Tag: Partnership

Soccer Commentator Qualities

JulianLeave a comment

What makes a good soccer commentator? 

  1. Know the players on the field by sight, so you can rapidly say things like “Smith passes to Jones; Jones to Marmoset, Marmoset back to Jones…” 
  2. Make predictions based on your previous soccer experience, of the ilk “If France keeps playing like this, it’s going to be a 4-0 game before the half!” and “Johnson, would you call me daft if I said France were the favorites despite being down 4-2?” 
  3. Be human. E.g. “My son texted me at the half to ask why doesn’t England always play like this?” 
  4. When you have a hunch, puil up a statistic: “Y’know, I said earlier that this might be the highest World Cup game in two decades. Turns out it’s the highest scoring game since Sri Lanka vs Pakistan in 1982”. 
  5. Make comparisons to other sports about which you’re familiar: “There’s no defense on either side: they’re playing like the NBA All-Star Game right now!” 

Things not to do: 

  • Go on and on about one topic over and over again. (“Like I said earlier, some people don’t like there being a third place match. But this third place match was excellent.”) 

Having watched the World Cup this year, it turns out the traits of being a good commentator highly correlate with one particular demographic, and anti-correlate with another. So my biggest suggestion to you, should you want to be a good soccer commentator, is: 

  • Don’t be American. 

— 

An unrelated musing: 

Why are nachos better than salad? 

  1. Nachos: the best stuff is on the top so you eat it first. 
  2. Salad: the best stuff falls to the bottom. 

When you’re hungrier, food tastes better. So sequencing the food to have the best food first (nachos) is better than having the best food last (salad). 

Also the crunch. 

[Partner says she wants Nachos to be more like salad. I think she’s insane.] 

The Grasshopper turned Ant

JulianLeave a comment

(Only in one area)

I never understood weightlifting. Lots of pain, no obvious gain. 

Partner loves weightlifting. Her spirit animal is the ant. In graduate school, she could bench press more than her bodyweight, a particularly impressive feat for an estrogen-powered life form. (Among non-professional female powerlifting competitions, benching one’s bodyweight is generally enough to medal.) 

Earlier today, I benched 155lbs for 5 reps. A new personal record. Not very impressive for anyone who has lifted weights for a while. Still, I yipped with glee. I remember the day when I broke 135lbs (one 45lb plate on each side of the 45lb bar). Now, I crank out 4 sets of 145lbs with no trouble. 

“I remember the day when X was hard. Now, X is easy.” ← a wonderful lesson of weightlifting. 

A coaching client of mine has felt incredibly stressed this week. He tells me he wishes not to feel this way every week. I told him he won’t, for two key reasons: 

  1. If he truly wants to feel less stress, he can grow slower. It’s a real option. (One he’s not taking 😉)
  2. As you improve, the former difficulty feels easy. 

I’ve promised Partner that, when I can bench press my bodyweight, I will bench press her. We might be six months or a year away from that day. But one beautiful trait of the gym: if you show up and do the work, you will see the results. 

Lots of pain, no obvious gain? After a few months every day, the gain is unmistakable. Once I learned to breathe properly, the whole experience became enjoyable. 

And the pain? You mean the intense difficulty that only lasts for a few seconds? You call that pain? I call it fun. 

Arguing On Goal

JulianLeave a comment

Inspired by Mbappé’s miss at 55:25 in today’s France/Morocco game or 6:41 in this highlight video. 

Partner thinks that she and I had an argument earlier today. She is wrong. 

Partner thinks soccer players should miss more goals. She believes soccer players tend to be overly hesitant, and the best players (including Mbappé and Messi) shoot the ball sooner rather than waiting for the perfect moment that never comes. 

I also think that soccer players should miss more goals. I just think the manner in which they should rectify this mistake is more precise than her suggestion. I think they should miss goals by kicking the ball at the goal. (I.e. I believe missed shots on goal are good, not merely missed shots.)

When you kick a ball out of the end line, your opponents receive a goal kick. That’s bad. However, when you kick a ball toward the goal, sometimes it hits an opposing player or the goalie and ricochets back into play. In those circumstances, your team has an opportunity to regain possession or a rebound goal.

Both Partner and I agree that soccer players should shoot more balls. Both of us agree soccer players are overly hesitant. I take her insight one step further by only respecting an increase in shots that are on goal. 

Earlier today, Partner thought we had an argument. Now, I’m going to go tell her she was wrong.

Parallel Play

JulianLeave a comment

“Those who play beside others may desire the company of other children but may not yet have the skills required to play in an associative or cooperative manner.”

I introduced two toddlers today. They were told they’d meet each other. Child A even learned Child 1’s name before the interaction. When they actually encountered each other, they were each asked, “Do you want to [something like “play with”] [other child]?” 

