
organized anarchist
Ur doin it wrong
"Greece's anarchists are pejoratively known as...'balaclava-wearers'"
Possibly a mistranslation from "baklava-eaters"?
I know violence is wrong, but I would riot for some baklava.
I end up disagreeing with this fellow linked from 286, although there's some useful information. He says that, in essence, since street vendors are still out there vending the riots aren't really particularly bad.
But! I have actually been in a riot! And I disagree!
One of the weirdest moments during RNC--we had been marching around downtown, partly being herded by cops, partly just marching. It was before things got really ugly (which was when my friends and I decided to split). Everyone was incredibly hot and tired. So there we were, cop cars and cops on the block, pepper spray had been deployed previously from huge canisters (not from little ones that hit one person and are disabling but not massive-burn-generating), but it was a pause. We're all on this rather pleasant corner with a fountain. And there's a guy selling bottled water and soda from a little cart. He's doing land-office business, too, a line on each side of the cart. My friends and I had drunk all our water plus another bottle some group had given us, so we went and bought a couple of bottles ourselves.
Then the cops came, jumped my friend the legal observer, and the show got on the road.
The piece linked in 286 is fair up to a point, but only to a point. Riots are definitely a fairly regular thing in Athens, quasi-ritualized; I've been in a couple. But they're not a regular thing in Trikala and Ioannia and Patras and Hania, etc., etc., and they don't go on and on, and they don't result in the kind of destruction and violence that these are producing. These are serious, much worse than anything since the junta as far as I can make out.
The piece linked in 284 is really good (despite sounding a little unhinged; Greek politics turns everyone into a conspiracy theorist). From what I'm reading and hearing from friends, this is basically an intifada.
I agree that violence is bad, but honestly, it's naive to pretend that the world works in any different way. People get angry, they riot. Leaders don't step forward, and nothing happens. Leaders do step forward with an agenda, and maybe something happens.
196: so, is he trying to make it up to you?
really good (despite sounding a little unhinged
A common situation with ZNet.
280 - Luckily, the cop was only mildly singed. Still, I have a visceral aversion to molotov cocktail throwers. There is something particularly horrific about burning people.
re: 206
Yeah, the offside rule has an unfair reputation as being complicated. It really isn't [although recent iterations of it in professional soccer have made it a bit more subject to interpretation].
Indeed; when I was in HS, my dad and I got certified to referee. We often worked the same games. I was linesman for a big 'select league' game we did, and some tosspot English coach asked me at the half what my interpretation of the offside rule was.
"The only correct interpretation" was basically what I said.
But I'm also pretty sure that unless FIFA made changes, you can't just run back onside to receive a pass: you have to get right before the last time your player touches the ball.
Βοβ Μκμανωσ
That's pretty good, although the sigma at the end should look more like a Latin "S."
298: Oh, I'm not a fan of burning people either, even riot cops (it's hard labor in the cane fields for them). If someone did intentionally set the cop on fire, I disapprove fairly strongly. I'm lukewarm (as it were) on fire as an activist tactic--break a window and things stop there; set something on fire and you don't really know where it will end and who or what may be damaged.
The thing is, I suspect that once something like this gets going, individual decisions about safety and fire control are rather out of the picture--scary things happen in riots. I've seen some of them myself; I've seen a friend have what I have begun to realize was a little bit of a breakdown after RNC. The mere fact that scary things happen during riots and revolutions (or even during times of dramatic political change, where the scary things are social and economic rather than physical) isn't an argument against the left or against social change. Even when everyone is really competent, really low-key and really keen on avoiding violence and scary things, some happen.
And bad, scary things happen under capitalism all the time, like migrant workers dying when they're forced to pick crops during heat waves, or transwomen getting beaten to death, or people not being able to get treatment for kidney infections because they can't afford another ER bill nevermind a doctor (a friend of mine, recently), but they happen to the invisible kind of people.
individual decisions about safety and fire control are rather out of the picture
Yeah, but the rioters didn't have a fire marshall? I mean, what the fuck?
302: You know, I bet they didn't!! I wonder what their insurance company is going to say about that! The rules for licensed and bonded anarchists are rather strict.
I'm not a fan of burning people either
That's pretty good, although the sigma at the end should look more like a Latin "S."
Part of the holy wonder of unfogged is that such a comment was not only possible, but well nigh inevitable.
305: In that case I'll pile on by pointing out that it should be Μπόμπ. Βοβ would be "Vov".
I do make certain exceptions.
And the joke will be on you when the flames don't touch him, because he's the devil.
301: It's visceral for me, not some sort of carefully thought out position.
My own riot experience has been entirely on the periphery, though I did get teargassed once when I was downwind of a riot that sprang up when cops stopped an attempted lynching. It was in Botswana, and a woman had been accused of kidnapping a girl to use in black magic. The girl (about 7 y.o.) turned up later having been hiding because she was afraid of getting in trouble for breaking something at home. Ooops. Sorry, lady.
308: See, for me it is a carefully thought-out position--in life, I'm basically a pushover and I've learned not to trust my initial political reactions. "Oh, Henry Kissinger probably had a very hard time as a refugee," I think to myself about one of the most despicable war criminals ever, someone who has quite genuinely caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people . "And he's adorably nerdy!" That's visceral for me, and it's also hideously stupid.
Even after careful thought, though, I'm fairly certain that my initial "don't burn people!" reaction is sound.
299: you have to get right before the last time your player touches the ball.
Yes, it is your position when the ball is played or otherwise touched by your team that matters (usually to played you , but as mentioned upthread it is also an offense if while in an offside posiiton you are interfering with play or interfering with an opponent (so you can't "screen" the goalie while a teammate behind you shoots on goal from further out).
My sons both ref and just recertified. The tests are usually straightforward, but this year included a number of "tough" questions (hard as they are to find in soccer). Their favorite was defender standing in the penalty box throws his shoe at the ball (last touched by opposing team) which is outside the box, striking it and sending it over the end line. I think choices were corner kick, goal kick, PK or direct kick where the shoe struck the ball. I do not recall the right answer. I did some baseball umpiring and baseball rules are full of contingencies for crap like that.
Think it'd be a penalty kick.
The only tough question I recall from my exam was about the field of play--the width can range from 45-90m and the length from 90-120m. It was actually multiple choice, I think, and one of the choices was 90x90m--but the law also specifies the field must be rectangular.
That's pretty good, although the sigma at the end should look more like a Latin "S."
The HTML entity for that is ς producing ς
Technically, a 90X90 field would be a rectangle--albeit one with sides of equal length.
[/w-lfs-n]
Which is what makes the question tricky: I know that but the examiners don't.
Though, actually, I think the law says the touch line has to be longer than the goal line, too.
312:Most accurately, the 'c' should be elevated (superscript) and underlined. Damfinoy.
Sports Talk:
Apparently Celtics might be looking to sex Mutombo.
My brother watches curling on TV and second-guesses the announcers. He's really irretrievably Canadian now.
That does sound pretty irretrievably Canadian, John. That borders on "I'm ready to be repatriated to Scotland."
In that case I'll pile on by pointing out that it should be Μπόμπ. Βοβ would be "Vov".
Bob is eccentric enough to be classical Greek, not modern. He is the madman in the Attic.
