I promised you an update on that really interesting logo I found for last week's blog. Sorry to disappoint, but as the internet so often does, it totally made me think something cool was happening when really it sucked balls. Just like that time the internet convinced me to watch "Jennifer's Body" on the premise that Megan Fox made out with that blonde chick from "Mama Mia"
Pictured above: Garbage
Turns out the whole thing is a wanna be religion that only exists on the interwebs. According to their web site they are an international organization dedicated to the perpetuation and realization of the Western Hermetic Tradition in this new era. Our work is to bring forth the Light of Our Predecessors, Our Mothers and Fathers in Gnosis, Who have perpetuated Truth through the Traditions of The Rosicrucian Order, The Ancient and Primitive Rite of the Egyptians, The Royal Art of the Alchemists, The Concealed Mysteries of the Kabbalists & The Apostolic Gnosis of Our beloved Lady Sofiazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sorry, I put myself to sleep with their bullshit. Long story short, these jackoffs can't get out of their own heads long enough to put together a cohesive creation story so you don't have to worry about what I found. Damn. I thought I was on the brink of finding a group who is privy to some divine truth, like the creators of "The Simpsons" and instead all I got was some self-fellating bullshit like the creators of "The Matrix". But as usual, I kid. The Matrix is fun if you get rid of the religious overtones and focus on the violence.
This was #1 for "Matrix Violence", looks more like "Matrix Ballet"
So, those of you who have been reading me since the beginning (all 3 of you) know that up front I said that I won't be political and I won't talk about sensitive issues. You also know I said I don't review my writings or look backward, so i might be wrong about that first thing.
Remember? Safety dance.
I mention that so as to point out the fact that this isn't meant to be controversial, especially since it's not 1920 and women have had the right to vote for a few years now.
I was reading an unbelievably interesting article on ESPN by a startlingly smart man named Gregg Easterbrook who writes a weekly feature during football season called Tuesday Morning Quarterback. Check it out, it's the best football analysis you've ever read. During the offseason he addressed the state of Title IX in the NCAA. What stuck out to me was the article he linked from Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic about how women are starting to dominate the world.
According to Google images, you've got a ways to go, Ladies
This stuck out to me for a couple reasons. First of all my sister just had a baby girl, so this is pertinent to her future, and second because I am a man who is surprisingly comfortable being pushed to the brink of extinction.
Like this, only way less badass
I don't mean to over state it, but let's face facts. Testosterone levels have been dropping for decades, the Y chromosome is growing a tail and slowly becoming an X, female birthrates are up worldwide, and perhaps most importantly, we fucked things up so bad, even China is ready to let women run things for a while just to see how they do.
According to the article I linked above, for the first time people are actually trying to have girls instead of hoping for boys. Somehow this makes sense to me, especially in America. Women are the ones who give birth, they can make damn near equal livings now, they are allowed to wear pants, they're allowed to vote, and perhaps most importantly, they're allowed to drive.
Once again, sorry ladies but Google hates you.
In all seriousness, women are getting closer and closer to not only being the majority (which they already are in terms of population) but to holding all the power politically. Since we are less and less a society run on the sweat of men's backs and more a society based on intelligence and cooperation this makes way to much damn sense to ignore. We aren't hunter/gatherers anymore, women can do everything men can do from an intellectual standpoint. I feel like I'm being redundant, but how did people not see this coming? I think it's sticking out to me more because in the grand scheme of things, this has happened with a retarded amount of speed. It was less than 100 years ago that if a woman talked out of turn society thought nothing of a man giving her five across the eyes.
Maxwell house!?!?!?
Now, we have websites dedicated to male victims of spousal abuse. This might be a bad example, but the point I'm trying to make is that the glass ceiling is no longer in place. I am confident that not only does my niece have the opportunity grow up to be whatever she wants, she's more likely to get it than the boys that will be in her class.
Of course, the downside of all this is that the human species will go extinct if things keep going this way. at least until we get behind cloning.
Hey Everyone! I thought I'd start us out with probably the best submission I've ever seen ever. It's from a promotion called Bellator and it's performed by a fighter named Toby Imada. Enjoy!
Ahhhhh, that's some high quality violence. For those of you unfamiliar with mixed martial arts, that submission was known as an inverted reverse triangle choke. Yeah, that doesn't happen every day. I know that MMA may not be appreciated by everyone who reads this blog, and I feel that it may be my duty to educate people a little so they see it as more than a slightly regulated bar fight.
I'm not going to deny that MMA is a very violent, inherently dangerous sport. Guess what? So's football. In fact, there are more severe long term consequences from sports like football and boxing than there are from MMA. Concussions have taken the forefront in the conversations surrounding football recently and I, for one, am happy about that. I love a bone jarring hit as much as the next guy, and lord knows I don't want to see it turn into touch football, but the lack of acknowledgement in the face of hard scientific evidence is downright sad. It's to the point that in spite of the fact that several helmet manufacturers making "smart" helmets that reduce the risk of concussion and help prevent catastrophic brain injury. In spite of this, the NFL doesn't mandate these helmets and basically looks the other way as far as brain injury goes. Unlike a torn ACL, brain injury can't be resolved by surgery and can't be rehabbed away.
