Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 635

Ten people who hate Valentines Day

1.  Singletons who are worried that they will be single forever (almost always women and male leads in romantic comedies)

2.  Recently dumped singletons who cannot help but wallow in their newly found singlehood (usually but not always women, quite capable of ruining your Valentine's Day if you get too close )

3.  Single women who can hear their biological clock ticking like Big Ben

4.  Widows and widowers who are still hopelessly in love with their deceased partners (the only kind of Valentines Day haters who deserve our sympathies)

5.  Men who enjoy self-perceived, self-delusional intellectual superiority (these are the same men who think the Terminator movies are stupid and can't tell you who the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons

6.  Singletons who are overly concerned about what others think of them and their appearance (cowards who are forced to eat at home on Valentines Day lest they be seen without a day, usually found in romantic comedies but also exist in limited numbers in real life as well)

7.  Overweight male hipsters who cannot fit into skinny jeans and purposely reference obscure indie rock bands from the early 90's in an attempt to appear simpatico with the likes of Patton Oswald

8.  Husbands and wives in failing marriages (husbands will almost never talk about it but still feel it)

9.  Cheap men who don't like to pay a premium on flowers or be told when to purchase a gift who have wives or girlfriends who pretend to agree with this anti-Valentines Day stance even though deep down they hope beyond hope that their frugal husbands will cast off the shackles of financial wariness and give them something beautiful and silly on this pink and glossy, love-filled day regardless of cost

10.  Curmudgeonly versions of myself from fifteen years ago who once believed that nonconformity, counter-culture, logic, financial reason and common sense trumped the quickened heartbeat, widening smile and joyful laugh of a woman who suddenly finds herself on the receiving end of a bouquet of roses

Three decisions that simplified my life and made it more efficient

1.  I have never drunk a cup of coffee in my life, choosing to avoid the rigmarole, excessive accoutrement and early morning addictions that plague coffee drinkers.

2.  In 1990, I stopped thinking of audiobooks as a lowbrow means of reading a book and began consuming them in earnest.  

3.  I decided to never wear a watch, sparing myself the expense and trouble of strapping a timepiece to my wrist.

This last decision was made when I was still in high school, well before the advent of the cellular telephone, making me a bit of a Nostradamus in this regard. 

Game show cruelty

In the Columbian version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, the audience often answers incorrectly when the contestant uses the Ask the Audience lifeline.

Just to be jerks. 

My kind of people.

Sometimes the obvious should be the obvious

As I prepare to watch the Celtics-Heat game today, I find myself both grateful to James Naismith for inventing the game of basketball but also plagued by one reoccurring question: 

How long did it take Naismith to figure out that the game would be easier to manage if he simply removed the bottom on the peach baskets that served as hoops during those early games?

Or even better, why didn't he think of this right away? 

It wasn't like he was using steel buckets or ceramic pots as goals.  They were peach baskets.  The bottoms could have been easily removed with a decent pair of pruning sheers or one good, swift kick with a booted foot.

To hang peach baskets on the wall for the purpose of shooting balls into them and with their bottoms still intact strikes me as insane.

Perhaps it was the game's initial low scoring that caused Naismith to think that grabbing a ladder every time a point was scored wasn't a big deal.  The first official basketball game was played in a YMCA gymnasium on January 20, 1892, with nine players on a court about half the size of today's modern courts. 

The game ended at 1–0.

With just one basket, I guess that getting the ladder didn't seem like much trouble at first.

But still, it's a little ridiculous for a man who possessed the vision to create a game that is now played all over the world to fail so miserably when it came to a little common sense. 

The first basketball court: Springfield College

I punched a guy in the gut

I broke up a fight in a parking lot of the gym this morning.

Actually, all I really did was stop one guy from beating the hell out of another guy.  As I exited the gym, I saw the two guys standing in the parking spaces between my car and the next.  They were both about my size or slightly bigger, wiry, and in good shape.   

The kind of guys who lift free weights but can't seem to put on any bulk.  

Both guys had blood on their hands and mouth, but one guy, a long hair, blond, had clearly lost the fight.  He was cowering, just trying to protect himself from the punches of the other, who had apparently removed his coat prior to throwing punches, exposing his retro A-Team muscle shirt.

Probably for intimidation purposes. 

I quickened my pace and yelled, "Alright!  Enough!  You got him!"  In my experience, the interjection of a third party in any way, verbal or otherwise, is usually enough to end a fight. 

It sort of snaps a guy out of the moment. 

Unfortunately, my verbal interjection did not, so as came upon the scene, I placed myself between the two guys, saying again, "Alright, man.  You won.  Give the guy a break."

