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I am deeply unimpressed by this

I have somehow managed to melt the numbers on my Bayern Munich kit.

bayernmunichjersey.jpg
I threw this thing on late Wednesday night while watching the Bayern Munich vs Barcelona final in the Audi Cup. When I got up to go to bed, that’s when I noticed that was something was amiss because the shirt wasn’t hanging right on my back. I reached around to tug it down but found that I couldn’t; there was somehow a permanent fold in the fabric that prevented me from doing it. To my horror, when I took the jersey off I found that there was indeed a fold but for completely inexplicable reasons, where it was folded over on itself the numbers had fused their surfaces together. When I finally managed to pry them apart, I was left with these ink lines on both the numbers and the kit itself.

You always hear advice about not throwing your kits in a hot dryer because the numbers will peel off due to the heat. I’ve never had this problem whatsoever (yet) and I have kits in a couple of different styles with a couple of different numbering and lettering options. I can only guess that somehow the heat from my apartment (it wasn’t even that hot on Wednesday!) combined with my body heat while this was pressed between me and my couch somehow provided enough heat to destroy the numbers. I can’t fathom why else this happened.

glorious and free

I’m just putting this out there: political parties post their platforms on their websites. You don’t look like an engaged voter simply by asking a candidate “What is your party’s position on the environment / crime / taxes / elephants?”, you look like something who cannot do basic research. By all means, ask policy specific questions that cannot be answered by the website content, but for the love of all things democratic, it will not kill you to do a little bit of reading prior to asking the question you think is groundbreaking and revelatory.

You know when they say “You get the government you deserve”? It’s because of people like this. This is why we can’t have nice things (or non-fascist governments).

Sexism no longer exists, Round 2953958

I woke up at 6:30am yesterday morning so I could go on down to the pub for the Liverpool vs Wolves match. Imagine my surprise and joy when I discovered that one of the assistant referees was a woman! Surprise because I didn’t know there were any in the EPL and joy because, hey, that’s awesome!

But, of course, not everyone thinks this is awesome. Before the game started the Sky Sports commentators, Richard Keys and Andy Gray, were caught with their microphone on* (audio) making disparagingly sexist remarks about Sian Massey, the offending female linesman (linesperson?), prior to the start of the match:

Richard Keys: Well, somebody better get down there and explain offside to her.
Andy Gray: Yeah, I know. Can you believe that? Female linesman. Forget what I said – they probably don’t know the offside rule.
RK: Course they don’t.
AG: Why is there a female linesman? Somebody’s fucked up big.
RK: I can guarantee you there’ll be a big one today. Kenny [Dalglish, Liverpool's manager] will go potty. This is not the first time. Didn’t we have one before?
AG: Yeah.
RK: Wendy Toms.
AG: Wendy Toms, something like that. She was fucking hopeless as well.
RK: [exasperated groan]
AG: [inaudible]
RK: No, no, it’s got to be done, it’s good. The game’s gone mad. See charming Karren Brady this morning complaining about sexism? Yeah. Do me a favour, love.

Keys was clairvoyant, as the first goal of the game involved a very tight is-he-offside-or-not call. Massey’s verdict was that there was not an offside; video replay afterwards only confirmed that she made the correct decision. The ESPN commentators on the feed I was watching were rather condescendingly pleased about this; you can tell they were trying to be happy and supportive for a female linesman proving people wrong by being, you know, competent but in doing so their surprise kind of made clear their own doubts that a woman was capable of understanding the offside rule.

I’m actually re-watching the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands right now and as everyone on the planet knows, it was filled with all sorts of poor refereeing calls, culminating with everyone’s favourite moment where Nigel de Jong karate kicked Xabi Alonso in the chest and only got a yellow card. Howard Webb, referee extraordinaire and Dutch national hero. But, you know, he must have made such a poor call because of his uterus. He can’t help it. He’s biologically incapable of calling the game correctly.

In case it’s not already clear, whether or not Massey makes the correct call is not the point; it’s the horrific attitude towards her even attempting to participate in the great sport of soccer that is uncalled for, inappropriate, and demonstrably misogynistic. So much rage.

* The comments were recorded but not broadcast, which means we’re seeing the true attitudes of the commentators rather than the “professional” version of their opinions that they share with millions of TV viewers.

They're in stasis; medical team to the bridge!

Ugh. Vix let me know that evidently I’m suffering from the Google cloaking hack on my website. Joy! If you’ve had the misfortune of encountering this, my apologies. So far none of the solutions have fixed the problem as I cannot find any trace of this thing on my site. The last straw seems to be to basically removing and reinstalling everything, which I find to be an undesirable solution not to mention a inconvenient one.

Conveniently, the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation we’re watching right now is the one where Counsellor Troi gets to play a kick ass Romulan. Cloaking, indeed!

They’re in stasis; medical team to the bridge!

Ugh. Vix let me know that evidently I’m suffering from the Google cloaking hack on my website. Joy! If you’ve had the misfortune of encountering this, my apologies. So far none of the solutions have fixed the problem as I cannot find any trace of this thing on my site. The last straw seems to be to basically removing and reinstalling everything, which I find to be an undesirable solution not to mention a inconvenient one.

Conveniently, the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation we’re watching right now is the one where Counsellor Troi gets to play a kick ass Romulan. Cloaking, indeed!

this feeling is familiar

Remember when I complained about Disney deciding to rename “Rapunzel” because boys won’t see a movie about a girl? I saw the trailer in front of Toy Story 3 on Friday and guess what? The male hero Flynn Rider dominates about 90% of the trailer, with Rapunzel not showing her face until halfway through and then getting a single line of dialogue (“Woo! Best day ever!”). Does it count that her hair gets lots of screen time?

The next tag I might add to my movie blog is “women who are secondary in their own stories”.

You can see the trailer here and beware the obnoxious song they use midway through.

This week on Things That Annoy Me

Things that annoy me: not having a “Ms” option when being forced to select a courtesy title when signing up for a service. I resent being forced to choose a title at all (what if I don’t identify with any of the options, period?) but for the love of god if you’re going to go the rather antiquated route of forcing me to have a heteronormative title, could you at the very least provide me with a single ladies version that doesn’t make me feel like a six year old? Thanks.

meanwhile, I was reading my Amelia Earhart biography

I was on the subway last night and there was an ad for Plan Canada’s Because I Am A Girl campaign on one of the subway walls. The ad features two sets of stats: the first is about ways in which girls are discriminated against and oppressed around the world, and the second is about ways in which investing in girls improves the general health of a community as a whole.

Naturally, group of loudmouth guys in their early twenties got on the subway and loudly started proclaiming how sexist this ad is for, you know, focusing on girls. Thanks for illustrating the point loud and clear, gentleman!

I am thankful, though, for the one guy among them who repeatedly pointed out to the loudest of his friends that none of the points mentioned in the ad were untrue and that it was not sexist to point these things out. I’m sure it’s probably not that easy to argue with your friends when they are publicly exhibiting misogynistic behaviour in a loud and obnoxious way, especially if it appears you’re coming back from the bar and they’re probably more than a little intoxicated.

satellite's gone up to the sky

Oh, and another thing: I read through several dozen resumes today and found someone who apparently held the position of “Educator” at Lululemon, yet the job duties performed in this position were clearly listed as standard sales associate duties. This struck me as being moderately weird, so I Googled it and confirmed that yes, indeed Lululemon calls their sales associates “educators”. The person selling you your over-priced sweat pants is an educator. Does that mean I can write off gym clothes as an educational expense on my taxes? (Kidding. Clearly I don’t go to the gym.)

Educator. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.