Olympics
As The Fair Elaine mentioned today, the Olympics have seriously impacted our normal evening schedule. So I thought I’d chime in briefly with my thoughts.
Bottom line: I like events with objective results. Give me, any day, Snowboard Cross or Super G or the Downhill or Speed Skating. I’ve enjoyed, in the past, some of the Ice Skating, but I just prefer it all coming down to the clock.
BTW, Snowboard Cross is my new favorite event. All the downhill skiing events are also awesome, though.
I also think Curling is pretty cool.
That’s about it, I guess. What are your favorite events?
Ninja Warrior and Competition
Quick comment on the Super Bowl here. Trivial Pursuit is better.
(We managed to miss the onside-kick that sparked the Saints’ getting back in the game. DVR good. And WTG, Saints.)
So it’s getting toward baseball season here, and I’m not just going to wax poetic about how much better baseball is than football, because there’s really little left to be said, and it’s so manifestly true.
No, instead I’d like to opine a bit about competition. I often hear from other parents that they want their boy (I’m being boy-centric here, because I am one, and I have one) to be in a non-competitive league. I. Just. Don’t. Understand. This.
Okay, so I do understand wanting to give kids a low-pressure way to experience sports. And maybe it’s a good entry point, or a toes-in-the-water point for kids who probably aren’t wired for sports competition.
But I think there’s something we miss when we remove competition, and when all the kids get trophies. As Dash put it in The Incredibles, after his mom (Elastigirl) commented that “everyone is special”:
“Which is the same as saying nobody’s special.”
Now, I’m all for rewarding effort and not just performance, and I can see the argument for a trophy being a good carrot to dangle, even if it’s not earned by performance so much as participation.
But shouldn’t our kids be learning to lose well? Learning that, hard as you try, you just might be on a pretty lousy team? That it’s okay to lose if you tried your best?
The thing is, in teaching our kids about losing well, we also get to teach them how to win well. And they learn how great it feels to win.
(Incidentally, this is why I generally don’t let the Boy win. I want him to feel good when he beats me. Though I do sometimes handicap myself to level the playing field. But within those strictures, I still try to win.)
As I’ve written before, we’re big fans of Sasuke, known in America as Ninja Warrior. It’s a lot like ABC’s Wipeout, only a hundred times cooler.
It’s basically the world’s toughest obstacle course, but it’s not just the obstacles that make it cool. It’s the fact that they might go SEVEN YEARS WITHOUT A WINNER!!!!!
On Wipeout, there’s always a winner of the $50k prize. Twenty-four start the competition, and one of them wins it.
On Ninja Warrior, one hundred people start the competition, and most of the time, one hundred are eliminated. Sometimes only two or three even make it past Stage One (of Four). Oh, and the prize is less than $20k.
And they keep making the course harder. If you look back at the first winner (there have been two winners out of more than twenty competitions), his course was much easier than the second winner’s.
But of course, sometimes somebody does win. For instance, The Pancake Eating Boy’s current hero, Makoto Nagano. Here’s a video of him completing all four stages back on Sasuke 17 (the video lacks G4’s English translation, or you’d get the impression that the announcer has just as big a Man Crush on Nagano as The Boy does):
The Boy gets seriously emotionally invested in watching his Main Dude on Sasuke. When Nagano fails, the Boy is very put out.
I think it says something about the Japanese that they’re willing to watch a competition that may not even have a winner and most of the time doesn’t. (Strictly speaking, I think you could call the course itself the winner most of the time.)
But there’s another good lesson on Ninja Warrior, and that’s respect for your opponent. It’s really cool to see the way all the contestants pull for each other. Granted, they’re not really competing against each other, but it’s still awesome to watch how disappointed the All-Stars are when one of their ilk fails early. Even cooler was when all the All-Stars were eliminated (Nagano fell on the first obstacle of Stage Two) and only American free-runner Levi Meeuwenberg was left standing. They did their best to coach him through Stage Three (this time with English subtitles):
Am I off base (Shocking, eh? Baseball term!) about competition? I love the fact that the Boy’s Fall Ball team didn’t win any games last year. It’ll make a winning experience all the more awesome. Plus, it pulls a layer back so the experiences of individual games are the best parts. Okay, so we didn’t win a game, but I made a great play at first base. Or I scored two goals in a losing hockey game.
