I’m trying to figure out just how outraged I should be over a friend’s Facebook comment that said the following:
“Just had the unfortunate experience of sitting through all three hours of the new Batman movie. Those people who got shot during the first hour were actually lucky. (Yes, it was that terrible.)”
That’s just a horrible thing to write, correct? I’m not even gonna say it’s “too soon” for a joke like that because there won’t be any time when it’s not too soon. Am I overreacting to this comment? Is it ok to joke about this if all you’re saying is “better that they got shot during the first hour than the third hour”? I don’t think so, but then I look at the comments below her post from her other friends and there are only six of them, and only in one did someone say she shouldn’t have said that.
After that one person did respond to her comment negatively, the original “friend” I’m speaking of followed up with this:
“Also, of course the massacre was a terrible tragedy, and I’m sorry for the families of everyone who died (…anyone who knows me is aware that goes without saying). But I’m sure anyone who actually suffered through the entire movie would agree: it’s probably better for everyone involved that it happened during the beginning of the movie, rather than right at the end — that would have added insult to injury.”
Does her clarification here make it any better?
I’m so torn on how to react to this…Ignore it? Make a comment on her wall about how awful of a person I think she is? Post her name and all of her info on my blog for others to send her nasty messages? My problem is that if I comment on her wall, I will probably go way over the top and tell her how I hope she gets gunned down while trying to do something she enjoys.
I’m going to let my readers decide how I should respond to this with a vote (see below).
This is beside the point, but…she’s totally wrong about the movie. Dark Knight Rises was a solid B+/A-.
I promised myself I wouldn’t “live blog” the Olympics, but I just couldn’t help myself.
The broadcast for the Opening Ceremony just kicked off (7:30pm Pacific), and we’re live with Bob Costas and Tom Brokaw to ring in the festivities. Everyone’s excited, looking forward to a fun 17 days…I’m sure Costas is going to build upon that excitement….no, wait…he opens the broadcast by talking about terrorism and London’s potential lack of preparation against deadly threats. I’m sure he’s just getting that elephant in the room out of the way; he’s gotta move on to happier topics after this…no, wait a minute, now he’s talking about how horrible the economy is in London and asking Brokaw if the Olympics will possibly jumpstart such a bad economic condition.
OK…NOW he’s gotta move on to positive storylines. Wait, what’s that, Bob? The weather in London has been terrible, the rainiest June in history and as of a few days ago they were worried about being able to have the events go off as scheduled? AND you felt the need to reference when the Germans were occupying London during World War II?
Jesus Christ, Bob, what the hell did London ever do to you?
Thankfully they just flipped it over to Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, who have got to be able to do a better job. Wait, actually it seems like they just wanna say funny English words back and forth like the “tele” (telly?) and “queuing.” They also felt the need to mention that London couldn’t possibly top the Opening Ceremonies of Beijing from four years ago.
Good times and positive vibes from the entire NBC crew.
[Editor’s Note: And just like that we’ve arrived at Opening Day of the 2012 Summer Olympics. It seems like just yesterday Nkilla and I were discussingthe crazy sport known as the Modern Pentathlon or the phenomenon that is olympic swimming. While those posts were actually weeks ago, we pretty much did just get done discussing the olympic sport best suited for a normal civilian to compete in successfully. We decided for our final email exchange to really empty out the proverbial notebook. In this fourth post, we ask each other some very obscure trivia questions, talk about the best events to watch and how to watch them, revisit the Phelps vs. Lochte debate, and show you the next “big” thing in Beach Volleyball. There’s something for everyone so please enjoy.]
From: Rmurdera
To: Nkilla
OK, we’re in the home stretch for the London Games to kick off so it’s now or never to get any final words of advice out there to our beloved readers. Rather than pose the question of who are the hottest female athletes in the Olympics, several websites have already done the hard work for us. Here is the Bleacher Report’s “100 Hottest Female Olympians of 2012.” http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1223953-100-hottest-olympians-of-2012/
Instead of us debating who’s the hottest athlete, I’ve run some stats on the top 30 according to the Bleacher Report I referenced above (because who cares about anyone outside of the top 30 honestly?).
