Tidbits!

Teddy: OK, Mommy is taking the day off so helping us update our journal! Spaulding: Little tidbits here and there we want to cover. Teddy: Like, Mommy found out that we could lose everything we tell her in this update of our journal, if she boo boos and clicks the wrong button. Spaulding: She thought she got smart by typing it in Microsoft word first, and then copying and pasting it, .... Teddy: But, after checking out what she posted the last time, she discovered that since this is written in its own language... Spaulding: ...not regular .html.... Teddy: ....which is why we chose to Blog in the first place--its easier to do this then use .html! Spaulding: it ended up using funny symbols instead of some of the words she typed! Teddy: That's why some of our old posts.... Spaulding: As if we've been doing this for a long time! Both: kehehehehehehehe Teddy: ...have words you might not recognize! Spaulding: so if you see stuff like &#}, try changing that into a symbol, like this '! Teddy: ...or just give up trying to translate it. Both: kehehehehehehe Spaulding: ALSO... Teddy: we discovered that boycotting Smackdown! is harder then it looks! Spaulding: Every time Daddy was channel surfing, he'd ACCIDENTALLY end up on Smackdown! Teddy: He was trying to negotiate another agreement with us and say we just won't watch Brock! Spaulding: Problem is, Brock was just doing what his boss told him to do... Teddy: It was VINCE MACMAHON's... Spaulding: THE PENCIL NECK GEEK! Teddy: ....fault! Spaulding: We're still boycotting, but I don't know how vigorous it will be, since Daddy channel surfs! Teddy: And the kids are confused too. Spaulding: They're upset that they didn't come out to watch RASSLIN' last Thursday! Teddy: We're hoping they'll be all right when we bring them out tonight to watch The Three Stooges tomorrow morning. Spaulding: We'll let you know how it works out! Teddy: And, as you may remember, we asked our buddy, Mawson,... Spaulding: He's from Australia, although his Daddy is originally from New Zealand.... Teddy: What Australia rule football was like! Spaulding: He answered... Teddy: He really answered so well that we like it and want to watch it with them sometime. Spaulding: Yeah, his family watched it together---Mawson, Scotland and Rumple! Teddy: And watched it upside down! So cool! Spaulding: AND...his Daddy s'plained it to Mommy... Teddy: PLUS s'plained all the other strange sports they have Down Under! Spaulding: Ever think we might be the ones with the strange sports? Teddy: Nah! We're always the normal ones, which makes everyone else weird. Both: kehehehehehehehe Spaulding: We understood the stuff the stuffed animals told us, but not so much about what Mawson's Daddy talked about... Teddy: But we know some, who read our journal, are people, so we want Mommy to copy and paste it on over, and then we can divide it into Stuffed Animal Interpretation and People Interpretation... Spaulding: So, no matter what species you are, you can read the stuff that you will understand! Teddy: But, before we do that, we also want to tell everyone our other news! Spaulding: On our e-group we met some Teddy Bears who live near us! Teddy: BabyBear lives in Philly (not the cheese but the city) just like us... Spaulding: And Beareh lives in Delranco, NJ, a little up the river from us! Teddy: He was born in Niagara Falls, ONT... Spaulding: That's where he got his name, eh?! Both: kehehehehehehehe Spaulding: But right after his Mommy's vacation, he moved with her to NJ! Teddy: Did you know that Mommy's Daddy right now is in the same providence as the one Beareh was born in? Spaulding: Yup! He's up fishing in a little town in Ontario, Canada! Teddy: AND we're planning a trip with all our friends to Hershey, PA, so Mawson gets to find out what it's like to visit a place that smells like chocolate! Spaulding: Which smells a LOT better then CHEEEEESE!!!! Both: kehehehehehehe Teddy: But, for now, we went out for a smorgasbear last night! Spaulding: It had a wide variety of hotdogs, coffee, animal crackers, biscottis, cannolis and grape jam... Teddy: AND, it was all-you-could-eat! Spaulding: AND, since it was run by stuffed animals, we weren't kicked out for eating too much, like when we eat at people places! Teddy: Beary yummy! Spaulding: So, now that we caught you up... Teddy: It's time for Mommy to cut and paste what Mawson and his Daddy b-mailed us. Spaulding: Take it away Mommy! STUFFED ANIMAL INTERPRETATION OF "OZZIE FOOTBALL" Dear Spaulding, It was good to reed yor explain about the rasells. Scotland the Brave rite away went to eeF5 Rumples. But none of us could remember wot count is after 3. So we made it ef3. Rumples spun about and his ears flew around and he took off onto the sofa and landed earsside up. Scotland was going to do the ropes thing two. But Rumples upside down on the sofa sed the upside down fotball was on the flicker box. It was the best teem, the Brisbane Bears. So we all watched the Beirs being the best. There woz a lot of crashing and rasling. And we remembered to tell yoo about it. There is more than 3 Peoples in it, Spaulding. All over the place. And the ones with whistles and flags are the most fun and they always win. And somethimes the Peoples in the crowd dont like that and they are most excitable. Then the other two teems -they dont have whisltes or even a ball - well they keep finding the ball and they kick and paw