#T2 ACTE SPORTS

[plan-3-tmars]

Dogs Vs Cats and Social Expectations

Alright yeah I’ve stooped this low. His answer here is just really interesting to me because of well idk maybe the fact his T2 song is called CAT? So I’m throwing this out here.

this is like kind of a joke. kind of a character reading. 100% a mess - with that established let’s get into it!

Q: Do you like animals?

A: Well to an average extent. I had a dog back in my parent’s place.

What do you think of when you hear the word dog? If you said an active, most likely well-loved animal then we’re on the same page. It’s the typical dog lover stereotype and even if you didn’t and said something like high-energy, I bet they were still positive adjectives, right? Now what about cats? Were the adjectives more like grumpy, lazy, introverted? More negative descriptions? Well there’s actually a psychological reason behind this.

Dogs are, typically, more well loved then cats if they don’t act like cats and that’s for one main reason: psychological ownership. It’s the feeling of something being yours and is strongly associated with emotional attachment, so we care more about things that we feel belong to us. This feeling generally comes from having control over something, when you’ve invested time or money in something or if you know something very well.

So how does this tie into dogs being more favourable then cats? Well control of course. It’s easier to control a dog then it is to control a cat, that’s simply a fact. Dogs being easily impressionable makes it seem more like you “own” them, as they probably wouldn’t fair as well by themselves as a cat might.

Now how does this tie into Kazui? Oh well I’m glad you asked!!! Kazui’s parents tick all of the ways the feeling of psychological ownership can manifest in dogs.

Some of the answers to Kazui’s questions in this interrogation make it seem like his parents, specifically his father, are very controlling. Answers like “It seems like my father was also wishing I’d “be a strong man”” and “it seems like he wanted me to become a policeman as well”, there’s a theme of control here. They’ve also obviously invested money into raising him, but also from the answer “I got into a Sport Science University by recommendations”, he’s clearly smart so they’ve invested in his education too. And they’re his parents, they’ve gotta know their son well.

Yet Kazui’s T2 song is titled ‘Cat.’ And he asks to “be loved as a cat.” Cats … who are often not as well liked in society unless they are a breed that acts similarly to dogs, the norm fan favourite, then it’s scientifically proven that those cats garner more love. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Like a certain someone lying for the sake of true love, not because they actually felt it, but for them to be more normal? More like what’s expected of them in society?

[seviinoxiel]

Mahiru T2 MV Thoughts and Analysis

Before I start, I would just like to say that I have very little to add towards any theories regarding Mahiru's murder nor do I intend to theorize about anything other than Mahiru's mental state in the context of the T2 MV. I'm admittedly very scatter-brained and I cannot for the life of me make a conclusive proper theory so some of the things I say here may fall better under speculation.

This post will be divided into four parts, namely:

Overview of the MV

Other Notable Imagery

Lyrics

Synthesis

TW: death, suicide, depictions of suicidal acts, toxic relationships, unhealthy relationships

Before Trial 2, we all already know that Mahiru has a warped sense of love. Although this love was not malicious, it manifested in a destructive way which soon led to her crime. However, from Trial 1 (assuming that her journal, specifically the pictures, were mostly factual) we saw that there did exist a sense of normalcy in Mahiru's relationship with her boyfriend. We also know that he was her first boyfriend and that, as much as she values love, she was quite immature going into the relationship. Now in Trial 2, we see how this immaturity and naivety spiraled out of control as she tries to grasp on her idea of love and loving.

Part 1: Overview of the MV

The MV starts with her boyfriend, his shoes on the ground, his body suspended in the air, wet and motionless. It then transitions to this scene where Mahiru is holding one of the carousel horse's poles, his boyfriend's body still suspended in the air on the other side. 

This, I believe, is an important scene depicting how Mahiru feels guilty for taking his boyfriend's life, whether directly or indirectly. The way the scene is framed makes it appear as if Mahiru is holding the other end of the rope that is tying up her boyfriend. She was the one that pulled him up to be hanged, figuratively speaking of course.

Notice how the poles of the other horses are fully visibly going through them while the horse that Mahiru is leaning on has the bottom part more obscured? I would surmise this to be an intentional framing approach to make it appear as if she's holding the end of something. This something can be inferred to be a rope with the context of the boyfriend's hanged body in the same frame.

There is also a pole in the middle of the frame, which admittedly looks more like a rope than the poles with the horses on them, that I believe has been put there to show that Mahiru and her boyfriend are, or were, on two different pages. She and her boyfriend are separated. Add to it the fact that Mahiru is looking away from the body and we can infer that not only does she have a small bit of denial towards what she has done but also guilt.

Next scene has us watch Mahiru as she sits down on a couch and sees a dilapidated table with broken and scattered utensils and other dining paraphernalia. She responds to this by closing her eyes which then leads us to the next scene where the previously trashed table is all clean and now sporting various foods. 

Mahiru is slowly realizing how dire and ugly her relationship was with his boyfriend, and she cannot accept this truth. She closes her eyes which prompts, what I interpreted as, a flashback to when she still saw everything as full of life and she and her boyfriend are together in a happy relationship.

A tea set often symbolizes communication, pleasantry, and elegance, and I think the former two apply to this scene the most. The intact table and tea set shows her idealized view of her relationship. She and her boyfriend communicated properly and there was mutual understanding between them. I speculate that there was truth to this, that their relationship was once stable and I believe the next scene proves this. 

It shows Mahiru's boyfriend setting off a party popper and cheering up Mahiru. Then we see him giving a small bit of cake to her. The boyfriend was leading the relationship, although Mahiru still held some initiative. 

I believe this to be what first solidified to Mahiru what love meant. The boyfriend was giving her affection and she felt happy and elated as if there was nothing else in the world that mattered. She was in love. She then made a faulty connection between these two in her mind. "Love must be an act of giving. If I keep on giving affection to someone, if I love them, then that should make them happy just as it made me happy," is probably what she thought.

We then see the carousel begin to spin, but it notably distorts during the times when the boyfriend was showing affection towards Mahiru. 

I think what's being portrayed here is Mahiru twisting these acts of affection throughout the relationship into something much grander which kickstarts, and later fuels, her delusions.

Carousels often symbolize budding and innocent romance and cycles. Both of these would apply to their relationship. It was a romance that is still in the process of fully blooming, but it was also a relationship which kept going because of a cyclical give and take between the two of them. Considering Mahiru making out the act of giving as the meaning of love, and that she values love above all, this cycle unfortunately only led to things going out of control. 

It is worth noting that in the next scene, we see Mahiru pull her boyfriend. At this point in the relationship, she was the one leading it. 

After they spin around for a bit, we then witness the relationship decaying. They both sit on the intact carousel for a while before it fades into them sitting on dilapidated horses, their clothes tattered, the boyfriend noticeably a bit lethargic and Mahiru still smiling and blushing. The background has also changed into a forest.

Now, I believe that, although the boyfriend did die in a forest much like this one, the forest depicted in this MV is metaphorical. The relationship at this point has become unhealthy and they both were lost in a figurative sense. The boyfriend especially has been worn down. Despite this, however, Mahiru's idealized view of their relationship fills her mind and she is none the wiser to just how destructive it truly became.

The next few scenes are the last leg of the MV and I’d like to talk about them all in the context of the entire sequence. The sequence starts with Mahiru leading the boyfriend in the forest. The boyfriend then drops on his knees, quivering, his fingers dig into the soil. He raises his head to look at Mahiru with a desperate pleading look. Mahiru takes some time before turning around and noticing him. When she did notice him, she had the idea to feed him a big slice of cake, or at least in her mind it was a slice of cake. It was then revealed through a series of cuts that the cake she’s feeding him were actually dead rats. We change scenes into the shiny and clean carousel again before it fades into its dilapidated state. We see the horses go one by one until it stops as the boyfriend’s hanged body comes into view, abruptly ending the MV.

That was a lot.

As we saw, Mahiru was already in complete charge of the relationship. She was walking and the boyfriend started to seem like he was just following out of necessity. Once the boyfriend drops, we see that Mahiru still walked a few steps before she realized what had happened behind her. When she noticed her boyfriend though, she completely misconstrued his gesture. We have talked about how Mahiru sees the act of giving as love and that doing so can make someone happy and not worry about anything, much like it has done to her, and so that’s what she did. I maintain that her boyfriend kneeling down symbolizes him wanting to desperately give up on the relationship and break up with Mahiru. However, she didn’t see it as a sign to end the relationship. She probably saw it as just a “breakup ritual” which she thinks is normal for couples to have. It was just another bump in the relationship they can get over with if they have love. So Mahiru stuffs her boyfriend with love but, as we saw, the cakes are actually rats. The love that she was trying to give to her boyfriend was unhealthy and toxic at that point and it just so happened that that was the last straw for the boyfriend.

The carousel kept spinning for a while, all pretty and sweet thanks to Mahiru’s delusions, but all of a sudden the truth came crashing. The carousel finally stops with the death of her boyfriend.

Part 2: Other Notable Imagery

I’ve discussed a lot of imagery that can be easily seen from the MV in the first part so I don’t have much to say in this part. I did notice two things in particular that may be crucial information when it comes to identifying the specific nature of Mahiru’s crime.

The first one I’d like to point out is something that I’m pretty sure everyone already noticed and I’ve mentioned it in passing in the previous part. The boyfriend’s body at the beginning of the MV is wet and his shoes are directly under him.

I’m not sure what the wetness may imply but I do know that it opens a lot of avenues when it comes to discussing theories. For now, I want to focus on the shoes. I think the shoes indicate that this is the true state of the body and that everything past that point in the beginning is a figurative way of showing Mahiru’s thought processes. For the rest of the MV, in the scenes wherein the boyfriend has tattered clothes, he does not wear shoes nor does the hanged body from the start as tattered as it was during the forest scenes. I stated prior that I also believe that the forest shown in the MV is not the real forest wherein the boyfriend died. Rather, I believe that the forest in the MV only alludes to the real forest and also represents that their relationship has been overgrown and that they are lost because their relationship has grown so foreign.

Moving on from that, the other thing I noticed is that throughout the MV, in the scenes with the carousel in it, there was always a green horse lurking in the background or in between the blue and red horse. Additionally, from the many scenes in the MV where Mahiru and her boyfriend are present alongside the carousel, they are always beside a specific horse color. Mahiru is always next to a red horse while the boyfriend is always next to a blue horse.

I admittedly don’t know what to make of this detail aside from the fact that the green horse must represent another possible variable in their relationship. This variable must be omnipresent throughout the relationship and it must affect their dynamic in some way, either directly or covertly. It may be money or other material things needed to sustain a relationship or it may be some underlying emotion or abstract feeling. Either way, I cannot think of anything conclusive with the information we’ve been given. Feel free to tell me your thoughts on what it might mean.

Part 3: Lyrics

In analyzing the lyrics, I want to dedicate a section for the official translated English lyrics and another one for the original Japanese lyrics as I also found some interesting things about it. Do note that I’m not fluent, far from it, in Japanese so these are very superficial details I’ve noticed that I found interesting as a non-speaker.

English Lyrics

Clothes Food Shelter + Love and Miss you

The first line of the song describes what Mahiru believes to be the essential parts of a relationship. Aside from just having clothes, food, and shelter (material needs), a relationship most importantly needs love and “miss you” in order to work. The “miss you” part gets expounded on the next line of the song.

“See you next week?” sounding in cadence

Mahiru sees missing your partner as a crucial part of a relationship. To her, “See you next week?” is a natural part of a relationship and that it’s something she herself always expects. Everytime she hears it, it sounds like music and as if it has a cadence. It keeps her anticipating for the next week and it feels like a promise that her boyfriend will be there again in the future.

The meaning of life while guilty, I can’t even breathe anymore My lethal weapon: “This is how to be in love with you”

The next lines above describe what she feels at the moment. By voting her guilty, we’ve pointed out that her love was wrong. She feels as if she can’t breathe anymore because she lives for love, the love that caused her persecution. Her pertaining to, “This is how to be in love with you,” as her lethal weapon is her referencing the fact that it was her love that seemed to have become a weapon that killed her boyfriend. It also very clearly references her T1 song where she sings exactly about how she loves and the things she thinks are normal and expected in a relationship.

It’s ok for everyone else but not for me Unfair and stuck between in love and love Kiss good-bye to this feeling cuz it’s too heavy? I can’t, no way no way no way

In the above lines, she points out how others are free to love while she has her love scrutinized and that she cannot just easily let it go despite it crushing everything under its weight. The second line makes more sense in Japanese and I’ll go into later as it has interesting wordplay in it.

What am I supposed to do now? If you won’t tell me, I can’t be me

This line might be referencing how she learned her idea of love first and foremost from how her boyfriend treated her. She is probably looking for an alternate way of loving. If we don’t tell her how she’s supposed to love despite telling her that her way of loving as it is is wrong, then she doesn’t have anything to go off of. She still wants to love.

Clothes Food Shelter – Love and Miss you This adorable, earnest, sincere ♥ Is bleeding, wailing, this is the end What you trampled is my, “This is how to be in love with you”

The love and “miss you” that once accompanied her love is now gone, the first line in part above referencing the first line of the song. Her heart is in pain and bleeding because, as I mentioned before, by voting her guilty we have told her that her love is wrong, that the reason for her entire being is wrong.

This can’t go on, something’s got to give, I even love saying the words, “I love you” My emotions are out of control, that’s inconvenient? I don’t care! Tell me, oh tell me why, won’t you just accept me?

She can’t go on anymore knowing that her love is unaccepted, but she still cannot stop trying. Us voting her guilty equals to her that we don’t accept her love which is akin to a rejection, with her T1 song acting as her confession and profession of love.

Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love Mon-mon-monstrous, cuz I love you so much Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love A monstrous dilemma!!!

The translation for this chorus is actually really interesting. In the original Japanese lyrics they used the word “dai (大)” which simply means “big” or “great”. The word “monstrous” not only has connotations for big and great but it also implies destructiveness which I find appropriate for the love that Mahiru expresses. However, she now finds it a dilemma because she is starting to have the tiniest bit of doubt towards her love.

I don’t need anyone else, as long as I have you I could do anything as long as you smiled, I actually believed that

While these lines could very well be said towards her boyfriend, I think this could also be her singing in general terms towards the object of her love, whoever that may be. She is highly dependent on the happiness of her boyfriend and those that she loves, that is why she always tries to keep on giving and loving because that was what made her personally happy. She wanted to share that happiness to her boyfriend but she started becoming deluded by her idealized version of this process. She genuinely believed her boyfriend was happy but it was only her mind making her think and see this way because if she recognizes otherwise she won’t be able to take it.

