Why do the weeks go by so quickly...Let's do this:
-On Google Chat Status, from high school friends Jay Z and Boyer, regarding the colossal upset that was the Seahawks beating the Saints in the first round of the NFL Playoffs:
BEAST MODEand then I found this photo here:
Marshawn Lynch pulls off the rare "backwards leap into the endzone with hand on jock" move
Calvin and Hobbes/Fight Club mashup
Enough small talk. Shall we do this? Let's do this:
-Via IM with Josh M, as we were discussing possible new cars:
Josh M: or you can have people cast votesYes, Father Time has diagnosed the Civie, and it's not worth the money to fix my air conditioning unit -- so I'm taking Papa Dalton's advice and "run[ning] the thing into the ground" before I get a new one. This of course means that when summer rolls around, my car will be a stuffy, oppressive sauna, and I'm just going to start driving around in a towel.
Josh M: mine will be for the stretch hummer with the hot tub in the back
Me: figures, man. always using me for my luxurious goods to impress the women
Josh M: well, since you weren't willing to buy me a diamond encrusted grill, i figured this would be a good chance for you to redeem yourself
I passed quickly through denial. Spent quite a lot of time in anger.
I think I have moved onto bargaining.
"maybe they will be ok if they can get a running game going"
"maybe we can work in all three qbs"
"maybe our defense will show up this year"
I feel "depression" setting in rather rapidly.
And "acceptance" will be months or years away.
How are you?
Headline: Cub scouts to offer offer video game playing pin
some highlights for. Enjoy:
-Via Email from Ben and Lex, I got this article in response to the Avatar movie review from yesterday. I highly suggest reading this -- if for no other reason, to realize that there are some disturbed people out there. My favorite excerpt:
"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.' "My only response is that I'm disappointed in Mike's knowledge of the Avatar franchise. Is he a true fan if he thinks that Pandora is a world, and it's actually a MOON? What a loser.
I dont care about methods i just want in your pantsAnybody who knows JMill knows that she is -- um, not verbally inhibited. But this is really just a running innuendo joke from the first time that she needed to borrow my ski pants.
excuses are the nails used to build a house of failureRead more...
I'm up late watching another bowl game that is of no interest to me -- it's really just a final binge of football watching before I go into withdrawals starting in February.
The unfortunate part of watching this game right now is that my demographic (football fan staying up until 2am) seems to be the target of this annoying Blackberry ad, which keeps running over and over again:
These have to be some of the most redundant lyrics ever. Really. They are mind-numbingly stupid:
Rough translation of the lyrics: If you can do X, X is not impossible to do. PROFOUND. And then the text at the end of the commercial also reminds us to "Do what you love -- Love what you do." Thanks, Blackberry! The wisdom you have chosen to impart to us is invaluable. We had almost forgotten that possible things are NOT impossible, and that we should do things that we like to do. Unbelievable.There's nothing you can do that can't be done. Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Josh M referred me to this PotW. Awkward company photos from Noko Jeans, a Swedish company attempting to make jeans in North Korea. Here's one of Mr. Erik Wahlstrom, an employee of Noko who takes jeans production in poor, authoritarian-ruled countries very, very seriously:
Thanksgiving Edition...Here we go:
-Via Email from M, since football is part of the Thanksgiving tradition. Check out this six-year old!
I hope he follows up any and all tackles with a WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD JACKASS
-Via Email from JoshM, an article presenting "research" on "The 10 Most Obscene Cities in America":
Herndon, Va. is a suburb of Washington, D.C., in the heart of the area's tech corridor and right next to Dulles Airport.I lived in Herndon for two years; on top of that, #5 on this list is Reston, VA, where I currently reside. I take umbrage with this research and the methodologies used to draw such conclusions. Would the study results hold up to any sort of academic or empirical rigor?
