Yep, got my first ever yellow card Sunday night at the Scrubs' soccer game. Let's just say I barely earned it. What I mean is people (self included) have been way more physical in past games, and the referees have been letting all kinds of contact go uncalled. If the games were called by the book, then I would have earned two or three cardable offenses in our previous game. Hardly disputable, in fact. (And I wouldn't probably rank in the top several most physical players on the field, either.) Even assuming this past game had been called by the book, this was a questionable call. And this referee wasn't calling by the book. (Let's put aside for a moment the practice of "taking it like a man" - I've got something to say.) I got pushed out of bounds, shoulder-to-shoulder. No call. Another one of our guys got pushed out of bounds with the other guy's arms extended (a textbook-perfect push). No call. Both cardable offenses, by the way.
If I sound bitter, maybe I am. I don't think I am - it's been two days and I've had time to cool my jets. But this particular referee had more than just a handful of us seething by the end of the night. I don't know, there's something weird about getting fouls called in soccer. In basketball, it's no big deal to get called for a foul - you can even get up to 5 or 6 before they toss you. Rugby? Hockey? I can't say that I really watch the sports that much, but tell me there's not some major jostling and jarring going around, and it's par for the course. But somehow, soccer is different. It's not just that the play gets stopped, it's that the ref has to reach down his shorts and pull out a colored card and wave it at you, signaling to the world that you just behaved badly and would be receiving a low grade for conduct. Does this bring up any juvenile associations for anyone else? Remember those colored conduct systems they had in Kindergarten? (And maybe up through second grade or something...) In mine, green was good behavior, yellow was testing your limits, red was bad and black meant you were a child of hell. (Surprise anyone that my conduct card was pretty much always on red and black? To any educators out there who may be reading this: YOU ARE GIVING YOUR KIDS COMPLEXES. STOP RUINING THE CHILDREN.) You may not agree with the connection, but I think there's something there. I'm just sayin'.
Now, lest you begin to fear that I will leave this story on a sour note, I have good news that there is a redemptive element to it all! It came in the form of a teammate's comment to me upon hearing that I had indeed received a yellow card. "Joe, you're just going to have to stop being such a badass." (Tongue-in-cheek, of course.) You know what? That seriously made my day. Instead of being called up to the front of the class, only to be scolded and sent to stand in the corner, I get to make my way up to the front of the class and take a bow. With the teacher, by the way, directly behind me.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
I can add my own cinnamon, thank you very much
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who think pumpkin and cinnamon go together like t-shirts and jeans, and those who think cinnamon is the quickest way to ruin any and all things pumpkin. Well, I can tell you that the folks at Melitta are the first type, having tried this today after buying it on sale at our local Albertson's, which is closing. I believe they describe it as having "notes" of nutmeg and cinnamon. Hardly. I think "orchestra hits" of nutmeg and cinnamon would be more precisely descriptive.
To be fair, Melitta's not the only one out there making pumpkin products that are cinnamon-heavy. I've tried pumpkin syrup (intended for coffee) before that had the same problem (actually, that didn't taste like anything really - except a badly mixed concoction of various "ose"es). You know what I think? I think you just can't copy pumpkin. Call me a cynic if you will, but once you get away from using real pumpkin in food, then you are left with no other course but to try and hide the fact that you don't have any real pumpkin flavor going on in there. Not even pumpkin-esque in most cases. So then what? It becomes a cover-up job. They know that people often put nutmeg and cinnamon on their pumpkin (which, admittedly, can be done right - but oftentimes is done oh-so-wrong), and so they compensate for pumpkin-deficiency by playing on your natural taste-associative abilities. People: they're playing mind games with you! Are you going to stand for that? I sure as pumpkin pie ain't.
Here's what I resolve to do, and might I recommend you take a similar course of action:
1. Only buy real pumpkin products.
2. If you must buy once- or more-than-once-removed pumpkin-flavor products, hold them to the highest standards of pumpkin-actual-tastiness.
3. Should said pumpkin products fail to meet these standards, complain loudly and publicly. I think at that point something good is supposed to happen as a result.