Saying I love you but doing what I did, I know I have no right, crossed and covered in sin My love, it scored an own goal, destroyed my love and me with its weight Tell me, oh tell me why, can’t I just do it right

She has now begun feeling extremely guilty for what she has done and the responsibility is starting to truly affect her. The second line makes a reference to another line earlier in the song about the weight of her love. This love has become overbearing and suffocating and it has now collapsed under its own weight destroying everything Mahiru cherished. Despite it all, she still holds the desire to love. She wants to love, but she is dreading the fact that she just can’t seem to do it right.

Japanese Lyrics

I will only point out two things I personally found interesting in the Japanese lyrics as someone who does not speak Japanese. The first one is the chorus which goes as follows:

大大大だってすきすき 大大大だってだいすき 大大大だってすきすき 大問題！！！

The repetition of the 「大」 makes for a catchy tune and it makes your brain accustomed to it simply being a way to make a rhythm. Thus, it really had me fooled at the last line when it went 「大問題」 because in my mind the 「大」 was still just that and that the line went 「大もん大」 so I was a bit surprised when I look at the lyrics. I just found it neat as someone who doesn’t know much about the nuances of the language.

The second thing I found interesting was the second line of the song which went:

理不尽　between　恋＆愛

Which translates to something like, “Unreasonable [stuck] between love and love,” but the interesting part is the 「恋＆愛」 part is actually the characters for 「恋愛」, read as “ren’ai” and meaning “affection or falling in love”, separated. Additionally, 恋, read as “koi” and 愛, read as “ai”, by themselves are both words used to denote love. However, 愛 is associated more with true love while 恋 denotes intimate love, a physical or romantic relationship, infatuation, and such. So Mahiru was basically saying she's stuck between those two ideas of love, not knowing what she truly feels.

What's also interesting is that when you listen to that part during the song, Mahiru sounds like she's saying 「れい＆あい」, read as “rei and ai”. Now, 「れい」 could mean a couple of things but knowing Mahiru's situation it would probably mean 「零」 here, which translates to “zero” or “nothing”. If we interpret the lyrics as 「零＆愛」 then it could be referring to how Mahiru views love as all or nothing and what she feels now is unreasonable to this binary she made love out to be. 

Part 4: Synthesis and Conclusions

Mahiru’s T2 MV and song are really interesting and offer us a lot of information about her mental state both prior to Milgram and in Milgram. Her MV was good and I saw so many people be speechless and shocked when it dropped. The song was catchy as well and her VA did amazing as usual especially during the rapping part. Thank you Deco*27, Okasaki Miho, and the rest of the Milgram team for that if you’re reading this.

As for Mahiru’s character herself, love is her entire raison d’etre and she is quite persistent with her ideal image of love that it takes more than death for her to fully grasp its consequences. I do believe that there is nothing wrong with her love and that she should not be persecuted for the fact that she loved. Rather, I feel as if we should criticize her methods and how she acted in the circumstances she was put in. It was okay for her to view love as an act of giving or as an act of selflessness, but it was her actions that twisted that mentality into an ultimately selfish thing. There are a lot of angles people can take in analyzing her character and theorizing her crime, and I’ve seen very polarizing theories. For the record, I personally believe that Mahiru did not directly kill her boyfriend nor did she have any direct involvement in nor malice towards his death. She also seems to be expressing true guilt. Because of those things, I'll be voting her "innocent" (and you all should too).

Anyway, with all that said, please let me know what you think. Feel free to correct me as well if I provided any incorrect information. Thank you and I hope you enjoyed the MV and the song as much as I did.

[physics-scholars]

Ms. Sathya

Thank you for the question you posed. And answer follows.

▪️

How to tell the students where to use integral where not.... In impulse why we are taking integral❓❓

A: Explaining when and where to use integrals to students, especially in the context of impulse, requires clear and concise communication.

Here's a step-by-step guide to help you convey the concepts effectively:

▪️Introducing Integrals:

Start by briefly explaining what integrals are and their significance in mathematics. Tell students that integrals are mathematical tools used to find the area under a curve or to sum up infinitesimally small values over a given interval. Mention that integrals are commonly used in calculus, physics, and engineering to solve various problems.

▪️Concept of Impulse:

Next, introduce the concept of impulse in physics. Explain that impulse is the change in momentum experienced by an object when a force is applied to it for a certain duration. Emphasize that impulse is a vector quantity, which means it has both magnitude and direction.

▪️Force-Time Graph and Impulse:

Demonstrate the connection between impulse and the force-time graph. Show students a graph of force against time for an object subjected to a varying force. Point out that the area under the force-time graph represents the impulse exerted on the object.

▪️Integral as Area Calculation:

Now, link the concept of integrals to the area under the force-time graph. Explain that the integral of the force function over a specific time interval gives us the total impulse experienced by the object during that time.

▪️Mathematical Representation:

Write down the mathematical representation of impulse using integrals. For instance, if F(t) represents the force function over time, the impulse J experienced by the object from time t1 to t2 can be calculated as follows:

J = ∫ F(t) dt (from t₁ to t₂)

When to Use Integrals for Impulse:

Clarify to students that they should use integrals to calculate impulse when the force acting on the object is not constant over time. In cases where the force varies, integrating the force function is necessary to find the total change in momentum.

Examples:

Provide practical examples to illustrate the use of integrals for impulse calculations. For instance, consider a scenario where an object is subjected to a time-varying force, and students need to determine the impulse experienced by the object during a specific time period.

▪️Practice Problems:

Encourage students to practice solving problems involving impulse using integrals. Provide them with various scenarios and force-time graphs to apply their understanding and gain confidence in using integrals appropriately.

▪️Real-World Applications:

Highlight real-world applications of impulse and its significance in fields like sports (e.g., in calculating the change in momentum during a collision) or rocket propulsion (e.g., in determining the momentum change in a rocket when the engines fire).

▪️Reinforce the Concept:

To reinforce the concept, review the main points covered in the discussion. Encourage questions from students and address any doubts they may have. Provide additional resources or references for further exploration.

By following these steps and using clear examples and illustrations, students can better grasp when and where to use integrals, particularly in the context of calculating impulse in physics.

[malinmethod]

Ankles

If your ankles are weak or unstable, you could be more likely to sustain an injury. It is possible to get hurt when participating in sports as well as while doing normal, everyday activities. When playing sports like soccer, basketball, football, or volleyball, you run the risk of spraining or breaking your ankle. Even the simple act of moving your feet from the sidewalk to the street could cause damage.

Ankles that have been injured can become fragile, and vulnerable ankles are more prone to suffer another injury in the future. How can you protect yourself from getting hurt? By wearing a supporting brace. You should consider using the Active Ankle T2 brace in situations where you want to avoid becoming injured. The purpose of this ankle brace is to provide support for your ankle and protect it from harm.

The Active Ankle T2 brace comes with a strapping mechanism that is both adjustable and simple to use. It is compatible with both high-top and low-top shoes and can be used with either. Compression and support for the ankle are both provided by the T2 brace.

The ankle brace can be used to either avoid an injury or provide protection for one that has already occurred. They are useful for treating strains and sprains of a moderate kind. By removing part of the body's weight from the foot, the brace may be able to provide some relief from the pain.

It helps move some of this weight to the lower leg, which in turn helps reduce some of the pain that you are experiencing in your ankle. Enhancing your endurance and enhancing how well your ankle joint performs are also possible benefits of using the Active Ankle T2.

The padding is made of an extremely lightweight material called EVA, which contributes greatly to how well the brace fits. And reduces the amount of bulk it has while still providing a high level of protection and performance while it is being worn.

The Active Ankle T2 brace was developed with the following objectives in mind: to prevent inversion and eversion, which are types of ankle sprains that occur when the ankle is twisted inwards or outwards respectively; to reduce the need for anti-inflammatory medication; to lessen the pain caused by symptoms; to stabilise the ankle; to improve the way the ankle joint functions; and to improve endurance.

According to a research conducted by Drexel University, "the brace lowered the weight carried by the heel bone by roughly 8%, which is similar to a 12-pound unloading during ambulation in a person who weighs 150 pounds."

The T2 brace is a product that is manufactured by Active Ankle Systems, Inc. The business has made a name for itself as a reputable manufacturer of high-quality orthopaedic items. The design of the brace is protected by a patent. This design contributes to a greater degree of motion control in the heel bone.

The company's goal in developing the T2 brace was to create a device that was less cumbersome but yet provided the highest possible level of performance and protection. The company manufactures a variety of ankle braces, including the T2 brace as well as many others. The CF Pro, Volt, Power Lacer, AS1, and Dorsal Night Splint are just a few examples of these types of splints.

[lupinepublishers]

Lupine Publishers | Painfull Posterior Cruciate Ligament Ganglion Cyst. A Case Report

Lupine Publishers |  Orthopedics and Sports Medicine

Introduction

Ganglion cysts (GC) are benign tumor-like lesions usually going out from mucinous degeneration of collagenous structures [1,2]. They could occur in several anatomic areas but GC arising from cruciate ligaments are rare [3,4] with a prevalence of 0.36% or 0.8% respectively when diagnosed by magnetic resonance (MR) or by arthroscopy [3,5-6] However other studies of GC prevalence refer ranges from 0.2% to 1.9% [7-9], with posterior cruciate ligament ganglion cysts (PCLGC) being five times less frequent than those identify in anterior cruciate ligament [5,10]. This lesion is mainly diagnosed in people aged 20-40 years-old and a male predominance has been reported [5,11-13]. The etiology of PCLGC is not clear. They could appear from synovial herniation or congenital translocation of synovial cells. Mesenchymal stem cells proliferation with cysts formation or mucoid degeneration occurring in areas suffering chronic injuries are also reported [7,14-16]. Many of PCLGC are asymptomatic. When symptomatic the main clinical symptoms and signals includes knee pain and / or movement restrictions [17].

The knee joint could present a slight effusion, restriction to extension and particularly in extreme flexion [1,4]. The common classification of cruciate ligament cysts is supported on the position of the cyst, anterior, posterior or between cruciate ligaments [7]. MR is the gold standard for detecting GC1. Recently observation by ultrasonography is considered useful for identifying and locating the lesion, as well as being a conservative approach to treat cystic lesions [1].

Case Report

A 17-year-old Caucasian female, a soccer player, presented with a 9 month history of left knee pain, mainly in the posterior and medial aspects of the knee, combined with slightly back swelling. Pain was exacerbated with exercise, especially squatting, and partially alleviated with rest. She had no history of a knee major traumatic event (Figure 1). She complained of knee pain on soccer playing, one of the main reasons to suspend this practice. She alsorefers no confidence on demanding tasks.

Figure 1: Knee MRI of PCL GC; A: T2 sagittal view FS; B: T2 sagittal view FSE; C: T2* coronal view.

In clinical examination we identified a light quadriceps atrophy, compared to the opposite side, and symmetry in active range of motion (ROM). Passive ROM was limited (10 degrees) and painful in extreme flexion and symmetric in hyperextension. Meniscal tests and varus-valgus stress tests were negative. Some tenderness on palpation of the popliteal aspect but no pain or even tenderness was verified in medial or lateral joint line. Plain radiographs were normal. A knee magnetic resonance image (MRI) was then performed regarding the potential diagnosis of a joint cyst so it was acquired weighted T2 sagittal sequences with and without fat suppression and T2* coronal. The MRI revealed a high-signal well-defined, ovoid shaped formation extending along PCL on both T2-weighted images and fat-suppression sequences, measuring 18mmm length compatible with a PCL cyst. Considering that in the last consultation there is no pain or appreciable impairment of mobility, and also the athlete does not intend to continue the practice of soccer, the choice was made for conservative treatment. Proprioceptive closed-chain training and quadriceps and hamstrings muscle strengthening were prescribed for 3 months, 3 x week. Currently she runs 5 x week (40min per day) without pain and functional disability. A new appointment will be made in six months.

Discussion

Etiology and pathogenesis of PCLGC are unclear, however it is proposed that repetitive microtrauma of joint and soft tissue can promote expansion of mucin from ligament fibers and acting as a potential trigger [20]. Recognition of PCLGC as a clinical entity leading knee pain and impairment is increasing due to the sensitivity of MRI to identify intra-articular abnormalities. The typical finding is an ovoid fluid filled cystic lesion which can frequently be multilocular in the intercondylar notch of the knee [22,25]. In our case report MRI shows a cystic multilocular mass with fluid signal intensity within the synovial layer of the PCL. Although most knee cysts are asymptomatic, in some case they could be a relevant source of pain [20,21]. Clinical manifestations of a knee cyst are mostly dependent on the pathologic process involved, along with its location, size, mass effect, and relationship to surrounding structures [26]. The typical presentation of symptomatic PCLGC include posterior knee pain, restriction of ROM, stiffness and mild swelling [20,21].

Limited ROM is a typical finding with an intra-articular ganglion arising from the PCL, mainly with inability and pain to extreme flexion due to the compression of the cyst mass between the PCL and the posterior joint capsule. With this clinical picture in mind, athletes between 20 and 40 years old who present knee pain with restriction on hyperextension or full flexion, with no previous macrotraumatic report or knee instability, should raise a high level of suspicion for intra-articular ganglion cysts. Only symptomatic PCLGC need to undergo treatment. There a broad spectrum of treatments described for these lesions, from a rehabilitation program focused on ROM, strengthening and proprioception to avoid kinetic impairment, to ultrasound or CT-guided aspiration or infiltration, or even arthroscopic excision. Treatment choice must take into account several criteria such as level of activity, time for recovery, risk of joint damage and recurrence of the cyst. Arthroscopic treatment has demonstrated good outcomes with up to 95% of patients reporting good results and associated with the lowest recurrence rate, but it needs an hospitalization, anesthesia and a longer recovery period, which can become a major problem when we are dealing with competitive sports [23,24].

Athletes require quick return to play with minimal side effects, so we need to take into account less invasive treatments like US or CT-guided procedures, or even load management in addition to a rehabilitation program.

Conclusion

CCP is a rare and often asymptomatic condition. Its pathogenesis and prognosis are still unclear. In a young adult with posterior knee pain (popliteal aspect), no history of major event, limited ROM (hyperextension and extreme flexion), meniscus and ligament test negative and no confidence in demanding tasks it is important to think about this condition. The therapeutic option stems from the patient’s characteristics, but US or CT- guided puncture should be considered.