It's also the most obscene city in America, as determined by analyzing data from Google.
don't judge me for what i'm about to sayOne sec. I'm just going to get out my powdered wig and gavel... Ok, continue:
but i think i saw the coach for Team Ugly at the gym last night. seriously josh, this guy was like stop-you-in-your-tracks ugly. i don't know if he plays basketball or not...and i know you have been lobbying for an NBA player to take the position
SINGLE MOM OF 7 SEEKING BON JOVI PIT TICKETS AT GILLETTE STADIUM. DON'T HAVE MUCH (ANY) MONEY, BUT CAN TRADE THE SWINE FLU VACCINE FOR 6 OF THE KIDS.Now, the thing that I'm interested in finding out here is the Chicken or the Egg: Does Bon Jovi turn his fans into idiots, or are idiots inextricably drawn to Bon Jovi? This question may forever confound scholars and the educated -- much as the beginnings of the universe, the construction of Stonehenge, and the unremitting tabloid coverage of Jon and Kate Gosslin will continue to puzzle us.
This week's PotW isn't all that humorous, but it is one of joy and hope:
It's August, meaning that football season is CLOSE. Unbearably close. Can you feel it? Here's what I'm looking forward to:
This is from Spring '06 at BYU, I believe.
Nothing quite like getting your shorts completely ripped off of you while playing some intramural flag football. Remember when Bush 41 puked in the lap of the Prime Minister of Japan at that state dinner? Pretty embarrassing, right? This is on that same level.
I hate traffic. Hate it. Like Michael Scott hates Toby. The only thing that elicits more profanity from me is watching BYU football games.
Last year I wrote about my attempts to stay entertained in the car. In Virginia, the best way to do this is attempting to decipher the overabundance of vanity plates that drivers decide to hang on their cars. Recently, I found this CNN article, which claims that 1 out of 10 vanity plates in America belong to my fellow Virginians.
After two years of being a VA driver, I have found there are three types of plates, and that I have three distinct reactions to each kind:
--Type 1 - The Paris Hilton Plate: It is obviously a customized plate and grabbing for/needing attention. Its message is -- 99% of the time -- oversimplistic, annoying, and of no benefit to humanity. The only redeeming quality is that its message is clear: You don't need to think deeply in order understand what it's trying to say. I can tolerate these. Did I just semi-compliment Paris Hilton? I sure hope not.
Example: Remember that "Seinfeld" where Kramer gets "ASSMAN" as his license plate because the DMV accidentally swapped his plates with a proctologist's? See, those kind of Type 1s make this type tolerable.
--Type 2 - The Kanye West / Tom Cruise / Rosie O'Donnell Plate: These plates are obviously customized, so you know the owner wants attention. But unless you know the owner, the message they are attempting to convey is complete drivel. Incomprehensible gibberish. These annoy me to no end. I just don't understand why you would put such an esoteric message in so public a place. It's like preceding a speech with "What I am about to say is of importance" and then delivering the speech in Klingon.
--Type 3 - The Normal Plate - These are the ones that were randomly assigned numbers and letters. There is no deeper meaning or hidden message.
The problem is, thanks to Type 2, I already KNOW these have no meaning, yet I still look for them. And then I'll start conjuring up crazy things to make them fit.
Example: I saw a plate, "KBL-6602." I thought to myself "Oh, I see. The guy probably lived in Kabul from 1966-2002, then he moved to the US." I KNOW. I told you. CRAZY. This whole looking for non-existent clues, coupled with my interpreting of messages that aren't there, reminds me of why I was perpetually horrible at "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"
Therefore, I am enlisting your help. I need your help with the Type 2 Plates! I will try to get pictures of what I see on the road and provide my best guess. I need you to provide your best guesses in the comments -- decipher the meaning.
"Dented Jeans"? I have no clue.
At least this should provide some amusement.
Title: "2:30PM Church Doesn't Work"
Year: Aug 2008
Location: Mclean, VA
I felt bad sleeping through the lesson, because it was probably good. But 3-hour church that starts at 2:30 when you've been fasting for two meals is tough.
