Nothing to Read Here – Page 18

Left on the roster

Dec12

Posted by P-Dawg in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

As a fellow lefty, I’m glad that BKS brought up some of the injustices that we face. To quote Jack Black in a Tenacious D song, “The tyranny and the bullshit’s gone on too long.” Most of our plights go unnoticed by our northpaw brethren until we shed light on them. For example, how many of you have to take off your watches in order to change the date on them? That’s what I thought.

I’ve realized for my entire life that we lefties are in the minority. Therefore, every time I see a guy on a tv show or in a movie writing with his left hand, I lean over to my lovely wife and say, “He’s a lefty.” This also happens with waiters, department store cashiers, and every other category of person I might see writing. And yet despite that daily eye-witness account of how few of us there are out there, I was still surprised by something I saw on espn.com.

Marc Stein is an NBA writer, and he too is a proud lefty. He wrote a piece recently (see item 2) about the left-handed players in the NBA, and I just had to share. At the time of his writing (a couple of weeks ago now), there were 430 basketball players in the NBA. Of that, how many do you suppose are lefties? I was astonished to see the number 29 as the answer. That’s 6.7% of the league, below the national average of PCL (Per Capita Lefthandedness). Fortunately, two of those 29 are on the Lakers (Fisher and Odom), so they’re doing their part. 29!

The thing that surprises me most about that statistic is that I’ve found being left-handed advantageous in playing basketball. Most not-so-good players can only drive toward their dominant hands, so defenders get used to playing toward that side to cut off the drive. With me, I can’t really go right, so my natural instinct to go left catches people off guard a little. The same is true with my jump shot. Defenders are used to the ball coming up and out from the shooter’s right hand, and so the slight hesitation that I cause by shooting with my left probably gives me a fraction of a second more to avoid getting my shot blocked. That, in turn, leads to fewer “Get that weak shit out of here” taunts which are directly proportional to my feelings of inadequacy.

Speaking of sports and handedness, I was once urged to take up fencing by a guy in a college I sat next to for a quarter. It was my very first quarter and he was a wise and worldly junior (and a Philosophy major at that), so his words naturally carried a lot of weight. He told me that lefties have a natural advantage in fencing, and I nodded along to show that I found it interesting. I think he was trying to get me to join the Fencing Club or something, but I remained non-committal. You see, with my level of body control and coordination, I wouldn’t get through one meeting of the Fencing Club without seriously injuring myself. So instead I just took that tidbit about my natural advantage as truth and stored it away. If he was right though, I’d fully expect more than 6.7% of professional fencers are left-handed.

Thanks for bringing this up, BKS. With our leftiness and MC Squared’s ambidexterity, we’re doing our little part to stick it to the Right Man.

(By the way, Marc Stein’s list shows zero left-handed Celtics, so that’s just another reason to root against them.)

Tags: Lakers, left-handed

Left Behind

Dec9

Posted by bks in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I don’t really belong to any minority groups. I’m white, I’m middle-class, as of this moment I am not disabled. I used to be Catholic which is kind of a minority, but it definitely doesn’t have the street cred that Judaism does. Catholics tend to be on the other side of persecution.

Anyhoo, the one thing I can cling to is the fact that I am left-handed. Approximately 10% of the population is left-handed, but only 2% of women are. I should acknowledge here that I learned that statistic from an interview with Nicole Kidman in Marie Claire magazine, circa 2005.

Left-handed people live in a world not built for us. Scissors are impossible, we can’t see the designs on our mugs when we drink our hot beverages of choice, desks in college lecture halls are miserable. Oh sure, there might be a left-handed desk on the end of every row, but usually some self-RIGHTeous a-hole has already claimed it and you have to climb over his privileged ass to get to a seat where you’ll spend the whole hour craning your arm around like a contortionist to take notes.

Our handwriting is usually pretty bad too. Also, apparently when the press is trying to photograph you signing your first executive order as president, they get annoyed because we hold our pens strangely (and usually drag our hands across the stuff we’ve written, smearing our words and getting ink on our hands), forcing us to say stuff like “I’m a lefty; get used to it.” That’s right. Lots of us are Presidents. Our current President, Clinton, the first Bush and Reagan….10% of the population but 18% of US Presidents. Although women are over 50% of the population and 0% of US Presidents, but that’s a different post.