For more Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Open Access Journal (OSMOAJ)

Please Click Here: https://lupinepublishers.com/orthopedics-sportsmedicine-journal/index.php

[theotherjourney7]

“Earlier when asked about why the govt didn't act earlier the PM said “I think we were told about the new variant and the way it was taking off on 18th December and we went into T4 across the vast bulk of the country pretty much in the next 24 hours.”

This isn't entirely correct.

The new variant was identified in early December after genome data was paired with a curiosity that the rates of infection in Kent were not falling despite national restrictions and then T3.

So there was indicative sense that the variant may be playing its part as early as that and perhaps sport greater transmissibility.

On December 14th Matt Hancock informed the Commons, saying the new variant was in at least 60 local authorities already...

He told MPs in that over that week, there had been sharp, exponential rises in coronavirus infections across London, Kent, parts of Essex and Hertfordshire.

He said they couldn't be sure whether that was due to the new variant but that caution was required.

As a result, London and several other places in the South East were moved to T3.

On 18th December NERVTAG reported that they believed the new variant was indeed more transmissible.

On the 19th, the govt acted. This is the action I assume the PM referred to today.

The government introduced a new tier, tier 4 and extended it to much of the south east.

But as you can see, it certainly didn't include "the vast bulk" of the country

Indeed- areas just adjacent to T4, in East Anglia, were still in T2

Then on December 23rd, the govt acted again- extending T4 to all of the south east of England. But swathes of the country were still in T2 and much more in T3.

We know during this time the new variant was seeded elsewhere- but some of those areas still had lighter restrictions.

It wasn't until December 30th that the government put most of the country into T3/4. And only this week that we had a full lockdown.

So it's not true as the PM said "we went into T4 across the vast bulk of the country pretty much in the next 24 hours" on December 19th. That would take until 30th and arguably not until this year.

Two other things to remember 1) given govt was aware the new variant might have greater transmissibility before NERVTAG reported, some argue it should have shown greater caution before this date in any event 2) some public health experts say that even without the new variant, the tiers as was, wouldn't have been enough (especially with planned Xmas relaxation) to prevent significant pressure on the NHS in January- (though prob not the appalling situation we now have)

Given those winter pressures and how bad things now are and will become, the workings of the tiers and their timing are of no less public importance than the timing of the March lockdown. Indeed, I suspect they'll come to be scrutinised just as heavily in the years to come...”-Lewis Goodall

[hookedonapirate]

Follow My Lead

Teaser 3

T1 I T2

Rated: M

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I agreed to this. I can’t be with Elisa and pretend my feelings for her aren’t real. When I’m around her, I’m intoxicated. By her scent, her smile, her laugh. And she’s so beautiful, my heart aches whenever I look at her. When I can’t be by her. My heart aches when I’m holding her in my arms trying to pretend like she doesn’t mean the world to me. Like I’m not completely in love with her. 

I thought I'd been in love before I met Elisa, but love has never felt like this. It’s never consumed my body and soul, it’s never clamped around my heart so tightly that even the jaws of life couldn’t free it. 

So why I told her I would pretend to date her is beyond me. I don’t want to pretend, and I certainly don’t wish to be used as a tool to scorn my roommate who has his head up his ass, who’s too blind to see the true beauty that’s been in front of him since childhood. 

This is a terrible idea. And yet I didn’t have the heart to tell her no. I didn't have the heart to disappoint her. And honestly, I'd do anything for her. Maybe that’s unhealthy, but I don’t care. I’d do anything to make her happy. So here I am in her bed, naked and thoroughly sated, my legs entangled with hers, one of her arms slung around my stomach and the sheet draped haphazardly over us. I’m not even sure where the comforter went. The curtains are drawn and the room is dim; I’m not even sure what time it is, and when I look over to check, there’s no alarm clock on the nightstand. 

I shift my head around to see her sleeping peacefully, breathing softly against my chest. I don't want to move her, but I really have to pee, so I carefully lift her hand and gently slip out from underneath her head, moving the pillow so it’s supportively positioned under her head. I slowly sneak out of bed and turn around, hoping I didn’t disturb her. She doesn’t wake though, only stirs a little, gripping and snuggling the pillow. My heart swells like a balloon. I wish I were still the one she was snuggling. 

I find the comforter on the floor and pick it up, pulling it over her lovely, naked form. Leaning over the bed, I plant a kiss on her temple and watch her sleep for a moment longer before I have to tear myself away and trudge out of her room. 

As I’m in the bathroom trying to empty my bladder, which is difficult to do when I'm so hard again, I close my eyes, still able to feel her hands all over me, still able to hear her moan as my name tumbles from her pretty lips. Thinking about amazing, earth shattering sex with Elisa isn’t the best idea when I have to pee though because I’m even harder now. I try to calm myself, taking deep breaths through my nose. It doesn’t work though, not quickly enough anyway. So I leave the bathroom and walk into the kitchen to give myself some time to simmer down. I open the cupboard and grab a glass, filling it with water from the refrigerator dispenser. Which isn’t the best idea considering my bladder is already full. Just hearing the water pour into the glass only heightens my urgency to pee. But the water isn’t for me, it’s for Elisa when she wakes. 

Dammit, I really need to stop thinking about her if I’m going to be able to soften my wood and relieve my bladder. I set the glass on the counter and leave the kitchen, picking up my jacket from the floor. I grin at the trail of clothes leading to the bedroom. Once we crossed the threshold of her apartment, neither of us could wait to tear off each other’s clothes. My shirt had made it to the bedroom floor at least, but that’s it. I had her completely naked against the wall in the hallway, eating her out before we even made it to the room. 

Fuck. Not helping with my situation.

I sigh and I dig out my phone to check my messages. Only a text from Mason about work. I respond and thankfully it takes my mind out of the gutter, if only briefly, and when I return to the bathroom, I’m finally able to relieve my bladder. 

After I’m done, I flush the toilet and replace the seat after reminding myself I’m not in my apartment where I live with another dude, where it’s more convenient to leave the seat up.

I wash my hands with Hazel and Elisa's Japanese Cherry Blossom scented soap and head to the kitchen again to retrieve the glass of water for Elisa. But before I get halfway there, the front door swings open, inviting a brisk winter chill that sweeps inside the apartment. I grind to a halt.

“Elisa, what the hell? Why are your clothes all over the-”

Hazel lifts her eyes from the clothes strewn across the floor and falls on me as I stand just outside the hallway entrance in nothing but my boxers. “Oh,” she squeaks, her eyes moving up and down my body. 

I’m grateful I’m no longer sporting an erection. “Hi, Hazel,” I say with an awkward wave, a chill running down my spine. 

A smirk curves her lips as she shuts the door. “Hi, Derrick. I didn’t realize Elisa was having company over.” She tosses her purse and keys on the end table by the door and removes her jacket, storing it in the closet.

I’m not sure what to do. Should I take cover and flee to the bedroom or continue to the kitchen for Elisa’s water and chat with Hazel, acting like everything is completely normal?

Before I can decide, or even move an inch, a pair of delicate, warm arms are wrapping around my stomach from behind me, a familiar scent of sweet perfume is invading my sense of smell and a pliable pair of lips are on my neck, leaving soft kisses.

“There you are, Der Bear. I'm getting hungry. Wanna order some takeout?”

“Der Bear, huh?” Hazel teases, amusement laced in her words as she crosses her arms over her chest. 

Elisa snaps her head up at her roommate’s voice and pulls away. “Oh, Hi, Hazel. I didn’t realize you’d be home so soon.”

[essieeeeeeeee]

FUCK IT, i’m posting part 1. no title yet, so it’s just “bad touch villain fic” for now until I can get my act together enough to come up with one.

may I just start by saying that I love how we all as a fandom have collectively taken one look at our guy Shaw and thought: this boy needs to get fucked.

on a separate but equally important note, Transporter 2 may have been an absolute train wreck of a movie, but it gave me the gift of some quarter-dressed villain chick licking up the side of Jason Statham's face while he exudes such gay "I'd rather be literally anywhere else than here in this moment" energy, so there's that.

i’m fucking wheezing, man. his face.

anyways, in case it’s not obvious, I’ve stolen the T2 villain couple and threw them into here instead, so if you’re curious about what they look like, feel free to look them up (Gianni Chellini and Lola). this isn’t a crossover, it’s just me being lazy and stealing characters from other movies and playing with them.

a’ight, here we go with part 1. will get part 2 out relatively soon, I think. hopefully. god, I’m so slow at writing, guys.

----------

The bell above the door chimes merrily as Shaw pushes it open and steps into the diner, breathing in the homey scent of grease and caffeine that wafts out at him the moment he crosses the threshold. He lingers in the entryway - tucking his sunglasses carefully into his front left suit pocket, and letting his eyes drag over the establishment in a quick, practiced once-over.

American, is the first thought that comes to mind. Tacky, the second, though he supposes that’s a given, considering the first.

To be fair, it isn’t the worst diner he’s ever stepped foot in - that dubious honor went to a crusty hole in the wall in New Jersey, the name of which he couldn’t and didn’t really care to recall - but even so, the place isn’t exactly what he’d expected from a meet and greet with the CIA.

It's… lively, for starters. 

Shaw skims his gaze over the laminate red and white booths, the worn looking tabletops sticky from dots of leftover syrup. Bright sunlight peeks through the big windows, now that the storm clouds are dissipating in the frankly oven-like California weather.  Patrons chat loudly from each corner of the room. It's open and cheery and packed with parents and their tiny screaming sprogs, and all of it's already giving him a very sleep-deprived headache.

Shaw can pinpoint every word of the conversation that’s happening six booths to his left, too, which means privacy won't be much of a concept here either.

Strange choice in location, he thinks, for a debrief with top secret government information regarding a world-ending cyber death cult.

Deckard shrugs off the discomfort of it all, though. Partly because he honestly can't muster up enough of a fuck to give, and partly due to the fact that the smell of freshly brewed coffee has been relentlessly beckoning him forward since the initial whiff of it hit him from the doorway. He takes a quick moment to map out the visible exits, more habit than anything - front door, side door, likely a back one through the kitchen if needs must - and, once satisfied with his perusal, makes his way towards the bulky figure in the back right corner that’s stuck out like a mountain among mole hills since Shaw first walked into the place.

“Hobbs,” he mutters wearily, and spares a grimace at the grungy empty seat across the table. He resignedly lowers himself into it anyways.

The lawman’s eyes flick up from the plate in front of him, and he doesn’t look all that surprised; but Shaw knows it’s because he caught Hobbs’ gaze since the moment he stepped out of the rental car in the lot outside.

They’re both just a couple of paranoid bastards like that, he supposes.

And Hobbs looks - good. Better than the last time Deckard's seen him, awkwardly parting ways at a terminal in LAX, the both of them littered with bruises and scrapes that were only a small testament to the absolute shitshow they'd somehow just survived. Now it seems the bigger man's nicks are less than scabs, and the large bruise Hobbs had been sporting across his left temple at the time is nearly gone.

Shaw grudgingly notes that he's also been nursing his own wounds, and steadily healing, if slowly. His right shoulder still twinges when he moves it the wrong way, paracetamol continues to be a three times a day affair, and the spastic tick in his left hand hasn't quite let up since Brixton's electroshock therapy session, but overall - things are better.

His ribs still ache something fierce, though. Fractured, likely. Not that he's about to whine about it.

“Tinkerbell,” Hobbs greets, and then blithely stuffs another bite of the fried monstrosity that sits on his plate into his mouth. Shaw’s grimace deepens. “You’re late.”

“Blame your shitty weather. Flight delay.” Deckard ignores the insult; he's too fucking tired to pick up Hobbs' volley today. Instead, he leans forward, careful to avoid the greasy stain at the edge of the table, and gets straight to the point. “Where’s your contact?”

Because that was the obvious missing piece here, wasn’t it? Shaw didn’t come traipsing all the way to Los Angeles just to witness the Hulk stuff his oversized mug with substandard diner fare.

Two weeks out from Samoa - two weeks of very different, yet equally consequential family reunions, of settling affairs that only a forty-eight hour hotseat on every major news channel in the world can cause - and now it was time to get down to business. Hobbs’ CIA friend had promised intel. Shaw may be reluctant to forego his solo status for another team-up with Ms. America here, but he wasn’t an idiot. Information on Eteon didn’t exactly just rain from the sky.

Nine years of hunting the bastards down on his lonesome taught him that much.

Besides: the fact that Hattie’s life wasn’t on the line with this one left Deckard feeling a mite less prickly. Hobbs may be an annoyance, but he's at least a tolerable one.

“Also late,” Hobbs says, glancing down at his watch. Then the man sighs, and rubs at his temples in a way that makes Shaw wonder exactly what he’s getting into, here. “But he’ll probably show up -”

“- fashionably late and with Starbucks? You bet your perky muscled ass I will, Rebecca.”

Deckard startles a little in his seat, because where the fuck did this arsehole just come from, and his hand reflexively slides over the utensils on the table in front of him, but he smothers the instinctive urge to lodge one into the meat of the thigh that's suddenly appeared at his side. The scruffy, grinning man it's attached to seems to catch the movement, from the way his eyes dart down to the table. He shifts, just slightly, away from Shaw.

Smart fucker.

And no sensible shoes, either. That was interesting.

"Locke," Hobbs says, resigned, scooting in to make a little room as Scruffy slides himself into the seat left behind.

"Aw, don't be like that, Becky," the man whines, and Shaw can't help but mouth a bewildered 'Becky?' at Hobbs with raised brows. Hobbs only drops his head and rubs at his temples a little harder. "You know my delicate emotions can't handle the strain."

"You brought Starbucks. Into a diner."

"Never judge a man for his grande quad nonfat one-pump no-whip mocha habit, Lukas. Gosh, have I taught you nothing?"

"I can sincerely say," Hobbs grinds out, and Shaw is somewhat delighted by the disgruntled twist in the other man's features, "that the only thing you've ever taught me is the true meaning of patience."

"Don't you sass your father like this in front of company, young man. Already in the rebellious teenage phase, Christ, they grow up so fast, don't they?"

"Like mold," Deckard drawls. The disgruntlement on Hobbs' face grows deeper.

"Ha," he says, flatly. "What'aya got for us, Locke?"