Here’s what I found:
-In terms of countries, Italy has 3 women in the top 30, Russia has 4 women in the top 30, and the US has a whopping 10 women in the top 30.
-In terms of sport, tennis occupies 3 of the top 30, volleyball and beach volleyball each have 3 in the top 30, track & field has 4 in the top 30, and soccer has 7.
How do you feel upon hearing those stats? Does it line up with what you would have expected? Is it really possible that the US has 1/3rd of the hottest 30 female athletes in the olympics? After all, there are 205 total countries competing in the olympics…seems a bit absurd to think such a large concentration of hotness is coming from one country.
And what about Soccer having the most spots? Are soccer chicks really that good looking? Would you have expected any other sport to make a run at soccer before I showed you these stats?
A little random trivia for you…I just mentioned that 205 countries are competing in this year’s Olympics. Can you guess how many countries are competing from each of these continents…Africa, Asia, and Europe? Don’t google it, just try to guess.
And finally, do you wanna weigh in for our audience on the whole “London is 8 hours ahead of the West Coast of the US so watching the important events on TV without having Twitter, Facebook or ESPN ruin the results ahead of time is going to be a challenge” issue? What’s the best way for people to watch the events? And remember that some people can’t sit in an office and stream the games live on their 2nd and 3rd monitors like you can…
From: Nkilla
To: Rmurdera
Regarding the attractive and obviously-smart-as-well women of the Olympics:
You retrieved your lists from websites that are primarily visited by US citizens, so I am not surprised how many of the top 30 are American. If you found a popular German site that came up with the same list, I wonder what the results would be. Although, the US tends to be able to qualify women for all events, which cannot be said for most other countries, so since US women make up the largest percentage of all female Olympians maybe it makes sense that they have a higher percentage of smart and attractive athletes. I almost want to apply math to the soccer situation as well. Each soccer team has 22 or so ladies to choose from so it probably makes sense mathematically that soccer yields the highest percentage of smart and attractive women. My prediction though is that there is going to be some women’s beach volleyball team that garners a lot of attention for something other than their play. I feel like it happens every Olympics. Misty May and Kerri Walsh are getting a little older now so they are past their prime with their “non-athletic appeal,” but someone is going to step up. My prediction is Kolocova & Slukova.
As for your “countries by continent” trivia, here are my answers:
Africa = 35
Asia = 37
Europe = 44
Those are all just guesses; I did not google it. Here is an interesting question related to country participation. For international soccer, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland all field their own teams as independent nations. Yet for the Olympics, they all compete as the single nation of the United Kingdom. Why? And could Canada and Australia join the UK team if they wanted?
The best way to watch the events is live, either at home or on your computer. Most of the medal events will happen late in the day London time, which means sometime between 9am-noon Pacific Time. When NBC shows the replay, you know they are going to save the best events for the end of their primetime broadcast, so we are talking between 11pm-midnight. I do not believe the average sports fan can keep themselves from finding out the results for up to 15 hours, so really if you care about not having it spoiled for you, then you need to find a way to watch it live.
I bought a copy of the Sports Illustrated Olympic Preview issue the other day because they try and predict the winners of every single medal, and I am toying with the idea of tracking how accurate they are. My guess is that they are going to be around 20% with picking the exact winner of the exact medal for each event. In terms having their three picks for each event win any medal, do you think they will be over or under 50%? I’m going to go with slightly over. They are also predicting the US and China to tie with 42 golds each, and the US to edge out China in total medals 99 to 97.
Another fun thing about the SI preview: They put a fun little sentence about the sport or competitor for each event. For instance, after the Men’s Individual Archery picks, they wrote “Two-time champ Im (the gentleman they picked for the gold) has 20/200 vision.” So my guessing game back at you: here are my favorite tidbits; Can you figure out what event they belong to?
“The Wangs are not related.”
“Nevin beat his cousin Michael to win the Irish nationals.” (This one is only good once you figure out the sport and imagine that the Irish qualifications happen drunk one night outside a bar.)
“McKeever will soon qualify as a chartered accountant.”
“Ex-bartender Heath can mix 150 cocktails.”
