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…
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.
Late AI Thoughts
Okay, now that I've filed the taxes, I can give some quick thoughts on tonight's American Idol.
I'll be brief with my thoughts on the singers, but allow me to ask, "How did Quentin Tarantino became a vocal coach?" I mean, yes, he was a very good judge a few years ago. But coaching the vocalists? I guess the movie theme was a big part of it.
Now, to the performances.
Allison - "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" - I really wish she'd taken an actual song by an actual female, because it felt like she was held down by the low (for a girl) key. And I agree with The Fair Elaine that she tried to do too much with it.
Anoop - "I Do It For You" - Very nicely done. I liked that he made it his own but didn't go for too much.
Adam - "Born to be Wild" - Well, Adam did what Adam does, and he did it well.
Danny - "Endless Love" - I guess I understand that the song had meaning to him, but is that really the best reason to choose a song? Or maybe should he have gone for something he could really do *well*?
Matt - "Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?" - I really don't have much to say here. It wasn't awful, and it wasn't terrific. Somebody else jump in here.
Kris - "Falling Slowly" - Kudos for picking a great song from a terrific movie. And singing it rather well. I actually wanted him to go on a little longer, but we have to allow the judges to talk, I suppose...
Lil - "The Rose" - I guess I should mention that she sang fairly well. But, as Mr. Tarantino said a few years ago, "I don't care." I'm still not sure why she made the Finals.
Bottom Three: Matt, Lil, Allison. I really hope Lil goes home.
AI Full Recap: Choices, Choices
Back by popular demand is my full (and snarky) recap of last night's American Idol festivities. The singing parts, anyway.
So this week, the AI Finalists got to choose a song, any song, from the years of their births. That's a lot of songs. And yet it was fairly hit and miss. How do you look at a year's worth of songs and end up with a lousy choice? I don't get it.
Danny was up first, and he took on "Stand By Me," albeit in a different arrangement than the typical. A solid performance, I suppose, although it ended up looking a bit better than I think it really was. After some of the other performances, that is.
Kris went with “All She Wants to Do is Dance.” Okay. Love Kris, but this wasn't a very good song choice. I actually like the song, and his arrangement was kinda cool, but it didn't do anything like show him off. Contestants need to learn to Not. Pick. Repetitious. Songs. Duh!
Lil allowed me to continue wondering how she made the Finals, going with "What's Love Got to Do With It?" Is it possible to do such an iconic song without coming across as Karaoke? Well, maybe, but Lil didn't manage it. Again, she's still just Generic R&B Singer to me. I suppose she's got a decent voice, but she's not really much of a performer. Unless you call her knock-off-nightclub-imitation of Tina a performance.
Anoop tried to bounce back from his hopeless attempt at Usher by singing "True Colors" and doing it brilliantly. Now, I wasn't completely blown away by the vocal or anything, but his R&B riffs actually worked on something stripped down. Can he do something up-tempo? I still remain steptipul (it's my blog and I'll type how I want to).
Scott decided, inadvisedly, to get out from behind the piano for "The Search is Over," which is one of those songs I can't help but love. It's from the days when Survivor was a band and not a TV Show!!! Unfortunately, I think the song would've worked better unplugged, maybe from the (drum roll) piano. As it was, it was Some Kind of Horrible. The phrasing was rough, the money notes were anything but, and I'm just so hoping Scott takes the train (see, cuz he mentioned he loved trains). And has anybody else noticed how rectangular his mouth is? I think it affects his diction.
Allison went with a Kimberly Locke song (okay, Bonnie Raitt). "I Can’t Make You Love Me” was a terrific choice, and I thought she sang it perfectly. I could've done without a few of the Rocker-Facial-Expressions-And-Microphone-Affectations, but the vocals were right in there. She's fortunate to have a voice that sounds different even when singing the same arrangement as the original. Which is why she's better than Lil. That, and she has better range. And better tone. And better control. Actually, she's better in all regards. America? Please agree...
Matt got back to some R&B, going with "Part Time Lover." On the positive side, it was way better than Chicken Little's attempt at the same. And actually, the unplugged portion of it I liked a great deal. His high notes on "feeling so right" were awesome. And then the music started. Sigh. It was basically a Bad Case of the Runs. Not a complete train wreck, but it was just a bit breathless. He hit so briefly on the notes before riffing of in different directions that it made the hits seem like misses. Does that even make sense? (Heh...I just thought of the Brawndo commercials. "And you'll probably turn invisible, which doesn't even make any sense." Yes, and now you're going to have to Google "Brawndo". You know you're going to...)