If that doesn't work, then I don't know what to tell you. I think at that point we're supposed to mutter something, in an I-know-it-all-too-well and shrugging fashion, about what it "seems like" society is "coming to these days".
To be fair, Melitta's not the only one out there making pumpkin products that are cinnamon-heavy. I've tried pumpkin syrup (intended for coffee) before that had the same problem (actually, that didn't taste like anything really - except a badly mixed concoction of various "ose"es). You know what I think? I think you just can't copy pumpkin. Call me a cynic if you will, but once you get away from using real pumpkin in food, then you are left with no other course but to try and hide the fact that you don't have any real pumpkin flavor going on in there. Not even pumpkin-esque in most cases. So then what? It becomes a cover-up job. They know that people often put nutmeg and cinnamon on their pumpkin (which, admittedly, can be done right - but oftentimes is done oh-so-wrong), and so they compensate for pumpkin-deficiency by playing on your natural taste-associative abilities. People: they're playing mind games with you! Are you going to stand for that? I sure as pumpkin pie ain't.
Here's what I resolve to do, and might I recommend you take a similar course of action:
1. Only buy real pumpkin products.
2. If you must buy once- or more-than-once-removed pumpkin-flavor products, hold them to the highest standards of pumpkin-actual-tastiness.
3. Should said pumpkin products fail to meet these standards, complain loudly and publicly. I think at that point something good is supposed to happen as a result.
If that doesn't work, then I don't know what to tell you. I think at that point we're supposed to mutter something, in an I-know-it-all-too-well and shrugging fashion, about what it "seems like" society is "coming to these days".
Thursday, June 12, 2008
In a Word: Soccer
In four words: frustration, aggression, helplessness and disappointment. Somehow, saying "you can't win 'em all" just doesn't cut it when I nearly clotheslined a guy and volleyball-spiked the soccer ball in the last five minutes because time was winding down and our chances of winning were slipping further and further out of reach. Thankfully, no one said anything of the sort, elsewise they may well have received a beating. Actually, Danny and Jordan were very encouraging: "Joe! You were amazing out there! You stopped like every ball that went up the middle!" I'll call this 'speaking hopefully about reality', as opposed to its alternative, 'speaking accurately about reality'. Honestly, the former suits me better anyways, because I'm much less keen on the whole truth-equals-accuracy myth than I used to be. The eye is the lamp of the body, after all...
Wow, I haven't gotten that worked up in a long time, no joke! Kathryn said that now I can relate to times when her emotions get revved up and how difficult it is to relate gracefully to other people at those times. Seriously - after the game, we wanted Icees, and so we stopped by HEB on the way home because they have a machine. You can guess what's coming. We walk inside the store to find the machine turned off. I literally wanted to take the lids and straws off the counter and throw them on the ground.
After that, Kathryn drove the rest of the way home. ;) While I certainly proved myself worthy yet again of the "Destroyer" title, neither of us had any desire to see what I could accomplish with 1,960 pounds as opposed to 196. About the time we sat down in Burger King to enjoy our Icee - finally - I could feel myself calming down a little bit. Probably the grease from the cheesy tots helped.
I need to go to bed. But first, I have something of a public rebuke. For soccer. Y'all can all listen in.
Soccer, you let me down. You were supposed to be a good outlet for energy and aggression and competitiveness, and instead of making me feel like more of a man, you make me look very nearly like an idiot so many times and make me a loser and not a winner. No, soccer, none of this "everyone's a winner" crap - I stopped buying that line after high school. So stop selling it. Seriously, soccer, you know what? Chicken butt.
Wow, I haven't gotten that worked up in a long time, no joke! Kathryn said that now I can relate to times when her emotions get revved up and how difficult it is to relate gracefully to other people at those times. Seriously - after the game, we wanted Icees, and so we stopped by HEB on the way home because they have a machine. You can guess what's coming. We walk inside the store to find the machine turned off. I literally wanted to take the lids and straws off the counter and throw them on the ground.