“Daley’s coach taunted Qiu on Twitter this year.”
“Fox-Pitt’s middle name is Speed Lane.”
“Orozco had three background roles in Law & Order.”
“New Zealand’s Logan Campbell opened a legal brothel to fund his training.”
“Cheywa attended police college.”
From: Rmurdera
To: Nkilla
Let’s tackle the trivia portion of your email first.
Africa actually has 51 countries participating while Asia and Europe have 45 countries in the olympics. The reason I asked—and really the only reason this caught me off guard—is because my entire knowledge of Africa and its countries is from the board game Risk. And in that game, there are all of six countries represented. I always thought there was something like 6-12 total countries on that continent.
For your really random and obscure trivia questions, here are your quotes again with my answers and my rationale:
“The Wangs are not related.” = Table Tennis: because Wangs = Asians and Asians = Good at Ping Pong
“Nevin beat his cousin Michael to win the Irish nationals.” (This one is only good once you figure out the sport and imagine that the Irish qualifications happen drunk one night outside a bar.) = Wrestling: because your clue of being drunk outside a bar makes me think it’s a head-to-head fighting type of event, and I don’t see the Irish having anyone entered into Boxing
“McKeever will soon qualify as a chartered accountant.” = Sailing: because people charter things like planes and boats, right? And a lot of accountants probably like sailboats.
“Ex-bartender Heath can mix 150 cocktails.” = Handball: because playing handball seems to be as athletic of a sport as mixing cocktails.
“Daley’s coach taunted Qiu on Twitter this year.” = Badminton: because I have no fucking clue.
“Fox-Pitt’s middle name is Speed Lane.” = Track & Field: because speed lane makes me think of a fast runner.
“Orozco had three background roles in Law & Order.” = Shooting: because this one was obvious…Law & Order is about the police, who have guns, which maybe means this guy shot a fake gun in his background roles and that helped him become an Olympic shooter.
“New Zealand’s Logan Campbell opened a legal brothel to fund his training.” = Water Polo: because it seems like the type of sport that New Zealand would be randomly good at.
“Cheywa attended police college.” = Modern Pentathlon: because at police college you’re probably schooled in shooting, riding a horse, running and maybe sword fighting, and those are four of the events in the Pentathlon.
One final topic I want to revisit before we sign off for good on the Olympics Preview is the Phelps vs. Lochte debate. Even though the rivalry’s cooled down a bit since the US Swimming Trials were broadcast a few weeks ago, it’s going to be ratcheted back up on Day One (July 28th) when they begin their first event, the 400M Individual Medley. Are you rooting for the favorite, the dominant force, the Tiger Woods of swimming (Phelps, obviously)? Or are you rooting for the underdog, the guy who would be the favorite if Phelps wasn’t around, and apparently the more likable guy (Lochte)? Everything I read says that while Phelps doesn’t show much personality to the public, and he doesn’t do much with his time besides swim and pretend to eat at Subway, Lochte is the polar opposite…he’s apparently a “fun-loving, easygoing guy,” and besides swimming he likes to play basketball, volleyball and go surfing.
Do you root for dominance to continue, even if the person doing the dominating doesn’t relate to regular people very well? Or do you root for the underdog who’s apparently a lot more relatable to a normal person?
From: Nkilla
To: Rmurdera
OK, here are the answers to my trivia quotes:
“The Wangs are not related.” = Women’s Singles Badminton
“Nevin beat his cousin Michael to win the Irish nationals.” (This one is only good once you figure out the sport and imagine that the Irish qualifications happen drunk one night outside a bar.) = Boxing (Irish not entered in boxing? Come on, Rmurdera, they would not let the legacy of Hurricane Peter McNeeley die.)
“McKeever will soon qualify as a chartered accountant.” = Men’s 200m Kayak Singles
“Ex-bartender Heath can mix 150 cocktails.” = Men’s 200m Kayak Doubles (Seems like if you are good at kayaking you have a lot of free time. Maybe you should take this up).