A-Team Shirt backed off and dropped his hands, a sure sign that the fight is over.  I was in many fights as a foolish, young man, and I can usually read these signs well. 

Unfortunately, A-Team Shirt decided to violate the laws of fist fights and do the unexpected.  As soon as I relaxed, he charged after his opponent again, attempting to sidestep me in the process. 

I won't lie.  My punch was a sucker punch.  I don't think A-Team Shirt ever expected me to participate in a physical way.  As he came even with me, stepping to my right, I punched him in the gut, stepping into the punch and giving him everything I had.  I didn't even think about punching him or debate the merits.  It was automatic.   

And it was a damn good punch.  It was ten or fifteen years of punches rolled into one. 

A-Team Shirt dropped to the ground with one of those incredibly satisfying groans that only an experienced fist fighter knows about. 

I then turned to Blondie and said, "Dude, get in your car and go."

He did.  I turned back to A-Team Shirt, who was still crumpled on the ground, and said, "I'm going, too.  Sorry. I know you didn't see that coming."

I got into my car, drove to an adjacent parking lot and turned off my car, waiting for my hands to stop shaking and wondering what either one of the guys might say to me next time they see me at the gym. 

I don't advise becoming involved in physical altercations such as these, and quite often I won't, as much as I might want to.  But it was 8:45 AM, one guy had already won the fight, and the chances that either guy had a weapon was miniscule.  They were in gym clothing and the sun was barely up. 

Most important, I did not enter the fray planning to throw a punch.  My intention was merely to be the voice of reason.  And they were blocking the entrance to my car.      

But like I said, I used to fight a lot when I was younger, and I learned some important rules that these two guys had clearly never learned. 

Matt's Rules of Fighting

1.  Avoid fighting whenever possible. 

2.  Acting like a lunatic, saying crazy, indiscernible things, and doing your best impression of a complete mental case can often convince an opponent to walk away. 

3.  There is no shame in being able to run faster than your opponent. 

4.  Never get in a fight if you cannot take a punch.  And until you take your first punch, assume you have a glass jaw.  Most people do. Thankfully, I have always been able to withstand a punch well.  It's my only real talent when it comes to fighting.  I'm not the fastest or the strongest, but I can absorb a lot of punishment.

5.  If you know that you can take a punch, let your opponent land the first one and show no signs of pain or damage.  Intimidation is a huge factor in a fight.  Hitting your opponent in the face and watching him fail to even flinch can be scary as hell. 

6.  Never punch someone in the mouth.  It cuts your own knuckles open and will likely result in blood in the mouth of your opponent.  This will only serve to further enrage him.  I'm quite certain that this is the origin of the word bloodlust.  I have felt it myself.  It is a powerful force and extremely helpful in a fight.   

7.  The three preferred places to punch an opponent (and really the only places you should ever punch an opponent), in order, are:

A.  The gut (never sexy but highly effective)
B.  Between the eyes (almost as good as the gut but harder to hit with any force)
C.  The groin (actually the best place to hit a man but chivalry    demands that it take third place on the list)

8.  Never hit an opponent after he has quit fighting.  It is a cowardly act and increases your chances of seriously hurting someone.

9.  Never turn your back on an opponent, even if you think the fight is over. 

Not every honor is an honor

In the event that I lead a nation through its infancy or command an army of rebels against overwhelming imperial forces, please don't name a structure like the George Washington Bridge after me.

I would hate to have something that causes so much grief and is cursed so often named after me. 

I'll just take a picturesque mountain or a well planned city and call it a day.

Crazy knows what crazy does

A man was recording what appeared to be a disjointed, ranting, nearly unintelligible video outside of 7-11 this afternoon.  I have seen this man at the 7-11 before, filming on one corner or another, always alone, always angry and laughing at the same time.

Not quite normal, it would seem.

Today I was standing in line inside the 7-11 when the large man in front of me said to the cashier, "You know there's a man filming a video outside?"

"Yes," said the cashier, who also happens to be the owner.  "He films about once a week."

"He's crazy," the man said.

"I don't know about that, but he's not hurting anyone," the owner said.

"But he's crazy," the man said.  "All laughing at himself.  He said he's filming for something called Too-Tube."

"Yes. YouTube," the owner said, correcting the man.

"You Tube?" asked the customer.  "Is that a channel?"

"It's for the Internet."

"Oh."  The man paused for a moment and then said, "He's crazy.  I don't know if he should be here." 

"He never bothers anyone," the owner said, exhibiting remarkable patience. 