In high school, I bonded with a fellow lefty who would do things like tell the outfielders to back up when I was up to bat when we played softball in PE. “Move back folks, we’ve got a lefty here!” Another time, in history class, when our classmates were complaining that Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried was too graphic and I was getting really upset with them, he held up a sign that said “They can’t handle war. LEFTY POWER!” Last time we talked, he told me he was engaged to a left-handed woman to keep the “bloodlines clean”. He’s doing his part to create a left-handed super-race and I couldn’t be prouder. Then maybe the rest of you will know what it feels like to be a minority.

The name game

Dec9

Posted by P-Dawg in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

My lovely wife and I are expecting twins in April, so among everything else that comes with preparing for this life-changing event, we also need to come up with a bunch of names. We’ve decided – as many of our friends have before us – to keep the names to ourselves until the kids arrive.

That said, I get asked all the time from people, especially when I say that we’re having a boy and a girl. I have a few options on how to reply. At first, I thought of funny famous pairings. “We’re thinking of Batman and Robin,” I’d say with a straight face. “Or maybe Ricky and Lucy.” Fellow N2RH blogger BKS asks me often how the kids are doing, and she employs this strategy as well. Most recently, she’s asked about “Sid and Nancy” and “Dawson and Joey.” (That’s from “Dawson’s Creek,” Mom.)

In the past month or so, I’ve switched tactics. When our friends Mina and Dan were over and the subject of names came up, I said, “I’m thinking of Mina and Dan. It has a nice ring to it.” I’ve used that for four or five couples who have asked, and it generally yields a good response.

I care a lot about names and think about them way too often. I once wrote that I found it very ironic that our placeholder name in society for a woman is Jane, and yet I find very few Janes around (and only personally know one). John, Jane’s male counterpart, is definitely common enough to fit the bill, but just this week I realized how unjustly maligned that name is. Off the top of my head, I came up with this list of how that name is used:

As an unidentified male dead body
In “Dear John” letters when someone is being unexpectedly left by a partner
A “Johnny-come-lately” or a novice. (This has a very condescending feel to it for me, rather than just calling someone “new” or “a rookie.” Do you agree?)
A bathroom
A prostitute’s gentleman caller

That sucks for John. “John Q. Public” isn’t bad at least, but I find it unfair that John gets lumped into all of those. Hang in there, buddy.

Speaking of names, my lovely wife’s grandfather called recently to tell me about an article he saw from Time magazine. Not to doubt the man, but I had to look up the article myself to see if he was recounting it accurately. Basically, it says that names have an impact on whether or not someone will go to jail. The examples it cites baffle me: If your kid is named Michael, he’ll be less likely to end up in jail. But if he’s named Preston or Alec, the odds are greater. Everybody now: That’s bullshit! I will bet a lot of money that there are 100 times more Michaels in prison than Prestons and Alecs combined. What, did they steal money from the yacht club or something? I don’t doubt that a person’s name can have an impact on his or her life – hell, just look at what happened to Shitface McPenisnose – but I think the examples in that article are way off. Part of me wants to name our kids Preston and Alexis just to prove that article wrong (provided they stay out of jail). I don’t think my wife would go for it though; she’s pretty set on Pebbles and Bam Bam.

Tags: John, names

That’s Bullshit: Snowflake edition

Dec4

Posted by P-Dawg in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

If there’s one thing my family does well, it’s lovingly poke fun at one another. One common fun-poking involves my dad’s overuse of the term “bullshit.” Somewhere in his past, he lost the ability to describe things as stupid, wimpy, ridiculous, outlandish, or frustrating. Instead, they’re all bullshit. To honor my father, I plan on having posts under the “That’s Bullshit” moniker for little things that I find (insert negative adjective here). My initial TB post has to do with snowflakes:

There is no way that all snowflakes are unique. I’m calling bullshit on that right now. We’ve all accepted that “truth” for too long, and I’m speaking up. Here’s my rationale: I believe that there is a finite number of snowflake permutations. Think about making one out of paper – there are only so many snips that can be made. For the sake of argument and to prove I’m trying to look at this objectively, let’s say that finite number is in the ballpark of 10 billion. Yes, with a B. With that giant number in mind, how many individual snowflakes do you think hit the ground each year in the U.S. alone? How about in the entire world? How about since the existence of Earth? You’re telling me that no two flakes have ever had the same pattern? How do we know that? Let’s examine the scientific method by which that “fact” was established. How many individual snowflakes did people look at under a microscope before making this claim? 1,000? 100,000? Even a few million would not be enough. I don’t believe the unique snowflake claim, and I doubt anything’s going to change my mind. So there.