“Daley’s coach taunted Qiu on Twitter this year.” = Men’s 10m Platform
“Fox-Pitt’s middle name is Speed Lane.” = Equestrian (So just to be clear, “William Speed Lane Fox-Pitt” is the name of the jockey, not the horse.)
“Orozco had three background roles in Law & Order.” = Gymnastics
“New Zealand’s Logan Campbell opened a legal brothel to fund his training.” = Taekwondo (Makes sense, right? A pimp needs to be able to beat down both employees and customers when necessary.)
“Cheywa attended police college.” = Steeplechase (Also makes sense, the running and jumping over things.)
As for your Risk perspective on Africa, does that mean you have thought the USA was made up of only two states (an eastern state and a western state) for the past 30 years? Also, in any history class throughout high school or college, if there was a question on a test as to how a war started, did you simply just write the one word answer: “Siam”?
After seeing Lochte’s picture on his wikipedia page and seeing he is from New York, I decided he looks like a typical Yankees fan so I am completely “Team Phelps” when they go head-to-head, but I’ll switch back to “Team Lochte” any time he is competing against the Russians.
Finally, for anyone wondering what events they should consider watching over the first weekend of the games:
MUST WATCH:
Men’s 400m IM Final – Saturday 11:30am
Women’s 400m IM Final – Saturday 12:10pm
Women’s 4×100 Free Final – Saturday 12:40pm
Men’s 100m Breast Final – Sunday 12:00pm
Men’s 4×100 Free Final – Sunday 12:50pm
Men’s 200m Free Final – Monday 11:40am
IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE BY A TV:
Men’s 132 lb Judo Medal match – Saturday 8am (Although if this is not exactly like the All Valley Karate Championship from Karate Kid, including music, I’m going to be pissed.)
Men’s Team Archery Medal Match – Saturday 10am (I’m expecting Hunger Games, but with adults)
Men’s 400m Free Final – Saturday 11:50am
Men’s 145 lb Judo Medal match – Sunday 8am
Women’s Team Archery Medal Match – Sunday 10am
Men’s Individual Sabre Final – Sunday 11:10am
Women’s 100m Fly Final – Sunday 11:30am
Women’s 400m Free Final – Sunday 12:15pm
Men’s 161 lb Judo Medal match – Monday 8am
Women’s 100m Back Final – Monday 11:50am
Men’s 100m Back Final – Monday 11:55am
Women’s 100m Breast Final – Monday 12:10pm
IF YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR WIFE/GIRLFRIEND HAPPY:
Men’s Team Gymnastic Finals – Monday 8:30am
To: Nkilla
From: Rmurdera
I know you had addressed the Phelps/Lochte rivalry earlier, but I was hoping you’d give us a little more substance than “Lochte’s a Yankees fan so I don’t like him.” My opinion is that I want Phelps to dominate again. I hate an underdog success story. I always root for the scenario where I’ll be able to tell your kids someday that I saw the most dominant athlete at a given sport in his prime. That’s why even amidst the Tiger Woods personal life meltdown a few years ago, I’m still hoping he crushes the Major Championships record. I always root for the favorites, at least until the first sign of disappointment. No one jumps off a bandwagon quite as quickly as me.
[Editor’s Note: You’re about to read Part Three of our ongoing Olympics Preview, where Nkilla and I debate which olympic sport a “normal person” (read: nonathlete) could best compete in. If you’re worried about reading part three before reading parts one and two because you think the chronological order of these posts matters, don’t. But if you do want to catch up on the internet’s most entertaining London Games Preview, here are the links:Part One discusses the ridiculousness known as the Modern Pentathlon, whilePart Two focuses on every American’s favorite fake interest: Olmypic Swimming. With part three, Nkilla really did the heavy lifting as you’ll see by the record-setting length of his emails to me. I’m starting to think there is no one more excited for these Summer Olympics than him. Buckle up for a lengthy debate, and as always, enjoy.]
From: Rmurdera
To: Nkilla
In our previous email exchanges about swimming, you mentioned that swimming and track & field are likely popular spectator sports at the Olympics because most people know how to swim, and everyone knows how to run, so they are events we can personally relate to. That’s a fair point, but obviously we would never try to say that a civilian spectator could just show up the day of an olympic swimming or track event and put up a fight against the world’s top athletes in that sport. That’s insane.
