Entry 293: Follow Me Down My Rabbit Hole

I was listening to the Sklarbro Country podcast yesterday -- the brainchild of the twin comedians Jay and Randy Sklar.  It's pretty good if you're into sports and nerdy comedy like I am.  As a running gag throughout the show, they kept playing an audio clip of some announcers at a video game competition, and I thought it was hilarious, so I went on YouTube and found the video clip.  That sent me on a YouTube spree that I shall recreate in what follows.  If you have a moment, please follow me down my rabbit hole.



This clip is beautiful for a few reasons.  First off it seems so silly to earnestly commentate on a video game, especially with descriptors like "genius" and "so smart" (although I fully admit that it's not any more silly than commentating on a game like baseball, if you really think about it).  Then you have the premature celebration, followed by the announcers freaking the eff out:

What are you standing up for?!
Why?!  Why?! (Very reminiscent of Nancy Kerrigan.)

Then you have the guy who actually did win pump his fists and give the crowd high fives (again it comes off as very silly given the setting), and the announcer says "he gave him no remorse," which, as the Sklar Bros points out, sounds strange; it's usually "he showed him no remorse."

Because the competitors are Japanese, and they are playing a "sport," it made me think of another clip I saw earlier in the week.  Watch the batter in this one, and give it a few seconds, as the camera does zoom in on him eventually.  It's worth it, trust me. Although, I showed it to S, and she didn't even crack a smile.  Some people have no senses of humor.



This, of course, made me think of Leslie Nielsen as an umpire in The Naked Gun. 

The video game clip also made me think of premature celebrations.  The most famous of which was Leon Lett in the Super Bowl:



And this was probably not even Lett's worst blunder.

It also was not nearly as bad as this stupid play from last year's Oregon-Utah game.



But when it comes to premature celebrations, nothing beats Ray Jackson (a.k.a. Ogre) in his match against Chong Li.  I mean, what was he thinking?  He didn't listen to any of Frank's advice



By the way, here's a trivia question: What Best Actor Oscar winner was in Bloodsport?  (The answer is revealed in this classic scene.)

This got me thinking about Jean-Claude Van Damme.  His time at the top went by quickly, didn't it?  Nobody was a bigger action star when I was a teenager.  Now, I don't think many people under the age of 25 have even heard of him.  He actually talks about his rise and fall in the movie JCVD, in which he plays a very introspective version of himself.  It is an interesting idea, and I give Van Damme credit for trying, but it's a pretty boring movie, truth be told.  Here's a cool scene though:



And I can't put up clips of Van Damme movies without posting one of the all-time worst scenes in any movie ever -- the sword scene from Bloodsport.



I love a few things about this scene.  For one thing, the boy's acting is terrible -- his dialogue sounds dubbed, but he's an American (presumably) speaking English in an American movie.  Why does he sound so weird?  For another thing, wardrobe put him in a San Francisco Giants baseball cap and a New York Giants football jersey, which is incredibly goofy.  Lastly, why does not flinching mean he has a "fighting spirit?"  Doesn't that mean he has bad reflexes?  I think flinching would be a good sign; it shows perparedness.

The Asian man in the clip was named Roy Chiao (I've mentioned him before in this blog, actually), and he's best know for his role as the Chinese mob boss at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  You can see him toward the end of this clip:



I didn't love Temple of Doom, but it certainly has some memorable scenes.  There's the one where they eat all the gross stuff.  (Thankfully my Indian mother-in-law usually serves me dosas and chutney instead of eyeball soup.)  And the one where a guy gets his heart ripped out.  Kalima ... Kalima ... Kalima ...



Which reminds me of this clip of James Randi debunking psychic healing on The Tonight Show:



It's quite remarkable that anybody ever believed that there are people who could pull out tumors with their bare hands.  But people are pretty gullible; we'll believe anything -- holistic medicine, ESP, toxin-free diets, voodoo, and so on.  Heck, some people even believe in a virgin birth.

Anyway...

Okay, so we've gone from video game announcers to the Amazing Randi.  I think that's deep enough.  Until next time ... 

Entry 292: Training of the Potty Variety

Potty training.  Is there a worse part of parenting?  Actually, yes, sleep deprivation.  But potty training is a reasonably close second.  On the whole, being chronically tired is worse, but at least it is mostly void of the fear that another human's feces is going to be inadvertently smeared on you.