After that, Kathryn drove the rest of the way home. ;) While I certainly proved myself worthy yet again of the "Destroyer" title, neither of us had any desire to see what I could accomplish with 1,960 pounds as opposed to 196. About the time we sat down in Burger King to enjoy our Icee - finally - I could feel myself calming down a little bit. Probably the grease from the cheesy tots helped.
I need to go to bed. But first, I have something of a public rebuke. For soccer. Y'all can all listen in.
Soccer, you let me down. You were supposed to be a good outlet for energy and aggression and competitiveness, and instead of making me feel like more of a man, you make me look very nearly like an idiot so many times and make me a loser and not a winner. No, soccer, none of this "everyone's a winner" crap - I stopped buying that line after high school. So stop selling it. Seriously, soccer, you know what? Chicken butt.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Things I'm Struck By Today
Call these personal realizations, "oh, okay" moments, or just plain better sense finally breaking through to me, but I've got a few things on my mind of the should-it-really-have-been-that-hard-for-me-to-learn variety.
Tom Petty Said It Best
"The waiting is the hardest part." Lately I've identified areas of my life in which I'm "waiting on God" for what's next: housing, family, etc. Somewhere along the way, something in me interpreted that to mean, "I'm waiting on God and doing nothing in the meantime." Somehow, I need to get from there to a place where I'm living as if I'm lacking nothing. Because I have everything I need. When you think about what it means that the shield of faith extinguishes the flaming darts of the evil one, maybe it means you use it to keep all those hundreds (thousands?) of advertising messages - that bombard you constantly each day - from sinking in and convincing you, "Ooh, I need that." (Hasn't someone done the math on this? I wonder how many of these get hurled at us on an average day.) So I suppose, if I could piggyback off Mr. Petty, I'd say something like, "Waiting on God doesn't mean sitting around." (Which, admittedly, doesn't make for near as cool of a song line, but I've never exactly owned the market on cool.)
Nuance Doesn't Convey
I was watching some talk show or news cast or something of the sort the other day where they were talking about Barack Obama. Sorry if I botch the details, but what I remember was that they said he was at some kind of press conference, talking about trying to raise the general tone of campaigning above attacks and back-and-forth bickering, and at the end of his speech, the audience was basically silent. He had been very careful to state his position tactfully, or at least that's the picture that was painted of the event. Finally, someone broke the silence with, "Did you change your hair?"
God Bless America.
Whether or not the event really went down exactly like that, it's a picture with fresh relevance for me. So a couple of weeks ago in my performance review I had mentioned that I'd be willing at some point to take on some new projects, as time allows, while emphasizing that I wasn't in any hurry to do so, but that now was a good time for this, seeing as the summer isn't a busy time for our project at all. Now, I know for a fact my boss caught all the nuance bundled up in my little spiel. So I don't blame her for the fact that the next week, one of our administrators came up to me, asked me to come to her office to talk about some new projects, prefacing the entire conversation with, "So I hear you're bored."
The feeling is not unlike buying an expensive piece of chocolate to send via international mail to a relative living halfway around the world, only to have it shipped wrong and get sidetracked all over the globe, finally arriving at your relative's smushed and eaten by worms that it picked up somewhere en route. Oh, and then the relative calls you and gives you an earful about how you should have insured it. Something like that, at least.
Anyways, said admin tells me of a project I can help another coworker with. Said coworker comes to me later that week to talk to me about said project, and, no lie, this is what she says, "So I hear you're bored."
To those of you women who read my blog, I must say that while I respect your intuition and your ability to far outpace us males in terms of the general accuracy of the conclusions you jump to, I must also remind you, as the great Dumbledore once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Ladies, please use your intuition and assuming wisely and with caution. Please, for once, take the lead of us men when it comes to wielding dangerous weapons: we don't mess around with things that can blow up in our faces, as you'll observe when we're handling guns (all the men I know are extremely cautious, even when around other men who are equally cautious). For those of you ladies who have already attained to a measure of wisdom in this, there are plenty of others around who could gain from your example! God bless you.
God Bless America.