Dave Adams, on the right, just got back from the Beijing Olympics, so has an excuse (jet lag). I was up 'til 2AM watching TIVO'ed college football, because I was thinking "I don't have church until 2:30 tomorrow. I can just sleep in." Well, I didn't end up sleeping in, and this is what I have to show for it.
My friend, Christian, took the photo. Immediately after I woke up, he asked with Blackberry in hand: "What's your email address again?"
Another friend, Oliver, said Dave "looked like Father Time had died in the middle of Elders Quorum."
Title: "The Original Dream Team"
Year: 1991-1992?
This was my absolute favorite t-shirt in 4th or 5th grade: The 1992 "Dream Team," the very first time the US was allowed to field professional athletes in the games. If you overlook the fact that Malone and Stockton played for the Jazz, Ewing was overrated his entire career, Pippen was a wife-beater, and Magic was forced to retire because he acquired an STD (due to his Wilt Chamberlain-like off-the-court escapades),¹ these guys were exciting to watch, killing teams by 60+ points.
Just felt like posting this one because of the Olympics just ending, and us taking gold for the first time since 2000. Go USA!
Maybe I should start buying and collecting more of these caricature shirts. I had Magic Johnson, Shaq, and Steve Largent ones growing up.
1 - The players on this year's "Redeem Team" that filled the same roles: Williams and Boozer on the Jazz, Anthony has been overrated his entire career so far, Kidd as the wife-beater. There was no equivalent to Magic...yet.
I'm a movie guy. Love them. But I've experienced so many colossal disappointments when it comes to sequels, usually due to my own elevated expectations being combined with horrible screenwriting (some notable disappointments: The Land Before Time II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, the aforementioned X-Men 3, etc), that I knew in order to survive my heightened anxiety leading up to the premier of The Dark Knight, I needed to seriously manage expectations. It was the only way I was going to walk out of the movie and not slit my guts open in order to preserve what little honor I would have left.
So like I said before, in order to avoid disappointment, I needed to manage expectations. How did I do in the leadup? Well, judge for yourself...
The good news is that The Dark Knight was amazing, I am going to see it in IMAX soon, and my life has returned to normal.
"I swear I've seen a lot of stuff in my life, but that... was... awesome."
Yes, the sheer awesomeness of what I witnessed firsthand this 4th of July has reduced me to incoherence of the I'm-quoting-Tommy Boy-in-order-to-express-myself variety. Sad day.
Anyway, some friends and I went to NYC for the 4th of July weekend. I told them that if I was going to make the trek, my list of demands needed to be taken care of: (1) Go to Coney Island to cheer my boy Takeru Kobayashi on his quest to reclaim the championship at the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, and (2) Track down the Beastie Boys' recording studio and get my picture taken in front of the building. That was it. They accepted.
While the latter of the demands went sadly unfulfilled, we did get down to Coney Island* for the contest, and the drama and hype surrounding the competition made watching it that much more exciting.
*(For more of my thoughts on the unbelievably creepy, Stephen King-inspired alternate universe that is Coney Island, I refer you to chapter 2 of my future book, "8 Things That Creep Me Out to No End"; it's sandwiched between chapter 1, "Drunken Clowns," and chapter 3, "Sober Clowns")
By way of context: Kobayashi -- considered by many (me) to be the Roger Bannister of competitive eating -- revolutionized the 12-minute competition in 2001 by eating 50 hot dogs, obliterating the previous year's winning number of 25. He continued his dominance until last year. In 2007, however, Kobayashi was suffering from jaw arthritis -- no surprise, really... the guy's gotta have the jaws of a 95-year old at this point -- and was dethroned by Joey "Jaws" Chestnut from San Jose.