"Don't rush me, sweetums, I'm famished," CIA titters, enthusiastically waving down one of the bustling waitresses. Deckard's somewhat grateful for it; he'd murder for a coffee, and that wasn't a metaphor. "And, what, no introduction? The manners on you today."

Hobbs sighs. Shaw honestly can't help but be somewhat amused by the balls this bloke must have, riling up the lawman like this. He's not sure quite yet what to think about Chatterbox - intriguing or just downright irritating - but he can at the very least admit that anyone who can put that level of utter frustration into Hobbs' eyes was worth looking into.

"Shaw, meet Locke," Hobbs says, waving impatiently at the agent beside him, who wriggles his fingers at Shaw in greeting while slurping loudly around his straw. "Locke, meet Harry Potter's uglier cousin."

Deckard scowls.

"Well fuck me sideways, but Dudley sure grew up nice, didn't he?" Locke says, and - Shaw’s actually a bit flattered to see the agent’s eyes flick over him lasciviously.

But before he can quite unravel that one, a server appears at the table edge, shooting a wide, familiar smile in Hobbs' general direction. "Can I get you boys anything?"

Locke straightens in his seat. "I'll take one of everything."

"No he won't," Hobbs snaps, smacking the idiot’s shoulder with the back of his hand.

"You're so right, snookums, gotta watch that girlish figure." Locke rubs his arm with a wince, beaming at the woman, who's started to look a bit flustered at this point, poor dove. "I'll take a number two, extra syrup, extra mayo."

She nods slowly, and turns to Deckard, as though hoping to re-establish some sort of normality.

He takes pity on her. "Coffee, thank you. Black.”

"To match his soul," Hobbs mutters around a sip from his own cup.

"To match my shoe," Shaw corrects with a tight smile. "Going up your arse."

Hobbs snorts. "Think you got that one twisted, son."

"Think you might want to start ponderin' the merits of a wing-tipped enema. Son."

"Jesus, you two are adorable," Locke interjects, resting his chin in his hands as the waitress pours out the coffee and shuffles nervously away. "Like some sort of walking, talking, opposites-attract, enemies-to-lovers, sixty-nine kay slow-burn. Is there a kudos button hiding around here somewhere?"

Shaw can't interpret even half of that. He has a strong inkling that he should probably just shoot the man for it anyway.

"You wanna get to the point, chuckles, before I put your head through this table?" Deckard says. He drums his fingers casually against said tabletop, just to make his own point that much clearer.

Entertaining as Hobbs’ little motormouth of a friend has been, Shaw has just spent the better of his last twenty-four hours on a transatlantic red eye: he's exhausted. Even a verbal spar with Hobbs isn't quite giving him the usual spike of adrenaline it deserves. The only thing he wants more right now than the coffee in his hand is his head on the pillow of a hotel room bed, and CIA here was the last obstacle standing in the way of that particular goal.

Not a safe place to be, generally speaking.

"And oddly in sync with your threats, too," Locke muses. He shifts back in his seat, though, and quickly raises his hands in surrender when Shaw leans forward menacingly. "Right, yes, ok, the point! I, ah. I definitely have one of those."

Finally, he digs into the bag at his side, hastily pulling out a few manila files. He slides them across the table towards the two of them. Shaw lets the murder in his eyes simmer down a bit as he snatches up his own.

“So, the Snowflake,” Locke starts. “Turns out the late professor wasn’t the only one with his hands in that diabolical cookie jar - ”

Scruffy keeps talking, but Shaw stops listening the moment he opens up the folder and skims his eyes down the first page.

Oh, shit, he thinks.

His stomach makes a very abrupt descent to his knees.

Because there, tucked under a paperclip in the top right corner, is a set of photographs. Generic, really. Black and whites, likely mugshots from the look of them. A man and a woman - staring straight towards the camera, little smirks nestled in the corners of their mouths like poorly hidden secrets. Shaw’s gaze traces over the sharp curve of a cheekbone, an aristocratic nose.

The faces staring up at him are jarringly familiar, in the worst possible ways.

The kinds of ways, in fact, that suddenly makes it very tempting to get up from the table and walk away, as quickly as possible.

“-ellini and Lilian Nuata,” Locke says, pointedly tapping the photos in his own file, and it’s as though the world’s volume has abruptly turned back up again. Shaw blinks, then snaps his eyes back up to the two men across the table from him. He blanks his face to cool disinterest when he finds Hobbs staring back at him.

Deckard’s not sure what kind of expression worked its way across his face while he took in the literal goddamn nightmare in his hands, but the perplexed look Hobbs shoots him makes Shaw think it wasn’t as subtle as he would have hoped.

"You know 'em?" Hobbs asks.

And fuck, but that's a loaded question. Shaw can feel his face twist like he’s sucked a lemon. It's completely involuntary, and he hates himself for the tell.

“We’ve… met,” he answers, somewhat honestly.

As if 'met' could ever sum up the amount of sheer overwhelming fuckery their run-ins entailed. Shaw covers his discomfort with a fortifying sip of his coffee.

It curdles in his stomach.

"Oh, good," Locke says, almost obliviously cheerful. "Then you probably know just how pants shittingly insane our Harley Quinn and Joker duo here are."

Bit more than you'd think, Shaw muses with faint dread. 

"Nuata's the big brain behind our little Snowflake," Locke continues. "Andreiko may have invented the capsules that carried it, but the whole organ-melting, blood-spitting, eugenics genocidal virus shebang? That's her bouncing bundle of joy." The man takes another flippant slurp of his latte. The sound grates on Deckard's nerves, but he's feeling a bit too numb to give much of a shit about it.

"And Chellini?" Hobbs asks. The lawman's still shooting curious glances Deckard's way, and Shaw figures that's his cue to stop acting the part of nervous wallflower.

"Muscle," he finally speaks up. The word somehow comes out normally, despite the fact that Shaw's throat is feeling drier than the Sahara. "But also happens to have a brain, unlike someone else I know."

Hobbs' semi-concerned expression falls back into an irritated scowl. That’s good. Deckard doesn't need the man's cautious hovering. 

They may have a somewhat decent, if not entirely amicable working relationship now, but Shaw wasn't about to dump his sordid histories into Hobbs' lap. They weren't friends. 

Deckard didn't really know what they were at this point, actually, but it certainly wasn't that. 

"Nuata can take care of herself, but they're… formidable, together," Deckard continues, before Hobbs can open his mouth. "They're sadists. Like to play with their food before eating it."

"And you've… met, huh?"

Something about Shaw's voice must have been slightly off, because the concern is creeping its way back into Hobbs' eyes. It makes Shaw's skin itch in irritation; he's not some child to be coddled and fretted over. Best to cut that nonsense off right here and now.

"Worked with 'em on a job once." Deckard shrugs, nonchalant, and leans back in his seat. "Briefly. Didn't quite appreciate their methods, so we parted ways."

It's the truth, if a heavily edited one. Either way, the mission is accomplished: the concern vanishes immediately.

"Of course you worked with them," Hobbs snorts bitterly. "Looney tunes here sound just your speed. What kind of job they end up luring you in with, anyway? Selling poison to toddlers? Murdering puppies in Tokyo?"

Ah. Well - ouch.

That one hit somewhat closer to home than likely intended, going by the expression of mild regret on Hobbs' face moments after the words leave his mouth. The sting of it is sudden, surprisingly unexpected, and altogether earned, really. It’s an abrupt reminder that even in the wake of Samoa, there’s still a decent amount of unpacked baggage between the two of them. The kind of baggage that comes with literal skeletons in closets 

Or in fiery, crumpled sports cars, smoldering vengefully on a busy street in Tokyo.

Shaw considers himself a reasonably self-aware person; he already knows he's a piece of shit. Doesn't mean he'll tolerate Hobbs shoving his nose into the fact like some misbehaving dog.

"Fucking hilarious," he snaps, narrowing his eyes. "Don't think that's any of your business, is it?" 

He leans forward, and suddenly Deckard finds that he's angry. The irrational kind: no specific target, no specific cause. Angry at Hobbs - angry at Locke - angry at every little shout and laugh in the air of the diner around him. Absolutely, completely, furiously angry that this file, with those pictures, has been dropped into his lap like a fucking grenade when he least expected it.

"You sure seem real interested though, Tiny. Maybe you get off on that kind of thing, huh? Puppy murder? Kiddy killing?" Hobbs' mouth twists, as though he knows he deserves the retort, but that it's pissing him off nonetheless. Shaw smiles grimly. Good. "'Cause I know a few people who could give you some details -"

“Yeah, I’m sure you know plenty of people -”

"Maybe we could table that steaming pile of inhumanity for another day," Locke interrupts suddenly. "Fascinating as getting in touch with our inner Cruella de Vils sounds, we're on a bit of a time crunch, darlings. Your flight to Spain to bag us Bellatrix Lestrang and her boytoy is in five hours, and we’ve still got some ground to cover here."

Shaw cuts himself off, and reigns in the bright spark of rage still flickering in his head. Closes his eyes for a moment.

What is he even doing?

He opens his eyes again, lets them flick back down to the photographs in front of him with the morbid helplessness of watching an imminent disaster just waiting to occur. Knows, with swift clarity, exactly where the anger is coming from.

Tired or not, Shaw’s aware that the abrupt flare of resentment is an unreasonable reaction to what was meant to be an innocuous comment. He attempts to tamp it back down a bit; difficult, with Hobbs’ narrowed-eyed gaze staring at him from across the table, but do-able.

Professional, he thinks. You’re a fucking professional.

"Spain, huh? Always liked Spain. Good memories," Hobbs says suddenly, voice far too innocent to be anything but deadly. Shaw watches with sharp eyes as Hobbs takes a very pointed sip of his coffee, staring Deckard down. The bigger man places the cup back on the table with a quiet thud, and smiles. "Like when we blew up your brother’s plane, for instance."

On second thought, fuck professional.

"Whoa now,” Locke says, hastily grabbing at Shaw’s wrist with a nervous laugh as the Brit's fingers spasm hard around the cutlery on the table in front of him. Lucky timing - Deckard had half a mind to jab the butterknife in his grip straight into Hobbs' hand, crowded diner be damned. “Let’s just take it easy there, Scarier Spice. We’re all friends here.”

Shaw very deliberately glances down at the hand on his arm, before letting his eyes drag back up to the agent’s.

“You’re gonna want to let go of me,” he says, slowly. “Friend.”

The hand is instantly snatched away, with frankly satisfying speed.

“So aggressive,” Locke says with another nervous little chuckle, fanning himself. “I gotta say, the fearboner I’m getting right now? I’m kinda into it.”

The ache in Shaw's temples gives another sudden, violent throb, and - yeah, no.

He wasn’t throwing himself back into the wreckage that was Chellini and Nuata for the sake of the two men in front of him.

Deckard rises from his seat. "Have fun with your little mission, Hobbs. You go enjoy knocking a couple of pissant nobodies' heads together in Spain like a good dog, while I go find some useful intel to work with."

"Yup," Locke mutters quietly. "Definitely aroused in this moment."

"Locke, shut your goddamn mouth," Hobbs snaps. "Shaw, just - sit down."

And oh, but that's rich. "In case you haven't noticed, steroids," Shaw sneers, leaning forward on the table, "you ain't the boss of me."

Hobbs just rolls his eyes. "Don't be stupid, jackass. This is our best shot at getting these bastards, and you damn well know it."

The DSS agent leans forward himself, hardly backing down from the challenge in Shaw's eyes. And usually, that would get Deckard going - really throw some fuel on the fire - but now it just makes him hesitate.

"Besides," Hobbs adds, and his mouth quirks up into the beginnings of a wry grin. "Can't knock some pissant nobodies' heads together without my sidekick tagging along."

… goddamnit.

Shaw didn’t feel guilt very often, but Hobbs’ playful, friendly little smile was causing an avalanche of it. He falters; stands at the edge of the booth, half-turned towards the doorway, towards freedom, towards his ticket out and away from not-so-old wounds he’d rather take a bullet to the head for than let Hobbs be an audience to.

But. But.

He also wasn’t quite monster enough to allow Hobbs to wander into that horror show on his lonesome.

Slowly, grudgingly, Shaw sits back down.

He does not flush when Hobbs beams at him like the giant fucking golden retriever he is.

“Wonderful!” Locke says, clapping his hands together cheerfully. “Gosh, isn’t this exciting? It’s like we’re a team. Like the X-men or something. Ooooh, I call Wolverine.”

“Locke,” Hobbs says forlornly.

“Yeah, no, you’re right, Shaw definitely pulls off the brooding loner better. I think I’m more of a Jean Grey myself, too.”

“What’s the plan?” Shaw asks brusquely, flipping open the file again. He slides his gaze past the photos this time, and further on to the information on the page beneath.

The pictures still manage to haunt him out of the corner of his eye.

“They’re holed up in Chellini’s private chalet in Almeria. Real fancy stuff,” Locke says. “These two may be balls to the fucking walls bonkers, but they're not stupid. Guards and security out the ass, I’m tellin’ ya. We’ll need you two to go in, extract them, and maybe not destroy half the city in the process, because Big Daddy Government isn’t thrilled at the thought of covering your usual laundry bill.”

“Get in, get the marks, get out. Simple,” Hobbs says, leaning back in his seat.

“You’re simple. This is not,” Shaw snaps, tapping at the folder. “We need an actual plan, not your usual smash-and-grab theatrics.”

“Pretty sure my ‘theatrics’ are what threw your ass in jail.”

“Pretty sure your incompetence is what got me out of it -”

Somehow, an hour later, the smallest semblance of a strategy comes together. The stability of it helps soothe the tension buzzing at the edges of Shaw’s mind, but even so, it lingers, like a bad taste on the back of his tongue. He traces his fingers along the black and white images in front of him for a brief moment as CIA pays the food bill, before forcefully flipping the folder shut.

"Still one thing I need to get straight,” Deckard says, gaze suddenly pinning Locke to his seat. “You had me fly to Los Angeles, from London - just to fly back to Spain?"

The murder must be back in his eyes, Shaw thinks, because there's certainly a new hint of fear in Locke's.

"Ok, to be fair," Locke starts, edging back in his seat slightly, "one: I didn't actually know you were in London, because two: you're a very naughty, sneaky boy who happens to be incredibly difficult to track down, and did I mention I have a very delicate bone structure?"

Locke's voice climbs increasingly higher as he presses further back into the booth - likely because Shaw was leaning across the table with the intent of strangling him.

