The Glowing Edge

Tag: stupidity

  • The Mystery of the Nightime Gagging Sounds

    The Mystery of the Nightime Gagging Sounds

    Okay, we all know Olive has the relative IQ of a deck chair.

    But what creative new anti-genius she has shown me! In the bleak stretches of the post-midnight hours, no less.

    Recently I had been awakened several times in the middle of the night by an echo-y choking sound. Being less than clear-headed during these hours, I managed to stumble up out of the bed and shuffle around trying to figure out which of my children was in need of emergency medical assistance. Each time I failed to discover the source of the mysterious noise.

    Finally one night I realized the wheezing sounds were coming from the master bathroom. I flipped on the light switch and there was Olive, curled up in the middle of the tub. She gazed up at me innocently. Figuring she had been hacking up a hairball in my tub I scowled, mumbled “Die quietly, willya?” and  shuffled back to bed.

    The minute I drifted back to sleep the yacking sounds resumed.

    Muttering dire imprecations into my pillow, I waited for the damn hairball to be evicted so I could get some sleep. No luck.

    “I’m about to throw you to the evil nocturnal suburban crocodiles, Olive,” I growled, getting up for the second time. “You can hack up your hairballs outside, [expletives deleted].”

    Snapping on the bathroom light, I finally saw what was really happening. “I do NOT believe this,” I told her. “You are croc fodder, furball.”

    We — and by “we” I mean the Husband — keep a tupperware container (sometimes several) in our little-used bathtub. When we take a shower it takes a while for the water to come out hot, so he captures the initial gallon or so of cold water, leaves it in a container in the tub, then uses it to fill the toilet tank next time he flushes it. He loves conservation.

    Anyway, there is often a container of water sitting in our tub. Henry (our smart but grouchy orange cat) often comes in the bathroom to drink from these. And what Henry does, Olive wants to do. Except for one small problem. Now and then, one of the containers is only half full.

    And since there are simply no marshmallows in Olive’s Lucky Charms, she was trying to drink from a container with only a little water down in the bottom. Effectively choking herself to death. In the middle of the night. Repeatedly.

    So now the Husband has received a Sound-Sleeping Mandate, delivered in stern tones by Yours Truly, to NEVER Leave Any of the Tupperwares Partly Full.

    Given that Olive’s driveway doesn’t quite reach the road.

    (Enjoy the slug on this post, coder friends.)

  • Female Grandmasters and MMA Fighters: Dana White Channels Pat Robertson

    Female Grandmasters and MMA Fighters: Dana White Channels Pat Robertson


    Skip straight to 4:25 on this video to hear the shocking part.

    Dana White is lighting up a tiny bit of press (why not a helluva lot more??) with his recent answer to the question: “Do you think you’ll do a female season of Ultimate Fighter?”

    “Here’s the thing,” Dana says, and we all wait expectantly. “The problem is there’s not enough good girls to fight in the division, okay?”

    At this point I have a WTF kind of look on my face. It’s easy to imagine if you try.

    “It’s probably gonna be a while before that happens,” he says, and then he drops an even bigger bomb. “It’s the same thing with boxing. Even when women’s boxing was big you had three or four girls who were really good and a lot of girls that weren’t.”

    Go ahead and set your phasers on stun, and let’s put him out of our misery.

    danawhite“I sound like I’m sexist or something,” he comments, and I think, No. You sound like you’re dumber than a rock.

    Dana went on to day that he’d actually seen a “girl fight” once (Wow, really, Dana? You mean you’re not just making wild guesses about the lack of women in fight sports?) between a “really pretty, beautiful girl” and one “who looked exactly like Randy Couture.” And it was a beatdown, and he “doesn’t like even thinking about it.”

    Golly, we all feel sorry for you now. Having to think about that scary bad fight.

    “So that’s my story,” he finishes lamely, “on women’s MMA.”

    What an ass.

    Do you remember (November 1989) when Pat Robertson made this comment: “The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There’s never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I’ll buy some of the feminism.”

    Yeah. At the time there were two female Grand Masters in chess, and since then there’ve been several more.

    So, in order to assist Dana White with his…problem, Savage Science helpfully published a list of 32 top women MMA fighters in the 145 weight category (candidates to fight Gina Carano).

    Now this is only a handful of the women in that one weight category, but guess what, Dana? There are other weight categories in women’s MMA. Amazing news for you, I know.

    Do you need someone to determine which ones are “really pretty” too, or can you handle that part?

  • Women’s Boxing to be Included in 2012 Olympics

    Women’s Boxing to be Included in 2012 Olympics

    Finally, the last “No Girls Allowed” sign has been pulled down from the Summer Olympic games. August 13th, 2009: International Olympic Committee chair Jacques Rogge announced today that the 2012 London Olympics will be the first to feature women competing in every single sport.