But are there events in the Summer Olympics that we think might be unathletic and random enough that a civilian like you or I could presumably compete with the world’s best in?
Which event or events do you think a lay person could best compete in?
Let’s specifically take the two of us as those example “civilians” and talk about which events we’d best compete in. Keep in mind that in order to compete in these events, we’d actually have to be willing to show up and participate. This means Boxing and Taekwondo are out because I’m pretty sure neither of us would even step into the ring or onto the Taekwondo mat to face an Olympian in these events.
Thoughts?
From: Nkilla
To: Rmurdera
OK, so I think what you are asking is what events could a random civilian not only compete in but actually have a chance of medaling in, or at least a top 10 finish.
I want to go back to boxing first. You realize that olympic boxing requires all competitors to wear helmets, and that the bouts only go three rounds, correct? So in order for a civilian to do well all you have to do is get in the ring, dance around for nine minutes, hope to not get drilled in the head, and then hope the judges like your tactics and make you the winner. And if you don’t think that could happen, remember that in 1988 Roy Jones Jr. lost the gold medal after he dominated the bout because all three judges admitted they did not want the South Korean he was fighting to not get any votes in front of his home crowd. Unfortunately for Roy, the judges decided to conspire separately instead of together and he lost 3-0. I also found three official-looking summaries on the interwebs of the Olympic Boxing Judging Rules, and all three summaries used these words somewhere in their description about the process: controversy, bias, scandal. So maybe we shouldn’t dismiss boxing so quickly.
So the first thing we need to do here is rule out all the events that use any type of weapon. The people that are pros with swords, bow & arrows and guns are pretty accurate. Maybe we get lucky and hit the center of the target once, but not the hundreds of times it would take to advance past the first round. As we know from this we therefore need to eliminate the Modern Pentathlon as well. I think we can safely rule out all the other “fighting” sports as well for a combination of lack of training and getting a serious beat down, so that eliminates Judo, Taekwondo, and Wrestling. Also, I know I hit the gym every once in a while but Weightlifting is out as well.
Certain events we can rule out because we simply physically cannot perform the act required (all gymnastic events), know how to perform the actual movements but would get slaughtered (swimming and diving), or are just stupid (synchronized swimming). As for the nautical events, let’s eliminate anything that requires rowing because we probably do not have the correct development of our rowing muscles to go more than fifty yards. I was wondering if we could hop in a sail boat, point the boat in the right direction, and get the correct wind and luck ourselves into the top ten. Then I looked at the footage of some olympic sailing races…a lot of ropes and throwing body weight around and hanging off of boats, so I think all nautical events are out.
Let’s look at the raquette sports. Tennis is out because if we could compete in olympic tennis, we would have played at Wimbledon earlier this month. Ping Pong is out because world-class ping pong players are insane and hit the ball ridiculously hard and fast. But what about badminton? My instinct was that no matter how hard someone swings, that shuttlecock thing can only go so fast based on what I know about physics. Go to youtube and search for “olympic badminton.” I think this one might be a possibility.
So let’s talk team sports for a bit. I think for this category we have to evaluate if you could actually start on the team and contribute. That eliminates basketball, field hockey and both types of volleyball. I was thinking water polo might be a possibility. I can tread water and swim pretty well, can throw a ball around…so based on visuals and my personal perception, I would think water polo would be in play. The problem is, I know a couple people who played water polo in college and they are extremely adamant that you can not imagine how much swimming you have to do until you actually play. So I’m not sure I could make it five minutes through a match without needing a lifeguard to jump in and save me. That leaves handball. Again, you will have to do some youtube research to see how the game is actually played, but it looks like a bunch of guys pass a ball around, the defense forms sort of a wall 15 feet from the goal, one team tries to throw the ball in the net, and then you repeat down the other end of the court. I feel like I could do that right now.