Moving back to my main point from a tangent, that's why I like MMA. It's a full contact, strategic sport that engages 2 people in the most pure form of competition. There are 4 ways to win, submission, knock out, referee stoppage and judges decision. I know what you're saying, "if you can win by knock out isn't that just as bad for your brain?" Shut up. I can't hear you because you're reading this and talking to a blog makes you look crazy. But the real answer is more complicated. The largest dangers to boxers and football players are actually their current protection methods. The current helmets in football and gloves in boxing increase the incidence of repetitive brain trauma. These small, incremental traumas cause damage to the brain that result in cumulative knock outs. Many scientists postulate that this is the reason so many retired football players and boxers sound "punchy" and it may account for the elevated incidence of Alzheimer's disease in these people. Scientists also believe the four ounce gloves used in MMA mitigate most of these risks because instead of accumulating damage, the fighter is knocked out, preventing more severe injury.
I know that this sounds like apologist rhetoric, but let's be honest, how many boxers have we seen die in the ring? How many stories do we hear about football players being crippled or killed due to spinal or head injuries every year? MMA has been around for nearly 20 years. Do you know how many deaths have occurred in that time span? 2. One was due to a congenital defect in the guy's brain and when he got knocked out, he had an embolism. The other one was a fighter who fought without commission approval after less than a week since a previous fight. All I'm saying is don't judge it because it's "dangerous". You can hate it for the violence, you can hate it for whatever, but there's no reason to make up reasons to hate it. Sorry this wasn't funny, but I hate it when people shit on things they don't take the time to research or learn about. Defend your position intelligently or shut the hell up. I've linked a couple of articles below if you're curious about this topic, and please feel free to engage in intelligent discourse in the comments section.
Also, check out one of my favorite fighters, an incredibly talented Jiu-Jitsu player with great strikes. He fights Charlie Valencia September 30th on his way to reclaim the bantamweight title.
OK, now that I got that off my chest, we can get on to more...stuff.
I was watching a crapload of football over the past couple weekends and thank god it's back. I LOVE watching football powerhouses lose to underdogs so watching Notre Dame get handled by Michigan and Michigan State in back to back weeks made me happy. I also enjoyed watching a reeling VT squad lose to FCS James Madison. That's what you get for naming your mascot after a made up word. Seriously, this is what comes up when you google image search hokie:
That's right, but according to VT's own web site, the word Hokie has nothing to do with a turkey. WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE A TURKEY AS YOUR MASCOT THEN?!?!
Anyhoo, I don't remember this happening over the weekend, but Google doesn't lie
Wow, Ohio State has really gone away from tradition with the new uniforms.
On a happy note, the only team I care about in the NFL, the Chargers, actually won today. Not only did they win, they steamrolled the immensely unpopular Jacksonville Jaguars Sunday. Thank God. Also, Philip Rivers didn't have to strangle his teammates, so good for them!
Is it bad that I'm glad Brett Favre is failing? I mean he was a damn good QB in his time, but I'm pretty sure schadenfreude is a national pastime. By the way that's one of my new favorite words. I like how since we get bored with English we just appropriate these foreign languages and abuse their words for our own devices. We can't even handle our own language without fucking up usage rules. Seriously, people misuse the word "irony" so often it makes me literally vomit with rage.
My other favorite new word to use is zeitgeist. I almost never get to use it, but holy crap is that a cool word. It's kind of like poltergeist only way more awesome because it has a z and z's are inherently cool because they almost never show up to the party. Way cooler than q's. Q's always have to bring their friend u, and u suck. Sorry, was that too long of a way to go for a joke? Seriously, zeitgeist sounds like poltergeist, only without the poultry connotations which makes it infinitely more cool. Wow, I am totally over-thinking this.
Probably can't live up to the coolness of the word
Quick question, should I pay $35 for a mustache themed 5k?
I love the concept, but I'm not even sure they're giving t-shirts. If you don't give me a t-shirt for running your race, then fuck you and the horse you rode in on, because you just charged me to run with a mustache. I could have done that at home.
How the hell did we end up here? Didn't I start this with MMA and football? Jesus, I kind of went off there. I'm gonna go to bed, so until next week enjoy my vitriol and psychosis. I think those may be my words for the week next week.
HOLY SHIT! Vitriol is way more awesome than I thought. #1 Google image
I'll research that picture and get back to you. You deserve an explanation and I'm literally dumbfounded by that.
As always, make sure you visit my wonderful wife's Etsy shop, it's literally the best thing since they invented the lightbulb. Hold on, they're telling me I've run that joke into the ground. Sorry, just go to her shop. It's seriously good.
This is awesome, it's like the 60's adopted a psycho Indian weed smoker. I've never even thought about this being a psychedelic song, but hey whatever works. Thanks go to AV club. Visit them at http://www.avclub.com/.
