The Braves and their Hugging - it's good for them!

There are many reasons why I love the Braves, but one reason that has developed since I first became a fan is because the players are so openly affectionate to each other.

 

See what I mean?  It apparently all started a few years ago when Freddie Freeman and Dan Uggla began using a hug instead of a handshake, and it just grew from there.  This aspect of the Braves became nationally known last June when the Braves started a "Hugs for Votes" campaign to get Freddie the Final Vote for the All Star Game (which worked, in case you don't remember).  And there are some of us fans that refer to Dan as "Huggla".  ;) 

While I've always thought it was really sweet, I recently learned thanks to an article/video clip about stress that my mom emailed to me that this cute habit of the Braves' could really be beneficial for them.  Here's an excerpt from the video's transcript:

...I want to tell you about one of the most under-appreciated aspects of the stress response, and the idea is this: Stress makes you social.

To understand this side of stress, we need to talk about a hormone, oxytocin, and I know oxytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone can get. It even has its own cute nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it's released when you hug someone. But this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in. Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes you more willing to help and support the people you care about. Some people have even suggested we should snort oxytocin to become more compassionate and caring. But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin. It's a stress hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. It's as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound. And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you.

Okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier? Well, oxytocin doesn't only act on your brain. It also acts on your body, and one of its main roles in your body is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of stress. It's a natural anti-inflammatory. It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during stress. But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart. Your heart has receptors for this hormone, and oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage. This stress hormone strengthens your heart, and the cool thing is that all of these physical benefits of oxytocin are enhanced by social contact and social support, so when you reach out to others under stress, either to seek support or to help someone else, you release more of this hormone, your stress response becomes healthier, and you actually recover faster from stress. I find this amazing, that your stress response has a built-in mechanism for stress resilience, and that mechanism is human connection...

See?  All the Braves' hugging helps them with handling stress!  And seeing how stressful the season can be for us fans, it has to be much more so for the players.  So, from Braves fans everywhere, keep it up, guys!  It's for your health.  :)

 

Behind "The Avengers" (some of them, anyway)

Ever since I was first introduced to "The Avengers", I have been doing a little YouTube research just to learn what some of the guys who helped bring these characters to life are really like.  I have mostly been checking out stuff about Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), and Tom Hiddleston (Loki).  The one thing I've learned that they all have in common, besides being good actors and having nice smiles, is that they all can be pretty funny.  From watching the movies they are in, you get the idea that they have to have a good sense of humor in order to go through some of the things they do on screen, but you don't get to see how their personalities effect their humor until you see them in interviews and they are being themselves.  Some are pretty goofy while others are more tongue-in-cheek.  And all of them can be pretty quick-witted and hilarious!  So I thought I'd just share some of the videos I've found highlighting their funny bones.  :)

Chris Hemsworth

Now, first off, he's Australian, which gives him a 7 out of 10 on the coolness scale even without being a fun guy.  But add his sense of humor to his accent and he becomes a 12.  (Skip forward to mark 0:25.  That's when the funny stuff starts).

He also apparently isn't afraid to laugh at himself, which knocks him up to about a 14 on the scale.

I don't know how many of you remember from some years back the video that went viral called "Charlie Bit My Finger".  I can't recall if I actually ever watched it, but boy do I remember hearing about it!  (For those of you who don't remember it, it was of a young boy with a thick Cockney accent getting bit on his finger by his baby brother, Charlie. Yeah, real viral material).  Well, Jimmy Kimmel got Chris and his younger brother Liam to do a little follow-up video "showing" the brothers about 30 years later.

I'd love to see Chris and Liam star in a real movie together!  And apparently Liam has a pretty good sense of humor, too. 

Chris Evans

After watching a few clips where you see him being himself, you can get a sense of what a great actor Chris is, because he does NOT seem to be much like Cap at all.  It appears that he's more like the other superhero he's played, Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, in the "Fantastic Four" movies.  Anyway, he seems like a pretty fun guy who can poke fun at himself, too.  He also has such a cute "I'm kinda embarrased about admitting this fact about myself but I'm kinda enjoying it, too" expression. 

Hey, there's nothing wrong with having gone to acting camp!  I went to a couple of acting camps myself, which was about the extent of my acting "career".  They were a blast!
In the video below, I would recommend skipping from the 2:45 mark to the 4:23 mark just because some of the content in that part of the video is PG kind of stuff (which proves right there that Chris and Cap are entirely different.  Cap would NEVER talk about some of that kind of stuff in public).

When I first watched this clip and I realized what song he was singing during the last interview, I - FREAKED - OUT.  I absolutely LOVE "The House at Pooh Corner"!  The fact that that is the song he picked to sing made me like him about 5 times more than I already did (and made up for the PG rated comments).  <3

Jeremy Renner

First off, can you believe this guy is in his early 40s?  He sure doesn't look it.  And he does the majority of his characters' stunts himself!  Considering that he's been (and is going to be in) several other action movies besides "The Avengers", that's pretty impressive.  The interview below was done several years ago, before he did "The Avengers" and after he was nominated for his first big acting award.  His sense of humor is so wonderful and dry.