We know most of the track and field events are out, but did you know “race walking” is an event? That’s right, “who can walk the fastest” is an actual olympic event. We can walk, right? We can walk fast when we need to, right? So we could probably compete in this one, right? Wrong. The men’s race is 12.4 miles. The time needed just to qualify for the medal round in 2008 was 1 hour 23 minutes. That is a 6:40 pace. Could you even go and run a 6:40 mile right now?
Now on to “events with bikes.” The triathlon, road cycling events, and BMX events are not options. Sorry to keep saying “check this out on youtube”, but check out Olympic Track Cycling. If the race is four times around the track, it seems like the object is to barely move for the first 3.8 laps so you are not in the front, then sprint the last 30 yards and try to win. Is there any reason we could win a couple of short sprints or get lucky and have our opponent fall? Or am I completely wrong on this and once our opponent sized us up they would spring their entire race against us and destroy us?
I want to discuss trampoline for a minute because I think this would be a lot of people’s first answer. In fact, many people (myself included) would question why trampolining is even considered a sport. So naturally I went to watch some olympic style trampolining on youtube. Unfortunately I have to admit I could not show up without any training to compete in this. Remember that we are trying to decide if we could make the top ten. There is no way I could do so many flips with such perfect form on a single jump. I’m not arguing whether or not trampolining should be an Olympic sport. That is an entirely different conversation. I’m saying there is no way I could do what I saw on youtube.
One final option: Equestrian. Again, not arguing that this should even be in the Olympics as the horse does 98% of the work, but that is a good argument for why I could show up at the ranch on medal day and possibly pull off the upset, right? As long as I can get the horse to follow the designated route, he will do the rest. If this horse made the horsey olympic team then I assume that as long as I have him running towards a gate he is going to jump it whether or not I give the right command. I would hope he is not going to plow right through it just because I don’t shout “ole” and flex my left calf at the correct time.
So to summarize, in no particular order yet, here are the events I think an average mobile person could compete in during the Olympics and have a reasonable showing with the right tactics:
badminton
boxing
handball
equestrian
track cycling
From: Rmurdera
To: Nkilla
Wow, that was a very comprehensive reply to my question…It seemed like the answer of a guy who is awake more hours than usual and couldn’t find anything better to do with his time.
First of all, I love how easy you make it sound to just jump into a boxing ring (18 feet x 18 feet) and “dance around for nine minutes” while a skilled boxer chases after you. Sounds really simple.
Are you sure you wanna rule out synchronized swimming? You remember me, you & Pueto (our middle brother, for the uninitiated) pulling off some pretty amazing synchronized moves in grandma & grandpa’s pool back in the day, right? It may be a stupid sport, but all I care about in this case is what we can admirably compete in. This might be one to go for. We have previous “training.”
I took your advice and watched some Olympic Badminton highlights…I couldn’t disagree with you more. Sure, it’s not like the “pro’s” are gonna hit the cock harder than you can, it only goes so fast. But I have a feeling that they place the cock exactly where they want on the court every time. Meaning you’d be diving for their shot by the 2nd time they send it over your way, and even if you luckily return it, they’d simply place it where you’re not. No chance.
But wow, you might be 100% right with handball. How is this an olympic sport? There are a lot of things about the olympics that make it seem like a sham, but including handball as a sport might be the most egregious of them. If the highlights I watched are equivalent to how all handball is played, then you’re right. We could get a team of seven from our group of friends and possibly medal in this event. It looks like there is absolutely no contact allowed between players, and if that’s the case, there’s really no difference between those olympians and us. I’m moving this to my top nominee for our question for now.
Regarding your question around Track Cycling, I’ll make it easy: I doubt either of us could stay upright on the bike if we had to ride it on one of those curved, sloped tracks. Moving on…
With the Trampolining event, I’d only think I had a chance if the Olympic Committee allowed a slight rule tweak. I would need another person (specifically Eamon Moran) on the trampoline with me so that he could “double bounce” me. If I got the perfect double bounce with Eamon sending me twice as high as I could normally jump, then I give myself a chance. Not a good chance, but a chance.
And for the Equestrian option you threw out there…we should probably consult with someone who’s at least ridden a horse once because I know neither of us have, and maybe there’s more to it than just lining the horse up on the course and letting him go at it. But I think this is worth a shot, and the bonus is if you do poorly at this event, you can say, “I guess old JohnnyComeLately didn’t have it in him today.”