Tom Petty Said It Best
"The waiting is the hardest part." Lately I've identified areas of my life in which I'm "waiting on God" for what's next: housing, family, etc. Somewhere along the way, something in me interpreted that to mean, "I'm waiting on God and doing nothing in the meantime." Somehow, I need to get from there to a place where I'm living as if I'm lacking nothing. Because I have everything I need. When you think about what it means that the shield of faith extinguishes the flaming darts of the evil one, maybe it means you use it to keep all those hundreds (thousands?) of advertising messages - that bombard you constantly each day - from sinking in and convincing you, "Ooh, I need that." (Hasn't someone done the math on this? I wonder how many of these get hurled at us on an average day.) So I suppose, if I could piggyback off Mr. Petty, I'd say something like, "Waiting on God doesn't mean sitting around." (Which, admittedly, doesn't make for near as cool of a song line, but I've never exactly owned the market on cool.)
Nuance Doesn't Convey
I was watching some talk show or news cast or something of the sort the other day where they were talking about Barack Obama. Sorry if I botch the details, but what I remember was that they said he was at some kind of press conference, talking about trying to raise the general tone of campaigning above attacks and back-and-forth bickering, and at the end of his speech, the audience was basically silent. He had been very careful to state his position tactfully, or at least that's the picture that was painted of the event. Finally, someone broke the silence with, "Did you change your hair?"
God Bless America.
Whether or not the event really went down exactly like that, it's a picture with fresh relevance for me. So a couple of weeks ago in my performance review I had mentioned that I'd be willing at some point to take on some new projects, as time allows, while emphasizing that I wasn't in any hurry to do so, but that now was a good time for this, seeing as the summer isn't a busy time for our project at all. Now, I know for a fact my boss caught all the nuance bundled up in my little spiel. So I don't blame her for the fact that the next week, one of our administrators came up to me, asked me to come to her office to talk about some new projects, prefacing the entire conversation with, "So I hear you're bored."
The feeling is not unlike buying an expensive piece of chocolate to send via international mail to a relative living halfway around the world, only to have it shipped wrong and get sidetracked all over the globe, finally arriving at your relative's smushed and eaten by worms that it picked up somewhere en route. Oh, and then the relative calls you and gives you an earful about how you should have insured it. Something like that, at least.
Anyways, said admin tells me of a project I can help another coworker with. Said coworker comes to me later that week to talk to me about said project, and, no lie, this is what she says, "So I hear you're bored."
To those of you women who read my blog, I must say that while I respect your intuition and your ability to far outpace us males in terms of the general accuracy of the conclusions you jump to, I must also remind you, as the great Dumbledore once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Ladies, please use your intuition and assuming wisely and with caution. Please, for once, take the lead of us men when it comes to wielding dangerous weapons: we don't mess around with things that can blow up in our faces, as you'll observe when we're handling guns (all the men I know are extremely cautious, even when around other men who are equally cautious). For those of you ladies who have already attained to a measure of wisdom in this, there are plenty of others around who could gain from your example! God bless you.
God Bless America.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Various happenings
Howdy from Aggieland! It's a fine day and I hope it finds you... if it hasn't already. I thought I'd post a few recent life happenings, tidbit-style, to catch you up to speed on my brain waves - surf's up!
Summer Breeze, Makes Me Feel Sweaty
Yuck - Texas summers. That's what all of you with sensitive noses are saying now that those of us with sensitive sweat glands are feeling the heat. I am sorry. Generally I'm a very clean person, but thinking I can effectively manage smelling good in this kind of climate is just like thinking that one can effectively manage anything they set their mind to: it's just plain hubris.
So, I've decided to play soccer again. What better way to make the most of the least logical time of year to be outdoors and active in this great state? We had our first game this Sunday. We tied. Actually, I'm kind of happy about that, seeing as it's the first time I remember not losing an opening game while playing with the Scrubs (though memory could be, admittedly, failing me here). I am a little disappointed with my own performance, though. While I did manage to earn the self-titled "Destroyer" nickname (I'm hoping it will catch on) by smashing the face or body of opposing players with the ball quite forcefully multiple times (I wasn't trying to hurt anyone, they just got in the way), as well as one time knocking a guy down just by standing in his way (this time I got in the way, but hey - he ran into me - and yes, this did make me feel manly), I was otherwise a little pathetic, to be perfectly honest. (Or as Kathryn so frankly put it, I seemed to be getting outrun a lot out there. To be quite accurate, I would think it better to say I was "run" as opposed to "outrun", seeing as frequently the other team was running, whereas I was walking.) In heat like this, I'm afraid that if I over-exert, I may keel over and evaporate or something. But I am over 20 pounds lighter this year than last - whoop! - so that's helping quite a bit.