I could see how a kid could get spoiled by always being on a winning team, but how often does that really happen? When I think back to my Little League days, I only remember being on one pretty good team (hmm…and I was the common element on all those lousy teams). But that one winning year stands out as a highlight for me.
Thoughts? I know this wasn’t a normal Monday post, but I haven’t written a lengthy non-theology post in some time.
Best Gig, Russell, Bleak House, Cranford, Blocks
Now that I’ve had my last Fireside Carolers gig of my first year, I can report that I plan on doing it again next year. For one thing, the time investment alone in learning the 50+ songs needs to be paid off. For another, I just love singing Christmas songs, and I really like the other folks in the group.
Saturday I participated in the shortest and best gig of the year for me. It was less than half an hour, but it was in a home, and we were a surprise for the guests. We sang to a room of appreciative and festive people, and if I might say, we sang brilliantly. I really wish I’d recorded it.
Sunday I was in my longest gig, singing at the Woodburn outlet stores for two hours, both in an octet and strolling with a quartet. It was a cool experience, but that house gig was just the kind of thing that really makes it worthwhile. Getting paid for it didn’t hurt, of course, but knowing we elevated the evening was even cooler.
It was a slow year, so I’m told, in terms of the number of gigs we had. At first, I was fine with this, because I thought it’d let me ease into things. But once I got into the swing of it, it was kind of a bummer that I didn’t get to sing more. There’s always next year, though.
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I’m not a rabid, crazy Survivor fan. I’ve even basically skipped a couple of seasons. But I know what I know. And I know Russell should’ve won last night. I’ve tried to see my way clear to Natalie winning, and I’m not saying she’s not at all deserving, because she was a beast in a couple of challenges, but Russell ruled this season. But I guess nobody should expect a Survivor jury to be objective.
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As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, we’re on a BBC trip right now. After thoroughly enjoying Little Dorrit, we took in Bleak House, which was written for the screen by the same writer as Dorrit.
On the whole, it was a good production. The acting was still terrific, and there were definitely memorable characters. But I definitely preferred Little Dorrit. In part, I think it’s because I loved the main two characters in it, and in Bleak House there was really only one character who provoked anything like the same affection.
(By the way, I was very impressed with Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock. At times I actually had to remind myself she’s not English.)
One thing about Bleak House that we found distracting was the directing. There were so many fast cuts and weird sound effects during transitions. Not sure what the director was going for, but it didn’t always work. (The sound effects reminded me for all the world of the popping sound preceding the Flame Spurt in the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride. And when you’re watching Dickens, you don’t necessarily want to be thinking of ROUSes. Just saying.)
I should dutifully point out that regardless of our impressions of the series, “Oh, my bones!” and “Shake me up, Judy!” have made it into the Heasley lexicon.
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So we enjoyed Bleak House, though it didn’t measure up to Little Dorrit. On the other hand, Cranford was simply wonderful. I loves me some Dame Judy Dench, so the production had some built-in Seth-appeal. (See what I did there? Seth-appeal. It’s the new Internet buzzword. Or not. But “baby fishmouth” is sweeping the nation. Now, did you recognize not one, but two When Harry Met Sally references there?)
I will say that Cranford is somewhat, shall we say, estrogeny? Which makes it fairly hilarious for a guy who grew up in a household with four women in it. Actually, it was entirely hilarious in a few places. “There’s lace at stake!” It was also profoundly sad in places, so I don’t recommend it if you’re averse to sad. But it’s not Summersby or anything, so don’t worry about it having a bad ending.