The reason I bring this up, of course, is that we are currently trying to potty train Lil' S -- we have been for the past few months.  It's going OK.  I'd say he goes (number two) in the toilet about 50% of the time and in his pull-up the other 50%.  That's not terrible, but only about 20% of the time is he going on his own volition, the other 30% we have to badger/bribe him to get on the toilet, or we notice him running off to hide (which is what he does when has to drop load), and we intercept him and carry him to the bathroom.

The thing is, I wouldn't really be sweating it -- I'm of the belief that potty training is like a hangover, the only thing that really works is time -- but he's starting PK3 in a few months at a public school, and they aren't allowed to change diapers, or even go near that area at all (which is pretty absurd, but that's a whole other topic), so your kid kinda needs to be potty-trained.  Since Lil' S is a late summer birthday, just a few weeks from the cutoff line, he is at a bit of a disadvantage -- he doesn't have those crucial extra months to develop.  Actually, come to think of it, it's really S and I that are at the disadvantage- -- he doesn't seem to mind one way or the other.

So anyway, this weekend we're doing a potty training "boot camp" (everything is a boot camp these days, isn't it), where you let your kid run around in underwear of even pantless, full commando-style, and this is supposed to potty train them somehow.  I guess the idea is that if they don't have the familiarity and comfort of their diaper to go in, then they will be more likely to go in the potty, or maybe it's that they will feel the sensation better -- I'm not exactly sure.

And truth be told, I'm quite skeptical that it will have any effect at all (other than making a mess), but I'm willing to give it a try.  As I said above, I think the only true solution is time, but I also believe that potty training is not a binary yes/no type of deal.  It's a spectrum, and if this boot camp deal moves him along the spectrum a little bit then it will be worth it.  I mean, if we still have to put a diaper on him at night for the next year or two, it's not a big deal.  Even if he pees himself during the day, it's not that bad, we can put him in a pull-up.  I'm not aiming for perfection -- accidents happen.  I just want to get him to the point of not soiling himself on a regular basis during school hours.  That's it.  It's a very modest goal -- and hopefully an achievable one.  I'll keep you all posted.  After all, if there is one thing I know readerships crave, it's poop talk.

Alright, a few bullet points, and I'm out.

• I saw this guy the other day driving with his foot out the window. Weird, huh?
• The other day, I was working from home, and I took a break and went jogging, which I often do when I work from home (one of the big advantages).  I ran through a park, at which Lil' S and his daycare class were coincidentally playing.  I decided against saying hi, since it would probably just upset him when I left.  On my way home, far out of his sight, I was overcome with a strong sense of dread -- like something bad was about to happened to him, and I had just missed my chance to prevent it.  Particularly, I was having disturbing thoughts of him getting hit by car while crossing a street.  I nearly turned around and ran back to him, but I didn't because there was no rational reason to do this.  Instead I went home and forgot about it, and then he came home later with S and was completely fine.  I point this out as an example of when my "gut" was wrong.   In fact, if you actually take the time to analyze what your gut tells you, I think you will find gut feelings are pretty worthless.
• Which is one reason why this interview I heard on Fresh Air was so disturbing.  A lot of detective work is based on gut feeling.  Police officers frequently get a wrong story in their heads about what happened and then make the evidence fit their stories instead of vice versa.  It's the exact opposite of what they should do, and it's part of the reason why racial disparities are so high in our criminal justice system.  I found the entire interview very frightening -- and I'm a nearly middle-aged white man.  I can't imagine how I would feel if I were young and black.
• I do want to read the book Unfair profiled in the piece above, but my "to-read queue" is already about three books deep.  I just don't read enough to keep up with it.  Plus, after perusing this New Yorker article, I think I need like a year's worth of happy reading material before I can handle something heavy again.  If you live or have loved ones who live in the Puget Sound region it is a truly horrifying account.  I mean, we can all try to take some solace in the fact that we've been hearing about the "big one" that will devastate Seattle for the past 30 years and nothing has happened yet, but that's not very comforting.  After all, as I heard somebody once point out, Mark Twain famously said, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."  But then he did die eventually.

And on that uplifting note: until next time ...

Entry 291: Eight for Three Hundred

It's Entry 300 [note: due to early misnumbering this actually only Entry 291... oh well], and it's coming at you a little later than usual.  I returned from a two-week vacation to Washington state a few days ago, and I didn't bring my laptop with me, so blogging wasn't in the cards.  It was a really nice trip -- just me and the little man (S is too pregnant for travel).  We went to Ocean Shores and spent a lot of time with my family in University Place.  I also was able to sneak up to Seattle for a night sans child and hang out with old friends.