More audible awesomeness, Neutral Milk Hotel covered by Swell Season. I love when there's indie rock chemistry between two unrelated bands. Although I do fear that just knowing who these bands are makes me a hipster. Damn it.
Now that I've let some good music make sweet, sweet love your your ear holes, time to get to the rage.
Is it me or does the word "blog" sound like something you should be ashamed of?
"I have to go blog"
"dude, i totally didn't need to know that."
Seriously, is there any point you can try to make that Google image search can't make more clear for you?
Seeing as how this is supposed to be me shitting on things that piss me off, I'm gonna talk to you a little today about crappy drivers. I don't want to veer into hack comedian territory here.
as if to prove my point, the number 1 google image for "hack comedian"
I mean I'm pretty damn sure everything that can be said on this subject has been. People who drive faster than you are maniacs and the people who drive slower than you are mongoloids who should be sterilized to prevent their seed from polluting the earth...have I said too much?
But seriously, what makes this so difficult for people to understand? The speed limits are derived by civil engineers who use complicated formulas to determine what the safe speeds are for streets that maximize efficient travel through a city. This is even more true on surface streets than it is on freeways and interstates. if you go the speed limit eventually you will get through town without catching very many red lights, they plan it that way! I swear I'm not just screwing with you, I have a buddy who's a civil engineer. He hates his life. That may or may not be related.
The point I'm trying to make is that by speeding, all you are doing is fucking up the timing of the lights and making it harder for yourself to make it to your destination in a reasonable time. As for you slow fuckers, go the speed limit. Why are you intent on slowing everyone down? I know from anecdotal evidence some of the people who drive painfully slow do it because they are physically incapable of going the speed limit. My Grandpa drove far longer than he should and was probably legally blind for a large part of his driving career. I'm not saying that makes it ok, far from it. I think people over the age of 60 should be required to retake their driving test, both practical and written, annually. And this is coming from a guy who took driver's ed in a bar!
if it was this classy, maybe I'd be a better driver
I'm not joking, I went to Chamisa school of driving in the Chamisa Inn bar. If that sentence doesn't make you fear for your life, you are a braver person than I. I'm sick of venting about this subject because I feel like this subject has been done to death. Let's move on shall we?
In the world of things that make me happy and piss me off at the same time, football is back this weekend. I love football. The pure competition, the unbridled violence, unpredictable, fun fast, potentially game changing plays on every down. I'll watch just about any football game you can provide me with over just about anything else on TV. I'm a sports fan though, and I can't help but feel like the douchebag over analyzers are ruining the game a little for me.
1st Google image search result for "douchbag announcer"
I watch as much football as I can any given Saturday and Sunday, I don't need to hear other people's opinions unless I ask for them. This bullshit about in game analysis and op-ed pieces is grating. Show me the fucking highlights and get the hell out of my way. I don't care what Tony Dungy has to say about whether or not Peyton Manning is forcing his passes as a way to compensate because mama Manning loved Eli more.
"which one is mom again?"
I blame the 24 hour news cycle. God damn ESPN has to fill 24 hours 7 days a week and thus we get updates on how often Brett Favre mows his lawn and where Tom Brady got his Justin Bieber haircut. Show me highlights, give me injury reports, give me previews and keep your opinions to your damn self unless I click on your links or ask you. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and nobody wants to hear what one has to say cuz they're all full of shit. Wait, is that how that saying goes?
In Awesome news, the Chargers kickoff the season tomorrow in the late Monday night game against the Chiefs and if they don't win, I'll be super pissed off. Thus is the dichotomy of football. I love the game, but I get so pissed off when my team loses it's not even funny. I've gotten better as I've gotten older, but the fact that they've never won a SuperBowl drives me nuts when you think about the badasses that played for them. I started following the team when they were garbage, stuck with them through the ride to the SuperBowl when they got demolished by the insanely good 49ers, and even through the ryan leaf years. That name stays uncapitalized
This is the face of human diarrhea
As usual at the start of the season, I'm cautiously optimistic. Last year like half of the "experts" picked the Bolts to go to the big game, so I knew things wouldn't end well. That's just how they roll. But this year no one is picking them to get out of the first round of the playoffs and they are getting picked to win the west practically by default. Hopefully that translates to less pressure and better play. We'll see, but I'm going to do my best to temper my expectations and just take it one game at a time. If the god awful D-backs have proven anything to me this season, it to just enjoy the games and remember that there's always next season. Wait, someone just told me there might be a holdout or lockout and there might not be a 2011 season. OH MY GOD, WE NEED TO WIN IT ALL THIS YEAR!!
As always, visit my wife's shop, she's got awesome stuff and isn't angry like this dude I know. http://www.stonepapermetal.etsy.com. All proceeds go to help feed abandoned animals. Kind of. We have a dog we got at the pound, and it helps feed him, so it's still a good cause.
Next week, I'll bitch about MMA and whatever else pisses me off.