Oh, and if you haven’t heard of Alex Etel, you probably will in the future, because he’s an amazing child-actor. Just incredible.
I just found out there’s another Cranford series out there, so we’ll be taking that in just as soon as my Library Hold Request goes through.
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Somehow, we’ve resisted getting a game console system, even though it seems most folks have one. I can think of a few reasons.
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We have a computer, and we can always get games for it.
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I’d rather not spend the money.
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I really don’t need to want to play video games more, and I’d rather read.
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I never had one growing up. Uphill. Both ways!
On the other hand, it might be fun to play with the Pancake-Eating Son sometimes. But then I’m reminded that sometimes, it’s the simplest kind of interaction that works best.
The other day, Ethan and I got out the wooden blocks. We made the Taj Mahal. Or at least that’s what we called it. Then we took turns running a die-cast car through the bottom of it, seeing how long it would take before we accidently took out a key support member.
Sixteen minutes, by the way.
(Ethan also made the Eiffel Tower, which he called the France Tower. Pictures of our wooden block creations can be viewed over on the Fair Elaine’s daily picture gallery.)
And now the boy frequently asks to build stuff and knock it over. We have approximately a bazillion Legos, and he wants to build with wooden blocks. So I guess we won’t be getting that Wii anytime soon. I don’t grieve over this.
MM: Doubleheader, September?, Yelling, Amazing Race 15
Ethan’s Fall Ball team had a doubleheader on Sunday, with both games against the same team. The first game resulted in a tie (13-13), and the second game was a narrow 16-13 defeat. But the boys played well. We even recorded a 1-2-3 inning. No base runners allowed is quite a feat at this level.
Ethan got some time as a position player this time, and made two outs at first base (one on a routine grounder the pitcher fielded and threw to Ethan, the other a line drive to Ethan).
HE ALSO GOT HIS FIRST BASE HIT!!! In the course of the two games, he reached base at least three times (I’m trying not to be obsessive, so I haven’t been writing it down or anything). He doubled, had a base hit and advanced on an error, and walked at least once (I think).
He also flailed wildly at a couple of dirt-scraping pitches, because by then he felt like he could hit anything. Now hopefully he knows better.
(Of course, Ethan credits his shiny new bat. His old tee-ball bat was getting pretty dinged up from hitting baseballs.)
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By the way, speaking of baseball, is this really late September? Because my whole left side is burned to a crisp on account of coaching first base for two straight games.
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The sun was probably not a factor in my being somewhat hoarse. That would be from all the yelling and screaming at my base runners. My favorite comment from a player, who required an extraordinary amount of encouragement to take second base on a passed ball:
“I didn’t know you were talking to me.”
I guess the fact that he was on first base and I was the First Base Coach didn’t add up to “he’s talking to me.”
I shouldn’t actually be surprised, I suppose, as this is the same kid who, when I shouted that he should be covering second base (when he was playing second base), actually pointed at himself as if to say, “Me?”
I guess that baseball instincts have to be taught. Evidently the teaching involves quite a bit of yelling.
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And finally, a non-baseball topic: The Amazing Race 15 is now on the air. I remember watching the first season and hoping the ratings would be good enough that they’d do a second. Rinse and repeat for the next two seasons.
I guess the ratings are good enough now that it’ll stick around awhile.
Oh, and I’m not sure how I’d have done with the Wasabi Bomb. Ed would’ve done that Road Block, I think…
MM: Horning’s, Fishing, Federer
I've decided I'm no longer a morning person, so it's just Monday Musings from now on. Unless I choose to feel perky some Monday Morning.
Our weekend was fun and full. Friday, we had friends over for a dip in our pool and some dinner (most importantly, to allow our sons to interact).
Saturday, it was the Hillsboro Parade and a barbecue with friends, then back home for our traditional cul-de-sac fireworks session. Elaine posted some images of those events.
Sunday morning we took in some high-quality tennis on TV, which pushed back our later activity a bit. But more on that later.
