You throw like a girl

I had no plans to write about sports, but after the weekend we had the topic seems appropriate. Specifically, I mean girls' sports, because this weekend (for the first time in my nine years [Ed. note: sweet jeebus kill me] of college, mind you) I attended some of what you may call Athletic Competitions Between Squadrons of Female Players. That's right, a women's basketball game and three (count 'em) three softball games. Free student tickets are overflowing with win. I know this is years in the future, and I really should be concerning myself with figuring out how to do things like bathe a baby, or maybe not misplacing her for hours on end, but whatever, this is on my mind and this is my blog.

I found myself thinking that if Girl ends up interested in sports, I am not going to have any clue as to the best way to support her in that endeavor (this falls under the umbrella of "Having a daughter, now what do I do?"). With boys it's easy: you support them athletically [Ed. note: tee hee!] by questioning their toughness and manhood. That fires up their lizard-brain into the "fight" response. Plus, it has the added bonus of teaching them a life-lesson, namely I am the boss and even if you go all Oedipus on me you still lose because dude you just totally married your mom. Case closed, I'll take my commission now. Girls' sports are a completely different beast. Just this weekend I noticed the many contrasts between women's and men's sports. Women:

1) Cheer for each other openly and un-self consciously
2) Don't frequently yell at teammates
3) Don't spit
4) Don't scratch
5) Don't take cheap shots
6) I assume minimally swear
7) Lack an intent to injure

The "Rah rah" attitude is nonexistent in men's sports, where the only acceptable cheering is that which is tagged with an insult, e.g. "Let's go defense, you're getting blown off the ball!" Seriously, do a Google Image search for "girls sports" and the first thing that comes up is a drawing that says "Rah Rah! Go team go!" (Hilariously, the second is two Sports By Brooks girls.) The Florida State softball team started their own Tomahawk Chop - complete with singalong - a couple times this weekend. You think any men's team would cheer like that?


Additionally I had to turn off my normal fan response. During one of the softball games the first basewoman (right, my sistahs?) dropped a throw from short and someone in the stands (a fan of her own team, actually) yelled, "Can we please get a first baseman who can catch the damn ball!" And let me tell you I was shocked. I didn't know you could do that, because they are girls and you are supposed to be nice to them. That's what I always learned. Does it not apply to girls' sports? And if not, how bad are you going to feel if you make them cry? Do you have to apologize? I really don't know. I would have thought the proper reaction would be (WARNING: GROSS OVERGENERALIZATION TO FOLLOW) to immediately freeze up uncomfortably worrying that she would cry after making the error, and then tell her that it's all right, despite the fact that you know you can't give the opposition extra outs. Obligatory Adam Morrison crying picture:


There's no way I could ever be involved with any girls' sports teams. The coaching psychology has to be completely different. Down at halftime, what do you tell your team? From my experience, you yell incoherently about not being tough enough and blah blah blah. I don't think you can do that with a girls' team.

Plus, it's not like I know a single thing about the actual sports that girls play. I am going to guess that the most popular sports for young girls in the U.S. are soccer, basketball, and softball, in that order. To me, those might as well be Calvinball. I played sports specifically where I could play and have a very low chance at actually touching the ball. I touched the ball zero times in four years of football (including the one play where the coach let me play fullback for one down in practice, which was my dream... and oh by the way we ran a sweep to the left against our defensive starters and I sealed our end and the running back busted it for a touchdown but NO BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING COACH). I touched it maybe twice in two (three?) years of lacrosse where I played defense and got a 6' long metal stick and the go-ahead from the rulebook to whack people. Wrestling has no ball. And my season and a half at rugby was a disaster when I played 12 and wing in the backfield, but was surprisingly delightful when I shifted to 6. And what do all of those have in common? Essentially, all my job was was to hit people, and the harder the better. Girls don't do that.


Plus injuries, dear lord the injuries. Girls hurt their knees all the time, despite the fact that they don't injure themselves in other ways by doing dumb alpha-male things, like punching each other while wearing football helmets. I would wager that 100% of female basketball players above the age of 14 tear an ACL. Women's ligaments are made of overcooked spaghetti. Then after they rehab, they'll immediately tear their meniscus. Ariane said something about having never hurt her knees, but I am convinced that she actually shredded them and didn't feel anything because the pain in her ankles from however many surgeries she had overpowered it.

If someone gets hurt, I can't see a girl down on the field and point and laugh like I could if it were a Nebraska football player or such. I can't even look at her and think "Awesome, that was their best player!" I would feel bad - and I don't like that women have successfully managed to mix hypothetical feelings into my sports. The only three feelings that should be associated with sports are a.) rage when you lose reducing to emptiness if the losing is perpetual, b.) contentment when you win (not happiness, though; there's another game next week and you could lose that one), and c.) (for Mizzou fans only) a sick feeling in your stomach wondering why you are losing so badly or on special occasions how you're going to blow the lead you have.

Don't watch this:


Side note: Turns out I love watching softball (at least in person). There is something about stick and ball sports that make them infinitely enjoyable in person and bo-ring on TV. I will be dragging Ariane to softball games now, provided they don't conflict with baseball. I'll also be signing Girl up for this when she's old enough. No soccer for her, soccer is boring.

tl;dr: Girls' sports are weirder than I had previously thought, and I hope my daughter doesn't tear up her knees if she plays anything.