Kobayashi was going to be back to compete in 2008, but could he reclaim his title from Chestnut? This, and many, many, many other questions (ie "What's the atmosphere in the locker room like a few hours before a competition?") about the Competitive Eating World plagued me as I rode the subway to Coney Island.
The windup to this contest was like rolling the plots of several movies into a dramatic whole: Cinderella Man (inspirational comeback); Rocky IV (inspirational underdog movie, minus the element of Kobayashi's best friend being killed by a Russian); Karate Kid (the Japanese element), and Supersize Me (for the grotesque amount of processed food to be eaten). Hollywood doesn't write better scripts than this. But, amidst all of the excitement, my dual identity had come back to haunt me: Do I cheer for the Japanese comeback kid battling against an injury, or for the American on Independence Day?
After delays and stalling from the perverted MC, the competition began. Here's how my inner monologue / vocal shouting unfolded during the next 10 minutes:
*****
Should I cheer for Kobayashi? Or is some drunk New Yorker gonna kick the crap out of me on the 4th of July for cheering for a foreigner? Wait, I see a Japanese flag waving. OK. Kobayashi it is.
"GO KOBAYASHI!"
Who handed out these stupid thundersticks? I can't see a damn thing. Hey, Rat-Tail! Move you and your nasty hair out of my line of sight. Wow, the crowd is really into this. OK. The first minute is up. Wait, did the announcer just say that Chestnut ate 10 hot dogs in the first minute? I think I'm going to have a sympathetic throw-up.
"C'MON, KOBAYASHI!"
Oh great. Kobayashi's fallen to third. It's over. It's so over. Why did I put my faith in this guy? After all I've invested in him, he totally betrays my trust and lets me down.
Wait. Wait. Kobayashi looks like he's gaining. He's back in second now... Now he's catching up to Chestnut. Oh, man. What a surge! He's tied! I still hate thundersticks.
"GO KOBAYASHI! GO!"
Kobayashi has taken the lead! Oh man, I haven't been this amped since BYU beat Utah in football last year. Now he's putting space between himself and Chestnut. I'm visibly shaking. This is amazing! He's eating like... like... I have no proper sports analogy for this...
"GO SEABISCUI--!! こばちゃん！がんばれ--"
WTF?!? I'm so excited I'm getting famous movie-horses mixed up with Kobayashi, and Japanese with English. Whatever. Kobayashi is taking a three hot-dog lead into the final minute! There's no way Chestnut is gaining three dogs on him in the last minute. It's impossible...The buzzer rings. And what?!? Chestnut has shoved his face full of everything he possibly could. They're calling it a tie if he swallows everything... And he does.
*****
The "dog-off" overtime was the first in the competition's storied history, and Chestnut ended up winning (the first to eat five more hot dogs -- talk about worst OT ever for competitors). It was appalling, gripping, and poignant all at once; more than I could have dreamed.
As I rode the subway back into Manhattan, more questions about Competitive Eating came to me...
>How many years did these people just shave off of their lives?
>Would there be scandals? I mean, would we find Kobayashi testifying before Congress in broken Engrish about Chestnut taking stomach-expanding drugs?
>How many hours do the competitors spend on the toilet afterward? (Scratch that; I don't want to know)
>Is Under Armour going to end up sponsoring these guys?
>Would referees be accused of "throwing" the competition?
>Do these guys have groupies?
...and so very many more...
TV commercials nowadays are an interesting thing. I'm sure there's some definition for advertising, and it likely involves trying to sell a product based on its merits. Nowadays, though -- Super Bowl commercials are Exhibit A -- it is not so much about deceiving you into buying a product you probably don't need, and more about getting the audience's attention with something shocking or amusing. I'm okay with this, as commercials don't (at least consciously) really influence me to go buy stuff -- see, if I'm feeling lazy enough to have sat my half-white butt down on the sofa to start watching TV, I'm not likely to get up off of said butt and go buy the product right away.
