WNBA=We’re Not Bad Asses

Bench clearing brawl? Uber-athletic cat fight? Meh.   The video doesn’t quite live up to they hype from this article in the News Sentinel. The only thing worthwhile in the video is the audio of the guy filming it making cat sounds.

Parker was one of three players ejected along with Detroit assistant coach Rick Mahorn after an ugly scuffle with 4.6 seconds left in Los Angeles’ 84-81 victory on Tuesday night.

I was hoping this would give me a reason to watch the WNBA. Nope.

Is is just me, or is everyone else over fighting in sports in general? With the abundance of MMA on TV now, I can watch guys who can actually fight go at it anytime I want. I’ve got 2 or 3 shows of real fights loaded up on the TIVO right now that I don’t even have time to watch.

I was at an international rugby match between Argentina and Ireland a few weeks ago and a fight broke out–BORING! To quote my friend BGE: “There are so many legal ways to do violence on somebody during a rugby game–why would you ever punch them?”

Note to professional athletes–I pay (or sneak in) to see you do what you do well, not something that you aren’t any better at than I am. If I want to watch someone ineffectively flail their arms in the general directions of someone else I can just set up the Flip Video and lace up some boxing gloves with my buddies.

On Hearing Loss

I just read Newscoma’s post about her strep throat related hearing loss.  Hers is temporary, but it’s still weird.  I lost my hearing temporarily once.  She can describe what the experience is like better than I can, but my story is still worth telling.

It’s odd not being able to hear. The telephone is impossible. The television is muffled and I’m probably freaking out the neighbors. My nieces, bless their hearts, sound like chipmunks who have had a couple of Harvey Wallbangers.

My temporary partial hearing loss happened about 10 years ago.  I let it go for a while, but after a couple of weeks I started getting a little worried.  It was occuring in both ears, but one was much worse than the other.  I finally went to see the doctor physicians assistant (I’ve never met my doctor), and she checked my ears and decided it was probably due to the wax buildup–nothing a good cleansing with the big super soaker Dr’s tool couldn’t fix.  Unfortunately, not much came out with the cleansing, and my hearing wasn’t any better.  She looked in my ear again and saw that the blockage was still there, so she grabbed a tool with a little hook on the end and started digging around in there.

rugby mud“OH MY GOD!!!!”

That was the first thing I’d heard clearly in a couple of weeks.  I couldn’t believe the size of the rock that was stuck to the end of the hook tool when she showed it to me.  I instantly realized what had happened.  A month or two before I’d played a rugby match in a downpour on a field of mud.  I’d given myself a good scrubbing the next day some time after the match and made sure to get inside my ears.  That with the occasional q-tip being shoved in there had packed the mud and blocked my ear canal.

The weird thing about not having your full hearing for a while and getting it back instantly is that all of the ambient noises your brain usually blocks out all of a sudden sound really loud.  It’s kind of tough to separate what you want to hear from all of the other noises going on around you.  Driving was dangerous for a couple of days.

How Do You Deal With Difficult People?

Mimzie trips them.

As we were walking in, I opened the door to walk in, but a man was on his way out and nearly knocked us both down as he bolted from the place. How did I handle this? My instincts kicked in and I stuck my foot out and tripped him. I have to say, I enjoyed it.

I wish I’d thought of that. It’s so much more subtle than tackling. Also more socially acceptable.

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Ouch! This Hits Home

I just saw this commercial that features rugby and nothing but rugby. That’s a pretty rare event, and it definitely got my attention. But a 39 year old scrum half? That club must be hard up for players. Not only is that old, but this guy reminds me of my all time favorite inside center. He wasn’t known for his perfect passes as much as he was for spiking people and wearing a green monkey that could hold a pint of liquid.  So this is for you Toddy.

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The Missus just asked if this commercial made me want to go to that church. Nah, not really, but it made me want to write this post, and it made me glad to be retired from rugby. 🙂

He’s Ba-ack!

EJ’s Damn Sexy Morality Void has finally been updated. I ran into him Sunday and there are a ton of new stories that he could post. The question–when will he? Unfortunately, he can’t spell or punctuate all that well, but he has a way with words that is rivaled only by his way with women.

she asks me on a date. i say yes so we go into another room for our date.

How romantic.

Why I Don’t Delete Anything (Anymore)

I wrote something on Twitter last night after spending an hour or so reading old emails between the missus and me from our dating days.  At the time we were living 750 miles apart, so email was one of our major means of communication.  Seemingly unrelated, I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about some messages I was reviewing from an old Yahoo! group that was really active 6 or 7 years ago. 

I’ve never been one to knowingly keep a journal, especially one of those “deepest inner secrets” type things.  I know that for some people it’s a theraputic exercise, and I get that, but it’s not something I’ve ever really felt the need to do.  I’m reasonably good at sorting things out in my head, and honestly, there isn’t that much to sort out anyway.  I’m lucky enough to lead a very stress free, unscarred life.  It helps that I have a wide streak of apathy to boot.

However, I really like reviewing the back and forths I had with other people during different times of my life.  The major things in your life don’t need documenting because they are things you’ll always remember.  But it’s hard to think back and remember what happened during an unremarkable day or week.  Reading even the shortest little email from someone else makes it much easier to recall everything else that was going on in my life during that time.