“Shaw, stop scaring the rabbit,” Hobbs says, shoving at Locke’s shoulder as the man pushes himself into Hobbs’ space. “Locke, let me the hell out of this booth.”

Shaw slips out of the booth himself, but not without a withering glare in Scruffy’s direction.

They make their way out of the diner, Locke scurrying off with rambling goodbyes that Shaw doesn’t bother listening to, and the sudden wave of heat as he steps out of the doors with another chime of bells above them is almost nauseating. Deckard grimaces at the bright blue sky as Hobbs siddles up next to him.

"You good?" Hobbs says, and bumps his shoulder awkwardly against Shaw's own.

And the move is just - so fucking Hobbs, so endearing (though Shaw would commit a fantastic amount of homicide before admitting that fact), that Deckard slowly, reluctantly deflates. The still-smoldering anger finally winks quietly out of existence, and just leaves him feeling exhausted in its stead. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Fine," Deckard mutters, glancing away with an irritated little sniff. "Just -"

He looks down at the file in his hand. Thinks of the photographs.

Trepidation hits him like a roundhouse kick to the gut. 

"- tired," he finishes dully.

Hobbs pats him on the shoulder with a big hand, and then just. Leaves it there. Like they're pals, or something. Shaw hesitates, but decides not to shrug it off.

It's ridiculous that it helps his nerves somewhat.

"Yeah, well. I've got a guest room, if you need to crash for a couple hours before the flight."

The offer is unexpected - possibly for both of them, going by the slight discomfort Shaw can pick out of Hobbs' posture, and the way he won't quite meet Shaw's eyes after - but Deckard honestly considers it for a moment. 

Only a moment, though. "Already booked a place," he lies through his teeth.

Fat fucking chance he'd be able to get any sembleance of sleep, with images of mugshots seared into his mind. Shaw knows himself; in all likelihood he'll find a place to kip out, with enough caffeine to hotwire an elephant, and drown himself in research for the next three hours.

Preparation never really helped when it came to Chellini and Nuata, but it sure as hell would make him feel less like he was throwing himself into the lion's den. Again.

"Right," Hobbs says. He gives a little squeeze to the shoulder under his hand, before letting it fall back to his side. Shaw refuses to let himself acknowledge that the sudden lack of pressure there is a disappointment, because he's not a fucking child. "I should head out. Gotta find someone to watch Sam while I'm gone."

Ah. The daughter. Strange, to suddenly remember that Hobbs was a man in charge of nurturing something. "Wheels up in four, then," Shaw says, slipping his sunglasses back onto his face in the California sunshine. "Just don't bitch to me about your leg room this time, Gigantor."

"Not all of us suffer from being vertically challenged, short stop."

"Just mentally, in your case," Shaw says, and can't help the corner of his mouth from ticking up slightly at Hobbs' snort of laughter.

“Sure,” the big man says with a huff. “Guess I’ll see you in España, tonto.”

And with that Hobbs walks off with cheery little wave, Shaw following him with his eyes as the lawman hefts himself onto the motorbike and departs with a roar of the engine. Shaw just shakes his head, and sighs.

Chellini and Nuata. Jesus fucking Christ, he thinks.

Well.

If nothing else, at least he'll have back-up this time.

[birdlord]

Everything I Watched in 2019

Movies

The number in parentheses is year of release, asterisks denote a re-watch, and titles in bold are my favourite watches of the year. 

01 The Death of Stalin (17) does a neat trick of building goodwill for Steve Buscemi’s Krushchev, then brutally pays that off in the last few minutes. 

02 Sorry to Bother You (18)

03 Support the Girls (18)

04 Paddington (14)*

05 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (16)

06 Eighth Grade (18) probably the most terrifying movie I watched all year, if you didn’t watch it through your fingers, who even are you?

07 Morvern Callar (02) much less bleak than the book, but then, nearly anything would be

08 The Favourite (18) revolting and beautiful. 

09 Columbus (17) a really lovely movie about architecture and parent-child relationships.

10 Bring it On (00)*

11 The Land of Steady Habits (18) feels wackier than your average Holofcener, but still a good watch. 

12 Spotlight (15) i was really bowled over by this, and wasn’t expecting to be. Workmanlike filmmaking, but an extraordinary story, well-told.

13 The Killing of a Sacred Deer (17) Barry Keoghan is a blank, but somehow compelling screen presence. This one has an ending that made me bark with laughter.

14 Legends of the Fall (94)

15 Moneyball (11)* if you don’t feel like watching anything in particular, you can always watch Moneyball

16 If Beale St Could Talk (18) very beautiful, but I failed to connect with it on any other level. 

17 For Keeps (88)

18 Abducted in Plain Sight (17)

19 Oscar Shorts (Animated) (18) the offerings were very sappy this year, but the winner was decent! Lots of Toronto content (weird). 

20 Oscar Shorts (Live Action) (18) *unquestionably* the worst one of these won ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

21 Velvet Buzzsaw (19)

22 Vice (18) ugh

23 Friends with Money (06)

24 Can You Ever Forgive Me (18)

25 Bohemian Rhapsody (18) haha what. was. that.

26 Mars Attacks (96)*

27 Paddington 2 (18)

28 Buffy the Vampire Slayer (92)*

29 Shoplifters (18)

30 Blindspotting (18) jacked Ethan Embry in a supporting role?! Whither? Howso? Wherefore?

31 Witness (85)

32 Harry & the Hendersons (87)*

33 The Matrix (99)*

34 T2 Trainspotting (17)

35 Blockers (18)

36 The Slums of Beverly Hills (98)

37 Can’t Hardly Wait (98)*

38 Avengers: Infinity War (18)

39 Iron Man II (10)

40 Isle of Dogs (18)

41 Chinatown (74)*

42 To Live & Die in LA (85)

43 Age of Innocence (93) Daniel Day-Lewis manages to make Newland Archer compelling, where in the novel he’s...the worst?!

44 Shopgirl (05)*

45 The House (17) didn’t sustain all the way through, but then, that’s how mainstream comedies often go. 

46 The Beguiled (17)

47 Badlands (73)*

48 Poetic Justice (93)

49 The Empire Strikes Back (80)*

50 Calibre (18)

51 The Kindergarten Teacher (18)

52 Hounds of Love (17) a nice little Aussie thriller, set in the 80s

53 Kicking & Screaming (95)*

54 Octopussy (83)*

55 Jaws (79)*

56 Lover Come Back (61)

57 Frenzy (72)

58 Always Be My Maybe (19)

59 Certain Women (16) took a while to get to this one, but it’s as great as they say it is. 

60 Baby Driver (17) all flash, little substance.

61 Sneakers (92)

62 Roadhouse (87)*

63 Bull Durham (88)*

64 Ghostbusters (84)*

65 Booksmart (19) I think this will improve on multiple viewings, though I loved the soundtrack and the mix of characters. 

66 Hereditary (18)

67 Rebecca (40) George Sanders as Rebecca’s cousin is BRILLIANT

68 Vertigo (58)*

69 The Dead Don’t Die (19)

70 Crawl (19)

71 Dazed & Confused (93)* If you don’t watch this once a summer, what is wrong with you?

72 Jackie Brown (97)

73 Talk Radio (88)

74 The Guilty (18)

75 Killing Heydrich (17)

76 Lady Bird (17)*

77 Billy Elliot (00)*

78 White House Down (13)* Channing Potatum saves the White House!

79 The Film Worker (17)

80 Whitney (18)

81 Mascot (16)

82 Apocalypse Now (79)* technically I’d only seen the Redux version from the early 2000s, so the regular cut is new to me. 

83 Apollo 13 (95)*

84 Psycho 2 (83) the twist is very guessable, but there are a couple of nice-looking scenes.

85 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (04)*

86 The Bodyguard (92)*

87 Murder Mystery (19)

88 Wildlife (18)

89 The Stepford Wives (75)*

90 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (71)*

91 The Natural (84)

92 The Other Boleyn Girl (08)

93 Speed (94)*

94 Opera (87)

95 That’s my Boy (12) haha what?!

96 The Big Short (15)

97 Elizabeth the Golden Age (07)

98 The Glass Castle (17) when I read the book, I genuinely thought it was fiction, it’s so insane. 

99 Dawn of the Dead (78)*

100 All About Eve (50) lady on lady violence is a special thing

101 La La Land (16)

102 Morning Glory (10) remember Rachel McAdams?

103 Casino (95)*

104 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (06)

105 Pet Sematary (19)

106 Clue (85)*

107 Her Smell (18) amazing soundtrack and the songs were well-chosen. Heartbreaking musical moment in the final act. 

108 Bobby Sands: 66 Days (16)

109 She’s Gotta Have it (86)

110 Good Morning (59)

111 Hustlers (19) I didn’t connect with this as much as the reviews led me to believe I might. 

112 Nocturnal Animals (16)

113 Kill Bill Vol 1 (03) I’d only ever seen the second one before, being a non-Tarantino completionist.

114 Fried Green Tomatoes (91)* I watch this more than anticipated...

115 Steel Magnolias (89)

116 Notting Hill (99)*

117 A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (19) the tiny city models were inspired!

118 National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (89)*

119 Let It Snow (19)

120 Frozen (13)

121 The Irishman (19) most interesting as a sort of pastiche/reckoning on the part of Scorsese about his other gangster films. Really outmoded view of unions. Definitely could have been edited down if anyone were able to come to it without undue reverence, but I did love the bit about the fish.

122 Girls Trip (17) actual plot is beside the point. 

123 About a Boy (02)* I always think of this as the “vomit and sweaters” movie, anyone else?

124 Animal House (78)*

DOCUMENTARY : FICTION - 4:120

THEATRE : HOME - 9:115

TV Series

01 Russian Doll - I think I would have enjoyed this more if it hadn’t been bingeable - would have made a nice week-by-week discussion sort of show. I loved to watch the changes between re-ups of our major characters, and I think the actual plotting would reward re-watches. 

02 Catastrophe S4 - A satisfying ending to an excellent show, with very charismatic leads (and deeply weird supporting characters). Had to write around Carrie Fisher’s death, and I’m sure did a better job of it than Star Wars did. 

03 Friends from College S2 - More of the same, which is what I was after. A show like cotton candy (but with more infidelity). 

04 High Maintenance S3 - A lot more of this season took place outside of New York City, which was a great change of pace. And a great deal more information about The Guy and his own life; both difficulties and successes included. 

05 Losers - This was a great little docuseries on Netflix that I didn’t hear a lot of people talking about - it’s about sports losses, but unusual sports ie curling, figure skating and the like. You’d think it would get repetitive, being as it’s always about recovering after loss, but it doesn’t! I wish they would make another season….

06 Shrill - a tight six episode dramedy about an alt-weekly journalist in the Pacific Northwest, based on Lindy West’s memoir of the same name. John Cameron Mitchell as her boss (based on Dan Savage) stands out of the ensemble cast, as does Annie’s roommate played by a British standup Lolly Adefope.

07 Broad City S5 - I haven’t always kept up with Broad City, but I came back to it for its final season, and thought it did a good job of setting its characters up for big changes in their lives. 

08 I Think You Should Leave - It’s easy to assume that all sketch comedy is terrible and always will be, but then you see this, and throw your TV out the window (due to all the laffs)

09 Fleabag S2 - Everything you’ve heard is true, this season is goddamn hilarious and ridiculously sexy. A huge step up from the first season, which was already pretty fantastic and incisive. 

10 Fosse/Verdon - Musicals are not particularly my bag, so I’m sure there was a lot that I missed in terms of references, but the lead performances ably carried me through all of the time jumps and various performances. 

11 Stranger Things S3 - Say it after me: d-i-m-i-n-i-s-h-i-n-g r-e-t-u-r-n-s! Maya Hawke kills it, though. 

12 Big Little Lies S2 - Unnecessary, and (if possible) even sillier than the first season.

13 Lorena - Part of the ongoing quest to rehabilitate the maligned women of the 1990s, this gave me tons of context that I had no idea about at the time, due to being a dumb kid. 

14 Glow S3 - I felt like I was losing steam on this series this year, but episodes like the camping ep kept me coming back. A great ensemble, though some unusual character choices (like a certain kiss *cough*) took me out of it by times. 

15 Lodge 49 S1-3 - I’d kept hearing about this show, so I finally sought it out. I can’t say it was amazingly compelling (I almost dropped it after the first season) but it’s definitely an oddball of a show, slipping from setpiece to setpiece with little regard for logic. For me, a background show. 

16 Chernobyl - This show really gave me the Bad Feeling, humans were definitely A Mistake.

17 On Becoming a God in Central Florida - Kiki in a trashy mode, not as infinitely appealing as the version she pulled off in the second season of Fargo, but scrappy and industrious nonetheless.

18 Show Me a Hero - I’d put off watching this for years, it felt like it was going to be too dull (housing policy in Yonkers?) but it’s great, and larded up with Bruce Springsteen songs, obvs.

19 Great British Bake Off S9-S10 - I’d also held off on watching this for a long time, out of loyalty to Mel, Sue, and Mary Berry. But I needed some comfort viewing towards the end of the summer, and the new hosts and judge do an able job, although the show’s tropes are feeling a bit well-worn at this point. 

20 Righteous Gemstones S1 - A rollicking ride for sure, with a great cast. Your mileage/patience with Danny McBride may vary, so keep that in mind, naturally. 

21 This Way Up S1 - A small show starring the fabulous Aisling Bea, about mental health and families and some nice comic physical acting. Oh, and in case you were watching The Crown and crushing on Tobias Menzies’ version of Prince Phillip, he plays a hot dad love interest in this, which gives you all the Tobias you’re looking for, without the PP racisms. 

22 The Crown S3 - This is the first season of the big cast switchover, and I thought it stuck reasonably well, once we were in it an episode or two. This season concentrated even less on Elizabeth herself, preferring her sister, husband, and (newly!) her children.

[its-moopoint]

Do you think Cait will go to the TIFF this weekend? If she goes I'd expect her to bring Tony. For me to believe she really married him she'd have to have her tongue down his throat on the red carpet. Lots of heart eyes , groping each others asses and sexual banter to reporters about their wedding night. Cait shoving her thighs against Tony's crotch like she did with S at T2. Stickman would then need to be sporting a full boner and then maybe just maybe I might consider the wedding to be real.

LMAO come on, those on the extremes are keeping win-win positions right now: 

- those believing the wedding saying her behaviour towards him has always been normal to protect his privacy and shyness will say it’s normal nothing changes now besides a wedding band. They need do nothing for people to buy the wedding. 