I want to throw one more event out to you before I give my ranking: Canoe Slalom.
I would never dare to think that we could compete in the Canoe Sprint, which seems like you actually need to be athletic and skilled for. But the Slalom doesn’t seem that much more difficult than some of the rafting we’ve done on weekend trips in the Bay Area over the years. The river’s doing a lot of the work for you. I feel like you could just throw the paddle away and get lucky with the river taking you down without a problem. Those one-person kayaks/canoes are super easy to control and again, I’ll reiterate, nine times out of 10, you can screw up and take the wrong line through a rapid, and the river will still guide you to the bottom. Check it out and let me know if you agree:
So here’s my current ranking from toughest to easiest of which events a civilian could compete in reasonably well at the London Olympics:
5). Trampoline (with my proposed “Eamon Moran” addendum to the current rules)
4). Equestrian
3). Synchronized Swimming
2). Canoe Slalom
1). Handball
Agree? Disagree? Are your rankings different than mine?
From: Nkilla
To: Rmurdera
I stand by my boxing position. The heavyweight division is for anyone between 179 and 200 pounds. I would be on the “spry” side of that weight class so I really think I could dance around some of the slower, huskier gentlemen. I also really think the helmet helps. I might be able to absorb two good punches before I go down. I just think that with the history of olympic boxing corruptness, it makes sense to put yourself in a situation where a well paid Ukrainian can help you win an undeserved medal.
I remember you and Pueto doing synchronized swimming routines, but I am pretty sure I just watched and made fun of you. Especially if this is going up on a public internet site, then for sure I just watched. Also, I do not want it in my search history (unless it is this exact video) so I did not do it, but you should go youtube some olympic synchronized swimming. Yes, it is completely lame, but there is a lot of breath holding and keeping of legs completely straight for long periods of time. How about this: if you go to a pool and do a handstand in the shallow end for 30 seconds while keeping your legs compeltely straight, we can re-open the synchronoized swimming discussion. After you fail at that, also remember that touching the bottom of the pool with any part of your body during synchronized swimming is either a serious point decuation or complete disqualification (I do not even care enough about the sport to see which of those options is correct, but I know one of them is).
I went back and watched some badminton a little more carefully. Seems like the strategy is to hit lobs to the back corner, and if you don’t, your opponent is either going to unleash a volleyball style spike or do a little drop shot. You are probably right, too much skill and too much moving to just show up for this one.
I talked to a friend who is very into cycling. We would not fall off the curved track; they are not very steep. The other gentlemen in the competition though, they can get their speed up to 52mph in less than a quarter of a lap. Probably safe to rule track cycling out now based on that. Also, no rule tweaks allowed with your trampoline theory. I could make a case for winning twenty or so different events with a single rule tweak (probably an entire separate conversation) so you can not have Eamon the “double bouncer” help you in trampoline.
As for canoe slalom, you are out of your mind. First of all, those are probably class IV rapids they are canoeing in. Secondly, in the first 36 seconds of the video you referenced, the competitor stops on a dime and does significant paddling against the current. I couldn’t find anything remotely close on youtube, but I really wish there was a video of someone just “letting the river do the work” on one of these courses. I would probably pay up to $20 for that footage if it existed.
So after all this I think my rankings are:
4. Trampoline (even without the rule change, at least you wouldn’t hurt yourself).
3. Equestrian
2. Boxing
1. Handball
Seems like we have come to a consensus. Do we need to look for any proof that handball might be harder than we are seeing? Or should we just assume we could medal with a competent team around us?
From: Rmurdera
To: Nkilla
The canoe slalom argument is very timely because I’m going canoeing on a river in Rumsey, California, this weekend. I believe there is a single Class III rapid. Even though Julie will be with me, I will go ahead and throw both of our paddles out of the canoe right as we approach this rapid and see if the river “does the work for us,” as I suspect it will. And if I can handle a Class III without a paddle, liquored up, with a cooler and an extra person on board, then I think it’s safe to say I could finish top 10 in the olympic canoe slalom.
