Finally, a site on the Internet where somebody complains about things! Usually the fact that criminal justice majors make me cringe.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Today....

I'm thankful for a dad who is still happy to help me fix furniture and diagnose my car ailments, despite me now being thirty.

I'm thankful for a mom who has supported me in everything I have ever wanted to do, even if I have a tendency to not finish it.

I'm thankful for a sister who is basically a female version of me, and who is therefore just about my best friend, and who I can talk to about anything.

I'm thankful for a brother in law who can put up with a female version of me.

I'm thankful for a nephew who idolizes me for reasons I have never been entirely clear on but am still grateful for.

I'm thankful for a niece who is easily enough entertained by me that I can make her scream with laughter just by making a Fisher Price man jump off a table and feel like a good uncle.

I'm thankful that for all my petty whining and complaining, life has yet to throw anything at me that I truly can't handle, and that my family continues to put up with me.

What are you thankful for?

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Not that anyone asked, but below is pretty much the extent of the external damage that deer inflicted on my car.



Yes, that is also the last earthly remnants of said deer embedded in the bumper. Is it grisly that I kept a few strands (and then lost them)? Hey, it's the closest thing I'll ever probably come to hunting.

Plus that deer did net me about a thousand bucks and a new starter for my car, all the expense of a few small cracks in the bumper. Some deer get their heads mounted over a rich guys fireplace. This one got a picture of a tuft of it's hair caught in my headlight posted on a blog read by four people.

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Monday, November 16, 2009

Do it for the kids!

A while back, on Facebook, I posited the theory that soccer was America's national charity. It was the gift we give to the rest of the world. I don't mean we invented it, I think it was invented by Irishmen or Aztecs or something. Rather, it is the one facet of life where we are willing to let down our total dominance and let other countries have a day in the sun.
When the US loses to Equatorial Guinea in the World Cup, it's not embarrassing. It's like when Tom Brady is playing touch football with his little nephews at Thanksgiving. He lets them tackle him, everybody has a warm laugh and the kids feel great. And Tom doesn't mind that he got got sacked in a meaningless little game, he's still got three Superbowl rings and a supermodel wife. (This theory may not apply to women's soccer as I'm told our team might actually win games, but honestly who has the time to find out?)

Now we've got the hub-bub over President Obama winning a Nobel Peace Prize after less than a year in office. I really don't care about any of that, but what does interest me is a thought that occurred during all the resulting arguing.

Apparently our national sports charity has an egghead equivalent too, so our countries brightest and most pretentious can join our fastest and floppiest in boosting the world's self esteem. I refer of course, to the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Consider: The Nobel prize for Literature has been awarded to 102 individuals. Of those, 9, or less than nine percent of the winners has been from the US. No American writer has won the award since 1993, when Toni Morrison beat down Ōe Kenzaburō in the Nobel Finals to take home the big gold statue. (Kenzaburō would get his revenge however, and win it all the very next year. Also, I may have embellished some details.)

In the years since, American writers have graciously stepped aside for such as luminaries as Dario Fo, author of The Devil with Boobs and Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo, Gao Xingjian, who of course won for France and "V. S. Naipaul" who is obviously just made up.

This year, the award went to Herta Müller, whose works "refuses to let the inhumane side of life under communism be forgotten". That sounds very deserving, and I'm sure she's an amazing writer, but I think we all know if the prizes were being handed out on a level playing field, she would have been beaten out by a Cracked.com article on "Six Amazing Breasts That Are Also Knives".

Now, compare this to every other Nobel category. After picking up nine "Nobies" this year, the US has won 322 total Prizes. (Or 320, depending on which source I should. I'm sure not going to do the counting myself.) Economics? We've taken that bitch home 45 times. (So have the tea-taxing limeys, but I suspect that's because our shared language makes it easier for them to copy off of us.) Chemistry, 61 wins. Not even Madame Curie can push France past our total chemical domination. Physics? 85 Nobel Prizes. It's like we can just make up any shit we want, and they'll give us a prize for it. But the real kicker? The Nobel Prize for Medicine has gone to the sweet, sweet USA 93 times. Or, 91 more times than all of Africa and South America combined. Yeah, suck it developing world. You might win a Nobel Prize for Literature for your "haunting poems about growing up on a coconut farm and speaking truth to power" but we're reanimating dead corpses while you try and figure out how a Band-Aid works.

