What is it with Guys and Balls?
Guys fooling with balls. Girl standing pretty.So there we were, three old friends meeting up to return some books to the library. We dropped the books into the chute. Moment of panic when the light fails to light up. The light blinks to life: "Book returned". And we were done. "Now what?" I asked. And so starts the long session when everyone filters through their brains trying to find something fun and exciting to occupy us through the evening.
The long session lasted all of five seconds. We convinced ourselves that we'd find something to do while strolling along. So we headed for the escalators. At every landing, one of us would ask, "So how now?" Blinks. Heads for the next escalator. Process repeats. The next moment, we find ourselves outside a pool place. "How bout playing pool?" No violent objections. We enter.
The above scenario wouldn't be that bad if not for the fact that we repeat it everytime we go out. Is it because there really isn't much to do in Singapore in the evenings? I mean, we could go trekking around Bukit Timah in the mornings, and go around the country on bikes in the dead of the night, but what about the time in between? We have the standard suite of activities like LAN gaming, dining, pool, karaoke. (Notice that they're all indoor activities. We're spoilt children. We can't live without air-conditioning in the heat of the day.) My point is that there really isn't much that we could do in the afternoons and evenings.
But is it really the case? Why pool of all activities? What's so enticing about hitting balls with a long thin stick? (At this point, I feel a huge urge to digress into a pseudo economics case-study. There is supply, and there is demand. Thus, there is the service.) I don't know about the others, but I love pool because it links what I've learnt in my physics lessons to real life. As I line up the shot, I recall the Principle on Conservation of Momentum. If I hit the cue ball hard, the target ball moves fast as well. Momentum is transferred from the cue, to the cue ball, to the target ball. I also recall all the equations from my optics lessons. Angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. The sine of the angle of incidence... no wait, there's no refraction on the pool table. Even if you try doing a jump ball trick shot, you'll have to consider projectile motion.
There I go again, spouting physics like I was made up of nuts and bolts and gears. Anyway, while I was playing, I realized once again the great difference in the proportion of male and female players. Why is pool a predominantly male activity? The TV was showing a soccer match. A person watching shouts that a team has scored. Guys crowd under the TV set, watching the replay intently. What is it with guys and balls? We run after them, we hit them around, we throw them around, we kick, punch, whack, smash... Every conceivable thing that we could do to a ball, we've made into a sport.
As always, I blog not to post the answers, but to raise all the questions. (Of course you could also question why my post seems to lack coherence today. Grin and bear it.) I'll ponder over these questions for the whole of five seconds, after which I don't mind the next time we walk into a pool place and start playing. -Jimmy
The long session lasted all of five seconds. We convinced ourselves that we'd find something to do while strolling along. So we headed for the escalators. At every landing, one of us would ask, "So how now?" Blinks. Heads for the next escalator. Process repeats. The next moment, we find ourselves outside a pool place. "How bout playing pool?" No violent objections. We enter.
The above scenario wouldn't be that bad if not for the fact that we repeat it everytime we go out. Is it because there really isn't much to do in Singapore in the evenings? I mean, we could go trekking around Bukit Timah in the mornings, and go around the country on bikes in the dead of the night, but what about the time in between? We have the standard suite of activities like LAN gaming, dining, pool, karaoke. (Notice that they're all indoor activities. We're spoilt children. We can't live without air-conditioning in the heat of the day.) My point is that there really isn't much that we could do in the afternoons and evenings.
But is it really the case? Why pool of all activities? What's so enticing about hitting balls with a long thin stick? (At this point, I feel a huge urge to digress into a pseudo economics case-study. There is supply, and there is demand. Thus, there is the service.) I don't know about the others, but I love pool because it links what I've learnt in my physics lessons to real life. As I line up the shot, I recall the Principle on Conservation of Momentum. If I hit the cue ball hard, the target ball moves fast as well. Momentum is transferred from the cue, to the cue ball, to the target ball. I also recall all the equations from my optics lessons. Angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. The sine of the angle of incidence... no wait, there's no refraction on the pool table. Even if you try doing a jump ball trick shot, you'll have to consider projectile motion.
There I go again, spouting physics like I was made up of nuts and bolts and gears. Anyway, while I was playing, I realized once again the great difference in the proportion of male and female players. Why is pool a predominantly male activity? The TV was showing a soccer match. A person watching shouts that a team has scored. Guys crowd under the TV set, watching the replay intently. What is it with guys and balls? We run after them, we hit them around, we throw them around, we kick, punch, whack, smash... Every conceivable thing that we could do to a ball, we've made into a sport.
As always, I blog not to post the answers, but to raise all the questions. (Of course you could also question why my post seems to lack coherence today. Grin and bear it.) I'll ponder over these questions for the whole of five seconds, after which I don't mind the next time we walk into a pool place and start playing. -Jimmy
posted by Jimmy at 10:55 PM
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