It's A New Month: You Know What That Means!
Actually, you may not know what that means. What it means is both Kathryn and I get paychecks! Which means a new month for our "budget". (I say that, not sarcastically, but matter-of-factly, given that I'm still warming to the concept that a budget is primarily intended to be functional, as opposed to aesthetic. Tomato, tomato. See? Who can tell the difference anyways?) Which means a new chance to not overspend. Which means renewed hopes of getting to the 15th of the month with some eating-out money left. Seriously, though, it's going to happen this month. At this point, I'm not joking around any more - I know it's hard to tell in print, but it's true. Seriously, ask me at the end of the month, and once you have heard about how we've stuck to budget this month, I'll let you buy me lunch.
Performance Review - Delusions Of Better-Than-Averageness
I had my annual performance review at work last week. It actually went really well, and I would actually go so far as to say it was something of a "glowing" review, without verging on celebrity frenzy. I say that because you're ranked on a scale of "Does Not Meet Expectations" to "Meets Expectations" to "Exceeds Expectations" to finally "Outstanding" - at which point, if I'm not mistaken, you start getting calls from people asking you to run departments and governments and things like that. I pulled off an "Exceeds Expectations" overall, which I think puts me somewhere between a firm handshake/pat on the back and a little eyebrow-raising on the part of the office bigwigs.
What's interesting to me about these measures of how worthwhile of a human being I am (other than our culture's audacity and propensity to so readily quantify people's worth) is the point of shift from culture making great efforts to motivate and assure people, not just of their potential but also of their innate stardom, to the point at which everyone is more seemingly on level playing field, except for the true stars who float above the crowds with their feet and buttocks hitting the rest of our faces. You may recall this transition in your life as the time when you went from being pretty much an 'A' student by default to pretty much a 'C' student by default. And while we've all got variations on this theme, there's definitely a point when the coddling stops and you realize that the world is saying to you, "You're not really exceptional unless you're truly exceptional." The way this seems to be communicated is, "You're not exceptional." In this context, the way someone truly does become exceptional is to elbow their way up and proclaim from the top of the heap, "I'm all that. Love me, hate me - I'm the schnitt." Sure, some celebrities and elitists do this with a touch of class, but such a touch doesn't appear to be required to be admired.
I don't really have any particular point in saying all of that, and I don't claim any originality in recognizing it, either (if I did then you might claw over me in your scramble for a better view of the blogosphere... although, I know most of my blog readership, and you are all much better people than that; and for those of you I don't know, I'm quite certain that reading my blog is already helping you to become a much better person anyway). But despite all its quirks and the bureaucratic nature of this whole review process, I'm not unaware of the significance of the process of being measured up according to this cultural metric. I just hope for a greater measure of the kind of spirit whose value is evident in the kind of redemptive tendencies I exhibit, and a shortened leash for the one inciting me to throw elbows, cross tongues and divide loyalties.
Wrap To The Rap
Well, folks, that's all for now. I'll come atcha again as life gives me a fresh batch of wordiness to cook up on here. Until such time, keep it cool, keep it real, keep it real cool, and try not to lose whatever it is you're keeping.
Summer Breeze, Makes Me Feel Sweaty
Yuck - Texas summers. That's what all of you with sensitive noses are saying now that those of us with sensitive sweat glands are feeling the heat. I am sorry. Generally I'm a very clean person, but thinking I can effectively manage smelling good in this kind of climate is just like thinking that one can effectively manage anything they set their mind to: it's just plain hubris.