"Yeah, but I'm telling you.  He's crazy."

"Maybe," the owner conceded.

"So you going to kick him out?"

"No, he never bothers anyone, and he'll be gone in thirty minutes."

"Yeah," the man said.  "But he's crazy."

Suddenly the laughing angry man standing on the corner with his video camera seemed not quite so crazy after all.

Sometimes youre wrong, and sometimes youre REALLY, REALLY, REALLY WRONG.

I'm an independent, but if I were a Republican, I'd demand a new news network immediately.

Fox is a constant embarrassment to conservatives everywhere.   

Your attempt at deflection simply reiterates your original ignorance, Mrs. Palin.

I try not to get too political on this blog, but when it comes to Sarah Palin, it's rarely about politics and more about common sense. 

In a Fox News appearance following the State of the Union address, Sarah Palin was asked what she thought of President Obama's declaration that it is now America's "Sputnik Moment;" a moment similar to 1957 when the U.S. government, shocked by the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite, redoubled its efforts to win the space race.

Palin's response left some room for interpretation (and sounded slightly mangled, as always):

"When [The President] so often repeated the Sputnik Moment that he would aspire Americans to celebrate.  He needs to remember that what happened back then with the former communist USSR and their victory in that race to space, yeah, they won, but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it led to the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union."

Was Palin suggesting that the Soviets won the space race?

Was she implying that the 1957 launch of the world's first satellite was a bad idea and eventually brought down the Soviet Union? 

Was she suggesting that the collapse of  the Soviet Union was the result of America's 1957 Sputnik moment?

No, Palin said the next day, quickly backtracking after apparently misunderstanding the context of a 1957 Soviet space launch and its universally acknowledged non-existent impact on the collapse of the Soviet Union more than thirty years later. 

I think we can all agree that the Sputnik launch was not the straw that broke the proverbial camels back of the Russians.  A massive and costly military build-up, a nuclear arms race, a failed invasion of Afghanistan, and a lack of a free market system are the factors that likely doomed the Soviets. 

Palin absorbed quite a bit of ridicule for this misunderstanding of history in the subsequent days. 

So imagine her utter joy when one of her staffers, or perhaps a supporter, alerted her to Spudnut, a coffee shop in Richland, WA that's name is close enough to Sputnik to allow her to spin the story away from her ignorance of history and back upon "the heartland of America." 

I don't often think as Washington state as the "heartland of America," but perhaps she was being metaphorical.

She writes (using the incorrect abbreviation for Washington while doing so):

"So I listened to that Sputnik moment talk over and over again, and I think, No, we don't need one of those. You know what we need is a Spudnut moment. … The Spudnut shop in Richland, Wash., it's a bakery, it's a little coffee shop that's so successful, 60-some years, generation to generation, a family-owned business, not looking for government to bail them out and make their decisions for them. It's just hard-working patriotic Americans in this shop. We need more Spudnut moments in America, and I wish that President Obama would understand in that heartland of America, what it is that really results in the solutions that we need to get this economy back on the right track. It's a shop like that."

That Sputnik moment? 

You understand that it existed before the President referenced it.  Right, Sarah?  It's not that Sputnik moment.  It's the Sputnik moment.  It's a universally acknowledged moment in American history.

And "that Sputnik moment talk"? 

You mean the State of the Union address, the one that the Constitution requires the President to deliver once every year? 

"That Sputnik talk"?  Who is she kidding?   

And really?  We couldn't use another Sputnik moment?  Another moment in  history when Americans share a common vision that propels us and the world forward in terms of technology, national defense and innovation?

Oh, and lands a human being on the Moon.

That's no good? 

We really need more coffee shops instead?

Serious customers

There was a woman at the gym today, about eight months pregnant, lifting free weights. 

While I was impressed with her moxie and determination, I also thought, "There is a  woman I would not want to marry.  If she is still lifting weights at eight or maybe even nine months pregnant, she must be a hell of a demanding woman at home."

Then I hear about marathon runner Stefaan Engels, who set a new world record by completing his 365th marathon of 365 days.

The 49-year old from Belgium finished his final race in Barcelona, Spain on Saturday after running 15,000km (9,569 miles) across seven countries in a year.

I know I'm supposed to be impressed by Engels' achievement,  but instead, I'm just appalled.  This seems like sheer lunacy. 

Absolute insanity.

I can't help but think of Engels as a nutcase. 

You've got to be at least a little bit crazy to be lifting weights at eight months pregnant, and you've got to be a lot crazy to run 365 consecutive marathons.

Serious customers is what I call people like this.

Entirely too serious for me.