I don’t follow any sports but I don’t hate them generally. My dad is a pretty big baseball guy so I’ve been to a decent number of baseball games (lets go O’s!) and I’ve had fun at them. My high school best friend was a hockey fan and I’d watch games at his place sometimes and it was entertaining.
It probably doesn’t help I don’t care much for football specifically but even if I did, JESUS, some guys cannot talk about anything else this time of year. They’ll just talk at you about it like you know what they’re saying. “Hey did you catch the game? Derrick Footballguy for the Townsville Townies is over 7 to 2 mid season and ran a 400 yard over under in the 12th quarter!”
WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!?!?!
I care less about the sports discussion in my casual and work environments because w/e let boys be gamer nerd boys in denial, but what i’ve been noticing more and more to the point its disturbing me over its overwhelming prevalence is sports betting and open gambling taking place in general society. I’m not an empire historian studier but I recall quite a few historical examples of how rampant gambling in general society was seen as a death flag of Empire.
sports betting is probably the least troubling thing happening on prediction markets (both morally & in regards to death of the empire)
I’m not a sports fan tremendously but my approach to this is that it’s really nice when people humour me when I’m into something, it’s really cute when people get excited about stuff, and it’s heartwarming that sports does sort of bring people together and cross social strata.
So I just ask if I’m confused, and politely listen and ask if there is anything they’re excited about coming up I should consider watching or any cool plays they’d like to show me.
It’s a little boring sometimes but it’s brief that there’s something huge happening and then I have good will to burn talking about soil health and knots or something cringe I enjoy.
yeah but sportsism is hegemonic and perpetuates all kinds of horrible things to everyone from athletes to people around them (including other athletes) to fans to the spouses and children of fans.
I hear the best way to build solidarity is to wear a dirty ushanka
weird attitude to take towards a cult of enabling and covering up abuse
There’s no way you’re serious. You may as well be mad about people enjoying family meals since agribusiness is a horror show.
no. western sports culture is horrible and keeps finding ways to get worse like the last few years’ proliferation of gambling.
a better comparison would be that i have been mad at anyone taking their kid to catholic church ever since the boston scandal made the abuse undeniable.
knots
What is your best knot? My favorite Is the alpine butterfly
I like the falconers knot, as a dead simple knot that not everyone knows that is actually really useful for tying with one hand. However my actual favourite is the bowline. It’s very interesting to see how many knots are bowlines in disguise e.g. a sheet bend, marlin spike hitch etc. truly the king of knots.
I’ll have to pick up the falconers. But yes the bowline is crazy cool. I fell down the rabbit hole. Deconstruct many knots and there’s a bowline. The Kalmyk loop is a cool variety
You can’t have one favourite they all do different things!
My favourite bend is the Carrick bend[1]. It’s a very beautiful and pleasant knot to tie and it’s properties are so excellent as to make almost all other bends for joining similar sized rope obsolete (except for the joy of preserving such a venerable technology).
Stopper knot I would have to say the figure eight[2]. Expediant and pretty.
Hitch perhaps the constrictor knot[3]? I just use it a lot and it can be tied in the bight by twisting two loops which is lightning fast[4]. Although a round turn and two half hitches dominates anything I want to untie later[5]. The icicle hitch[6] seems extremely interesting but icicles don’t form where I am and so I have never had the chance to test its eponymous claim.
Slipped hitch it’s the slipped milner’s knot[7].
I’ve not learned many decorative knots yet so I couldn’t say there.
Netting is a whole other bag of chips!
What about the alpine butterfly makes you love it?
Never heard of an icicle hitch before! That’s really cool. I can’t think when I’ll have cause to use it but it’s neat!
If you’re pulling on a pole I guess? Like hauling a log or suspending/raising a bar.
I haven’t had cause either but Ashley is effusive about it’s ability to hold and endure jerks.
Awesome knot choices. Obviously agree no single knot is best overall… To many things to tie up.
The alpine butterfly I love because as a climber it is quite practical in many different alpine situations:
It joins ropes as a bend in a relatively less bulky way then say a Flemish bend while still being totally trust worthy (when tied with long enough tails) even after some dragging over rock.
As a midpoint in a rope it serves as an excellent attachment point for say a glacier team.
In anchoring and rigging the way it lays and can be weighted form any angle lends itself to building many cool anchors when combined with a clove hitch or any variety of figure eight. This is my main use for it these days.
In example a simple anchor i tied it in recently:
It also highlights it’s adjustability. Make any leg of it long or short easily.All of that and it remains easy to untie when weighted.
Plus I just think it’s pretty and love to tie it.
I really do need more decorative knots in my life. I’ve been thinking of making a decorative net out of an ancient rope I have. Maybe now’s the time.