So, I've decided to play soccer again. What better way to make the most of the least logical time of year to be outdoors and active in this great state? We had our first game this Sunday. We tied. Actually, I'm kind of happy about that, seeing as it's the first time I remember not losing an opening game while playing with the Scrubs (though memory could be, admittedly, failing me here). I am a little disappointed with my own performance, though. While I did manage to earn the self-titled "Destroyer" nickname (I'm hoping it will catch on) by smashing the face or body of opposing players with the ball quite forcefully multiple times (I wasn't trying to hurt anyone, they just got in the way), as well as one time knocking a guy down just by standing in his way (this time I got in the way, but hey - he ran into me - and yes, this did make me feel manly), I was otherwise a little pathetic, to be perfectly honest. (Or as Kathryn so frankly put it, I seemed to be getting outrun a lot out there. To be quite accurate, I would think it better to say I was "run" as opposed to "outrun", seeing as frequently the other team was running, whereas I was walking.) In heat like this, I'm afraid that if I over-exert, I may keel over and evaporate or something. But I am over 20 pounds lighter this year than last - whoop! - so that's helping quite a bit.
It's A New Month: You Know What That Means!
Actually, you may not know what that means. What it means is both Kathryn and I get paychecks! Which means a new month for our "budget". (I say that, not sarcastically, but matter-of-factly, given that I'm still warming to the concept that a budget is primarily intended to be functional, as opposed to aesthetic. Tomato, tomato. See? Who can tell the difference anyways?) Which means a new chance to not overspend. Which means renewed hopes of getting to the 15th of the month with some eating-out money left. Seriously, though, it's going to happen this month. At this point, I'm not joking around any more - I know it's hard to tell in print, but it's true. Seriously, ask me at the end of the month, and once you have heard about how we've stuck to budget this month, I'll let you buy me lunch.
Performance Review - Delusions Of Better-Than-Averageness
I had my annual performance review at work last week. It actually went really well, and I would actually go so far as to say it was something of a "glowing" review, without verging on celebrity frenzy. I say that because you're ranked on a scale of "Does Not Meet Expectations" to "Meets Expectations" to "Exceeds Expectations" to finally "Outstanding" - at which point, if I'm not mistaken, you start getting calls from people asking you to run departments and governments and things like that. I pulled off an "Exceeds Expectations" overall, which I think puts me somewhere between a firm handshake/pat on the back and a little eyebrow-raising on the part of the office bigwigs.
What's interesting to me about these measures of how worthwhile of a human being I am (other than our culture's audacity and propensity to so readily quantify people's worth) is the point of shift from culture making great efforts to motivate and assure people, not just of their potential but also of their innate stardom, to the point at which everyone is more seemingly on level playing field, except for the true stars who float above the crowds with their feet and buttocks hitting the rest of our faces. You may recall this transition in your life as the time when you went from being pretty much an 'A' student by default to pretty much a 'C' student by default. And while we've all got variations on this theme, there's definitely a point when the coddling stops and you realize that the world is saying to you, "You're not really exceptional unless you're truly exceptional." The way this seems to be communicated is, "You're not exceptional." In this context, the way someone truly does become exceptional is to elbow their way up and proclaim from the top of the heap, "I'm all that. Love me, hate me - I'm the schnitt." Sure, some celebrities and elitists do this with a touch of class, but such a touch doesn't appear to be required to be admired.
I don't really have any particular point in saying all of that, and I don't claim any originality in recognizing it, either (if I did then you might claw over me in your scramble for a better view of the blogosphere... although, I know most of my blog readership, and you are all much better people than that; and for those of you I don't know, I'm quite certain that reading my blog is already helping you to become a much better person anyway). But despite all its quirks and the bureaucratic nature of this whole review process, I'm not unaware of the significance of the process of being measured up according to this cultural metric. I just hope for a greater measure of the kind of spirit whose value is evident in the kind of redemptive tendencies I exhibit, and a shortened leash for the one inciting me to throw elbows, cross tongues and divide loyalties.
Wrap To The Rap
Well, folks, that's all for now. I'll come atcha again as life gives me a fresh batch of wordiness to cook up on here. Until such time, keep it cool, keep it real, keep it real cool, and try not to lose whatever it is you're keeping.
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