Hell, despite our apparent love of blowing shit up, we've still won the granddaddy of them all, the Prize for Peace 29 times. (Or, 29 times more than the savage barbarians of New Zealand and Portugal have.) In total, we've taken home over two hundred more medals than the second place United Kingdom. (Although nothing can take away from the fact that the Brits are a super bunch of guys who give it their all every time out!)Heck, even blatant homerism can't push Sweden past ten percent of our grand total. And the next time your Latvian buddies are going on and on about their folk songs that date back over a 1,000 years, ask them why they haven't won a Nobel Prize in 100 years. Then push them in the mud.

In summary, I'm not bothered by the narrow-minded bigotry and short sightedness of a pack of Eurotrash voters handing out a stupid book prize we didn't want anyway. And I'm definitely not bothered by President Obama's seemingly unlikely victory. I don't think he should decline it, as some have suggested. Hell, I think he should accept it, smile, turn around and throw it over his back, wedding bouquet style into the African delegation. "Remember! The one who catches it will be the next one to get a developed economy!"
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Friday, November 13, 2009

Thank you for clearing up that misconception!

So there was debate raging at my second home of sporcle.com over the veracity of a listing of the countries that imbibe the most alcohol per capita. (This is as close as I get to partying these days.)

It seems the big sticking point was the absence of Russia from the top 20. Lots of people simply refused to believe this was possible, and voiced their opinion on the subject because "everybody knows that Russians love to drink."

One Russian user took considerable exception to all this talk, and tried to set other users straight. As he explained it: "I am tired of hearing this talk about how much us Russians drink. It is just an ugly stereotype. If you ever come to Russia you will know that we aren't like that. Most people here are very poor and can not afford to drink all day. Please stop spreading these negative views because that is not what we are all like!"

Whew. I'm so glad I can now update my stereotype of Russians from "alcoholics" to "would like to be alcoholics, but are too poor to do it full time".

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Sunday, November 8, 2009

The only political post I will ever make on this blog

Like many twenty-somethings I spent the middle portion of this decade obsessed with politics. 9/11, the Iraq war, the Bush presidency in general, the explosion of the blogosphere, they all combined to create a perfect storm of intense political interest for me. Naturally though, after 4-5 years of talk radio, online forum trolling and hitting 'refresh' on Instapundit every 6 minutes, I got a little burned out. By the time McCain/Obama '08 rolled around, my attitude could largely be surmised as "OK, fine, just get it over with."

Not much has changed a year later. I'm largely indifferent to which party is actually in control right now; I've become far too self-centered and focused on my own problems to pay much attention to the bigger picture. Still, I couldn't help but notice this article a few days ago. The gist of it is, hardcore conservative activists (you've probably seen them at those Tea Party thingies everyone's been talking so much about) are planning to primary about a dozen high profile GOP candidates in 2010. All this in the wake of their great success in the NY-23 special election.



That's the race where conservative activists achieved great success when they pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava (who judging from the picture above, I believe is a 19th century British sailor) out of the race. She then went on to endorse the Democratic candidate over the Conservative candidate, leading to the Democrats winning a congressional seat they hadn't even bothered running someone for as recently as 2002. I suppose in American politics, this actually does constitute a smashing success for third parties. They now plan to repeat this tactic across the country.

Now, like so many other disillusioned youths (I'm still young! I'm only 30!) I wouldn't mind seeing third parties become more viable in the US. And it's aught to me if conservatives (or liberals) want to shoot themselves in the foot, electorally. I just can't help but feel like conservatives are going to be slightly disappointed in the end results.