    Mr. Rogge said: “I can only rejoice about the decision to include women’s boxing in the Olympic Games. [Women’s boxing] is a great addition since boxing was the only summer Olympic sport without a female discipline. Women’s boxing has progressed a lot in the last five years and it is time to include them.”

    The last five years, yes. But how about the last 105 years? Because 1904 was the last time women were allowed to showcase their boxing skills for the Olympics. It was a demonstration game, and afterward the sport went underground for women until the mid-1970s, when the first licenses began to be granted to women boxers.

    Olympics minister Tessa Jowell said, “It will be a landmark moment come London 2012 when for the first time every sport will have women participating in it. There are still major disparities in the number of medals women can win compared to men but this is a step in the right direction.”

    There will be three women’s weight classes (flyweight, lightweight, and middleweight) added, and one (light flyweight) of the 11 men’s weight classes will be dropped to make room.

    I expect that in the next two years we’ll hear the same argument trotted out that has been holding women back for years now: it’s too dangerous. You’d think women were petitioning for the right to box at nine months pregnant while wearing glasses and high heels. You’d think no one ever watched women play field hockey, rugby, or even a muy-serious game of roundball. Sigh.

    Here’s a couple of awesomely bad quotes for you, from the Telegraph, who, in fairness, published lots of positive quotes, too. But these were just too amazing not to repeat:

    Sir Henry Cooper, retired heavyweight boxer: “I’m just old fashioned, but I don’t think women should box. Look at how Muhammad Ali has ended up.”

    Hello? If this were the argument we were going with, we’d ban it for the men. Yeesh.

    Bernard Hopkins, world champion: “I don’t think women should box period for health reasons due to the way the body is made…I do think a woman can do what a man can do. I just don’t think women can dominate everything a man can, and I don’t think that men can dominate what a woman can.”

    Whaa? Um, was he talking about breasts in that first part? No wait! Menstruation, I bet that’s it. Dude, just think of it as extra padding! Sorry, couldn’t resist. And I had no luck deciphering the last bit of his quote. Leave me a comment if you get it at all.

    Okay, just one more: BBC Sport reported this one from British world champion Amir Khan, who said, “Deep down I think women shouldn’t fight. That’s my opinion. When you get hit it’s very painful.”

    Don’t worry, Mr. Khan. We won’t let the women hit you.

    Well, that was fun, and now you should send this link to ten friends and celebrate with a toast: To the 2012 Summer Games!

    Women boxers are the coolest chicks: ready, willing, and able.
    Now let’s get to drinking — get your glasses off the table!

    Hear, hear.

    Image by Rick on Flickr
  • Boxing FAIL

    Boxing FAIL

    Remember that time when you were watching a ball game and it was clear from the start that the two teams were utterly unmatched? One team took the court or field and began racking up points until it was patently obvious that there was just no way the losing team would be able to recover. Sometimes that’s the point at which the winning coach will pull the first string out and let some of the second stringers, then even the lowest of the bench-warmers get some game time. Or the game continues with the lead players, the score escalates into the stratosphere, the losing team is humiliated, and the spectators leave with a mixture of pity, irritation, and a sense of having wasted a chunk of their day.

    There isn’t much good to be said about a crushing defeat.

    I recently got routed in the ring. I mean beat down, crunched up, and tossed in the can. It happened fast, it was relentless, and I allowed it to continue for four rounds when I should have stopped — and in fact, tried to stop — at three. I could have stopped at two, even. A combination of factors contributed, but none of them particularly matter any more. What I’m left with is a feeling of having failed to read the signs of the mismatch beforehand, and of having succumbed to the goading voice that said, “Hey, you can’t be a quitter, you have to power through.”

    I didn’t learn anything. Anyone who says, “But you proved you’re determined,” is just as much of an ass as I was for allowing it to happen.

    There was no satisfaction of a fight well fought. There was only me trying to survive, covering up as much as possible and rarely able to throw any kind of punch at all. My opponent doesn’t earn bragging rights for having crushed someone he was so much better than. He could have (and has, in the past) matched himself to my level and given us both a great sparring session, but he decided not to.

    I made one small injury a great deal worse.

    And I lost a little bit of my trust in the guy I sparred with.

    A couple of bystanders who watched asked me afterward how I felt, and I drew an utter blank. Still drawing a blank. Somebody shook the Etch-a-Sketch and there just isn’t anything there any more; it was a painful and humiliating waste of my time.

    It’s not difficult to know how to proceed from here: you just keep training (after allowing the minor-turned-bigger injury to heal) and hope to read the signs better and end it sooner next time.

    Suckage.

    Image credit: Steve Keys on Flickr