Why is Simpsonspedia in German?

Anyone want to take that?

The fog is getting thicker...

And Ariane is getting laaaaaarger! (Points if you can name the movie and you aren't my brother.)





For comparison, this was about two weeks ago. I'm not sure pictures do justice to the change, really. And good gracious does this little girl kick like it's her job. (It's not, her job is to grow organs.)

Missed it by that much

What good is this baby for if she won't get us to the point where we qualify for food stamps?

Just a thought

Do you get a weird feeling of superiority when you find something on the webternets and then you see it on a popular blog a few days later? Because I do. I feel awesome all over.

Now the rest of my days...

Blurb

Maybe we have a name. I wish it were Sumerian or Hittite so that we would have to file a clay tablet as a birth certificate, but sadly no. We'll have to nom on it for a while before we say for sure, but just maybe.

Loyal readers (all two of you) can expect some srs essays this weekend. I've got some hi-larious comedy bubbling up in my noodle.

Since there's not much to this post, I will link you to the very, very NSFW (that means not safe for work, Mom) remix of the (highly offensive) Christian Bale freak out that I can't stop laughing at.

We've got Jack

We've been off-and-on doing some thinking regarding names, and let me tell you that it ain't goin' well. It is, frankly, impossible. Deciding upon names you don't like is easy, finding one you do is difficult. We have some rules to start with: No A names, nor L, nor H, and it shouldn't end in an N. Also, we're trying to give her a name that not every other kid has. That doesn't mean we're going to name her Vercingetorix (who was a dude, anyway), but I don't have the heart to name her Emma, Madison, Katie, etc., and besides I don't actually like any of those names enough to do it. Other than that, it's up in the air.

We've both agreed so far that there are at least three names that we like, but each has major problems that are pushing us away.

1. Jack - It's a boy's name. Either way, somehow we were talking about this name and we both liked it. (I told you it was rough going when one of the three we like is a boy's name.)

2. Grace - Classic. Sounds good. It is old, but older than your grandparents' generation so you don't associate it with "old" names like Ethel. What's bad is that it is way too popular right now.


Blah. Number 20 most popular name in 2007. Not "Emma" levels of awful, but bad.

3. Malia (or Malija) - This is one that Ariane has liked since she was young and there was some MTV Germany host or something with the name. We like the sound, think it goes well with our last name, I'm not quite sure if it's too "black" sounding, especially with our last name being frequently black (but not "Washington" levels of black; I think our last name can swing either way, depending on the first name, but it's actually uncommon enough that it may not actually have a racial expectancy associated with it.There's just one big problem with Malia right now:


Seriously, Barack: I voted for you three times last year. Why do you and Michelle have to make this hard for me?


Solely because of Malia Obama I am pushing hard to exclude that name from consideration. It's going to be in the top 20 by the end of the year, and it will become the black Madison.

I think it would be cool to give her a Croatian name, but Heavens to Betsy do they mostly sound awful.

We're open to suggestions in the comments, if you'd like. And "Data" has been suggested and overruled, but thanks Coop.

ShamWow: The Next Generation

Has anyone else seen the newest crap product ShamWow Vince is peddling?



Am I the only one who didn't realize that he has a thick and awful accent?

"Ya ginna be slappin' ya troubles away!"*

He must be a pimp in real life, that's the only explanation for that phrase. Potatoes and cheeses have never been considered troubles by this humble writer, and if they were I wouldn't consider slapping my potatoes or cheeses.

Oh, and his name isn't really Vince. Plus he was responsible for all those Underground Comedy Movie commercials you used to see. I told you he was not to be trusted.

This diaper is great... for me to poop on!

I am spending an unbelievable amount of effort trying to decide upon what my daughter will spend the first years of her life pooping on. I have sat down on two separate occasions to do some research, and I have logged at least five interweb-hours researching, and I'm still not sure if we're making the best choice. As of right now, we've settled on gDiapers (no, not that kind of G, this kind). I have 10+ years of chemistry-heavy education, and I'm still mostly in the dark. I kid you not, I even did some Google Scholar searching. I won't do it now, but expect a 10,000 word diatribe against the entire industry in the near future. This post is mostly just a flimsy excuse to introduce the Poop tag, which I assume will be getting a lot of use in the next several years, especially if this recession continues.

Just for kicks

Here is an approximation of what is going on inside Ariane's belly now:


That baby kicks like nothing else. According to the book, if a baby is kicking about ten times every two hours while the mother is lying down and feeling for movement we can consider that to be normal activity. Our baby kicks - seriously - two or three times a minute when Ariane is lying down. And I am talking big kicks. I've tried to get video so you could see some movement, but I haven't gotten any yet. There's still time, though.

We're fairly confident of the following: she will be loud, she will break things. I also am under the impression that she'll be athletic, like her mother was. I'll push her to take on mankind's greatest athletic endeavor: Global Guts.


And when she wins that piece of the Agro Crag, you better believe I'm going to ride those coattails of athletic glory like Richard Williams. I'll claim it was all me, then irresponsibly blow through the millions she'll certainly earn in endorsements (we can name everyone who ever won Global Guts, right? hint: purple never won) so she won't have a chance to be self-destructive with it. Just looking out for my daughter.