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Sunday afternoon, we decided to drive out to Horning's Hideout for a look-see. We knew they have a couple of lakes, private campgrounds, and plenty of disc-golf. And we knew that, being private property, they offered fishing-without-a-license. And without equipment since they rent rods and bait.
I figured we'd just get the poles and I'd get to teach Ethan to cast. I wasn't actually really expecting to catch anything. But catch something I did. Probably one of the smallest fish I've ever caught. But it was a pretty little Rainbow Trout, and it was First Fish, so we kept it. It's nice to not get skunked.
Then I caught a tree overhanging my position. Doh! And it decided it liked my tackle quite a bit. So I just coached Ethan from then on. He had just about had it, and told me he'd do ten more casts. On number eight, he hooked a Rainbow.
Naturally, it was twice the size of mine. Okay, so maybe mine was a six-ouncer and his was ten. But it was a much nicer fish than mine. He hooked it and landed it himself, but not for lack of trying to lose it. Still, he is now an official catcher of fish. And I taught him everything he knows. Me big man who teach little man provide food for family. (grunting)
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Roger Federer is awesome. Fifteen Grand Slam tournament wins and counting. Just incredible. I'll admit I was rooting for Andy Roddick (because he's a Yank), but I wasn't sad to see Roger win. And what a match. I really thought they might not finish that fifth set before nightfall. (If you missed it, it took thirty games to decide the fifth set.)
Now we get to wait until September (I think) for the U.S. Open. It's still on my list of things to do when we do our East Coast swing one of these days (maybe next Sabbatical).
MMM: Uranium, Escape, Ninja Warrior
Late again, I know. But it's still Monday Morning somewhere!
The latest audio book I've listened to is Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock That Shaped the World, by Tom Zoellner. It's a really fascinating story, and the audio book is fairly well done. My one real quibble with it is the decision of the narrator to use "authentic" accents when reading quotes from interviews with the various figures in the story.
His accents are mostly okay, although his German tends to get mixed with a bit of Russian/Czech. The only powerfully bad one is his Aussie accent. Admittedly, it's a tricky accent to do, and I once knew a guy from Australia who had trouble keeping his own accent straight (of course, he moved to the U.S. when he was seven, so there's no question that he was faking it).
My thinking is, it's a nice idea to do the accents to break up some of the monotony of a narrator's voice, but if they're not really well executed, it detracts from the narrative. I don't call myself an expert on accents (though my friends say I'm quite adept), but I usually find that less is more.
By the way, it's an interesting book, especially if you're interested in the history of The Bomb, and what it means when a nation is "enriching" uranium, and that kind of thing.
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I've just read an early favorite for my Favorite Book of the Year, and it's my magic Number 30 for the year. There's just something nice about cresting that number. The book? Escape From the Deep: The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew, by Alex Kershaw.
I'd heard that a film is in the works, and being a bibliophile, I just had to read the book first. It was utterly riveting. I stopped reading everything else and took it with me wherever I went. Couldn't put it down. I can't say enough about it. And I can't say any more without spoiling it, so if you read on, it's on your head.
Basically, the book covered the fourth and fifth (final) patrols of the USS Tang, the most decorated submarine of WWII. On the fifth patrol, the sub sank a number of enemy ships, but their final torpedo malfunctioned. It circled back and exploded on impact with the after section of the sub. The 300-foot sub sank in 180 feet of water (meaning it was at an angle for some time). A group of men escaped from the bridge, and another group escaped from the ocean floor after filling the ballast tanks to sink the boat the rest of the way. They were the only sailors to escape from a submarine during the war. To put that in perspective, some 3500 sailors were lost in subs during the war.
Of course, they escaped into enemy waters and were soon picked up by the Japanese. They spent nearly a year as POWs, albeit without being officially listed as POWs (in other words, the Japanese didn't play fair in their handing of them).
Like I said, it's just a completely riveting story. Tragic in parts, of course, since very few men escaped the sub at all. But the story of survival is amazing.