Awesome! I looked it up in ABOK and he reckons it’s pretty essential. Apparently it can safely isolate a section of damaged rope which is cool.
Also cool to see knotwork used for srs biznus.
Ashley has instructions on making mats with knotwork and it’s always been a oneday project to make one as an entry mat.
I can say that netting is very much only an activity for the hobbiest. Even a simple diamond fishing net is extremely time consuming. They look nice though!
Ya it is great for isolating damaged rope since it can be tied easily in the middle of the rope. No end needed. Basically just tie it like you would a bend on a damaged rope. Since there’s so many ways of damaging your rope climbing it’s definitely a big benefit in that context.
Using knots and rope to stay alive is a big reason I like climbing I think… Just a great excuse to really get to know and trust your knots.
I do want a copy of ABOK. Just for fun.
Netting is intimidating but mats seem a bit easier to me actually so maybe I’ll do that sometime.
Yeah making games and turning them into sports is such a fundamental part of the human experience I can’t possibly be mad for seeing someone enjoy it. Is America football something that I can bear to watch myself? Absolutely not. Does capitalism ruin major sports? Yes. But if you’re enjoying it? Good for you.
whenever a football guy says anything, just say, “I don’t understand why the defense doesn’t work with the dime package blitz more often. nothing keeps a game tight like smash mouth ball where 8 men are in the box.”
then say you are looking for more guys for your fantasy domination league.
Are you insane! you can’t get away with a dime blitz when 12 rax proxy is in the meta!
Alternatively just yell “OMAHA!” That’ll crack them up.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
When I worked at a Starbucks in a city, every male employee and male customer talked to each other about nothing but football to reassure them of their alpha heterosexuality while they bought gay coffee
Nothing straighter than a bunch of muscly dudes running around in tights trying to touch each other
EDIT: To be clear, I think it would be better if they weren’t so overdressed.
Derrick do be popping off again this year though…
Anyway, here’s some evergreen gridiron banter for ya:
“I feel like there’s been way more injuries this year”
“I feel like the refs suck more than usual this year”
“I feel like the announcers are worse than usual this year”
“Fuck the Chiefs”
Everyone can have a little redditism as a treat
we all contain multitudes
To fully purge the redditor inside you is a life long journey, but only then can you truly logg off.
Combat redditism
I work near a football stadium and I fucking hate game days. The entire area is just gridlocked by hundreds of vehicles and they never run nearly enough transit so buses/trains are always packed like sardines.
Plus the fans themselves are obnoxious but that’s not exclusive to football, hockey is probably worse here but I rarely have to travel near the rink
Thing about Derrick Footballguy is he always tries to walk it in.
I mean he is the best left forward backend on the Townies.
Disliking football is the humanitarian choice. I miss watching hockey with my friend, because of my neutrality I would just cheer for whoever her team was against that game. It was fun cause we both love drinking a lot of beer and yelling at a TV/each other. Baseball is cool. I dont follow it but I will sometimes look up lists of particularly good games and see if theyre on YouTube.
Sweating on the train tonight because it was absolutely packed with sports fans but they weren’t running the A/C.
The worst is the guy who can only talk about football, and only in relation to his fantasy football team.
i dunno, football guy who is also march madness guy who strongarms everyone into “creating a bracket for $20” so he can take everyone’s money is pretty bad too
football season is joever
Dan Quinn (the youtube ex crackhead mma fighter and college football player obsessed with stevia) used to always talk about the one play he made in college for notre dame. I think about him often when football crap comes up on tv. Shoutout to you if you know who I’m talking about.
You could always ask what they are talking about?
Most football guys love the history of the thing as much as they like what is currently happening. That said, most football guys know extremely little about the complexity of the game itself and mostly boil it down to some truisms.
However, whenever I hear people on here complain that they don’t understand football, I kinda have to chuckle to myself because football is extremely simple when compared to something like, idk, Marxism.
football is extremely simple when compared to something like, idk, Marxism.
it just doesn’t have all the excitement, spectacle and drama
I kinda have to chuckle to myself because football is extremely simple when compared to something like, idk, Marxism
It’s far easier for me to understand how many yards of linen go into a coat than to understand how many yards Derrick Footballguy is over under this season!
TBF, I’ve been watching football for three decades, and it seems like once a season some penalty gets invoked for a rule I’ve never heard of before.
There are so many rules (and they also change every year, which your average casual fan doesn’t pay attention to). My favorite thing is when a penalty gets invoked that I haven’t seen in like five years.
That said, the OP’s anger at the betting lines is something I share. I could give less of a shit about individual stat lines and their betting percentages. That’s not football, that’s just statistics.