- those believing it was all a sham and fake can see her now holding his hand or posing with her or hear her say it was beautiful and perfect and they will say she’s lying and it’s all an act. 

It’s us still doubting who are screwed whatever way it goes. 

[starknight-dreams]

A quiz! A quiz! I was tagged by the lovely @handlebarstiedtothestars to do this 💖

Name: Ari (or Ani, either is fine)

Nickname: Stark, Knight

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Height: I am the most average height ever. You know that person? Who isn’t tall or short? Whose existence you’ve never questioned? That’s me.

What time is it: 7:23am, I got up early because my cat got sick and I’m worried about her :(

Favourite Musicians: Hozier, Queen, Elton John, Mayday Parade, My Chemical Romance (I’m seeing them live in two weeks!!!!!!), Ludovico Einaudi, Beethoven, Sibelius (the famous ones, not their kids).

Favourite sports team: Being from Otago, NZ, I’m obligated by birthright to say the Highlanders.

Other blogs: Er. I think I have “thegallifreyhotfive” reserved as a URL but I’ve never done anything with it. 😂

Do I get asks?: Very rarely. I got the Gold Star Lesbianism one a while ago (and whoever asked it can piss off, thanks).

How many blogs do I follow: 299! Who wants to be my 300th?

Lucky number: 4. 4 is a great number.

What am I wearing right now: Hogwarts sweatpants and my favourite stripy woollen sweater. Tis a chilly morning.

Drink of choice: Singapore Breakfast Tea from T2 is my eternal favourite, but I’ll take any type of tea other than liquorice. (Licorice? Look I can’t tell if this is british spelling or just wrong)

Dream car: One of those tiny two-door electric ones. You know, the ones you look at on the road and think these are too stupid and tiny to exist. I love them unconditionally.

Dream vacation: A cruise! I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise. 

Favourite foods: Japanese curry, stewed apples, copious amounts of bread.

Instruments: Piano, violin, viola, guitar mainly - but I also own a piano accordion and used to play cello. 

Celebrity crushes:

Oh no. Look, if any of them ever see this I would just like them to know I understand that parasocial relationships aren’t two-way and I’m not trying to be creepy here. 😅 In no order:

Daisy Ridley, especially in mood lighting. We were robbed of dark Rey in TROS. Robbed, I tell you.

Chlöe Grace Moretz. I spent the whole of this gay film getting progressively gayer, 11/10 would recommend.

Natalie Dormer. Look, maybe I have a type. Shut up. She’s so perfect.

Jodie Whittaker and her gayer than gay aesthetic as the thirteenth doctor. If you don’t have weirdly cropped pants, suspenders, and a long coat, then who even are you?

And Sacha Dhawan, who gets a special note for managing to have Extremely Queer Vibes as the Master recently. That guy can act.

Random fact: I spent the last three months doing an internship in game development and I adored it. I wish my degree would hurry up and finish so I can work 😂

Tagging: @wortlby2 @aughtpunk @fremulon​ and anyone else who sees this and wants to give it a go 💖💖💖

[fatathlon]

IRONMAN 70.3 Indian Wells – La Quinta – Race Recap

* A video version of this race recap can be found on my YouTube channel here.

A triathlon is a game of contradiction.

You spend hours, weeks, months training for something that lasts moments of your life. Improve at one sport by mastering three. Train slower to race faster. Race slower to race faster. Do it alone, surrounded by people. Never see a finish line as the end.

One of the most challenging contradictions is the trap of identity. To do well, you have to immerse yourself in training for long periods of time. It can become you; consume you. And then what is objectively a meaningless act of physical exertion assumes a station in your life that it never deserved. And you are left with nothing but finish times and medals, to gather dust because nobody cares.

I thought about these contradictions a lot during my training for my first Ironman 70.3 race in Indian Wells – La Quinta California. It seemed fitting in this vein of contradiction that I would train in the cold and snow in order to race in the warm desert. I hoped that by recognizing the contradictions inherent in what I was doing, I could avoid that most challenging trap, and come away with an experience, rather than just another race.

After Musselman in July, I took a break for a few weeks, and then started training again. I had a few minor injuries, which were challenging, but for the most part my training was consistent. I did some bike fitting and got a set of aerobars on my bike. Winter arrived early in Vermont; we had snow on the ground before Thanksgiving. So most of my riding was indoors. I ran outside as much as I could. And weather doesn’t matter in the pool, of course.

Swimming was a major area of focus for me this fall. I got a second swim analysis and really worked on my technique. I was able to take another ten seconds off my 100-yard time, and by December I was swimming faster on average than I ever had.

I had also been trying to eat smarter, both to be healthier and to drop extra weight. With the help of a friend, I definitely had some success here, though it added some stress to our family routine. Kids like what they like.

I was a little concerned about flying my bike to California, because I had only done it once before and I didn’t have to assemble it myself when I arrived that time. So I broke it down and packed it up at the bike shop so I could get guidance with questions that I had and hands-on help from Darren, my friend who owns Vermont Bicycle Shop. I felt a lot more confident once it was all ready to go.

The flights were pretty uneventful, and we made it to San Diego in one piece — including my bike. One of the first things I did was put it back together; I wanted to make sure I would have enough time to solve any problems that came up. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any and the assembly went pretty smoothly.

The Catamount, my custom Orbea Terra, ready to ride

We spent a few days with my brother’s family in San Diego, hiking at Torrey Pines and playing on the beach. It was a nice way to get acclimated to the environment. It wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be, but it definitely was a lot warmer than Vermont. Locals on the beach were dressed in winter coats and hats, but our girls thought it was the perfect weather for swimming in the Pacific.

Before long it was time to drive to Indian Wells. The amazing scenery on that drive took us all by surprise. We stopped for a moment but the day before the race was very busy so there wasn’t a lot of time for sight-seeing.

After getting the family settled at the hotel, I had my first Ironman athlete check-in experience and got to see the pro panel, which included the eventual race winners Lionel Sanders and Paula Findlay. I checked my run gear in to T2, a little overwhelmed by the enormity of the transition area. Then it was time for a half-hour drive to the swim start and T1, to see the swim course, check in my bike and decontaminate my wetsuit before hanging it on the racks where it would stay until race morning. I made sure to mark it well so I wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

My day would have gone quite differently if it hadn’t been for my teammate Lacy. She and her husband gave me a lift to the shuttle buses, which was already a great help by itself, but when she mentioned her water bottles I realized I had forgotten something at the hotel. Specifically, all of my hydration. It was still sitting in my refrigerator. They drove me back so I could retrieve them and I was so grateful. Luckily we were up early enough that it didn’t affect our day — we got on a bus with no waiting and were off to the start area.

I knew the water would be cold. The reported temperature that morning was just under 59 degrees. There was no warm-up swim. We stood in line at the rolling start for a long time before finally getting into the water. And then, finally, after everything, I was racing.

The first one or two hundred meters were tough. I was hyperventilating from the shock of the water temperature and struggling to relax and find my rhythm. I expected that, but it didn’t make it any easier. Finally I settled in, though, and found my zone. It was clear pretty quickly that I should have seeded myself further forward; nobody around me was actually swimming at the pace they lined up for. I was crawling over people all the way. My goggles half-filled with water but I ignored it since I could still see. When I finally crawled out of the lake, I had a personal best time of 34 minutes. By my watch, I had swum ten seconds per 100 yards faster than my first 70.3 in July.

As I mounted my bike, I readied myself mentally to face the biggest contradiction of the day. I had programmed the wattage target my coach and I agreed on into my bike computer, and I was going to stick to that number like superglue. The paradox of my plan was that the number was low. It was lower than I had expected. It was lower than it was at my first 70.3, and it was low relative to my power profile. It was so low that it meant I’d be doing what amounted to a zone 2 ride for the entirety of the bike leg.

The plan was predicated on the knowledge that the course was pancake flat, and that triathlons succeed or fail on the run. We would conserve energy on the bike, allowing my inertia to do most of the work, and hopefully get off the bike with enough in the tank to really drop the hammer.

So what the bike ended up being was a test of patience, rather than fitness. My heart rate stayed low, peaking only at the very start during the excitement of transition and climbing a tiny hill out of transition. I spent a lot of the time focused on avoiding drafting as much as I could, but it was pretty difficult considering that the roads were absolutely packed with riders. That forced me to surge occasionally, but it was okay because the course was so flat.

The first 20 miles flew by so fast that I was actually surprised when I saw the mile marker sign. At 30 miles I felt no worse; very comfortable and just cruising along. It was a strong contrast to my last race, where the 30 mile marker saw me doing pretty solid work. I began to get excited about the paradoxical plan as evidence in its favor continued to build. That naturally inclined me to want to push harder, but I redoubled my efforts to stay focused and in my target zone.

The highlight of the bike course by far was the Thermal Raceway, which is a private racetrack for cars that we got to ride around on. My watts went up on that section for sure, but it was a match that was worth burning. It’s a unique experience to ride your bike around a banked track with perfect pavement, designed for million dollar super cars. I had a lot of fun there.

The rest of the course was technically uphill but the gradient was so gradual, I barely noticed. I rode into T2 just 2 watts over my target. My family was cheering at the dismount line, which was a nice boost going into the start of my run.

After racking my bike and strapping on my running shoes, I started out on the final leg, to see if the contradictions would be resolved. Here I was, running in the heat and sun after training for months in the cold and snow. Here I was, having biked slowly on purpose to see if I could do a faster race. And here I was, after weeks of training at a jog, pushing my legs to go fast, and stay fast.

I have always run fast out of transition, because it takes a mile or two before my legs really feel normal and I can tell how my body is actually doing. At my first 70.3, I slowed that pace after the first aid station, feeling that I would have to conserve energy to make it through the run without shutting down. This day, though, I felt strong. I felt no such impending decline. I felt like I could hold the pace. So I didn’t slow down.

The run followed asphalt roads for a couple of miles before turning off onto a golf course, where it tracked around the greens on a winding, undulating path that was a mix of concrete, dirt and grass. There were no long straightaways, no places to hide from the course. It was highly dynamic and constantly changing.

A conclusion I had drawn from my first 70.3 was that I had been underfueled. This time, I ate and drank everything I could get my hands on during the run. I think I probably ate two or three whole bananas, a half at a time, plus several gels and all the coke, gatorade and red bull I could grab. I didn’t slow down during the aid stations; I didn’t want to lose my inertia. At one point I took a cup of ice, dumped it in my hat and packed it onto my head. The contrasts had never been more stark — at home I had been wearing winter hats to keep the snow off my head; today, I was deliberately packing ice onto my scalp.

It was a two-lap course which meant that I had to run agonizingly close to the finish line at around mile seven, only to have to turn around and do the entire thing one more time. Now I knew what to expect, though, and I knew where to push and where I could relax. Now all I had to do was hold my pace.

When the second lap of the course started to beat me, I focused on my family, waiting for me at the finish, and steeled myself in the resolve to make this all worth it. What was the point of asking so much of them, to support my training, to spend an entire day of our vacation standing around, if I didn’t make it worth it? I wasn’t going to slow down for anything.

The last couple of miles were hard and my pace started to slip a little bit, but I was still moving faster than I had ever really expected. I found my family just before the finish line, gave everybody high-fives, and then took it over the line. It was a personal best by a long margin, with personal records in every part of the race. I almost couldn’t believe it, but there it was.

If there’s one thing I learned from this race experience, it’s that you can’t always see contradictions as obstacles. Sometimes, they are puzzle pieces in a larger pattern that you can’t fully recognize until you’ve put it all together. You can’t always resist the things that don’t make sense; sometimes, you have to lean into them, make them part of your plan and see them through to the end. And that’s when you can find clarity.

We closed out our trip with a drive through Joshua Tree National Park, marveling at the natural beauty of the desert before boarding our plane to fly back into winter. With California behind us, it was time to look forward to a new year, and new contradictions.

Watch the video version of this race recap:

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[cupomzeiros]