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Ethan and I have become fans of Ninja Warrior on G4. We spent quite a bit of time yesterday watching it (the Mariner's game wasn't coming through on FIOS, and then it was). If you're a fan of Wipeout, you'd probably love Ninja, because it's just way cooler. The challenges are larger in scale, and the competitors tend to be a step up from what you'll see on Wipeout (although the average Joe thing does make Wipeout interesting).
The best part, of course, is listening to the hyperactive Japanese announcer giving the play-by-play (as opposed to the snarky-American-doofuses on Wipeout). I like to think I could give Stage 1 a good run, but I probably couldn't. And Stage 2 would probably be the death of me. Fun to watch, though.
MMM: Home Court?, 10K, Hoods, Baseball wrap, Food Network Star
I recognize I didn't MMMuse last week. Family in town. Priorities and all that rot. Anyhoo...
I didn't really watch the NBA Finals, even though I used to be a huge basketball fan. (That was back before I discovered that baseball is the Only Sport Worth Watching.)
Maybe the fact that the Lakers took two games on Orlando's floor takes the wind out of what I'm about to write about, but since I actually wrote it before the Finals began, I'm keeping it.
And here it is (see if you can detect my very subtle yet virulent preference for baseball): Why, exactly, is Home Court Advantage important in any way in basketball?
In baseball, Home Field Advantage is easy enough to understand. Baseball fields aren't all carbon copies of each other. Some are domes, some aren't (and you can play the ball off the catwalks in the domes). Some have quirky outfield fences or obscene amounts of foul ground (Oakland). So knowing your own field could help.
There's also the issue of the Home Team having last-ups. Let's say a game goes extra innings. The home team knows that if they score a run, the game is over. The visitor has to get a lead and then hold it. That's a definable advantage for the home squad.
But with the NBA, how's it work, exactly? Okay, sure, the home team will be loud. But that'll happen in any arena. So the noise level can't really be a factor. The basket's at the same height, and the court's the same length, and the first possession is determined by the tip-off. So where's the advantage?
I'm forced to conclude that the Home Team will normally get more Home Court Calls by the officials. Which is really, really lame. Am I wrong here? Somebody enlighten me, because this seems to be just another reason baseball is superior.
Oh, and congrats to the Lakers. Since I don't really watch, I don't have any particular opinion about who should've won. I like Dwight Howard better than Kobe Bryant, but I don't have the pathological hatred of Kobe that some have. (Nor do I harbor particularly ill fillings toward a certain formerly-Twins-catcher-now-playing-in-Chicago. Like how I still brought this around to baseball?)
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I ran (if you can call it that) a 10K on Saturday. Colin dragged me for the last two miles, and it was my fault for starting us off a little fast. Maybe if I'd tempered my enthusiasm a bit, we'd have come in at a lower time. Still, we started running and didn't stop for 6.2 miles. That's something.
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If you don't know the Hoods are in at the Farmer's Market, you are hereby notified of your First Warning. Your Second Warning will occur if you do not consume some of them by next week. Don't make my kick you out of Oregon.
(And if you don't know what Hoods are, please don't tell me. I may have to issue you a bit of a fustigation.)
(They're strawberries, but you didn't hear it from me.)
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Well, it's time for the Baseball wrap. The season is done, and Ethan wishes we had another game tonight. It was a fun experience, and if I do it again next year, I've learned some valuable lessons, and if some of the kids (and dads) return, it could be a whole lot easier than this season.
Some highlights:
- My son never having to hit off the tee. Because he's awesome.
- Two flyballs caught by one of my guys in one inning (and then he doubled off the runner at first both times). Yes, that's four outs, but we weren't really counting them.
- Serving up a homer to another of my guys. Best hit I saw all season from anyone.
- Watching one of my guys almost have a popup land on his head. Yeah, he didn't really realize there was a game on.
- Getting my most difficult hitter (just getting him to recognize which direction the ball was coming from was a chore) to connect twice in the same game.