Tags: bullshit, snowflakes

Devalued Word of the Day

Dec3

Posted by mcsquared in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

This is the ER for words that have been run over by a marketing Mack truck. Sucked dry of all meaning, nobody even registers these words anymore. They just skip right over them. Even worse, these words have been so thoroughly taken advantage of that they now inspire mistrust in the reader. Instead of their once positive meaning, they now connote the opposite.

Today’s word is “deluxe.”

I drove by a Del Taco advertisement today which peddled their “Deluxe Chili Cheese Fries™.” Let’s pretend, for a moment, that the word “Deluxe” didn’t mean “with onions and tomatoes.” It’s $2.99, Ok? Seriously, there should be rules. Something cannot be deluxe if it costs less than $3. It can’t be deluxe if it costs less than $100. That’s my rule for today to try to salvage whatever self-respect the word deluxe is clinging on to. Trust me, there’s not much left. It’s been trademarked together with the words “Chili,” “Cheese,” and “Fries.”

By Del Taco.

Tags: devalued, language

Morning connection

Dec1

Posted by P-Dawg in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

It was really cold (by L.A. standards) this morning when I got in my car. As I waited for the car to heat up a little, I turned on the front windshield defroster. A minute later, I watched as the transparent glass seemingly pushed back the opaqueness that had just been there. And then it struck me: The front window defrosting process reminds me of the movie “Ghost.” (How many of you – besides my favorite brother – are already nodding in agreement?) You remember when the shadowy spirit-things crept across the ground to grab the bad people and presumably drag them to hell? That’s exactly what my defroster made me think of. Ya know, minus the horrible screaming and everything.

Tags: defroster, Ghost

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!?!

Nov27

Posted by Mike Honcho in Uncategorized | No Comments

A few weeks ago, I was able to sneak into the Breeders’ Cup (horse racing) press party at L.A. live. It was a pretty nice set up. Free food, free cocktails and a shitty band. Why would I list a shitty band amongst all the good stuff? Because a shitty band has the potential to become transcendently shitty. Transcendently shitty = unintentional comedy gold.

So after a couple cocktails, I made my way outside as the band was taking the stage. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for… Band From TV. Never heard of them? I hadn’t either. Apparently, they’re a band comprised solely of television stars. Matt Parkman (Heroes) on drums, Dr. Chase (House) on the rock fiddle, some dude from Desperate Housewives on guitar, Bob from the Bachelorette on lead vocals and I think ALF was on bass. They managed to pull off a couple of decent covers, but mainly dedicated their time to butchering songs from current artists and a few classics. On a scale of excellent to shitty, I would say they were crappy and I was starting to get bored. Then something magical happened.

Parkman announced that earlier in the day, via twitter, he had invited a friend to help and that friend was about to take over on vocals. Ladies and Gentleman… The Commish aka The Thing. That’s right, Michael Chiklis. He started with a horrible Beatles cover and then proceeded to engage in some of the worst crowd banter I’ve ever seen/heard. It was just uncomfortable. He rambled for a little bit about horses, then he told us how his hometown Boston crowds get more involved at concerts, that they really know how to rock. That’s when he threw down the gauntlet and dared the L.A. crowd to rock as hard as they could. The crowd rose with fists in the air, ready to explode just as Band From TV launched into… Mustang Sally. Really Commish? I wasn’t expecting Metallica or Rage Against the Machine, but you have to come with more than Mustang Sally if you are going to play the rock card. Why not The Sounds of Silence or The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

When they finished the song, Chiklis left the stage. That was his big finale. I replayed the whole thing in my head. Was he serious? I’m pretty sure he was. He honestly believed he was going to melt our faces with the raw power of Mustang Sally. Pure unintentional comedy gold. Pretty spectacular evening.

New Feature for the Lazy

Nov27

Posted by mcsquared in Uncategorized | No Comments

For those of you who would love to read our blog, but don’t wish to waste time typing an extra 13 characters getting here, we’re proud to introduce our alternative route to our musings. http://n2rh.com will bring you to our lovely slice of the web as effectively as http://n2rh.com. Of course, I know some of you old schoolers will type out the entire thing. However you get here, just make sure you do!