 
He's also into music, has sung in a couple of movies, plays several instruments, and has apparently written a song or two.  In the clip below he shares the theme he wrote for "The Avengers".  The clips that someone stuck in from the movie are a bit annoying because they didn't mute the movie parts (meaning you can't hear Jeremy very well), but you do get to hear the most important parts of the song.  :)

He is a songwriter after my own heart!!!!!  Sometimes when I have nothing else to do I'll write spoofs of different songs that I've heard, and coming up with creative rhyming is at least half the fun (for example, I've paired "senses" and "Mercedes-Benzes" in a lyric before.  Yeah, brilliant, I know).  I also love musicals like "The Wizard of Oz" and the older Disney musicals that have songs written by the Sherman Brothers that take those kinds of rhyming liberties.  It's all in the way you pronounce things! 

Tom Hiddleston

While I don't really care for Loki, I really like Tom.  He's funny, but he also seems to have a bit of class about him.  Maybe it's his accent?
Speaking of accent, he is also a wonderful impersonator.  I would recommend skipping (again) from mark 2:02ish to 2:22 for the same reason as earlier.

His impression of Chris Evans is hilarious!  I love how Chris looks like he's about ready to hide under the table during the group interview clip.  Everybody thinks that that particular impersonation is so good that for the second Thor movie they shot the scene below just in case they couldn't get Chris to make an appearence (that's what I've heard, anyway).

By the way, Tom also has a cameo appearence in the newest Muppets movie, "Muppets Most Wanted".  I know next to nothing about it, but apparently their advertising crew has been having a blast joking about how Miss Piggy has dumped Kermit and is now going out with Tom.  :)
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What's better than one fun "Avenger" star?  Two, of course!  Here are some tag-team interviews that usually end up being even more funny than the solo ones, because the guys play off of each other.

Chris and Chris

These two are such goofballs!  You've gotta love 'em.  This video has one of the same clips I suggested you skip in the just-Chris E's video, so skip from about 2:12 to 2:34.  The sound also gets a little out of sync at one point. 

Chris E loosing it while they are watching the clip from Chris H's Aussie "Dancing With the Stars" stint is sooo funny!   It turns out that both Chris's have learned some kind of dancing, though.  In an interview for the first "Captain America" movie (which I can't find), he admits that he knows how to tap dance.  I guess that came from all his theater stuff when he was a kid.  It'd be cool to see him do it sometime, but I doubt that would ever happen.

Jeremy and Scarlett Johansson

They are obviously such good friends.  I haven't investigated as much about her, but she seems to be pretty fun, too.  This clip is pretty long (about 15 minutes), so if you don't have a bunch of time skip forward to about the 12:20 mark, where Jeremy really shines comedically as he gives a speech honoring Scarlett getting a star in the sidewalk in Hollywood, and thoroughly roasts her.  ;)

Jeremy, you sly guy!  ;)  And I can totally see Chris H throwing popcorn at somebody to pick on them. 

Chris H and Tom

They really are almost like brothers, it's so cool.  Start the video at the 0:10 mark, because Tom lets a bad word slip during the first few seconds (and Chris beeps him after he says it).  This also includes Tom's impression of Chris, so you get to see it again if you want to.  :)

And here's their interview from the second "Thor" movie premiere, which has some funny parts mixed in as well as some cool stuff about their having worked together for three movies and becoming close friends.

And then to finish all this off, here is a clip of some bloopers from "The Avengers", which includes everybody (except for Scarlett Johansson.  She must be all business on set or something, leaving all the goofing around and mistakes to the guys.  Too bad).

In my opinion, the best one is when Clark Gregg (aka Agent Phil Coulson) pranks Chris Evans.  :)

Spring Cuddles

It's finally feeling like spring!  The sun is shining, trees are budding, birds are singing...life is just beautiful.  There is something about spring that makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over, and for me at least a side effect of that is wanting to cuddle really cute, fluffy things.  Since in real life I don't have that much to cuddle that fits that description, the next best thing is doing a post about some of the things I would LIKE to cuddle.  Pretty much all of these are from movies or videos, so I could never cuddle them anyway, but one can dream...

Anyway, here's my list.  Hope it brings some extra warm fuzzies into you spring!  :)

Snoopy

I would love to have a dog like Snoopy.  He's almost as good as a human being because he can pretty much take care of himself, but he doesn't talk and he's a lot cuter and snugglier.  Plus he has a legit happy dance.  (And he's so cute when he's embarrassed!)


"Playboy" Penguin from Looney Tunes

He looks soooooo cuddly!  He is (regretfully) in only two Looney Tunes clips, and I can only find one of them on YouTube.  Even flippant Bugs gets his heart softened by this little guy.  (And when he is crying?  Somebody PLEASE find a way for me to get into cartoon land!)

Or, if I can't hug this penguin, can I snuggle THIS one instead?  He is real, so it could happen, right?  :)

Flower from "Bambi"

He is so cute and bashful and sweet!  (More on him at the end of this post).


The French Peas from "VeggieTales"

This is from the Silly Song "The Hoperana" (I think that's how it's spelled).

I don't know why they are cast as the bad guys so often, because they are so funny!


All the "Winnie the Pooh" characters

If this needs any kind of explanation, you had a very sad childhood.  I am so sorry for you.


Colorado Rockie's mascot "Dinger"

He looks so cushy!  And he's pretty funny in several of the Rockies commercials over the years.  :)


Thumper

A picture is worth a thousand words.  So, this...

And this...

And this...

And THIS...

I am melting...that giggle!!!!  And Flower..."Oh, that's alright.  He can call me "Flower" if he wants to..."  <3

Ok, I can't take it anymore!  Time to go hug on the stuffed Thumper I got when I was in middle school.  ;)  Happy Spring, everyone!