Anyway, the subject of this entry is the supercharged, testosterone-injected, incoherent commercials from Under Armour. I simply can not wrap my mind around these things. They're not funny. Or shocking. They are just a bunch of meatheads who have been in the weightroom since they weren't recruited out of high school, running around in overly-tight athletic apparel catching footballs, yelling ambiguous catch-phrases like "we must protect this house!" and "click-clack" (special pause between 'click' and 'clack', for emphasis).
"We must protect this house!" -- What does this mean? Does it mean something like "win at home" ? How does this encourage me to buy your brand? Is it a metaphor? As in the 'house' is the football player's body, and the apparel is to protect it? Are these men capable of understanding what a metaphor is?
"Click-clack" -- This is the sound of football cleats on the pavement between the locker room and field. This has no connection to playing in the actual game, or being good. For all we know you could have click-clacked your way from the locker straight to riding the pine the whole game.
I'm so confused.
Last of all, "armour" is the British rendering for "armor." Were they going for sophistication here?
So many questions...no answers. Seems to be a trend with my blog.
I'm sorry, but has anyone seen this commercial?
Why did it take so long for the normally genius marketers at Nike to combine football, an amazing movie soundtrack ("Last of the Mohicans"), a freak-of-nature LB (Shawn Merriman), and one of the best, current RB's (Stephen Jackson) into a commercial?
I would have liked to see the casting calls for the extras... "Football commercial" OK, I can handle that; "must be willing to dress in uniform" Tights and pads, I can handle that; "must be willing to sign injury waiver" naturally; "must be willing to be hit and / or run over by professional football players over multiple takes" maybe I'll wait for something else to come along.
This gave me the chills. It's obviously football season, isn't it?
I love this time of year. It starts to cool down a bit, the leaves are changing colors, the chaos of summer vacation and travel are winding down. It's the perfect time to kick back and really enjoy what fall is all about: College Football. Yes, my friends, the greatest 4 months of the year are already upon us, and I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am. Granted, I could be in Provo for BYU home games, but I've got the next best thing at my place: A sweet bachelor-pad setup that allows me to view two football games simultaneously.
Since a pasttime of college football fanatics is looking at the box score and all the numbers after the game, let's breakdown the setup in my condo by the numbers:
84: The combined number of inches of viewable television screen between the two TV's in my condo. The specs: 52-inch ol' skool rear-projection TV with a 32-inch HD-LCD placed on top. We call it "Picture-on-picture". And lest we forget, this coincidentally is also the year that Lavell's passionless scowl and our troops donning midriff-revealing 80's jerseys brought home the National Championship.
2: Number of cable boxes in my apartment; # of X-Box's (one ol' skool and one 360); # of speakers taller than 6 feet
7: The presumed number of remote controls in my living room.
4: The amount of remote controls in my living room that can be found at any given time.
8: Number of speakers hooked up to our surround sound. What is it with us (guys) and surround sound? We have to have it because it "enhances the experience," which I find ironic because we spend most of the game complaining about how we would like the commentators to just SHUT UP with their idiotic, uh, commenting.
65: Percent chance that I will have an epileptic seizure based on sensory overload thanks to the continuous combined exposure to the aforementioned devices.
Some approximates:
~35-40: The estimated number of years that are shaved off of my life expectancy every time BYU has a close game. (Yes, I should be dead by now...but Asians have a long life expectancy)
~48: Cubic feet the love-sac is occupying in front of the TV.
Some inequalities:
<0: Probability that I will not be plopped in front of this sweet setup watching college football on a Saturday between the months of September and January; also, the amount of time left on the clock when Harline caught "the answered prayer" in BYU v. UT in '06 (Yes, I know that a probability of less than 0 is impossible... Asians aren't just good at math, we can use literary devices like hyperbole as well)
>5: Number of times I swear during a close BYU football game.
>200: Number of times I stop myself from swearing during a close BYU football game.
3: Number of hours spent in repentance following a close BYU football game.
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