Not to turn this into the Movie thread, but Moyer and Geoff, you need to see Tropic Thunder, if you haven't already. Stiller wrote, directed and starred in it (along with Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr.) and I got a bellyache from laughing so hard while watching it.

Ed, Orson Scott Card lives here in my hometown of Greensboro, NC. He writes a lengthy politics column for an alt-weekly newspaper. Whenever I see it, I always think, "Why is a guy that talented wasting his time with nonsense like this? If I was him, I'd write another sci-fi best-seller and watch the checks roll in."

Gym class was always the worst time of the day for me because it showed me just how unpopular I was. Why? Because I was usually one of the best athletes in the class and I'd still get picked last.

In floor hockey I'd score four of five goals (first team to ten wins) and then my team would throw me in the net to play goal because they didn't want to win that way (on my back). Then when I was playing goal I'd make a ton of saves and they'd get frustrated and put me back on the floor but make sure I never got the puck. Essentially we were then playing as if we had four players instead of five and we'd end up losing. They'd rather lose than win and owe it to me.

I'm a geek, but a big, strong, fast geek. Friends of mine who were also geeks would say they went through the same thing but I had to disagree. Sucking at something and being picked last is kind of fair (even if it feels bad), because somebody has to be picked last and why should someone who is better than you at the game be picked after you? But being one of the best and still have the captains argue over who has to take you?

The problem is that most gym teachers actually liked gym class and were usually the better, more popular, athletes in the class. For them it was a benefit to pick the two most popular kids (since they were once those kinds of kids themselves) and have them pick teams because essentially they are rewarding themselves by rewarding kids who are just like them. Obviously there's a better way and I'm honestly not sure why gym teachers aren't being strongly discouraged from picking teams in that lazy, discriminatory, down right nasty fashion.

Though the alternative proposed upthread of focusing on physical fitness would not appeal to me either because I never got the 'point' of exercising for exercises sake. Give me a game to play and I'll run full out for an hour. Give me drills that relate to a sport and I'll try my best and work hard. Stand in front of me telling me to do pushups, sit ups, chin ups, or running around the gym and I'd halfheart it every time. I needed a specific goal to do my best and without that motivation I wasn't very good.

Running was the bane of my existence though, in a game I could run at full speed and have no problem but running straight would nearly kill me. What I didn't realize (and the gym teachers didn't realize), was that I forgot to breathe when I was running. I'd run for a couple of minutes holding my breath and nearly black out. Really strange.

As to Orson Scott Card; an incredibly talented writer of fiction whose opinion on real world issues I have never sought out after having heard the gist. Ender's Game is easily one of the best science fiction novels of the last thirty or forty years (though the sequels don't need reading). His Alvin Maker books are really well done and I don't think he's published a book where the writing has not been exemplary (though at times I would say the idea doesn't justify the length or the depth of the work). That said I have never seen his opinion on gay marriage bleed into his work (but I haven't read everything he's written so I could have just missed it).

I have not seen him do what I have seen other authors do which is put controversial opinions in their character's mouths as if the character is speaking the words when it is really just the author lecturing the readers (you can tell because the character's voice changes, and the novel usually comes to a dead stop as the character delivers the author's screed).

I don't know about you guys but I loved Dodgeball.  I know all the downsides and why it fallen out of favor, but I loved playing that game when I was a kid. 

I LOVED dodgeball!!! I wish we were all in the same city we could be on an adult dodgeball team together.   I was a tomboy and loved all sports. But in my day they didn't have girl teams, I must say I am a little jealous of girls today.

Funny story I went and spent the day with Jonathans class helping the teacher when he was in the 5th grade. They got to play dodgeball and the teacher asked if I would like to play, the kids got excited and wanted me to so I did. 

 I don't know what happened but the little kid in me came out and I blasted the boys (it was girls against boys)  It got down to 3 girls hiding in the corner and me and the jock on the boys side, who was bigger then me, I threw the ball at him and took his feet out from under him. The girls won for the very first time and the boys from his class always remembered that game. I had several when Jon graduated HS come up and said they loved that I played dodgeball with them and wished their mom was as good at dodgeball as I was. Chuck called me a bully.