I guess that could be the argument for personal journaling, but it is so much more natural for me to write dialogue instead of a monologue.  I need those other people to make it pop.

So I’m making a proposal to Mrs. Missus (hey, you finally get a real proposal).  How about if we make an effort to send each other an email every now and then, even though we now have the luxury of being able to talk to each other every day?  Maybe you have to communicate with me more than you’d like already, but let’s give it a shot just for a little while, say 5 or 6 years, and see how it goes.

Feel free to email your answer to me…I think you still have the address.

Dream Connection Radiothon

If you are feeling more like Bob Cratchit and less like Ebenezer Scrooge Tuesday morning, I’ll be manning the phones with the Knoxville Rugby Club at Dream Connection’s annual Radiothon on WIVK–call in and make a pledge from 7am to 10 am!

If you aren’t familiar with Dream Connection, it is an East Tennessee charity that makes dreams come true for local kids with life threatening or chronically debilitating illnesses. Our club just started working with them last year when we did a golf tournament for their benefit, and they are a top notch organization. My favorite thing about this organization is that 100% of the funds they receive goes directly to making dreams come true for kids.

No overhead costs–printed materials and the like are donated. No paid positions–everyone involved works as a volunteer solely to help the kids.

Call in Tuesday morning and help this great cause!

Some Funny Old Rugby T Ideas

I was digging through some old messages from a Yahoo! Group my rugby club used to use for communication, and I’m finding some pretty hilarious posts.  You don’t have to know anything about rugby for these to be funny, although the guys in the club may appreciate them a little more.

For instance, in 2001 we were trying to decide on a catch phrase for some t-shirts we were having printed.  There were several options.  Some were clever, and some were…not.  Here’s a sampling:

Bigger. Stronger. Faster.
Mostly Bigger.

Scrumming is one of the many services we provide.

It takes 15 men playing as one for 80 minutes to win a rugby match ……..hey can we borrow some backs?

What else is there to do in Knoxville?

Really
Ugly
Guys
Banging
Your sister

Rugby Players come with breakfast.

If it’s out there, we’ll catch it.

So what did we end up putting on the t-shirts?  It is actually pretty brilliant.  On grey shirts in large red lettering…

Knoxville Rugby

Three Things I Haven’t Let Go

When I first got hit with this meme by BillyMac, I thought the topic was “3 Things I Wouldn’t Let Go”. That one would be pretty easy–family, health, and some other random item.

But this is “3 Things You Haven’t Let Go”, which has a much different conotation. Maybe I’m inferring it incorrectly, and it’s vague enough for interpretation, but I take this as “3 Things I Haven’t Let Go (but probably should)”. Believe it or not, this is a part of my character I’ve really worked on over the past few years. I’ve really tried to develop “the ability to let that which does not matter truly go.” Despite my best efforts, I still have plenty options. After all, I am powered by spite.

Spite CanAs I’m trying to narrow it down to the top three, I’m realizing how much I don’t want to admit any of this publicly. It’s not the fear of baring my soul that’s holding me back–it’s the realization of how stupid they all are. All instances of forgiven, but not forgotten. In order of increasing ridiculousness on my part…

Las Vegas August, 2005
I was going out for a weekend with about 15 other guys. Soon after booking my ticket I saw that there were UFC fights that weekend, so I asked some other guys if they wanted to go. I could only buy eight tickets, and as soon as seven other guys said they were in, I bought 8 together. $100 per ticket before all the taxes and charges. Not a problem–these guys are all local and they all have jobs. I’ll get my money back this week, right? Wrong. But that’s not the worst part. Literally thirty minutes before the fights I met up with the final two guys who owed me for their tickets. They walked up with two other guys who I didn’t know, paid me for the tickets, and turned around and sold them for $200 each to the other guys right in front of me! Chuck Liddell is lucky he didn’t have to fight me that night.

Summer 1993
I was living in a dump of a house in Ft. Sanders with two other guys–$300 rent. We split the electric and basic phone service evenly, but if anyone had long distance calls they had to pay it themselves. The month he moved out, one of my roommates had $37 worth of long distance calls to his girlfriend in California. By the time the bill came, he was gone, and the other guy and I had to eat it. Sure, not a lot of money, but at the time it was, and besides it’s the principle. I never got the money back from him, but I did hit him in the back with a folding chair (part of the height of my pro-wrestling obsession) in Long Branch one night when he was playing pool. Surprisingly, it didn’t make me feel any better.

St. Patrick’s Day Rugby Tournament, Savannah Georgia, 2000
We had a pretty solid team, and were scheduled for a Sunday morning match. Of course we’d all gone out on and had fun on Saturday night. At game time on Sunday, we only had 12 guys there. We started the match shorthanded, and when the other guys finally rolled up, I was infuriated. I didn’t even want them to come into the game–my preference was to take an ass kicking and let them sit and watch it. After the match (we lost) I refused to shake their hands. I love all of those guys, but I haven’t let the fact that they didn’t show up for us that morning go. I could have stayed in Knoxville if all I wanted to do was drink beer and not play rugby. Under certain conditions and in the presence of certain people, this one still sends me into a mild rage.

See the common thread here? All cases of being let down by friends. So I guess that is my biggest pet peeve? Possibly.

Up next are:
SVD
Ivy
Taylor–fingers crossed she’ll relate this to public education