Both said no. 

They played in the backyard near each other for the next 15 minutes. 

They ate dinner near each other for the ensuing 30 minutes. 

Child A said Child 1’s name. Child 1’s head snapped up. There were enough strawberries that there was no competition. 

They played in the backyard near each other again. Child 1 noticed and commented when Child A fell from their tricycle. 

Child 1 left to go home. Then Child A asked if Child 1 would come back outside. Child A was sad that Child 1 had left. 

Child A was happy to learn they’d get to play again tomorrow.

—

Subtitle quotation is from Bakeman, Roger; Brownlee, John R. (September 1980). “The Strategic Use of Parallel Play: A Sequential Analysis”. Child Development. 51 (3): 873. doi:10.2307/1129476. JSTOR 1129476.

Hermit Crabs & Kidney Donations

JulianLeave a comment

A spoken-and-transcribed guest-post courtesy of Partner, who caught upwards of seven hermit crabs today: 

Hermit Crab Homes

Hermit crabs grow, but their shells don’t, because hermit crabs don’t grow their shells but find them. When a hermit crab grows too big for a shell, it will find a bigger one. If the bigger one is too big for that hermit crab, it will just hang out near the shell, in the hope that some other hermit crab will come take that bigger shell and leave behind its shell. Because of this, you can get a whole line of hermit crabs: several smaller hermit crabs are waiting to size up their shell. As soon as a bigger hermit crab comes and takes that too-big shell, it will free up a slightly smaller shell, and then another hermit crab could take that slightly smaller shell, etc., trickling down. 

It’s like the kidney donation chain. 

The Kidney Donation Chain

If I wanted to give you my kidney, but you and I are not a match, we’d be out of luck unless there were two other people, one of whom wanted to donate and the other to receive, and we were a reciprocal match so could swap. But generally, there are so many factors required for a kidney to fit that a direct swap is improbable. And they only let something like two or three people form a loop because they want to operate all at once. They’re afraid that, if they do them sequentially, the buddy of the first person to get a kidney will renege on his donation at the end of the loop because his incentive to give is gone. 

Because of this structure, someone donating the kidney without needing a kidney for a friend or family member can change that loop from a loop into a line, which is really mathematically beneficial. And the altruistic donor is just giving away the kidney, no one’s on the hook for getting a kidney back to them, so there’s no risk of someone chickening out. If you choose to donate your kidney, you can kick off a chain that doesn’t just help the one person you are donating your kidney to, but can actually help all the people who exist in that chain, which can be a dozen people or more. 

BBC Earth video on hermit crab shell swaps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1dnocPQXDQ

Info on starting a kidney donation chain, including a way to get 5 loved ones to the top of the donation line if they ever need a kidney but you already gave yours away: https://www.kidneyregistry.com/for-donors/start-a-chain/

Costa Rica Conversations

JulianLeave a comment

Today, I am at a resort in Costa Rica. I swam in the ocean. Partner caught a lizard, a crab, and a pufferfish. I ate tasty food. I helped a friend with a Big Life Project. 

At breakfast, I ordered a matcha latte. Five minutes later, the waiter returned to say: “We’re out of matcha so I brought you a latte and a shot of Bailey’s.” Ah yes, the classic recipe: one unwanted cafe latte plus one 10am shot of liquor equals one cup of Japanese tea. 

Yesterday, when my parents and Partner were in the shuttle en route to the hotel, I called to give them advice. I told them how to check in and which receptionist was particularly competent. I finished by saying, “And Costa Rica is a very safe place, but part of that safety comes from the fact that they have a community warning system: everyone claps when there’s danger.” Little did they know: whenever a new guest arrives to this hotel, the staff claps. Upon hearing of this tale, my sister commented to my Partner about me: “There is nothing worse than when he’s not trolling”. Because apparently, while these trolls can be tough, the spots where she incorrectly thinks that I’m trolling are even worse 🤡

At dinner: 

Waiter: “This menu, are you finished with it?” 

Me: “You can leave it.” 

Waiter: “Can I take it?” 

Me: “You can leave it.” 

Watier: <Moves to take menu>

Me: “You can leave it.” 

Maybe this guy needs to spend more time with my toddler nephew to learn that “Can I?” can sometimes be met with the response “no”. 

Loops That Contain Loops

JulianLeave a comment

Loops within loops, which naturally grab me. 

A friend came over for board games. We played no board game. Instead, I convinced him to attend clown school and I mentioned the video game I’ve been playing. This game prompted him to ask curious questions. I offered to show him. He delightedly agreed! We played together for about 3 hours. Now he’s going to buy a copy so we can play multiplayer together on Tuesday. 

