Blurt Thread III - Emporium of Unexpected Exclamations & Revelations

The Six Nations is still my favorite sporting event featuring a sport for which I don't really know any of the rules. The first weekend had a bit of everything and I can't wait for the remaining fixtures. Let's do that rugby!

Des: if you read this, will you please explain the basics?
 
The Six Nations is still my favorite sporting event featuring a sport for which I don't really know any of the rules. The first weekend had a bit of everything and I can't wait for the remaining fixtures. Let's do that rugby!

Des: if you read this, will you please explain the basics?

Oh yes please Des. Babyminx goes to her one class early so she can sit and watch Rugby practice. She says it’s so she can try to figure out the rules. I say since she is my child, it’s for the eye candy. (She fancies the one with the man-bun. He’s apparently quite tall and beefy.)
 
Terrible game, meathead players!

That might be for the best. If Babyminx procreates with one as smarty britches as she is, she might raise mutant super smarties who take over the world. Hmmm wait, I’d be their grandmother—that could have perks.
 
Rugby is an absolutely beautiful game - brutal and swift and complex and elegant. I can't possibly go into every one of the laws of the game, because I don't know them all, mostly. And it would be terribly dull.

Essentially, though, the ball may be kicked forwards but only passed backwards. There are 15 players per side, and 7 substitutes are allowed. Each player has a specific role, but all can attack, tackle, pass, kick, score tries, etc. Play is restarted in several ways, though if no foul is committed and the ball stays in play the game can go on for a long time without stopping. Each half is 40 minutes long, though the clock stops for injuries and penalties.

A try is when one team carries the ball over the try line defended by the other team AND PUTS FIRM DOWNWARD PRESSURE ON THE BALL - just running over the line with the ball does not count. A try is worth 5 points and a line is drawn back from where it was scored so that the scoring team can attempt a conversion - that is, kcking the ball over the posts. It is therefore worth scoring under the posts if possible, as this makes the conversion easier. The conversion is woorth 2 points.

Points can also be scored by kicking the ball over the posts from open play (a drop goal, worth 3 points) or from a penalty (a dead ball strike and also worth 3 points). Occasionally, if repeated infringements are made near one try line made b the defending team such that the referee deems a try would have been scored wthout such infringements, a penalty try may be awarded, which is also worth 5 points.

If the ball goes out of play, a lineout is played, thrown by whichever team did not kick or carry it out (unless a penalty was awarded, in which case if the kicker thinks it is too far to attempt to score, he is likely to kick it out). Throws are made to a line of usually 4 or more men, the opposition lines up equally and can attempt to steal the ball, and the throw must be straight. The advantage comes from the length rather than the direction of the throw. If a minor infringement is committed not worthy of a penalty, a scrum is given, and the team infringed against gets to put the ball in.

A scrum consists of the 8 forward players binding on to each other, crouching low, and attempting to push the opposing team backwards, or wheel them round 90 degrees, or force them to collapse or put their hands on the ground, all of which can result in the 'put in' being reversed. The number 9, or 'scrum-half', feeds the ball into the middle, and the number 2, or 'hooker', whose position is in the middle of the front row, tries to hook, or kick, the ball backwards, either to the man at the back of the scrum (number 8) for him to pick up and continue the attack, or to the scrum half.

I am sorry that was SO boring and also missed out virtually all the complexities. But there are loads of videos on Youtube which give a better flavour. Saucy, in England, at least, and I suspect in Australia where it is even more of a private school dominated game, the players are often pretty bright - it was not that long ago that it was a strictly amateur game and mostly player by doctors and lawyers. But the players have certainly beefed up, so mini-Minx might get the double whammy of brawns AND brains. One of my very favourite players, for example, is the England lock (tall player in the second row of the scrum and very important in the line out) Maro Itoje, a young man of Nigerian origin who is always talked about as one of the very best players in the world and is also studying for a degree at the highly rated School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He scrubs up nicely.

Thank you, Des. This is exactly what I needed! Let's do that rugby!
 
