Category: Rantings

Venting, bitching, and like that

Strange Days

~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

49er-logo I have watched football for over half of my life, and this is rapidly becoming the strangest NFL season. Ever. The fact that it is only Week 3 coming up makes me nervous.

OK.
First off, the number of flags flying at each game should not out-number the ones flying at the United Nations. Are this season’s referees having to pass required eye-exams? Are they being audited? New quotas?

What it looks like, from a fan’s point of view, is that one ref throws his flag, the others don’t want to look like they’re not paying attention, so they throw their flags. Then, they huddle together to decide just what the penalty is going to be, and who is going to get it. Has anyone else noticed this? Did they hire the ‘temp’ refs from last year? Remember those guys?

BTW – If you can help answer any of these questions – don’t be shy – write a comment and clue me in, would you?

I would like to know if it is ‘off-sides’ when a player turns his head.  Is it ‘encroachment’ when a player moves his feet to get better balance? AND, I REALLY  want to know if the ref’s actually believe the guy who jumps up and down, pointing, like a bratty sibling, trying to get the other team into trouble?  Seriously.

Then we hear about a new “rule” about “inappropriate language”.  ARE YOU  F@$%&*#!!  KIDDING ME?!?  Come on, NFL, have you never watched a game on TV?  Can’t you read lips?  EVERY player, coach, manager and water-boy curses about things gone wrong.  That means one team is cursing after every play. The FANS are probably using worse language than they are, should we expect flags to be thrown at us in the near future?

Even baby and toddler fans cuss during football! Little 49er Fan
You can’t read their lips, but I’m pretty sure when they remove their pacifiers to say something – it isn’t pretty.

And get this – the new ‘rule’ does not come with a “forbidden word list”. I believed Bob Costa when he told us the NFL’s take on this: “The ref’s ‘will know it when they hear it’ “, because that is too stupid to not be true.  Eventually a team will learn what is allowed and what is not by when they get penalized. How fun to play this little game, within a game?  Of course, the fans will never know what was actually said to get the penalty, and for some reason this makes me mad. I don’t care who says what to whom and that includes commentators. I want to watch the game. Can I just watch a game? Like in the ‘old days’ when you maybe see one re-play instead of  the same re-plays and commercials over and over until you miss the next play, by the way. But that is another rant for another day, because I’m still ranting about the game in Week 2.

For the record, I want to tell that referee (and you know who you are), that it was very un-cool to throw a flag at a Quarterback (for unsportsmanlike conduct: using ‘inappropriate language’), after he just threw an interception, and was getting harassed by the other team, and maybe some of his own teammates. What a humiliating slap in the face for Colin Kaepernick, and the 49ers, especially at their home-field.  You couldn’t let that word slide, just this one time?  You even seemed happy to nail Colin for something.  That is not impartial refereeing. I know that Jay Cutler said a few choice words during the first half of the game, and yet, you did nothing.

Jerk.

Well, I have had my say about that. Thank you for listening.

And, it isn’t only the referees making this season strange…

What’s up with The Oakland Raider’s, and THEN The San Diego Chargers, BEATING the Seattle Seahawks?  This is a happy, happy dance, development, of course, although it’s confusing as Hell. You can bet here will be many wagers on the 49ers December line up:

  1. Seahawks
  2. Raiders
  3. Seahawks
  4. Chargers

I’m not a betting kind of girl, but if I was, y’all know who my favorite would be. 😉
By December, we (the 49ers & their fans) should know what exactly causes flags to fly & what words not to say.  The rookie goofs and other issues will be all worked out by December.  I am confident Jim Harbaugh will shape and tighten things up, like he has in the past.

Colin, if you’re listening, your fans know that you are a superb athlete and quarterback, and no matter what the newspaper reporters or sportscasters say, WE LOVE YOU.  NO BUTS. NO EXCUSES.  We are NOT fair-weather fans, we are the Faithful.  Always.    🙂

I wonder if Coach Harbaugh will be foaming at the mouth more often, since he cannot curse. I only mention this because he is so damned fun to watch. Oh-No! Is damned a forbidden word?  No offense Coach, but it’s not like we can watch anything else, every camera on the field is focused on you. [ Maybe you can carry a handkerchief, and give us a wave sometime. Just sayin’.  We love you too!]

I have a feeling we will still be lip-reading this year. I have not gotten a yellow flag in my face yet, so “damned” may not be on the forbidden list. Either way…

GO NINERS!

J

 

 

 

 

 

Science: Facts or Not?