Yo tengo…skills

Nov26

Posted by P-Dawg in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I minored in Spanish back in college, and while my skills have drastically deteriorated, I can still whip it out in times of need. (Hey now!) That said, it’s difficult for me to know when to switch from English to Spanish. If I’m talking to someone whose primary tongue is Spanish and I can tell that s/he is struggling a little bit in English, I’m tempted to jump in right away. However, that’s saying, “My broken Spanish is better than your broken English.” What if they disagree with that assessment? Also, I don’t always have the right vocabulary to take the conversation into Spanish and end up saying things like, “No hay que cambiar las horas de los…sprinklers.”

I ran into an interesting situation along these same lines recently. I had a plumber come out because of some fun and exciting clog action, and his assistant clearly didn’t speak English at all. They were here for a little while, and I felt rude not really acknowledging the second guy, especially since I had the skill-set to do so. I wanted to break the ice somehow, and I thought I saw the perfect opening. He was wearing an Anaheim Angels baseball hat (I refuse to call them by their correct, stupid-ass dual-city name). The Angels had just recently been eliminated from the playoffs, so I could lament that fact with him. Before I started speaking, I thought about what I was going to say in my head and ran into a problem. You see, “The Angels” in Spanish is “Los Angeles.” Unless I specified, “The baseball team called The Angels” (which would’ve been mighty awkward), any sentence I said would have sounded like, “I’m sorry about Los Angeles losing this year.” Oh sure, I could’ve pointed to his hat while I said it, but this was quickly becoming much more than acknowledging his presence. So in the end, I just said, “Thank you” in English when he was leaving, which I’m pretty sure he understood. Whew, I knew those upper-division 17th Century Spanish Lit courses would come in handy someday.

Tags: plumber, Spanish

Zagat in the Hat

Nov23

Posted by bks in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Like my big bro, P-dawg, I consider myself something of a language enthusiast. I get irritated when people use “I” when they should use “me” and I get unduly miffed by a comma splice. Generally, when it comes to pronunciation, I’m a little more lax because I know that language is fluctuating tool of communication and pronunciation changes faster than spelling, and I like to make allowances for regional dialects because I find most regional dialects charming. Also, to be honest, I can be a little inconsistent when it comes to pronunciation. For example, I usually refer to a group of islands southeast of the United States as the cuh-RIB-ee-an, but when referring to the Disneyland ride or trio of increasingly unbearable Johnny Depp films, I always say Pirates of the CARE-uh-BE-an. I tend to alternate between AH-pricot and AY-pricot as my mood dictates, and didn’t know plebeian was pronounced pluh-BE-an until I was 25. So I’m really in no place to judge. Not that that ever stops me.

Until just a few months ago, I thought that the famous restaurant guide was pronounced ZAH-git. However, my friend Maria, who teaches 4th grade at an expensive private Jewish school on the Upper West Side (you might asking yourself what kind of Jew is named Maria. The Mexican Catholic kind.) said she overheard two of her students arguing and went over to see what the fight was about and arrived just in time to see one nine-year-old tell another, “it’s not ZAH-git, it’s zuh-GAT!” She used to teach school in inner-city Oakland and said that while the students there fought a good deal, it was never over the correct pronunciation of a restaurant guide.

Anyhoo, I found that story super charming and have told it to many people, many of whom had also wondered how to correctly say that family’s name. One such person though, insists that the correct way to say it is ZAY-gotts, which I think is just rubbish. Whether he truly believes in his position or is just sticking to it to annoy me, I cannot be sure, but this little debate lead to me doing some pretty extensive internet research which turned up the following helpful pronunciation guides.

From Foodaholics blog:

How to pronounce “Zagat”

Okay. So I am a nut, I admit it. Before moving to Boston I pronounced Zagat as in Zagat Survey, as ZA-git (rhymes with maggot). After hanging around Stephen and his pals, I got into the habit of accepting the pronounciation, za-GHAT (the gat rhyming with not).

But to settle things once and for all I have just visited zagat.com to find the key to pronouncing the silly name.

za-GAT’ – rhymes with “the cat”

From Eater.com:

Apologies for our slow start this morning; the web servers that host our little cocktail party are, as our father would say, a bit tiddly today. As we regroup, Eater offers this morsel from a reader, per our post last week about the correct pronunciation of the Guidebook First Family:

before i went to work there, someone told me this way to remember how to pronounce the family name. it’s so moving that i’ve never forgotten it:he’s big, he’s fat
it’s warm where he sat
that’s tim zagat.

While the second example is not terribly flattering to Mr. Zagat, I feel confident that my 4th grader delivered knowledge is correct and you should too. If you are embroiled in any word-related debates holla at a Bratty Kid Sister at bks@nothingreadhere.com.