Watching the game - guy style

Last weekend, I attended a birthday party of one of my oldest and dearest friend. At the party, I met my old school mates whom I have not met for a while and whom I have been friends with for 27 years. So we sat around catching up on what was happening in everybody's life. Some have twins, our kids go to the same school, what do we do when our kids are such, mother-in-law issues, parent issues, car issue, work issues. Then we branch off where our genders are concerned.

Our wives started talking about the house, price of groceries, kids, school, teachers, shopping, shoes, clothes, other people in the party, "where the hell did she get that dress?", "omigawd, she just can't stop eating", "he is so ugly, he has got to be rich", etc.

We guys, after all the small talk, just moved on to sports and stuck there. That's what guys do. We were discussing some major medical development of one of us and the topic moved to the FiFA Football World Cup. That's right! It's football not soccer! We were discussing when we should get together to have a drink and watch some of the games together. It is important that we watch the game as a group because we guys have fantastic peripheral eye sight when it comes to sports.

We can't see dirt unless it is the size of a Mini Minor or carting your furniture away. We can't find our kid's clothes even when our lives depended on it. But we can see how a referee could make such a criminal mistake and not award a goal or call on offside when the player clearly isn't or when the ball SOOO clearly has crossed the goal line. We can see this plays even if we are sitting at the top of the stadium. Sometimes we can see these plays while we are at the bathroom.

So just what is so appealing about guys and sports? Needless to say there are many men who are not into sports. Notice I said "men" not "guys". These "men" are way too serious and gay to enjoy sports. You may think I am stereotyping but you know I am right. I have gay friends too and while they tried to watch the game, they, and this is their confession, either end up looking at the athletes' butt or starting to comment about their fashion in their heads. I guess it's like us watching women wrestling....which I don't!!

It is essential to us guys that we watch sports. I guess our DNA on us competing, getting rough and being absolutely stupid on global TV on HD, has some appeal. Consider a very prominent and successful French legend football player called Zinedine Zidane. A captain of his country and he is playing in the World Cup finals. Something like the Oscars for actors or the Masters in Golf or the World Series for baseball. In such a pinnacle moment of his career, what do you think he did?

He headbutt an opposing player. Got himself sent off the game and left his team with less one man and ultimately losing the game. That's guy instincts....looking stupid on global TV.

I very into football and basketball. I do follow tennis very closely and badminton. Now with Nicol David, Malaysia's own as the No 1 squash player, I follow that too. Some games, I just don't bloody get. Most American games. Take baseball and American Football. In American Football, men deliberately wear protection so that they go on field and BANG into each other....DELIBERATELY!!! What is that about? It's like a scene out of a sumo wrestling contest (don't get me started on that!!!) or a battle scene from the 10,000 BC.

I get baseball even less. You never know when it's going to end as there isn't any time limit. The call time out..talk it over....wait for the pitch and everyone must stay until someone wins. The you have the coach on the sidelines touching every part of his body in a particular sequence to denote a secret coded message. Thank goodness Al-Qaeda has not caught wind of such sophisticated methods.

"Oh wait a minute, he touched his cap, nose and crotch. That means he wants me to steal 3rd base or that it's a sign language for my caps want to smell my crotch or my crotch smells because my cap told it so."

If you want to read the scores and understand all the abbreviations, you need to take a short MBA course which includes a whole semester of chewing tobacco (tobacco not included). Then there is baseball chatter" Hey batter, batter, batter, hey no hitter, batter, batter hey!" I so believe that you have to be under fantastic influence of alcohol or drugs.

But looking at my sports, I guess every sport has it's own eccentricity. Maybe that's why women think we are idiots and can you blame them? How the hell did my gender ever get to rule the country? Well in Malaysia's case, it's actually ruled by the wife of our Prime Minister so looks like Malaysia is in balance with the universe.

Well, that was just a Chindian thought about our passion which is sports. I have to go pee so that I can watch the game with my peripherals. "HOWZAT!!!" " NOT OUT".

Cricket is another sport that I don't get. Whack the ball, run between the sticks. Hit your leg, "YOOOUUUUU'REEE OUTTTTT!". "Howzat!"

My baby turns 8

Another year, another few hundred grey hairs and another worry for me as my baby girl rushes to grow up. She turned 8 on Sunday and we as all 21st century parents are expected to do these days or they will write a book about us, threw her a birthday party. And as kids these days will demand, it won't be your normal come-around-the-house-and-hang-out kinda party for 8 year olds but the kind where you throw at the these kids-play-area-type places where you have to sell your spleen to fund it.

There are many of such places like Mega Kidz at Mid Valley and Kidz Sports at 1 Utama. We decided to check out 1 Utama. It was not too bad for 8 year olds. The play area was big and innovative with slides going down in spirals and the many other spots where you can crawl and jump and just be a kid.

Mandy invited about 30 of her school friends and until Friday, not many RSVP'ed. We had a full turnout and we found out that many parents didn't know what RSVP meant and what you were supposed to do with it. Their thinking was, "Hey you gave me an invite and it's up to me if I turned up or not but since you invited me, you have to prepare for my portion." For those of you who don't know what RSVP is, pls google it and make sure you do it!!!!

The birthday entertainment was not too bad. The guy hosting the kids was good but he spoke quite fast and it was a little difficult to understand but kids being kids, they just look at what others were doing and followed. He brought out this multi-coloured parachute and asked them to do all kinds of variations of running under it.

That parachute was about 12 feet in diameter. The kids were asked to run under them, get caught, then run out....come to think of it, it was a pretty stupid game....maybe that's why they liked it.

Food was normal stuff but the adult had some good curry chicken. So Mandy had most of her friends attending and of course her cousins and she had tons of presents. My 2 sis-in-laws and mom-in-law, drove down from Kuantan for the day just for her party and my cousins bought Mandy all the presents she wanted, so she was a real happy camper!

As mentioned, she had a lot of her friends who attended including one kid called James that no one knew who it was!! He came, played, ate, we paid and he went home with a party bag......and no one knew who he was!!! (Twilight Zone music playing....dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee...)

Anyway it was fun, I am without a spleen and my baby has grown another year. I am praying that she will stay at this age forever.