Confira um TOP 10 das melhores cordas de pular

As melhores cordas de pular propiciam ao usuário uma forma divertida de exercitar todos os membros do corpo. Assim, o que antes era uma brincadeira de criança, hoje, se tornou um ótimo exercício físico para adultos que desejam se manter saudáveis. Os benefícios que essa atividade aeróbica traz a curto prazo para as pessoas são inúmeros. Aliás, a maioria deles são baratos. Porém, aqueles que têm um custo de aquisição mais caro, vem com recursos extras que podem auxiliar muito durante os treinos.  Confira, então, uma lista com modelos de destaque, a fim de encontrar o melhor produto que se encaixe com o seu perfil. Dessa forma, deve-se destacar que todos os itens deste top 10 são bem avaliados tanto pela crítica, quanto pelo público nos grandes sites de venda.  Melhores cordas de pular O mercado oferece às pessoas as melhores cordas de pular com preços e funções bem exclusivas. Contudo, os produtos de alta performance que fornecem resultados rápidos têm um custo mais elevado. Por isso, é essencial ter um cupom de desconto em lojas online. Foto: Speed Crossfit ES231 Speed Crossfit ES231 O Speed Crossfit ES231 foi feito com um material leve e resistente com aço e PVC com pegadores de polipropileno. Dessa forma, é ideal tanto para a prática de crossfit quanto para treinos funcionais. Uma vez que possui uma extensão máxima de três metros. Isso faz com que a corda seja ótima para pessoas mais altas que têm dificuldades ao se exercitar com modelos curtos. Além disso, o produto é fácil de carregar. Logo, ele ajuda a trazer uma melhora na coordenação motora, além de força, resistência e perdas de calorias. Foto: Everlast EverGrip 4485 Everlast EverGrip 4485 As alças com tecnologia EverGrip propiciam uma maior aderência às mãos durante os treinos. Desse modo, ela é ajustável e tem uma extensão de 2,75m para que os usuários com alturas distintas possam se adequar. Assim, ela foi feita com um material de plástico.  Um ponto positivo que torna a Everlast EverGrip 4485 uma das melhores cordas de pular é a remoção de peso de até 700 g. Dessa forma, este modelo foi equipado com rotação de rolamento de espera. Com isso, tem-se precisão e velocidade nos exercícios. Foto: Corda de pular com contador digital LS3128 Corda de pular com contador digital LS3128 Este produto possui um ótimo custo-benefício em relação aos demais. Desse modo, ele é ótimo para quem deseja fortalecer diversas áreas do corpo ao mesmo tempo, como braços e abdômen. Além disso, ele propicia uma melhora na frequência cardíaca e na respiração.  O contador digital com visor LCD funciona à base de baterias comuns e possui quatro funções. Assim, ele mostra de forma precisa para o usuário o tempo, o peso, o número de giros e as calorias gastas na prática dos treinos. Logo, ele desliga após oito minutos inertes.  Foto: Speed Rope Speed Rope De acordo com a marca Yangfit, esta é uma das melhores cordas de pular para iniciantes. Uma vez que o seu rolamento simples permite ao usuário realizar giros completos, além de facilitar a execução de saltos duplos e triplos. O que garante a ela uma pegada alta e firme. O cabo de aço revestido de polímero de plástico especial não acumula suor na Speed Rope. Além disso, as manoplas são anatômicas e flexíveis. Porém, muitas pessoas reclamam do seu material fino. Mas, é uma boa opção para treinos intensos de crossfit. Foto: Vollo com rolamento VLS3118 Vollo com rolamento VLS3118 Esta corda possui uma extensão de 2,75 m. Assim, ela é leve, portátil e dinâmica. Desse modo, o seu uso constante propicia o aumento da resistência física, a perda de calorias e ajuda a fortalecer e tonificar músculos. Logo, ela é uma boa opção para levar em viagens.    O cabo giratório do Vollo com rolamento VLS3118 permite girar de uma forma veloz, mas sem trancos, durante a prática dos exercícios físicos. Além disso, evita que as cordas se enrolem nos saltos. Dessa forma, eles ajudam a promover a melhora da postura. Foto: Acte Sports T2 Acte Sports T2 O contador de giros analógico que chega até 999 pulos é o grande destaque do Acte Sports T2. Desse modo, ele é uma das melhores cordas de pular, porque pode ser usado por qualquer faixa etária. A fim de queimar gorduras e combater o estresse diário. As manoplas feitas de espuma são muito confortáveis, não acumulam suor e mau cheiro. Dessa forma, ela é perfeita para pessoas iniciantes, já que permite organizar os treinos em série de maneira prática. Porém, muitos usuários reclamam que o contador não é preciso.  Foto: Corda de pular com rolamento FL04 Corda de pular com rolamento FL04 Este modelo da Hidrolight tem 3,5 m de extensão. Além disso, as suas manoplas foram feitas com um design anatômico com o intuito de garantir conforto e evitar calos nas mãos. Nesse sentido, elas prometem propiciar giros mais altos e estáveis durante os exercícios. Com avaliações positivas nos grandes sites de venda da web, essa corda é indicada para quem deseja manter a forma. Ao mesmo tempo em que fortalece os músculos das pernas e dos glúteos. Logo, o material em PVC é resistente e não se desgasta fácil com o tempo. Foto: Kikos com contador I000303 Kikos com contador I000303 Segundo a marca, as manoplas de polipropileno são o grande diferencial deste produto que é uma das melhores cordas de pular do mercado. Desse modo, elas foram feitas com uma ergonomia que evitam calos nos dedos, a fim de tornar o treino mais confortável.   O contador de giros analógico do Kikos I000303 é outro recurso, já que permite monitorar as atividades físicas. Contudo, muitas pessoas criticam esse recurso, pois elas dizem que ele não é lá muito prático e a qualidade do material pode deixar a desejar. Foto: Corda de pular ajustável T96 Corda de pular ajustável T96 A corda de pular ajustável T96 é indicada para pessoas que gostam de revezar nos exercícios e aparelhos físicos, ainda é perfeito para quem deseja ganhar massa magra. Dessa forma, ele possui 2,75 m de extensão e permite ajuste. O material leve, flexível e resistente é muito elogiado por grande parte dos usuários que qualificam este modelo como uma boa opção de compra. Assim, ele é ideal para quem deseja se divertir e ao mesmo tempo, pegar pesado no crossfit e nos treinos funcionais. Foto: Kikos Light 1000304 Kikos Light 1000304 Um fato que torna esta uma das melhores cordas de pular é o seu peso leve de apenas 14 gramas. Desse modo, deve-se destacar que ela tem um preço bem acessível para uma corda de 2,75 m de extensão. Logo, ela pode se adaptar a pessoas de diversos tamanhos. De acordo com as avaliações dos usuários em algumas lojas onlines, o produto cumpre o prometido. Contudo, o seu material de PVC é frágil e enrola fácil durante os saltos. Além disso, ele não é ajustável, o que dificulta a prática de treinos aeróbicos por atletas altos. Um comparativo entre as três melhores cordas de pular O top três dessa lista é formado por produtos de qualidade, cujo foco está em garantir uma boa eficiência ao usuário na hora de se exercitar. Para isso, eles foram feitos para serem confortáveis e trabalhar várias áreas do corpo para propiciar às pessoas benefícios como:  - Queima de calorias; - Ganho de resistência e fôlego; - Aumento da frequência cardíaca. O Speed Crossfit ES231 é uma das melhores cordas de pular do mercado devido ao seu material resistente que não enrola durante os saltos. Dessa forma, o Everlast EverGrip 4485 possui manoplas anti-suor, além de permitir ao usuário reduzir o peso do produto.  Para quem deseja fortalecer braços e pernas de forma rápida, o LiveUp LS3128 é uma boa opção. Visto que conta com um contador digital para monitorar os treinos. Logo, esses modelos são bem avaliados no geral. Quais são os benefícios de pular corda? Realizar este exercício exige muito foco, disciplina e controle. Uma vez que ele se relaciona com o aumento da frequência cardíaca e ao mesmo tempo, trabalha de forma intensa a coordenação motora da pessoa. Assim, as vantagens que essa prática propicia são várias: - Estímulo dos músculos flexores;   - Queima de calorias; - Equilíbrio e agilidade. Com o uso das melhores cordas de pular, o usuário poderá tonificar grandes áreas musculares como o abdômen, os braços, as coxas e o quadril. Além disso, elas são uma das formas mais baratas de atividades físicas, já que estão disponíveis a partir de R$ 15.  Outro ponto positivo é a melhora da estrutura óssea. Desse modo, saltar corda pode ser muito benéfico para pessoas de qualquer idade. Visto que o produto é leve, barato e fácil de levar dentro da bolsa, além de gerar uma sensação de bem-estar.   Quem deve ter cuidado ao pular corda? Todo exercício físico que envolve saltos pode trazer impactos nos quadris, tornozelos e nas articulações dos joelhos. Dessa forma, as pessoas que sofrem de lesões nessas áreas devem evitar pular corda. Assim como, os idosos e as gestantes, já que isso pode causar: - Dores agudas na coluna; - Provocar abortos espontaneos. Os usuários com problemas cardíacos estão aptos a praticar essa atividade física, porém, devem seguir a risca os conselhos de um médico. Desse modo, para ter resultados mais rápidos de uma forma segura, é preciso se excitar por pelo menos 15 minutos por dia. Já para aqueles que não tem nenhum tipo de problema, o indicado é treinar por até 30 minutos. Dessa forma, pode-se melhorar a postura e ao mesmo tempo queimar calorias. Contudo, deve-se começar devagar em um ritmo lento com o intuito de se adaptar a corda. As pessoas também perguntam Nos principais buscadores da web, as perguntas mais frequentes são em relação ao jejum, o que ingerir e quais são as melhores cordas de pular. Assim, confira a seguir respostas para essas dúvidas, com o intuito de ajudá-lo a adquirir o produto adequado para seu perfil.  Como escolher a melhor corda de pular? Antes de tudo, é preciso levar em conta o material do produto. Uma vez que eles podem influenciar no peso do acessório e na execução dos giros. Desse modo, os iniciantes devem optar por uma corda de PVC mais grossa e não muito leve.  Já as manoplas são itens essenciais para a prática deste exercício físico. Assim, prefira os modelos que tenham um design anatômico, pois eles evitam a formação de calos e de outras feridas. Por fim, avalie fatores como o rolamento e o conforto ao realizar os saltos.  O que comer antes de pular corda? Este é um exercício de alto impacto. Desse modo, antes de iniciar, procure ingerir alimentos leves e evite fazer refeições pesadas para não ficar com uma sensação de mal-estar após o treino. Assim, escolha uma comida que tenha altos níveis de carboidratos e proteínas. Para atividades físicas de intensidade média, uma pessoa pode incluir gorduras saudáveis em pequenas porções, como fonte de energia. Dessa forma, para quem pratica crossfit, o ideal é comer pelo menos três horas antes e consumir lanches naturais ricos em proteínas. Pode pular corda em jejum? As atividades físicas de alto nível de intensidade não são indicadas para quem faz jejum. Porém, caso o usuário insista em pular corda sem ter ingerido refeições durante o dia, ele deve ao menos praticar exercícios leves. Beber água e ingerir suplementos à base de cafeína é essencial para impedir a perda de nutrientes do corpo. Além disso, deve-se realizar esse processo pela manhã, pois, o atleta estará mais relaxado e bem receptivo a passar longas horas sem nenhum tipo de alimento. Tenha mais desempenho em seus exercícios com as melhores cordas de pular A função principal desses acessórios é fazer com que as pessoas possam praticar este exercício aeróbico de forma eficiente e segura. Dessa maneira, a escolha de um modelo eficaz é essencial para que o usuário tenha bons resultados em pouco tempo de uso. Existem no mercado produtos com propostas e recursos diferentes. Mesmo assim, as melhores cordas de pular são capazes de oferecer várias vantagens ao corpo e à mente dos usuários. Assim, antes de comprar, é preciso ficar atento a critérios importantes como o: - Material; - Extensão; - Funções extras. Avaliar esses fatores pode ajudar qualquer um a encontrar uma corda de pular adequada para o seu perfil. Além disso, o atleta irá gozar dos benefícios dessa atividade física de um modo bem mais rápido. Já que este item pode ser usado por pessoas de várias idades.  Read the full article

[zoestagg]

Ironman Cairns 70.3: The Bike & Run...

He put his arm around me and leaned in, talking low.

“This isn’t me being mean, this is just what we need to do.” I couldn’t be sure, but I think I recognized him as the man who asked last year in the middle of a monsoon in Indonesia, if I had another lap left. He continued gently, raising his voice just slightly to compete with my sniffles, “You’ve missed the cut-off, we don’t make them to be mean I promise,” I nodded, miserably. “But look, love,” I’m 99 percent sure he said something like that, if not the actual quote — the sentiment. “You are welcome to continue. You will be an DNF, but the course is open. Get out there and give it a go!”

I nodded again and carried my squished, hotel-made onigiri to the Run Out.

He wasn’t the only angel in T2, but we need to struggle through 90 km of biking before we meet her.

Where were we? Ah yes, fresh from having our hopes dashed in the inky foam of the Coral Sea. I found out after that Ryan had dialed up my mom on FaceTime to let her watch me pedal out, and when he saw that I was in a full hysterical breakdown, realized that there is nothing about my performance in any given triathlon that is safe going live. In the weeks since the race, I’ve had a realization about my relationship with the sport.

Being pregnant and giving birth is like a universally horrific and painful experience, right? And yet, there’s all these people out there with more than one kid. I was told it’s because “It’s so worth it in the end, you forget how awful it is.”

GIRL.

I remember every last excruciating millisecond of those 257 days. For that experience, that old yarn does not add up. BUT. Apparently I can spend a whole race scared and crying, and FAIL in the strictest sense of the word and come home and immediately pick races on the two continents I’m missing. (Ecuador and Cape Town, I’m coming for you.)

ANYWAY. We’re on the bike. I’d heard in the little performance art piece about the course the day before, that there’s a dude who just travels the world doing every single IRONMAN event, and he’s declared that the Cairns bike course is the most beautiful.

Oh, you beautiful tropical fish.

You can look anywhere but at the pavement right in front of you while you’re riding? What is that even like?

Someday, I’m going to start a very important translation service: taking the official Course Description copy and making it REAL. Here’s how they described it:

The undulating, and winding course will take athletes past Thala Beach Resort and Hartley’s Croc Farm to the turnaround point, approximately 6km south of Wangetti, before heading back to Port Douglas.

Here’s what it is:

Undulating STRICTLY means up and down, but there’s an undertone of gentle that… let’s just say on an out-and-back loop, there is no rejoicing in racing a downhill, there is only knowing that it will soon be a grueling uphill. The constant hills were tough, but what really ripped me to shreds was the texture of the road and the headwind. In the course brief, we’d been warned that the roads were “county roads” and that we’d be best to try to ride in the left-hand wheel rut. Like the pioneers did. I did not know much about the types of pavement before this race, but I now know that peculiar specifically to asphalt, is a soul-crushing theft of effort. I could NOT get a leg up on it. I pedaled and pedaled and watched my speedometer and worried.

I managed one successful water bottle exchange while still moving and felt like a (slow and wobbly) boss. The road up the coast and back was closed, blessedly. It took 30 miles or so, but eventually I stopped cringing and remembering the awfulness of last year with every course monitor’s scooter that roared up behind me, and I pedaled.

On the way back, I crested a hill and saw a tent. By this point, I was already doing the complicated math as to whether I was going to make it to T2 in time, and a guy stepped out from the tent and motioned with his hand.

OH GOD. IS HE PULLING ME OFF THE COURSE? IS HE GOING TO MAKE ME GET IN A SWEEPER WAGON?

“I just need to let you know,” he started…

NO NO NO NO NO

“That this is the top of the last hill!” He looked triumphant and helpful.

I started crying. Again.

I don’t know, fam, but I’m probably going to need some kind of special warning vest for next race.

Eventually, I was out of the winding coastal road, and on back roads in to town. Then, the wind kicked up. Now of course I didn’t expect the race to be a glassy pool and a spin bike in an air-conditioned room, but DANG. When they say Australia basically just wants to kill you, you don’t imagine your death will be from all the effort needed to overcome inertia, but here we are.

I hit what had to be one of the last aid stations, and wanted water badly. I hadn’t done a great job of eating on the bike, because eating at 20 mph is freaking hard, but I’d been hydrating pretty good. I considered trying to exchange bottles and then just stopped.

“I’m not good at this usually, and I’m really not good at it tired.” I explained to the nice volunteer.

Those last five miles… were peak struggle. Everything was screaming, I was sick of the wind, and I just wanted off the bike. Eventually I started seeing people on the run course. Oh yeah, I feel like THIS, and I have a half marathon to run now.

Fun vacation.