My description of the game’s structure intrigued him. I told him: “I like games with loops that contain other loops”. This game has many loops, each subsetting and supersetting in intriguing ways.

The Game (“Slay the Spire 2”) contains 17 Tiers, which contain 3 Levels, which each contain 18 Rooms, which could each be one of 5 Types, in which you add and subtract Cards from your Deck, which contains further-modifiable Cards. And you can traverse the whole Game as 5 different characters.

Its structure reminds me of a game I play with my Partner. When she does something well, I assign her some number of points – e.g.  “Two points for [Partner]!” When she accumulates 10 points, she can exchange the points for a ticket. When she collects 10 tickets, she can exchange them for a token. When she collects 10 tokens, she can exchange them for a point. (The score works because it’s arbitrary and pointless. If it were serious, I think it would be bad.) 

My highschool computer science teacher commented that I naturally think recursively. This interest may just touch a natural predilection. 

Partner has thusfar accumulated just over 45 points. I’m not sure she understands the rules. 

I like games like that, but bigger and grander and everywhere. 

I’m Now a Pirate

JulianLeave a comment

To guard your blind side, see it coming. You can’t. That’s the trouble.

At the Saturday market, the fruit vendor asked what happened to my eye. Surgery yesterday, I said. Then: “I’m now a pirate.”

He laughed. He handed us a banana and a peach for free, then offered a pair of melons for 5 euros. I said no. He said 3 euros. I said no. He said the French version of “come on.” I thanked him and said no. (I have one working eye, not one working braincell.) 

He totaled it up. Partner counted out the change. (We play a game when we’re about to leave a country. It’s called spend all the fiddly little coins. Yesterday I paid my rent in cents.) He held out his hand. I dropped the coins three inches closer than where his palm actually was. He tutted. “It’s new,” I said, about the eye.

Depth perception. One of the main benefits of binocular vision.

The costs since have been small and physical and easy to laugh at. I have to put medicated drops in the bad eye 3 times a day, and I can’t see well enough out of it to aim, so the eye can’t guide the drops that fix the eye. Tonight Paris Saint-Germain won, and Étampes spilled into the street to celebrate, and I caught about half of it. Partner walks on my left now so I can see her. I poked myself in the eye briefly when blowing my nose. None of it bothers me for more than a few seconds. The eye will heal in a week or two. I agreed to this difficulty. 

At the bakery, Partner said, “He’s staring at you. You should say some pirate things.” Or that’s what she told me later. She talks fast, and I don’t always catch her, so in the moment I missed it and bought my bread. 

Outside, she said, “How come you didn’t make pirate noises for the little boy? He’d have loved that.”

“Little boy?”

She laughed. “He was on your right side.”

That’s the blind one.

The drops, the coins, the half a celebration, the side she walks on now: Unlike things on my right side, I saw those coming. The boy, I didn’t see at all. A kid was standing right there, wanting a gift I was eager to share, and he’d picked the single spot where I’ve got nothing. I only know because Partner saw it and told me. 

Guess I’ll need a parrot for that shoulder. 

Fishy Paprikash

JulianLeave a comment

The dish is what the chef cooks. The meal is what the customer eats.

At 3pm this afternoon, I bit into a chicken paprikash. “This tastes fishy,” I said to Partner, and shifted to the other chicken thigh on the plate. 

Fifteen minutes later, Partner ate from the fishy thigh. “This tastes fishy,” she said. I agreed, and we continued on with our snack.

At the end of the meal, the waiter asked why we’d only eaten 2/3 of the portion. I said, “That piece tasted fishy.” 

The waiter took the plate back to the chef. Two minutes later, he returned. The chef had tasted the piece. The piece did not taste of fish. “The fish, you see, is kept in a sealed bag separate from the chicken.” 

Partner replied something like, “It tasted fishy to me.” I agreed. Partner clarified: we did not think it actually was fish, just that it tasted more like fish than chicken should. (I did not say anything. I thought it more helpful solution to let the guy spin his way to a result.)

The waiter left. He returned with a plate of pickled red onions. “We discovered what it is!” he said. “Three of us in the kitchen tasted and conferred. These may have been on it, so it might have tasted like fish.”

We tasted them. They tasted like pickled red onions. We said, “These taste like pickled red onions.” He insisted we smell them, then taste them. We smelled them, then tasted them. We said, “These taste like pickled red onions.” 

Neither of us had been terribly unhappy. One of the two chicken thighs tasted like fish. No biggie: there are plenty of chicken paprikash in the Budapest sea.

Later, as I reflect, I’m less irked by the fishy food than the denial. Whether or not the dish “contains” fish, our experience of it was fishy. Taste is an experience.