And mother-of-the-year slips through my fingers again

I just sent a link to your post to Babyminx. Thank you kindly Des. :rose:

And he does clean up quite nicely.
 
Back in NZ during the winter several times... caught up with an old friend from many years ago "Come see my band tonight" "Sure, what time do you kick off?" "Oh, after the rugby"

and that is how NZ is, the country largely stops and starts around the rugby

of course even my use of "what time do you kick off?" is not lost on me
 
You tell Babyminx as her home stay mother she is not allowed to date rugby players.
She said “yes Home stay mum. Most of them are short and angry looking anyway.”

Back in NZ during the winter several times... caught up with an old friend from many years ago "Come see my band tonight" "Sure, what time do you kick off?" "Oh, after the rugby"

and that is how NZ is, the country largely stops and starts around the rugby

of course even my use of "what time do you kick off?" is not lost on me
With our house, back in the dark times, it was always hockey. Our entire lives revolved around either playing or watching. I do not miss that in the slightest.
 
Sometimes my pm box has things in it that make me laugh and laugh. :D

Baking a cake because I’m all Betty Crocker and shit half the time. I need to put the Elle King station back on Pandora and get cleaning. . . Or maybe some disco. . Ooooh or a little Motown. Perhaps I should just hit the Random button.
 
Listen.


Sometimes the answer is right there, in the way she is speaking, and not in the words she is saying.
 
Mes Chers amis

1360182551027-19228810.jpeg


Some good news for a change, a bottle of champagne, some bourbon bacon glazed shrimp and grits, and a hurricane or two. Been a pretty good day.

Don’t have nearly as many beads as I deserve though. :D
 
Some good news for a change, a bottle of champagne, some bourbon bacon glazed shrimp and grits, and a hurricane or two. Been a pretty good day.

Don’t have nearly as many beads as I deserve though. :D

Congrats on the good news. Sounds like a great dinner. Sorry about the beads. More skin next time, I guess :D

I have a bead story as a consolation prize for you though. I was in Las Vegas at a big family friendly Mardi Gras party that filled several hotel ballrooms. My wife found some beads here at home that were anodized red color with little chili peppers spaced every couple of beads. Pretty awesome and I thought I might parlay them for a look at her basket of goodies later (even though she had given them to me, I can sweet talk).

As I was walking through the ballroom checking out costumes, this little boy saw the beads and his eyes went as big as tea saucers. Around his neck and in his hands were fistfuls of beads of all sizes and colors that he had been collecting (family friendly, mind you). He started following me around, very discretely at a distance with his eyes locked on the chili pepper beads.

After checking out costumes as I circled back towards my table I saw his mom pull him aside with a "don't bother that man" scolding. I couldn't hear her, but I could see the look of despair in his eyes so I turned back and handed him the chili pepper beads. His mom said, "You don't have to" but if I had taken them back from that smiling face at that moment I would have crushed his soul.

When I got back to our table I told my wife, who said she couldn't even remember where she'd found them - just that she hasn't seen any like them since.

Happy Fat Tuesday
 
How to momentarily forget a heavy heart? Tits. Tits everywhere.

220px-Lophophanes_cristatus_-Aviemore%2C_Scotland-8_%282%29.jpg


With a tit tit here and a tit tit there. Here a tit, there a tit, everywhere a tit tit. Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-Oooooh.

Next verse, boobies.

220px-Blue-footed_Booby_Comparison.jpg
 
Last edited:
How to momentarily forget a heavy heart? Tits. Tits everywhere.

I had a momentary thought to that very subject a couple of weeks ago "Tits. Tits everywhere." Actually a lot of those moments...

Oh and glitter as well.
 
I clutch my pearls when I think on those sharp shish kebab sticks protruding from your delicate olfactory organ.



It is the stuff of Vietnam war POW bamboo torture flashback nightmares, and a troubling example of the extraordinary extremes women will put themselves through in the pursuit of some mad ideal of beauty.
 
Back
Top