‘Twas the night before Christmas…

On December 24, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting3 Comments

And it has occurred to me that that entire poem is kinda bullshit, because it’s 8:30, all but two of the presents are wrapped and under the tree already, and whatever my wife and I are about to settle down to it is sure as shit not going to be a “long winter’s nap,” because we both know good and goddamn well the boy is going to wake both of us up before seven. There’s no way those children were all snug in their beds. They were waiting.

I, of course, in my role as Chief Troll of the household, have told the boy that he can’t open any of his presents until our small coterie of guests arrives at 4:00 tomorrow. We won’t hold him to that– and he knows it– but it’s still fun to say. I probably shouldn’t enjoy crushing my son’s soul as much as I do but at least he knows me well enough that he never believes a single thing I say any longer.

End-of-year posts will start soon; I usually do my Best Books post a couple of days after Christmas, but I feel like my book choice over the next few days is going to be really important to my timing. I know I just finished one today that might make the list, and there’s a couple that are high up in the rotation right now that have been really positively received. We’ll see what happens, I suppose.

In which let’s talk about soccer again

On June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy9 Comments

So I’ve figured out exactly why soccer isn’t going to ever really catch on in the States. It’s not the low scoring, although that’s part of it. It’s the inaccuracy. I just watched Cristiano Ronaldo, a soccer player so amazingly well-known and famous that I have heard of him, take a free kick on goal that missed the goal completely. It is at least the fourth shot on goal in this game that was not touched by any defensive player and literally did not even come close to actually touching the goal. I’m not talking about shots that were deflected by defensive players or the goalie. I’m talking about a guy with an open shot ten or fifteen yards from the goal who proceeds to miss the goal completely, and about the fact that this phenomenon happens all the time in supposedly “professional” soccer.

And it’s not limited to shots on goal either. Passes, corner kicks– why the hell is a corner kick even a thing?– regularly appear to go absolutely nowhere near where they are supposed to go. It lends the entire sport this weird atmosphere of amateurism and randomness that I don’t think us ‘Merkins really like to see in our pro sports.

I can hear the soccer fans. “Well, it’s difficult to <x>!” Well, I’m sure it is. That’s the problem. There appears to be no difference between athletic brilliance and pure geometric accident. Our goalie just pulled off what, on first glance, looked like an awesome save– but was it, really? There were two shots in rapid succession. One caromed off the goalpost– because, again, the offensive player missed— and bounced right back toward a bunch of other Portuguese players. One of them kicked it again, and our goalie, who let a goal in earlier by just falling down instead of doing some sort of, y’know, cool goalie thing, and who was already flailing around and stumbling because of the previous shot, just threw his hands up and just managed to deflect the ball over the top of the goal.

Was that an awesome save? Incredible athletic skill from one of the premiere soccer players on Earth? Or just dumb luck? Dunno; near as I can tell they look exactly the same.

(It’s halftime. Some doof sportscaster dude just said if you “take out the goals,” it would have looked like the US lost the last game and was winning this one. Can you imagine someone saying that about basketball or football? It means that scoring is basically random in soccer. That’s bad!)

I have a suggestion.

Eliminate the position of goalie entirely.

Think about it. Most of the missed shots in this game have been just that– missed shots. Each goalie has maybe a couple of saves, and I’m willing to bet that at least a couple of those misses wouldn’t have hit the goal anyway. It’s apparently really goddamn difficult to hit the goal. Why have somebody in the game whose job it is to make scoring even more rare? Get rid of ’em. Add another midfielder instead or something. It’ll make the game more exciting and at least make it look more skillful.

Get on that, FIFA.

U dad, bro?

On January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting15 Comments

1327202485_troll-dad I am not a good parent, people, and the degree to which I constantly troll my own son is probably going to bite me in the ass sooner or later.

The boy is in this phase– I don’t know if it’s typical of toddlers, but let’s hope it is because that means eventually it’ll stop— where he really wants to constantly be asserting control over the world around him. This manifests itself in bossiness and occasionally being really picky about how things should be. Since I am a bad person, I cannot stop myself from ceaselessly screwing with him whenever he’s being like this.

An example: my son likes to play this game he calls “in the sky.” It’s basically Catch except he’s two so he can’t really catch yet. In the Sky involves getting Mommy and Daddy to stand up, placing them where he wants them to be in the room, and then assigning a ball to each of them.

Woe betide you if you use the wrong ball.

When the phrase “in the sky!” is uttered, all of the balls are thrown into the sky. Then they land, and he retrieves them, and returns them to the proper parent, and then we play again.

I cannot stop from being an asshole whenever this game is played. I’ve tried. I can’t do it.

I’m always supposed to use the red ball. He gets really mad if I use the wrong ball, so I’m always insisting on trading with my wife. It makes him nuts.

You’re supposed to throw the ball straight up in the air. Sometimes– perhaps, mathematically, a bit too often, my ball somehow manages to bounce off of his head. I don’t know why! The ball must be broken!

This game must be played standing up. I don’t understand how standing up works and must have it carefully explained to me. Every time.

I must stand where he wants me to stand. I don’t. I wander around.

He has to collect the balls and pass them back. Sometimes I get them instead. He gets so mad and it’s hilarious.

Sometimes I bounce the ball; you’re not supposed to do that. Sometimes I don’t even throw the ball when he says “in the sky,” and do it too early or too late. This is sin of the highest magnitude.

This is not the only way I’m like this, folks. I’ll watch him spend ten minutes carefully lining up all of his cars exactly the way he wants them and then nudge one of them out of line. Sometimes we’re playing with his car ramp and I send a car down the ramp backwards. On purpose.

I don’t know why I’m like this, but I can’t stop. Is anyone reading this a therapist? Because either I need one now or he’s gonna need one in the future.