Here are eight pics.

   

This is the view from the beach house at which we -- meaning my parents, my sister's family, Lil' S, and I -- were all staying.  If you look carefully, you can see the ocean in the background.  The beach was fun, but the weather did not cooperate.  The day I took this picture was the only non-overcast one of our three-day stay, and it was pretty cold the entire time (high 50s and low 60s) as well.  Also, just to taunt us, the weather in U.P. was gorgeous the entire time we were at the beach.  We left 80-degrees and sunshine and drove into a blanket of chilliness and fog.

One thing I really don't like about beaches in Washington is that cars can drive on them anywhere they want.  This is especially annoying if you have a toddler.  It's stressful enough making sure they don't drown; you shouldn't have to worry about them getting flattened by some yahoo in a pickup truck as well.  In general, Washington beaches aren't that great.  I used to love going to Long Beach as a kid, but that's primarily because I didn't know any better.  After living on the coast in Australia and going to the Outer Banks in North Carolina and even Cannon Beach in Oregon, Washington beaches are kind of a let down.

But it was nice to spend time with my family.  And the kids loved it, which, I suppose, is the most important thing.  It's funny, looking back, in none of my memories from the beach as a kid do I remember what the weather was like.  I think weather is something adults care about, not children.  My nephews and Lil' S all went in the water when it was like 65 degrees and windy.  My mom had on earmuffs and gloves, and they're just running around like it's nothing.

Here's a great shot of Lil' S trying (and failing) to keep up with his older cousins.

After the beach, I spent most the time in U.P., just hanging out on my parents' patio with the family -- a lot of cookouts.  Lil' S got fussy sometimes, but for the most part he was pretty good.  I took the "hey, I'm on vacation" approach to parenting, so I was quite lax with rules.  You want to watch a TV show?  Well, you already watched two hours earlier, but sure.  And you want M & Ms while you watch?  Knock yourself out.  The M & Ms were part of trail mix, so I justified it to myself that he was getting some nourishment from the nuts.  He wouldn't eat the raisins though.  He really only likes the peanuts and the "blue peanuts."

While at my parents, I spent quite a bit of time with my sister and her family.  Here's a shot of the Titlow splash park -- Lil' S is the orange suit; his cousins B & G might be in there somewhere also.  As my sister explained it: "B is somewhere pretending that he's peeing, and G is somewhere nearby also pretending that he's peeing."  It's a universal equation: Running water + Little Boy = Pantomime Urination.

I also spent quite a bit of time walking around my parents' neighborhood.  In the afternoon, I would load Lil' S into the stroller, slather on some sunscreen, and hit the streets.  He would get his afternoon nap in, and I would get in some exercise -- two birds with one stone.  The weather was beautiful -- literally not a single spurt of rain nor an overcast day my entire stay, which is amazing for U.P.  It might not be healthy for the ecosystem, but it is amazing.  Below is a shot of the park in Fircrest, WA where I played my first ever t-ball game. 

In that same park is a little pavilion that my friend's father designed.  He was an architect, and once another friend of mine was giving my friend shit, asking him what his dad had ever designed.  And when my friend responded with this pavilion, we all laughed, because it's just a little rinky-dink pavilion in a suburban park, and not like the Pantages Theater or Stadium High School or something historic and cool like that.  Basically, we were being dicks.  Actually, that's how we interacted most the time.  It's weird to look back and think of the way in which my friends and I treated one another in our late teens and early 20s -- we were incredibly hard on each other.  But, many of us are still friends today, 20-plus years later -- which is pretty remarkably -- so there must have been a strong undercurrent of love beneath the ostensible harshness.

Here's something else I came across -- a holistic pet food store.  I don't understand holistic medicine, and I don't understand our pet (particularly dog) crazy culture, so this is like a double bullshit picture to me.  It's bullshit on bullshit crime.

Here's another interesting sign.  Is it just me or does Chad have the eyes of a crazy man?  Maybe chose a photo that doesn't make you look possessed by a demon -- just a thought.

The next pic was taken a few blocks from the duplex in which I was born.  (Yes, that is correct, I was a home birth.)   I've it said before (and before), and I'll say it again: The Tacoma area is way underrated for how beautiful it is.  The vistas of the mountains and the water superb.  There is nowhere in the DC region that can match a view like this, and this was snapped about a quarter mile from my parents' suburban home.

And I'll leave you with that.  Until next time...