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The Next Food Network Star has started up again. Love that show, even if I generally can't be troubled to watch the actual winner's show most of the time. I've found you can pretty much guarantee several things that'll happen:
- Somebody will have a tagline or culinary philosophy that's confusing/banal/just plain stupid. This year's early candidate: "I'm comin' at you from the mind of a chef." Ummm...what?
- Somebody apologizing for their food.
- Somebody describing their dish as containing "good" or "great" or "wonderful" things, as opposed to using, you know, appetizing language including such things as flavors or aromas or textures.
Yes, it's ever-so-slightly train-wrecky. Love that.
AI Shimmies and Slides
Not sure how to explain my title there. But it's alliterative, and that's really all I required of it.
In a way, this week wasn't fair for Kris and Danny. On the other hand, given that Allison and Adam were *expected* to do well, maybe the expectations were unfair for them.
On the other hand, Adam and Allison both really did their thing. Danny and Kris...not so much.
Actually, Kris did a nice job. Danny didn't exactly stink up the place, but that last note was some kind of horrible.
More than anything, I must register my complaint that another year has gone by and nobody sang Scorpions!!! Oh, I know there's still time this season, but Danny should've gone with "I Can't Explain". That would've rocked (plus it's got the Klingon Death Scream in it, too).
I'll go with Kris and Allison in the Bottom Two. The tight-panted one is probably safe, as is Mr. Angry Eyes.
AI (very) Briefs
Danny awesome.
Allison very good.
Adam Adam.
Kris good but forgettable.
Matt good with a spritz of bad.
No one left for me to pick on. Bummer. No clue how the voting will go.
Groovy AI Thoughts
Disco night is always fun, although I don't remember one with this much variety before. It seems like most years we pretty much get a bunch of copycat stuff. Not so this year.
Unfortunately, Lil watched the previous seasons and treated us to a very lame version of "I'm Every Woman." I actually wondered if she was the lead-singer on the performance. Yawn.
Kris righted the ship and then some with a very cool take on "She Works Hard for the Money." He pretty much could've done any song with that arrangement and the cool percussion and it would've worked. I actually felt bad for Lil after Kris showed her up so badly.
Danny came close to taking a step backward, not doing much with the arrangement of "September," but doing his usual stellar job on the actual singing. Still, he clearly didn't measure up to Kris's originality.
Allison did her usual rock thing on "Hot Stuff," and it was actually pretty good. Not your typical Boogie Week stuff, anyway.
Matt committed the classic blunder of going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line...Hahahahahaha!!! Sorry, Princess Bride reference. Be very ashamed if I had to tell you that. Anyway, he took on a song ("Stayin' Alive") without much creative wiggle-room. Yes, he brought some funk to it, and it was okay, but I refer the reader back to Kris, who also chose a non-wiggly song and wiggled the ever-living-stuffing out of it.
Adam went for surprising with "Ashamed I Can't Remember the Name of the Song and I'm Not Turning the Toob Back On Just to Find It." I think he still went for a bit too much on a couple of the high notes. Not that he messed them up or anything, but I still think less is more with the glass-shattering stuff. Still, he's really good. (Although I wonder if anyone will actually want to buy his stuff. See him in person maybe, but recorded? Dunno).
Anoop happened. And he looked as pleased with it as I was. How pleased can you be with a very Drug Store version of "Dim All The Lights?" He actually looked disgusted at the end.
Paula, or at least a representative of her viscera, tells me that Danny and Adam will be in the Finals, but there's no WAY Danny outlasts Kris if America has anything resembling brains. But we lose two this week, and Anoop and Lil are made for the twin spots on the Buh-Bye-Mobile. Of course, Vote For the Worst has Lil tagged, so maybe we'll lose Allison instead.
This is as detailed I could get while spending less than fifteen minutes writing it. There, I'm admitting that I'm mailing it in. It's the least I can do. Really it is.