A Contest
By Mitch Berg
A local leftyblogger (who’ll not chisel another link out of me; Christmas is over, big fella!) took a shot at honing his descriptive skills last week.
It was, unfortunately a swing and a miss. So to help out, allow me to present a bit of a contest:
Who do the following terms describe:
- “Pasty”
- “White”
- “Out Of Shape”
Is the correct answer:
- Conservative Bloggers
- Liberal Bloggers
- Virtually every Minnesotan over the age of 22
The answer, of course, is “3”.
Just saying.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Speak for yourself. I’m in great shape, according to me.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Hmm…
Well, I’m a European mutt so the white more or less fits (although, really, I’m dark by Goth standards. What color would you call sort of a pinkish-beige?)
Not sure about the rest of it though.
Btw, I’m trying to get my current company to consider getting a HCI expert. I’m guessing it’ll be a while before they start taking it seriously, but this designed by designers/programmers thing just cries for a good Human Factors thing.
What department do they usually put HCI in? Given that we have Project Management, Design, Programming and QA, I was guessing Project Management or QA but I wasn’t sure.
December 12th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
So am I to understand that “pasty, white, and out of shape” is a bad thing?
Damn.
December 12th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Ugh, reading jbauer comments, no matter the topic, is the literary equivalent of being sloshed by the tongue of Clifford the Big Red Dog.
December 12th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Ahem…I think a few points of clarification are in order:
1. If you say that virtually every Minnesotan is pasty from November to May, you’re on pretty solid footing.
2. The latest survey which ranked Minnesota as the healthiest state says that something like 23-24% of the population is obese (the goverment’s defintion of obese is not what most people probably think of). So no, virtually every Minnesotan is not out of shape.
December 12th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
If at some point you say something relevant, maybe you can be taken seriously.
And the same courtesy will be extended to you, Clifford, in the unlikely event you say something relevant.
December 12th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
OK, I don’t know why I’m bothering to chime in because threats over the internet are irrelevant (or at least, they better be), but since we’re talking about Mitch’s ability to project force, I guess I can voice a relatively neutral opinion as I used to work with him and around this crowd it would appear I’m relatively unaffiliated.
I’m not a very big guy but I’m fit, I’ve had a fair amount of martial arts and I’ve worked as a bouncer. Keeping all that in mind, I sure wouldn’t want to pick a fight with Mitch.
When bouncing, I’ve dealt with significantly bigger and stronger people but when bouncing you’ve always got backup – if not the other bouncers and all the regulars, the police will almost always take your side – and you’ve generally got a significant edge from sobriety. If we were both solo and sober, unless Mitch has degraded significantly since I saw him last, the winner would probably be who wanted it more. He’s just not a little man.
I’ll grant that part of that perception could be that he tends to have a physical personality – he’s gregarious, fairly loud spoken and doesn’t have quite the personal space needs that some Minnesotans do. These aspects can combine in a manner that might make people who are physically insecure feel somewhat threatened and at the time we worked together, I was less physically confident than I am now.
Man, where did that decade go?
Chad,
If I’m not mistaken, obesity is significantly overweight and overfat. There’s a lot of “out of shape” between obese and fit. For instance, when I was up to 175-185 lbs, I was certainly out of shape but didn’t fit any definition of obese. (I’m a shade over 5’8″). I have known someone who was my height and fit at 200lbs but they had to work out a lot to maintain that. I’ve known a number of people my height that are fit at 170 – 190 but they either work out regularly or work in a physical occupation.
If 23-24% manage to get all the way up to obese, I’d say the number who are “out of shape” is likely to be substantially higher. However, I’d agree that it isn’t “virtually all”. I think our host was employing a bit of hyperbolic rhetoric to try and turn all this “threat by blog” crap into the joke it is.
December 12th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I like to think I’m as shallow as a toilet rather than a child’s book, but whatever works for you.
Perhaps you can pen one of your trademark Tolstoy-esque ruminations about the myriad layers of difference inherent in being toilet shallow as opposed to child book shallow. Be sure to include all your standard jbauer/PB literary devices, such as irrelevance, condescension, non sequiters and general asshole-ery. I’m sure it will be a spell-binding read, as always.
December 12th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Phaedrus-
Actually the government uses BMI (body mass index) to calculate obesity. If you’re 5′-7″ and 200lbs, you’re considered obese by that measure. It doesn’t matter if that 200lbs is soft sloppy fat or rock hard muscle.
At various points in their careers, Tom Cruise, Sly Stallone, and Mel Gibson would all have been labeled as obese. Mark McGuire was “obese” when he hit 70 home runs. It has nothing to do with what kind of shape you’re in.
Here’s a link where that info came from and a look at some “overweight” stars:
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/oped_detail.cfm?oped=160
“It’s not just full-blown obesity that has been bungled by numerical hocus-pocus. 39 million Americans went to sleep one night in 1998 at a government-approved weight, and woke up “overweight” the next morning, thanks to a change in the government’s definition. That group includes presently “overweight” (BMI greater than or equal to 25) movie stars like Will Smith (6-2, 210 pounds, BMI of 27) and Pierce Brosnan (6-2, 211 pounds, BMI of 27). Michael Jordan (6-6, 216 pounds, BMI of 25) and Cal Ripken Jr. (6-4, 220 pounds, BMI of 27) were also “overweight” at the height of their athletic powers. And so is our ultra-fit President Bush (6-0, 194 pounds, BMI of 26). Moreover, the standard that we abandoned in 1998 had the virtue of distinguishing between men and women–something we now do not even attempt to do.”
Now, you could also argue the other side of the coin. I know a lot of people who are at or under their supposedly ideal BMI who couldn’t run around the block without risking cardiac arrest.
December 12th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
*nod* Yeah, height-weight based BMI is a significant screw up. If I run a straight by the numbers BMI, I’m at around 25 but when I use the scale that runs the voltage through the body to measure resistance, I come in at 19 – 20. In either case, my waist-hip ratio is
December 12th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
phaedrus?
phaudrus????
Noooooooooooo! They killed phaedrus!
YOU BASTARDS!
December 12th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
well isn’t that interesting!
Hm. I wonder if it was because I used the greater-than symbol.
Here. Lets test:
Tomorrows winning lottery numbers will be > oops, I guess it wasn’t the greater than symbol.
December 12th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
hm. guess it wasn’t that. dunno then. in any case. the rest of the post was just providing supporting information agreeing that BMI is a stupid way to judge overweight and obesity.
However, I still say that if the body’s a temple, there is a lot of space to worship in Minnesota.
December 12th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Hmm. Let’s see. When I use a fork and a light socket to find my BMI through electrical resistance I get [B-Z-Z-ZT FLASH!] Oh. Hullo, Phaedrus! What are you doing here?
December 12th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Chuckling…..!
December 12th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
See, now we know why some of us have such spark-ling personalities.
Hm. The aliens must have broken my pun gland when they probed me.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Blah, blah, blah.
Pastiness, blah, blah, blah, president, blah, blah, blah, strawman, blah, blah, blah.
I stand by my earlier Clifford the Big Red Dog spittle analogy.
December 13th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
I still have the notes from my logic & rhetoric class where we were warned against “creating empty non-argument strawmen”. If only my professor had been able to grab the tail of Bush’s ear and whisper into it wisdom that would replace the vacancy that is filled with these self-same empty strawmen!