Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Fashion Sense for Athletes

Sometimes when I’m watching a sporting event on television, I find that I start to notice more feminine things that guys would never concern themselves with. My latest such thought-wandering occurred during the Super Bowl. I couldn’t help but notice how tight football players’ pants are. They literally look to me like they are wearing ballet tights. I understand that they are spandex and that football players need the room to move. But some of those guys look like they could use a size or two larger as their asses look like they have no pants on them at all.

Furthermore, I wonder how many football players wouldn’t be caught dead in actual tights. If you asked them to put on a pair of tights that fit them exactly the way their football pants fit, I bet the majority would have a problem with that, saying “I don’t wear tights”. But yet, on the football field, they feel perfectly comfortable in them.

This is in direct contrast to the shorts basketball players wear, which are extremely baggy. Some players wear “sports underwear” underneath them — they look like Fruit of the Looms but have legs, like Michael Jordan wears. This actually serves a larger purpose than just being underwear — they protect the player when they fall and their shorts ride all the way up, leaving them potentially exposed to millions of viewers. Until the day that basketball uniform shorts are made out of clingy spandex, I think all basketball players should wear sports underwear.

I also think basketball players should shave their armpits. There is nothing more disgusting than seeing a guy on the basketball court raise his arm and you get a bird’s eye view of four-inch long hair that is dripping wet and all matted together. Excuse me, I have to leave this blog to go throw up. I think that is about as disgusting as it can get on camera and I think they should all start shaving their pits.

In baseball, there’s nothing I find disgusting — only distracting, and that’s jewelry, especially chains around their neck. I feel it gets in their way as they move around and I also think jewelry is unsafe in active sports such as baseball. It’s also unsafe in sports such as football and basketball, but I believe baseball players take more liberties in this area. I think that all professional athletes should be required to leave their jewelry in their locked lockers.

Finally, there’s the subject of tattoos. Some tattoos can be sexy on a man. However, I also find them distracting when watching an athlete run around, particularly on the basketball court where they seem to be overdone. While they can’t come off, I think it would be great if athletes could take their tattoos off for a game and leave them in their lockers too.

On an up note, I like all the variety of style and color in tennis outfits. I think the pure white outfit with the little white skirt is straight out of the sixties and boring. I find the outfits that the Williams sisters wear and some of the other tennis players, including the men (a fad that I believe John McEnroe started), somewhat refreshing.

Please check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon.

The Animal Instinct in All of Us

Sometimes when we’re staring at the ceiling in the dark of night our mind can wander to the wildest of ideas. One such crazy thought came to me at 4:30 this morning as I lay awake in bed: that women, like most species, tend to follow the lead of the male when it comes to relationships. In other words, women develop an interest in the men who first show interest in them.

While it can happen that a woman falls in love with someone who has no interest in them and then that man eventually develops an interest in the woman as a result and falls in love with her and they get married and live happily ever after, I believe this is the exception, not the rule.

The rule, generally, is that the man shows an interest in the woman first and the woman notices that attention. He reaches out to her by asking her to dinner or for her phone number or by making eye contact across a crowded room. Even when we think feelings are mutual and the two develop an interest at the same time, I believe that, most often, something subtle was going on there first to bring the woman to the man’s attention.

This is very much the way it is in the larger animal kingdom. Males seek out a herd and locate and lock onto a female from a distance. They often use a mating call while standing on the outside of that herd, waiting to be accepted in by the female. But for the most part, the male arrives and makes himself available to the female, and the female has the option of accepting or rejecting him.

In this way, I feel that humans are very much like animals. Okay, I’m going back to bed now.

Please check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

A Zero-Waste, Carbon Neutral Soft Drink

Ad Age magazine is reporting that Coca-Cola plans to be carbon neutral at and produce zero waste from the Vancouver Olympic Games. That's great to hear. According to the article, cafe furniture will be made out of pine-beetle-salvaged wood; bottles will be made from 30% plant-based materials; and beverages will be delivered via hybrid cars and electric carts. I'm breathing better already!

Please check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon.