Masters Swimmers Acting Like Triathletes

Mr. Thorton, Stick to palm reading and astrology. It's more accurate. you got completely pwned and that is what you have to say??? healyourchurchwebsite.com/.../hycw_pwned.jpg symonsez.files.wordpress.com/.../nolanfight1.jpg (in case you don't know, you are #23 in this picture) pwnedvideo.com/.../pwned.jpg (in this one you are rich or jennifer)

I would further speculate that there is a quality of bullshit to much of this thread. However, as I just speculated above, bull is perhaps too strong a term. Once again, your twisted mind makes me laugh!!

I am thinking there are more appropriate nouns that could be used in place of triathletes in this thread title.

You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". WB What's a wannabe Masters swimmer? Someone who strives to fill out the membership form, but just can't quite get it together? :rofl:

... Not everybody can be the winner, and nobody wants to be a loser.... I'm sort of lost now as to the point of this thread... but I'm easily confused so that is not really saying much. :confused: For pure entertainment value however, this has been good... so here is my 2-cents. ;) I like too how this thread has brought out comments from long standing members with few posts (no multi post per day stats needed by them, no siree). As mentioned already... it is always interesting to see which seemingly mundane posts get the most attention. :cool: That "jim thornton" is a clever fellow... thanks for all the laughs!... entertainment, and thought provoking posts. I'm sure you've posted some comments simply about swimming, but I've been lapse in keeping up here recently so I cant think of any right off the bat. :blush: While I'm singling people out I'd like to say that even that "aquageek" guy is beginning to grow on me... in a good way (please! save your rants here, there seem to be enough already!). I'd like to eat a bit of humble pie and offer up an apology to him for basically calling him a f****** a****** so many moons back. That "gull" fellow caught your back (and he seems like a really 'stand-up' kinda guy)... and I've since reevaluated the harshness of my judgment, and am now attempting to set straight the crooked errors of my past ways. Some may call me a "9th Stepper"... so-be-it. :whiteflag: What other images has this thread conjured up for me? How about seemingly "fat chicks" who can probably toast 90% of the general population (regardless of gender) with their athletic prowess. The slim look is good, but gimmie a woman with a bit of meat on her bones any day. ;) I'd much rather a gal who looks like she could wrastle me down... at least for a bit. (Too long and I'd be afraid.) :afraid: I'm no small fry either, at 6'2", 195#... I'm just feeling a bit off my game right now. :( One very vivid recollection is a quote I heard repeated by Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers (en.wikipedia.org/.../Car_Talk)... I can still hear them cackling after its utterance: "Only the mediocre are always at their best." - Jean Giraudoux As for being #1... oh, that is much too easy: YouTube - LAURIE ANDERSON - ZERO AND ONE (be patient... mebbe grab one of those hard earned beers first) "I'm no mathematician, but I'd like to talk about just a couple of numbers that have really been bothering me lately... and they are: Zero, and One. Now first, let's take a look at 'Zero'... Now nobody wants to be a Zero... to be a zero means to be a nothing, a nobody, a 'has been', a clod.... On the other hand, almost everybody wants to be 'Number One'! To be number one means to be a winner, top of the heap, the Acme. And there seems to be a strange kind of National obsession with this particular number. Now in my opinion the problem with these two numbers is that they are just too close... leaves very little room in there for 'everybody else'. Just not enough range. So first, we need to get rid of the value judgments attached to these two numbers and realize that to be 'a zero' is no better, no worse, than to be 'number one'. Because...." If you are not already familiar with the work of Laurie Anderson, but this got your interest, then I suggest the video this was taken from (currently hard to find), and the companion CD (much easier to find): Home of the Brave (1986) If you like that, then I suggest also the following... more or less in this order: Big Science (1982) Strange Angels (1989) The Ugly One with the Jewels (spoken word) (1995) Mister Heartbreak (1984) Bright Red (1994) What's all this got to do with "Masters Swimmers Acting Like Triathletes"? ... darned if I know. :dunno: One last thought... I've heard it said that there are two kinds of people in the world - those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don't. my :2cents: ha-ha

Mr. Thornton: I suggest you make "I" statements rather than gross over generalizations such as "we" and "us". I believe your wanting to justify your existence through personal attacks and self rationalization of mediocrity embarassing and transparent. Please do the majority of "competitive" swimmers, former or master's current, a favor and go away. You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". WB

this is exactly what i was thinking Humans are a very social and hierarchical species. We may say that we do not crave status, but the overwhelming majority of us spend our lives trying to increase our status and climb the next rung on the ladder of success. We measure our success against our peers in many domains--keeping up with the Jones's at home in the suburbs, jockeying about for that coveted promotion at work, trying to beat our comrades in sports, etc. Some have argued that men are more competitive than women, but I am not sure this is the case. There may be some differences in the domains in which we compete, but that is beyond the scope of this comment. Not everybody can be the winner, and nobody wants to be a loser. The only people who want to be losers are those who have embraced Nietzsche's resentiment philosophy--if you want something but can't obtain it for yourself, you downgrade its value and adopt its opposite as truly noble aspiration. The early Jews wanted the power of the Romans but weren't able to get it, so they devalued power and made "blessed are the meek" and "turn the other cheek" into new virtues. Mr. Negative, by even the choice of your name, your seem to be riddled with resentiment. I will hand it to you, Mr. N: you are a very amusing fellow with your snide quips worthy of Oscar Wilde in full male *** mode! (CreamPuff, by the way, do you know what f'n beech means in Italian? It is not what you think. This was no insult but rather the world record holder's highest compliment. The "f'in" just means fin--Italians! how they love to add meaningless syllables!--as in the oars of fish; "beech" refers to what whales sometimes do after long disorienting swims of the sort your practice appears to have been. He was simply admiring your superbly designed swimmer's limbs (your "f'ins") and implying that he wanted you to beech with him (sit in pool chairs for a while) after practice. Back to Mr. N. As suggested elsewhere in these forums, I am not a psychoanalyst, but I do believe I could be a beloved fake psychoanalyst in parts of Appalachia where they still believe in things like penis envy. Permit me to do a brief, and I daresay frighteningly accurate, psychiatric vivisection of you that I think will help you better understand yourself and help you become a better person, maybe--given enough years--even a decent person. You are relatively young You either were, or wished you were, a very good sub-elite swimmer in your youth, and you swam up to college You derived a certain amount of status from this; it is quite possible that the gender of your choice actually admired your swimming, and you occasionally found your head spinning from the dizzy flattery of the girls or, possibly, boys alas, some times has passed since your swimming glory years; some time has gathered on your swimming times, too; suffice it to say, you have decided you can't go home again--that the glory you once got (or hoped you might get) from that particular well is gone You see people, Lilliputian people in your somewhat jaded eyes, who continue--even into their dotage! revolting! stuff their fat in rubber suits post haste!--scrambling to swim competitive times in their age groups, and--here comes the part you cannot in any way abide!--take some pleasure in their accomplishments It matters naught to you that most of us have numerous hierarchical domains in our lives--we are doing the best we can at our jobs (if we stil have jobs), we are doing our best in our families, we are doing our best to raise our kids to be decent and trying not to compare them to the super wunderkinds all around, we are, in short, trying to achieve some sense of status in our lives, not perhaps because we want to, not because we are vain, but because we are human beings, and human beings are designed this way! As swine seek truffles so are we driven creatures who root and snort and dig for status relentlessly! It matters naught to you that arguably the most pathetic of all humans are those of us who have few domains at all where there is even a chance to get fingernail up and out of the total absorbing mediocrity that is the fate of most people to endure. If swimming lets one such person say to themselves--in this one thing, I am slightly above average!--what is to you to deny them this pleasure, to point out the pathos of their happiness? There was one fellow who used to post here constantly, whose name is now simply refered to as "he who must not be mentioned", who perhaps fit your profile of self-absorbed swimming malefactor perfectly: an absolutely-obsessed-by-swimming kind of fellow who, with the exception of some of his more ludicrous claims to swimming glory based upon the age at which he took up the sport, appeared to have NOTHING AT ALL in his life. Such a fellow--a triathlete's triathlete by your description, albeit one who didn't run or bike, only swam, slowly, while desperately holding on to his illusions--is easy to lampoon, and in fact, the fellow was eventually hounded out of this forum. I say to you, Mr. Negative: see if you can rally support for the old recreation of taking your family to see the local insane asylum on weekends. You appear to take great delight in exposing human frailities and obsessions and vanities! How much fun it would be to see the most extreme examples of such: strutting King Ferdinands twitching from decades of Thorazine, their pomposity all the more risible because to them it seems almost a form of dignity! Ah, a bad end I spy for you, Mr. Negative! I know your kind! I am, you see, cut from the same cloth, one designed, evidently, not to slash but rather to maximize drag forces during life's bitter passage!

I strive to be non-argumentative in my posts, but I have to call BS on this one. -LBJ Hahaha. Since switching from running to swimming and starting lifting, I've gained weight and had to buy a new wardrobe. I'm just flat out slimmer as a runner, that's all. But I was really just exaggerating to dispute Mr. Negative's swim for health edict. Perhaps I should have switched to being a triathlete and I would have fit right in! Thanks, Splash, but I don't eat too much and I know that stuff.

WB I think you didn't "get" that most of what Mr. N and Mr. T wrote was for comedic effect (not that the posts were without any validity)! I mean geez, light'n up! Perhpas WB is also JS? Some was for comedic and argumentative effect, naturally, and some was serious though couched in a bemused tone. The writing is classic JS and so is the use of the phrase "I suggest." The admonition to "use your I statements" was just used previously in this thread by the other Smith. And, as I recall, White Buffalo, much like the Smiths, is always a poster on the drug threads. The pejorative classification of "wanna-bee" masters swimmers vs. NCAA champs is classic condescending JS speak as well. There is no rule that says that former NCAA champs will be at the top of their swimming game their whole life. They could become fat unfit alcoholics who die of a heart attack or otherwise lapse into satiated mediocrity while their allegedly clueless don't "get it" peers maintain fitness. I personally think the "get it" thing is utterly overstated. Most people that are swimming fast are working reasonably hard. At least, to my knowledge, the former Olympian and national finalist(s) in my age group are.

Some was for comedic and argumentative effect, naturally, and some was serious though couched in a bemused tone. The writing is classic JS and so is the use of the phrase "I suggest." The admonition to "use your I statements" was just used previously in this thread by the other Smith. And, as I recall, White Buffalo, much like the Smiths, is always a poster on the drug threads. The pejorative classification of "wanna-bee" masters swimmers vs. NCAA champs is classic condescending JS speak as well. There is no rule that says that former NCAA champs will be at the top of their swimming game their whole life. They could become fat unfit alcoholics who die of a heart attack or otherwise lapse into satiated mediocrity while their allegedly clueless don't "get it" peers maintain fitness. I personally think the "get it" thing is utterly overstated. Most people that are swimming fast are working reasonably hard. At least, to my knowledge, the former Olympian and national finalist(s) in my age group are. Yet in spite of all the jabs, sarcasm, defensiveness, eliteism and in Thorntons case drug induced rambling the bottom line is that...whether you are a masters swimmers, a USA swimmer, a triathlete, a never ever, a soccer mom or a stalker like Jim if you are going to post pictures of yourself on-line with your trophys, blog about it, post body shots, put down others and in general show an inflated ego and lack of humility....you are/and should be fair game for mockery....