Bike: 4:22:55

All I remember about getting to T2 is that it was full of bikes already. Suddenly, a lady in a volunteer shirt materialized next to me.

“You all right? Brilliant job, let’s get you to your spot.” She steered me through the racks as I walked my bike in a daze of tears.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m just going to… I’m okay.”

I was trying to tell her my dismal scene needs I must act alone, but she wasn’t having it. She stayed next to my spot, chatting as I wobbled to get my bike shoes off. “Here’s the good news!” She continued. “While the cut-off has technically passed, you have loads of time!” There it was, the official proclamation that I’d busted. “One year,” she continued, “I only made it with ONE minute to spare. Another year, one of my friends took 12 whole hours to finish the Half, but he did it!”

Wait, I might be crying again…now.

“Why don’t you see what you can do? Start the run and see how it goes.” I got my running shoes and visor on, and slipped on my fuel belt. “You all right? Good luck, you’ve got this!”

I headed out, and got the official okay to keep going from the kindly course director at the beginning of this saga, and gingerly started to trot. This is where I finally felt like there was a part of me that could do this. All of the running off the bike all training cycle kicked in. I’d been WRECKED on the bike, and now I felt…okay?! What’s even happening?

I ran past Ryan and Frankie and told them I was going to give finishing a go, and trotted on. I WAS DOING THIS. The run course was flat as a pancake and packed with spectators. I started to catch up on the fuel I missed on the bike, and relished the full-fat Coke at each aid station. I wouldn’t touch the stuff if I wasn’t trying to kill myself physically in other ways, but when you are? It tastes like heaven. I had it on my Fuji climb last weekend, and can confirm — Gatorade, who?

There were still tons of 70.3 competitors out there when I started, but as they dwindled, I was VERY careful to make myself as invisible as possible. I stayed well out of anyone’s way racing the 140.6, hugging the shoulder of the path and waiting at the aid stations until they were totally clear before I approached. (The run course was on an esplanade with splash pools, which Frankie took full advantage of.)

Omg those aid stations when you’re not the last one on the course? STOCKED. The run was two laps of the same loop, so the second time through — finally feeling like I was going to very maybe finish this thing — I thanked the volunteers handing out watermelon, “This is my favorite restaurant in Cairns!” I had a lot of time to think on the course, and while I spent a lot of time feeling bad about taking so long, it occurred to me that if the race was only the fastest people, they would miss out on a heck of a lot of entry fees from us back-of-the-packers. While it’s weird to do a sport with professionals out there at the same time, I’d like to think by virtue of it being inclusionary, they can offer more amenities and support to everyone.

I don’t know exactly when I knew I would finish, maybe after the first loop, when my feet were still dry, there was no monsoon, and I was kind of feeling physically… fine? Fine-ish? I was IN THIS. No, I didn’t strictly run the entire way, but I kept moving forward, every single step that much closer to the finish line. Finally, I could hear the announcer and the bells and drums and cheering of the end.

Here’s where I put my finish in humiliating perspective: The woman who won the FULL had a faster time that me doing the HALF. I don’t know what to tell you guys, I’m slow AF. But I have a heck of a lot of Don’t Quit. I ran down the finish line shoot, with the guy on the microphone announcing my name. I got to the end, and he said, “It’s all right to stop now, you made it!”

And then I cried a little more.

Run: 3:30:24

Total: 9:11:22

I did all 70.3 miles of it this time, and THIS TIME, I got a daggone towel.

Triathlon takes a LOT of time. Not just racing one when you’re slow like me, but training. This was Ryan and Frankie’s race too. They let me disappear for half of every weekend day, they helped me get my bike on four different planes, they spent all day figuring out where I’d be when to cheer me on, and hung out on the esplanade for hours while I struggled away at the last 13 miles. And my coach, who kept me honest and on track and encouraged me the whole way, I couldn’t have done this without them. 

Triathlon IS a team sport, if you do it right.

(So I think in the whole “you forget how bad giving birth is” is because babies are so delightful? I mean, talk to someone who has both given birth AND eaten their first meal the day after a long-course race — this is not a comparison that works out well for babies if that meal is artisanal avocado toast and a Bloody Mary, I’M JUST SAYING.)

Part 1: The Swim...

[edisonashley]

Online Sports Betting (Gambling): Who is the Regulatory Authority?

Introduction

The linkage between gambling and sports has been extant for centuries and as technology grows so does the relationship. With the advent of online gambling, it has shifted from the high-street betting shops to online platforms that enable betting on sports events from any location and at any time.

Online betting in Nigeria has become a competitive market in recent years with football or pool betting being the most popular sport betting in Nigeria, generating a huge amount of revenue with agencies like Bet9ja, Naijabet, etc. and facilitating employment.

Although Gambling is legal in Nigeria to a certain extent, Nigeria still doesn’t have any substantive regulations in place to accommodate online gambling.

With the rapid growth in this industry, there is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria is tardy in its bid to take necessary steps to fully legislate on or rather, to amend antecedent laws regulating gambling and to incorporate the new changes.

In Nigeria, we are left at the mercy of Laws like the Criminal Code Act of 1990, The National Lottery Act of 2005 and some state legislation on lottery and pool betting. These laws are lax to online betting platforms.

This paper will focus on pool betting and casino gaming and will try to answer the question as to appropriate authority that has a mandate to legislate on pool betting and casino gaming.

Regulatory authority                                    

One grey area under the present Nigerian federalism is the area of pool betting and Casino gaming. Recently, there has been a bit of confusion between the National Lottery Regulatory Commission and the Lagos State Lottery Board on the appropriate authority to regulate on matters relating to the licensing of a sports betting agency amongst other things.

It is well-known that Nigeria operates a federal system of government and power is shared among the three tiers of government. Each tier of government has matters it can legislate on as provided by the Constitution.

The Federal Government handles matters listed in Part I of the Second Schedule to the constitution while both the Federal and State Government handles matters listed in Part II of the Second Schedule to the constitution.

The question to ask is who has the legislative competence to regulate pool betting and casino gaming?  Before delving to answer the question, it might be of interest to note that, recently, the Lagos State Lottery Board published the list of blacklisted unlicensed gaming holders within Lagos State whose gaming license has been granted previously by the National Lottery Regulatory Commission.

The Commission thereafter published a public notice to the effect that;

It is the apex regulator of lotteries and gaming in Nigeria as conferred to it by the National Lottery Act, 2005.

That the Act is the contemporary law governing lottery and gaming activities in modern Nigeria.

That any operator licensed by the Federal Government has the right and is free to conduct the business of Lottery and Gaming in any part of the federation and thus The Board was wrong to have blacklisted the license of such gaming holders.

In response to the above public notice, The Lagos State Lottery Board reiterated the fact that legislating on gaming does not fall within the items listed in the Exclusive Legislative List and the Concurrent Legislative List respectively as provided under the 1999 Constitution.

In addition, Part II, Section 5, Taxes and Levies (Approved List for Collection) Act, Cap T2 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria empowers the State Government to collect tax in lotteries, pool, gaming and other related matters.

Now, going back to our question, it is indeed worthy of note that after going through the matters listed in the Exclusive Legislative List and the Concurrent Legislative List as provided in Part I and II of the Second Schedule to the Constitution, it is obvious that pool betting and gaming has not been listed thereon.

Since this is the case, reference is made to Section 4 (7) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended (2011)to completely answer our question. The Section states that the House of Assembly of a State shall have power to make laws with respect to the following matters;

(a) Any matter not included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to this Constitution;

(b) Any matter included in the Concurrent Legislative List set out in the first column of Part II of the Second Schedule to this Constitution to the extent prescribed in the second column opposite thereto.

With the above provisions, it sums up to the fact that matters not listed in the Exclusive Legislative List and the Concurrent List are residual matters which the States are allowed to legislate on and therefore the Federal Government is not competent to legislate on the subject matter.

Even with the constitution being crystal clear on the legislative powers of both tiers of government, It is not new that, there have been several occasions where the Federal Government has attempted to legislate on matters which ordinarily should be the responsibility of the State. See the case of Amaechi v Governor of Rivers state & Ors (2017) LPELR-43065(CA)

Evidently, the granting of gaming licenses to any operator by the National Lottery Regulation Commission is unconstitutional. This has been decided in the case of Edet v Chagoon (2008) 2 NWLR (PT. 1070) 85 at p108.

Where the court held that-

“Pools betting and Casino Gaming do not appear in either Part 1 (Exclusive Legislative List) or Part II (Concurrent Legislative List) of the second schedule to the 1999 constitution. Not being an item in the Exclusive Legislative List or in the Concurrent Legislative List and not matters incidental or supplementary to the execution of any of the powers in the Exclusive Legislative List or even the Concurrent Legislative List, pools betting and casino matters are residual matters.”

The court went further to say:

“Being residual matters, they are within the legislative competence of the House of Assembly of a State.”

In light of the foregoing, the National Lottery Regulation Commission stepped out of its powers when it granted licenses to agencies to conduct gaming activities in Lagos State. Such is unconstitutional as power does not reside with it.

The only way the Commission will be able to regulate such matters is if the constitution is amended to list the subject matter under the Exclusive Legislative List or the Concurrent Legislative List.

Conclusion

Nigeria is in dire need of a regulation to encompass gambling using telephone, television or any kind of electronic or technology to facilitate communication. The internet has radically changed the way pool betting is controlled.

A state granting licensed pool betting should try as much as possible to ensure licensing objectives are provided. Such legislation should try to prevent gambling from being a source of crime or disorder and to ensure gambling is conducted in a fair and open way and also to protect children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited.

The post Online Sports Betting (Gambling): Who is the Regulatory Authority? appeared first on Lawyard.

Online Sports Betting (Gambling): Who is the Regulatory Authority? published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.weebly.com/

[noelmu]

WEEK(S) IN REVIEW 6/18/17-7/14/17

I didn’t mean to take a month between posts, but I’m afraid I’ve been preoccupied by a few things:

1. We’re leaving on Monday for the first real family vacation we’ve taken in... well, maybe ever. We tend to plan our trips around visits with relatives, and while we love our family, we’ve been itching to take the kids on an adventure for just the four of us, to make the kinds of memories that Donna and I recall from our own youth. Up to now, we’ve only been on little two- or three-day excursions with Archer and Cady Gray, nothing like what we have planned next week. We’re going to start with one our family visits -- spending a few days with Donna’s mom and dad in coastal Georgia -- and then we’re hopping on a Carnival cruise ship in Jacksonville for a four-day sail to the Bahamas, complete with a stop at the famed Aquaventure water park at the Atlantis resort. We’re very excited about this, and because we’re going to be largely cut off from internet on the boat (and because I promised Donna I’d legit relax), I’ve been scrambling to get work done all month, so that I can spend my days reading, swimming, dancing, and sipping fruity cocktails.

2. In the summer, I spend a lot more time with the kids, because they’re home every weekday (when they’re not in camps), and because we have our Summer Tabletop Tournament on the weekends. A lot of my non-work time is taken up these days by preparing food, watching TV with one or both children, and playing board games. All that time adds up.

3. Perhaps the biggest change since my last post is the Apple Watch-inspired exercise regimen I wrote about here a month ago. To “close my circles” and meet all the calorie-burning goals the device has set for me, I pretty have to get up, go outside, and take a walk pretty regularly. I’m up to about four walks a day, totaling roughly two hours.

Between all that, I work! Below is four weeks’ worth of articles, running the gamut from listicle contributions to TV and film reviews to substantial features. If I’d been keeping up with this Tumblr, I would’ve written more about some of these weeks ago. But right now I need to get back to an overdue piece that has to get done before I jet off. So please scroll down and click on anything that you missed.

Back in two weeks with cruise tales.

The A.V. Club Run The Series: The original Planet Of The Apes series became more daring from movie to movie A Very Special Episode: A very special Justice League Unlimitedsalutes DC Comics’ forgotten characters Movie Review: The Reagan Show traces Trump’s sideshow tactics back to our first TV-ready president TV Review: A short, sharp 30 For 30 looks at one of sports talk radio’s most famous teams Field Guide To Parenting: Our parenting guide offers a summer reading list for the littlest bookworms (I wrote about The Phantom Tollbooth) AVQ&A: Which musical act have you seen live more than any other? (I wrote about fIREHOSE) Best Of: The best movies of 2017 so far (I wrote about Long Strange Trip)

Filmmaker The First Rule of Twin Peaks Recapping? Write Down the Facts

The Los Angeles Times Movie Review: Horror-comedy A Beginner's Guide To Snuff aspires to entertain, not exploit Movie Review: With the doc Can't Stop Won't Stop, Sean Combs takes a step toward cementing his name Movie Review: Going home again can be terrifying in otherwise bland horror film Darkness Rising Movie Review: Thriller Inconceivable wastes Gina Gershon and Nicolas Cage in creaky throwback Movie Review: Steven Seagal is the big name, but crime thriller Cartels would have been better off without him Movie Review: Experimental doc Blue Velvet Revisited digs deep on David Lynch's 1986 masterpiece Movie Review: Horror comedy Granny Of The Dead is more yawn than Shaun New In Home Entertainment: T2 Trainspotting is an unlikely sequel and surprisingly profound New In Home Entertainment: Terrence Malick's Song To Song is better than you might think New In Home Entertainment: Their Finest is a real find, a British World War II story with heart and humor New In Home Entertainment: Wilson is a quirky, underdog comedy with a terrific performance by Woody Harrelson

The New York Times 9 Ways Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Connects to the Series Revival TV Review: Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 7: Absent Friends TV Review: Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 8: White Light White Heat TV Review: Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 9: Red, Beige and Blue Watching: The Flash Watching: NewsRadio Watching: Phineas And Ferb Watching: Supergirl Watching: Twin Peaks: The Return

Rolling Stone TV Review: Fargo Season 3, Episode 10: Trump Cards GLOW: Everything You Need to Know About Netflix's 1980s Lady-Wrestler Show Snowfall: Everything You Need to Know About FX's Origins-of-Crack Drama San Diego Comic-Con 2017: Your Complete Guide The 100 Greatest Movies of the Nineties (I wrote about Crumb, Fight Club, L.A. Confidential, and Rushmore)

Screencrush 25 Best TV Sex Scenes Of The Last 20 Years (I wrote about Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Friends, Game Of Thrones, Orange Is The New Black, and True Detective)

The Verge HBO’s Silicon Valley isn’t as bitter and cynical as it looks

VINYLMNKY LANY // LANY

The Week Is Game Of Thrones our last shared TV experience?