~ JodiLea ~ 2 Comments

SolarSystem I cleaned out (yet another) box from my parents house today. All of the crap stuff that sis and I brought home from school, K-6, appeared to be in there. Pretty boring, until I found a school project that I put together in 5th Grade. It was 1969 and the US Space Program was deep into the Apollo missions. My teacher thought we could learn something about what was going on and making history in our lifetime.

So, along with reading, writing and math, we studied Space. Miss Curtis had us keep notebooks to keep track of the different Apollo missions: The launch date, their mission, which astronauts were assigned, etc.,

The sort of information that NASA now classifies.

Creating classified documents was merely a fraction of Miss Curtis’s 5th grade classwork. We had space terminology to learn and study for spelling tests on that terminology. We had to keep an alphabetical index of all the words, their pronunciation, as well as definition. I didn’t really remember keeping the notebook, but I do remember sitting in front of the TV, watching Saturn V launches. Anxiously watching the clock at NASA when the astronauts were out of radio contact. We didn’t know we were holding our breath, until we heard a crackling “Houston this is Apollo, do you read?”

I was reading this notebook and I made a thrilling discovery. There it was, all this time, sitting in a dusty box in the garage. I can prove the truth about Pluto! According to the definition  “planet”, along with diagrams of Earth’s Sun and the planets that orbit it – Pluto IS a Planet.  SO, all you erudite scientists – stop saying it isn’t!  Are you calling Miss Curtis a liar!?

Children learn scientific “facts” in school. You can’t come forth decades later and declare a “fact do-over”. It isn’t right to decide Pluto is not worthy of being a planet. You can’t just rip him out of our solar system. We love Pluto.

I feel like I wasted those years in grade-school, learning temporary facts.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of temporary facts…
IT’S A BRONTOSAURUS, DAMMIT!!

TTFN,
Jodi

 

What The – !?!

~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

I need to stop reading the newspaper. My blood pressure is still high from trying to comprehend an article I read yesterday morning…

** For the article in its entirety, see:  http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/06/18/petition-seeks-return-of-grizzly-bears-to-the-west/ **

GrizzlyHabitat
slow witted, ain’t he?

An environmentalist group, is petitioning  Federal Wildlife Managers to go forth with an update to a decades old recovery plan to help the grizzly bear move off of the “threatened” species list.  The group, the Center for Biological Diversity, has filed a lawsuit with the US Fish and Wildlife Service accusing them of using a ‘fragmented approach’ to recover the threatened species.

Are we still talking about grizzly bears?  Just who is threatening them?  I mean besides the idiots that want to relocate them? Those same idiots won’t be doing the ‘relocating’, will they? Nooooo. They expect the US Fish & Wildlife Services to do it. In other words, we taxpayers will be paying for the Grizzlies moving expenses.

“110,000 Square Miles of Potential Habitat Identified in Colorado, California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico Could Support 4,000 Additional Grizzlies”. HA!  Someone actually did a study and came up with this hooey.  Did they think to ask the species’ who now occupy this ‘potential habitat’? Both Black Bears and Humans are already here in the Sierra Nevada. My family lives in the Sierras, and we vote NO. NO. NO on Grizzlies! Let them stay in Alaska and Canada where they like it. They will hate the “forested areas” in the southwest also. Why? Because they are in the FREAKING DESERT!  Please re-think this plan and don’t send grumpy grizzlies out west.

According to MY studies – there is a species that lives in a diverse range of habitats. Humans. But humans are not an endangered species. So they don’t need any protection, or consideration apparently, when environmentalists protest, file lawsuits or make demands in the name of a defenseless species. Humans, could become a ‘threatened’ species upon relocating Grizzly Bears into their habitat.

There are no caribou or elk up here for grizzlies to eat. What deer we have are few, thanks to the mountain lions. Can Grizzlies out run a mountain lion? Probably not. So that leaves the grizzlies a few scrawny wild turkeys, domestic animals, and people. To eat.

Do the math. People are by far the easiest to catch.  If that does not stop the environmentalists from their ridiculous quest, perhaps the red flying squirrels, black-backed woodpeckers, and gray wolves will. Grizzlies could eat those endangered species too.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a busy organization. They are suing US Fish and Wildlife Services for several species who they claim had ‘inadequate protections’.

  • Black-backed Woodpeckers
  • Southern CA Red Flying Squirrel
  • Florida’s Microscopic Ichetucknee Silt Snail (WTF?  a microscopic snail?)
  • Southwest Jumping Mouse
  • California Gray Wolves
  • Western Pond Turtles
  • Lesser Prairie Chickens

In my humble opinion, someone should do a study on how  ‘environmentalist’ groups keep screwing with Mother Nature. Better yet – a relocation plan to a different habitat that ‘would support them’ might be in order.

I have no idea where that would be.  😉

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photo credit: yosoynuts via photopin cc