The waiter could have won. Studies show that dissatisfied customers whose experiences improve are actually happier than those who were never dissatisfied (the Service Recovery Paradox). How about honoring our experience? “I’m so sorry you experienced it as fishy. The chef tasted it and I tasted it and we couldn’t get to the bottom of it, but I hope you’ll give us another shot next time” beats denying the fishiness.

Throw in a free shot of palinka (super cheap Hungarian national alcohol that everybody’s grandfather makes), even better. Partner & I wouldn’t have drunk it (we’ve had enough palinka for three lifetimes), but that’s not the point.

We weren’t fishing for a discount or trying to catch some special treatment. But even if we are, he’s better off taking our bait. Floundering for an explanation only sinks the ship deeper. 

No amount of swimming upstream would change our reported experience, and a little humility would have been net-positive.

The chef tasted the food. We ate the meal.

St. Stephen’s Hand

JulianLeave a comment

When is a hand not a Hand? 

St. Stephen’s Hand is definitely St. Stephen’s Hand and is probably not St. Stephen’s hand. 

  • St. Stephen: 11th-century king of Hungary. Real guy. Had a right hand. 
  • St. Stephen’s Basilica: big church in Budapest. Contents include marble, gold, and a mummified right hand. 
  • St. Stephen’s hand: the actual historical hand of St. Stephen, dead 15 August 1038. 
  • St. Stephen’s Hand: mummified hand. Made the rounds: Croatia, Austria, now Budapest. Encased in an ornate golden box. 

The Catholic Church venerates this mummified hand as St. Stephen’s Hand. And thanks to fancy modern technology, we could test whether it’s also St. Stephen’s hand. 

But does it matter? 

Facts vs Hand-y Symbols

Carbon dating could tell us whether the hand comes from the right decade. 

DNA testing could tell us at least whether the hand is from a male and likely if the ancestry is a probable match (and not, say, an Egyptian mummy).

I don’t buy that it matters. 

The Hand of St. Stephen comes from the same organization that brought you The Body of Christ. To a Catholic, the eucharist is both the literal body of Christ, and Catholics who consume it are not cannibals. 

To a non-Catholic, those don’t jibe. 

Where laypeople see logical inconsistencies, Catholics have hyper-specific explanations fit for each circumstance. 

Idolatry is prohibited in Catholicism, thanks to the original constitution (the Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston). 

Yet, the entire basilica is organized around a mummified hand under glass, a money slot next to it, and candles you can light for €1.

Catholics say praying in front of The Hand is not idolatry. Most Protestants and nearly all Jews disagree. But Catholics have a particular distinction for this sort of behavior: 

  • “Veneration” is the appropriate honoring of a holy symbol that points the worshipper toward God. 
  • “Worship” is the inappropriate honoring of the symbol itself as God. 

In Catholic doctrine, categorically different. From the outside, indistinguishable. 

If I can’t externally verify whether you’re worshipping or venerating, is it idolatry? 

What is the sound of one St. Stephen’s Hand clapping? 

The Castle

In 1896 Hungary built a mock castle out of wood and cardboard for its millennium celebration: Vajdahunyad Castle.  

The castle proved so popular that, from 1902-1908, Hungary rebuilt Vajdahunyad Castle out of stone. This building blends Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque elements spanning ten centuries of Hungarian architecture. It now houses the Hungarian Museum of Agriculture. 

Partner asks: is it a real castle? 

Across the river and on top of the hill, the Buda Castle has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times over the last 750 years. The most recent incarnation follows severe damage in WWII, so it is newer than Vajdahunyad Castle, and it is in a modernist style, so it looks less “castle-y” than the Vajdahunyad Castle. 

The cardboard version was clearly not a “Real Castle”. What about now, after 100 years in stone? 

The Costs

Upon entering St. Stephen’s Basilica, one may light a candle for either 300 HUF or 1€. This conversion is the closest-to-accurate HUF-to-EUR I’ve encountered in Hungary. The Catholic Church does its math. 

Just outside the Basilica, one of the staff members instructs you to remove your hat. 

The Christian god, evidently, is offended if He cannot see the top of your head. The Jewish god, I hear, is offended if He can. Many people say this is the same god. 

I’m curious what happens if a Jew with a yarmulke walks in. 

A yarmulke is a hat. The instructions say “No hats”. 

Perhaps a yarmulke is a Hat that is not a hat. 

To enter the Basilica, one must pay 2700HUF (around $9), unless you’re a religious person (with certificate) or a pilgrim (with certificate). 

I wonder what price I could get for certificates sold at the door. 

If arrested, I would have to tell the police that my certificates are not fake; they are merely Certificates.