Unfortunately, Fox can't keep the show on schedule (maybe trim by three judges or so?), so we missed Adam. Fortunately, we have the Interwebs, so we saw him online. And what a terrific song choice he made, with "Mad World." I thought he maybe overstepped a bit at the very end, not quite getting on the final note and just barely sliding up to it by the time he had to stop. But very nice otherwise. I have to say though, that Adam's obscene range is getting a tad predictable. It's like listening to Mariah Carey back in the 90's. You knew the song was almost over when she started calling out to the neighborhood cats. But it almost became schtick. I think Adam needs to mix in a performance where he stays in the normal 20Hz-20kHz Human Hearing Range. We know he's got the money note in there. We just don't need it every week.
My faves were the A's. Adam, Allison, and Anoop. Danny was okay, but everybody else I could take or leave. Hopefully we'll have Lil and Scott as the Bottom Two, but I suspect America still thinks Lil is actually good, and Matt's proven to not be overly popular. And maybe Anoop lost some fans last week with his petulence. Or maybe Kris slips down after being rather forgettable. I'll go with Matt, Scott, and Kris for the Bottom Three. Hopefully Scott leaves, but I'm going to predict Matt instead.
Next week, maybe I'll be back to copping out with one-liners.
Theology Thursday: The Devil, You Know?
ABC's Nightline had an interesting "Face-Off" segment last week, with a panel discussing the question of whether Satan exists. It wasn't exactly a balanced panel, with Deepak Chopra and Bishop Carlton Pearson on the "No" side, and Marc Driscoll and Annie Lobert, a former prostitute, on the "Yes" side.
When I say it wasn't balanced, I guess I just would've expected a little more theological firepower on the "Yes" side. Not that Pastor Driscoll didn't hold his ground. I actually found him fairly engaging, even if he subscribes unapologetically to the "Satan is a fallen angel" line (of course, I'm the one out of the mainstream on this point). But how about an N.T. Wright or another noted theologian? And Ms. Lobert, remarkable as her story is, isn't exactly a Bible scholar. Most of her argument boiled down to, "I've seen it." And her stories about being assaulted by demons didn't really help her side.
On the other side, I would really have liked to hear more from Bishop Pearson, because he still claims to be a Christian. On of the best moments for me was when Driscoll asked him, "You believe in the Resurrection but not Satan? Really?" I may have to pick up Pearson's The Gospel of Inclusion, just to get a better sense of where he's coming from (actually, the library has it, so I'll give it a thumb-through in a few days).
Now that I'm thinking of it, neither side really had much theological firepower. Bishop Pearson was well-spoken, but he's basically a pastor with some strange ideas. And Deepak Chopra was a complete no-op to me. Nothing he said had anything behind it. You could get thoughts as deep as his from fortune cookies. My favorite nugget from him was this gem:
"All belief is a cover-up for insecurity." Way to saw off the limb you're standing on, Mr. Chopra!
One of the highlights was when one of Driscoll's parishioners stood up and asked Chopra, "Do you believe that?" Receiving a "Yes," he took his seat after saying, "Thank you." Owned! In Chopra's defense, he clarified that things that are real don't require belief.
And yet...he believes in the spirit. In fact, he said he trusts his spirit more than his mind. What evidence does he see for spirits? I'm just completely baffled by him. I'll admit that I agree with him that his mind isn't much to be trusted. And I definitely admire his ability to get paid for what he does. He actually took Driscoll and Lobert to task for using a male pronoun when speaking of God. Really? Does he really think Christians actually believe God has male plumbing?
The funny thing is, Chopra came off (to me) as really judgmental and intolerant of all views except for his. But I'm sure he thinks he's open-minded.
I guess what I'd really like to see is a detailed, Scriptural debate on this issue. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there are any actual scholars out there who deny Satan's existence. At least not scholars who have a high view of Scripture.
I should mention really quick that I thought the moderater did a good job. His bosses just could've picked better headliners for the debate.
Anybody else see Nightline? Comments? Thoughts?
AI quick hits
Loved: Kris
Liked: Adam, Danny
Tolerated: Scott (actually edged toward "Liked"), Matt, Allison (also on the border)
Endured: Lil, Noop
Barely Kept My Dinner Down: Megan
I'm gonna say that Matt gets a bump from his fans and is safe. I just have to believe that Megan's in the Three of Shame, as is Anoop. And I'm putting Lil there, too, because I'm just not a fan.
Thoughts? I'm expecting a comment from Alaska here...