and fall down and crash some more. And the ball-in-there-somwhere goes between the posts a lot. Except when it doesnt. Then the Peoples in the crowd get the most excited. Then they finish and one team sings very bad humms happily. The other one goes home. Hugs, Mawson and Rumples and Scotland PEOPLE INTERPRETATION OF "OZZIE FOOTBALL" AND OTHER OZZIE SPORTS(I didn't copy and paste everything, so used "..." to show where some was not pasted.) Dear Lynn As a bear's guardian, officially (although, of course, it's he who guards me), I have been peeking at this bmail. While Mawson is very rightly completely baffled by the game, it may be that I can slightly unbaffle you. Although, bear in mind that Mawson's description could well be the more accurate one afterall!... ...Superbowl and sometimes other American football games are broadcast here, but I have no idea how you would have heard of or seen Australian Rules Football ("Rules," "Ozzie Rules," "AFL"- that stands for Australian Football League)....The game most played by the most people, but scarcely broadcast or reported, is Netball. The next one is probably soccer. (Professional soccer here struggles due to the iron grip on the game by ethnic teams. Old rivalrys go on between old European migrant groups, and the rest of the country just can't be bothered with this nonsense. Anyway, as a spectacle, its so BORING compared to AFL.)... ...Hockey and basketball, and Rugby league and Rugby Union (Come on the Wallabies!) are the next sports. AFL comes in almost last in terms of registered players at all levels, and yet it is the most watched. Its the most talked about, most broadcast, most written about, the one that fires up people. It is bruising and gladitorial, incredibly fast, with an injury toll that debilitates all the teams within a few games. And why the huge audience? In one word- women. Women love it. At matches, half the screaming fans are women- thats little, girls, grandmas, demented females of every age. Beware the matronly female fan- if she has an opinion, just dont argue! It is more than baffling, and not only to bears, what is going on here. While men enjoy the game, it's the ladies, who go bananas at the television set and use words about the umpiring that no little bear should hear even if he is singing VERY loudly at the time! AFL seems to be an unspoken code or permission for women to go wild.... ...And why is it nearly the least played? I'ts so dangerous. Most of the very same ladies, who buy the merchandise to deck out the whole family in team colours, wouldn't let their boys play the game in a pink fit.... ...I'll have a go at explaining the actual playing of it in another mark-mail, if you like. It has been most enlightening to learn more about the wrestling. I now realise the gentlemen you have described were on TV in previous years, and also they visited Perth a year or three back, on tour probably. But they aren't broadcast anymore. Probably swallowed up by the Pay-TV fiasco here- but thats another story!... The following is in response to Mommy's follow up e-mail... Mommy wrote: As for Netball, never even heard of it before. Mawson's Daddy replied: I've had to read this several times. To grasp it. Not even heard of Netball. Probably the foremost women's game in the world (outside the USA). Played indoors and outdoors, all ages. It's the forerunner of basketball, played on a similar court. One day people (men, according to what I read) got sick of retrieving the ball, so they put a backboard behind the hoop. Then they put a basket in the net. That made it all a bit too easy, so, on reflection, they raised the height of the hoop/basket/backboard. Then, they STRETCHED the players to be seven feet two inches and 500 pounds (no, no, that's rasslin'), to be seven feet two inches with HUGE shorts. And all the seven foot people were really happy. Ok, picture basketball, but with the girls (including short girls) stopping when they have possession. You have to pass, can't hold the ball, or run with it. Thats about it. Come to think of it, but only because you mention it, Lynn, and it HONESTLY hasn't otherwise occurred to me, but those tunic hems are rather trim to the ladies' bottoms. Mommy wrote: Now Ozzie football is known in the US for two reasons: we're big into macho, work hard, play harder, rough and tough kinds of sports, so admire it AND any Australian, who starts talking sports, has got to, out of sheer pride of country (which is the quality I think the US and Australia has in common, and I always pictured the two countries as the two "liked-mindest" in the world for having LOL), tease us on our wussy version of football compared to theirs'. And, truthfully, you do have us there! Despite losing 4-6 players per professional football game due to injuries, comparatively, our football is seriously wussy like in comparison. Now I'm sure I'm supposed to come back with a "sure, you got us beat there, BUT...", however, I never could figure out what the "but" is. LOL Mawson's Daddy replied: I can just imagine fellow Ozzies in America boasting, "In our football, we dont wear armour, so there". I am in the minority among my countrymen, however, because I don't think this makes American football "seriously wussy" at all. I have watched my step son play in a local amateur American football league (if its any kind of football, he likes it). My view is the "armour" makes it more