Consider it like this. Let's say you're a die-hard Philadelphia Phillies fan. You're watching your beloved Phils in the World Series against the hated Yankees. And you are deeply disappointed in the performance of Ryan Howard. He's supposed to be the centerpiece of your offense, but he just keeps striking out! What an MVPINO (Most Valuable Player in Name Only). So as a fan, what are your options? Well, I can think of three viable tactics.

1. Call in to every sports talk show you can, demanding Charlie Manuel replace Ryan Howard with a more conservative, I mean better hitter. Write frothing letters to the editor, even editors that have nothing to do with sports. Blog, poorly. Ignore the fact that whoever replaces Howard is unlikely to do any better.
The upside of this is that you get the satisfaction of venting your spleen, without having to do too much work. The downside is that you need plenty of like-minded allies to all do the same, lest you simply be dismissed as a crazy nut. And we all know that if there is one thing we don't stand for in American politics, I mean baseball, it's crazy nuts.

2. Begin a rigorous workout program to get yourself into world-class shape. Campaign the Phillies front office to give you a tryout, then deeply impress them with your raw ability once you get it. Enter the Phillies farm system and through years of hard work, sacrifice and dedication, become the organization's top first base prospect. Get called up to replace Howard in the World Series.
Upside: You've worked within in the system and now you will get the satisfaction of changing it for the better yourself. Not like that lazy, liberal strikeout machine Ryan Howard. Downside: This would be really, really hard. Also, you would need to bend the laws of time to make it happen.

3. The next time Ryan Howard comes to bat, jump onto the field, run into the opposite batters box, and start swinging at every pitch the Yankee pitcher throws. Clearly Howard cannot be trusted to power this team's offense anymore, so take matters into your own hands. Granted, Howard will be so distracted it will probably just make things worse for him, and by extension, better for the Yankees, but somebody has to do something, damnit. Also, I'm not sure why the umpire is allowing this, but ignore that lest my analogy fall completely apart.
The upside: You look so cool to your fellow hardcore Phillies fans. And you sent a message to those fatcat, overpaid, latte-sipping, alleged "All Stars". Hit a home run in every at bat or we will destroy you!
The downside: The Yankees just won the World Series and passed universal health care.

Is this topical? I don't even remember what I was trying to say when I made it.

In summary, the smartest thing for conservatives to do would be to enjoy watching politics on TV, make some trades to strengthen their bench in New England and recognize that you can't castigate someone solely on the small sample size of a single playoff series. I think. I kind of lost the thread of what I was talking about here.

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Saturday, November 7, 2009

YUM

Ever wonder where the delicious taste of those breadsticks from a certain red-roofed pizza company comes from? Well thanks to the magic of camera phones, now you know.


Buttery Flavored Oil. It's practically butter!™

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Friday, November 6, 2009

Not Tim Lincecum!

In the least surprising baseball news since "Goddam Fucking Yankees Win Another World Series" Tim Lincecum has apparently been caught smoking pot.

Shocking!

According to reports, Lincecum was busted for possession while driving-

An officer approached Lincecum's 2006 Mercedes and smelled marijuana as the pitcher rolled down his window. Schatzel said Lincecum immediately complied with a request to hand over the drug and a marijuana pipe from the car's center console.

For me, the most surprising part of this whole story is that Tim Lincecum drives a 2006 Mercedes. You would think the best left handed pitcher in baseball (to hell with Johann Santana, the dirty, New York-going to traitor) could afford to drive a 2010. I mean, he even did that one commercial, for that one video game.

The best part of the story though is the police spokesman describing how much pot he was caught with-

"It's not really out of the ordinary. It happens every day," Schatzel said of the volume of marijuana Lincecum handed over. "It was about the size of a thumb, the whole thumb."

That is a beautiful description. In every drug bust story from now on, I want the police to use body part comparisons to say how much contraband they seized.

"The FBI today raided an abandoned warehouse in Fresno, breaking up a major drug smuggling operation. A spokesman for the Bureau said they seized "at least sixteen legs of heroin. Whole legs, mind you."

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Paralegal studies and a goldfish attention span are not a good mix.