dangerous. Armour, especially helmets have been tested here in Rugby and Ozzie Rules, and the injuries went up. So the players' apparent failure to protect themselves is not entirely without reason. I think it's like this: put the players in the gear, as in American football (can I just call it AF), and tell them to charge a bus, and they happily charge the bus and knock it over. Keep them out of the gear and tell them to charge a bus, and they think a great deal as they run at it; How can I lessen the impact, can I drop my centre of gravity, maybe turn a bit at the last moment, maybe aim for the corner of the bus etc etc. Very much the skills the wresters are showing really, in making hard hitting throws or whatever look bad but actually not jarring the body so much as it looks. So in all that bonecrunching, rugby tackling and AF tackling, the players have their ways of taking the impact - usually. Ozzie Rules differs, mind you, because the players are usually off balance when struck. The struck player can't do much about it. That 4-6 players per game is a very high figure by the way. That must come from all the charging at the buses parked in the middle of the ground! Yes, all these games are very hard hitting. I was flattened as a kid and have not tried again myself and I wouldn't wish an AF or AFL or rugby career on anyone. Good to watch though! (Clarification: "Despite losing 4-6 players per professional football game due to injuries...." I did mean the total for both teams, and was thinking of the guys who also come back into the game, despite ending up with some kind of torn ligament or broken bone. Often, they come back in a play or two later, but spend their off season having surgery on their injury.) (And another one: easier still, we call our football teams, in plural, as The NFL--National--as compared to World--Football League, and actually used to have 2 separate groups, the AFL (American) and the NFL, until the NFL swallowed up the AFL. A couple of years ago, the man, who owns the major Rasslin' businesses, also tried to start another football league, with major differences--all slanted to being rougher, tougher and more busty cheerleaders, or simply, a football version of Rasslin', but that only lasted one season. You'd think a man with such talent for business would be aware of the 3-7 year start-up rule for business--always assume a start-up business won't be profitable for 3-7 years, and, so, will need to be fed money nonstop for those first few years--and would know he'd need to expect no profit for, at least 3 years! For the next few years, a business can expect to be close to breaking even, but, of course, leaning on one side or the other of that line for a few years. Good news though, if you make it that far, it does count as a "successful" business. :::::::::::::::::Off my Mommy soapbox and back to the blogging::::::::::) Mommy (Mawson's Daddy asked!):And, as for women being into it much more then guys, I have my own theory. A recent survey discovered that, if given the opportunity to get a free year subscription to Playboy magazine, 80-90% of American guys would accept it. On the other hand, if the same number of women were given the opportunity for a free year's subscription of Playgirl, not a single one would want it! Makes me understand the Chippendale craze better. (Chippendales, in case you don't know, are male strippers. Great bodes, all including the much needed six-pack, firm buns and the ability to dance well!) Get a bunch of women in a bar with Chippendales and even the middle aged and old women go crazy trying to stuff dollar bills into the dancer's G-string! It's as if the Beatles came back for a tour and all American women became teen agers again! But, did you know that most women don't dress up to please guys? We really dress up to impress other women. Not sexual, but true. Sorta like if one guy buys a Hummer, the guy next door will want to go out and buy a Hummer 2 or a Harley-Davidson 1200! I believe the whole Ozzie Rule's is about impressing other women! To be hip! However, if you act like you like a sport, you better be able to talk about it in depth or you'll be found out! Now, if you start learning about a sport, chances are good you will start enjoying the sport. What starts out as a facade, ends up becoming real. Mawson's Daddy: this is such a strange take on the phenomenom that I believe you may have hit it. Now that I think about it, there is indeed a certain amount of women going out to the games with "the girls" in a similar way to the girls doing a night out together. :::::::::::::::::shy and humble look at me from Spaulding and Teddy:::::::::::: Teddy: Did we ever mention that our Mommy really, really likes to write?! Spaulding: She also is beary opinionated about many, many subjects. Teddy: Then again, it gives you some idea where our boldness and many opinions come from! Both: kehehehehehehe Spaulding: Well, it's night time and time for normal Saturday night TV. Teddy: Our whole family is watching TV now, ready for tomorrow's Three Stooges. Spaulding: Part of the fun is camping out. I'm the only one that goes back to the bedroom to sleep. Not like Mommy can sleep without me! Teddy: Daddy needs me too, but doesn't want to drool on me when he's asleep, so I sleep with the rest of the family. Spaulding: But it's time to spend time with the family soooooooooo.... Teddy: Until next time....