Also, a few years from now when we both have more money than we know how to spend, let’s organize this experiment: you step into a boxing ring against an olympic boxer and try to last three rounds, and I’ll hop on a canoe and go through a series of Class IV rapids by myself. We’ll see who comes out of that in better shape.
My biggest problem with attempting Equestrian is what happened to Michelle Tanner on that Full House Episode when she got thrown from her horse and lost her memory. I don’t need that.
So I guess the only consensus we can come to is that Handball is ridiculously easy, and Trampoline is a low-risk option. Let’s hold tryouts for our Handball team in the Fall.
Good Lord…I thought the “Trendy Top” was a killer. If you don’t remember my blog post from way back in April on a destructive invention called the Trendy Top, please read this now: Trendy Tops Literally Killed My Friend.
Apparently there is now a potentially more destructive product on the market in the form of Cami Secret. Once again, you’ll want to watch at least the first minute of this video for context:
The jist of the informercial is that girls love wearing low-cut tops when they’re out at night slutting it up, but that same top is just horribly inappropriate at work. Rather than assume a woman has a wardrobe consisting of work-appropriate clothes and “night out being a woo girl”-appropriate clothes, this company wants ladies to wear the same shirt to work as they wore out to the club the night before…the one they woke up in at a strange guy’s apartment…the one with the smell of puke all over it. The Cami Secret wants you to wear the same top, but just cover up all that booby goodness with one of their stupid fake tank tops…or I guess it’s called a camisole?
After re-watching this informercial more times than I care to admit, here’s my take:
1). This is why women shouldn’t be allowed to run businesses, or at least not run product development within businesses. No guy would come up with a product that covers up breasts.
2). The product has a fatal flaw—it doesn’t work if you’re wearing a strapless bra (Ha. Take that, genius R&D team behind this awful product).
3). Do women really use safety pins to try to close up a shirt near their cleavage? I can’t believe this is true because I’m always looking at this area of a woman and have never seen one.
4). One size fits all? Bullshit. You show me 1,000 different women, and I’ll show you 2,000 different breast sizes (that’s right, not even the two boobs on the same woman are an exact match).
5). Between the Trendy Top and the Cami Secret, it’s like these people are telling women to cover up all the exposed skin on their bodies. I’ve got a great product I’m willing to sell to any woman who feels overly exposed by what she chooses to wear. I’ll sell it for the low price of $20. Here it is:
But wait! For a limited time, I’ll cut the eye holes out for you in advance at no extra charge!
If women really want to cover up more, I think there’s a place in the world that supports and even encourages this kind of behavior. With the Trendy Top and Cami Secret, you’ll fit in perfectly with these people:
[Editor’s Note: You’re about to read Part 2 of our Summer Olympic Preview. If you missed Part 1 and you’re dying to know more about the Modern Pentathlon,click here. In Part 2 we discuss Swimming, perhaps the most popular Summer Olympic event. But just why is it the most popular? You’ll have to continue reading to find out. Also, a big congrats to Nkilla for giving birth to a baby boy yesterday. Well, his wife gave birth actually; he sat outside in the waiting room working on this blog with me the whole time. As happy as we are for him at the WBFF blog, we are giving him no excuse to stop blogging. If anything, he should be blogging more frequently while he spends time with his new bundle of joy. That baby’s going to sleep for like 20 hours a day…that’s prime blogging time.]
From: Rmurdera
To: Nkilla
Now that we’ve covered perhaps the most obscure olympic sport—the Pentathlon—let’s change gears and talk about some of the more popular events. Have you guys been watching any of the qualifying stuff that’s on at primetime every night?
I assume if you’ve been watching anything, it’s the swimming right?
If so, is your wife getting as illogically excited over the races and specifically Michael Phelps as my girlfriend is? Maybe it’s because Julie was a swimmer in high school, but she’s dancing around the house saying things like, “oh my god, this is the best sport ever. Why isn’t it as popular as football?”
She was screaming for Phelps one night last week and just kept going “Come on, Michael, come on!” Apparently they’re on a first-name basis. Oh, and after one of his qualifying events she said that she wishes she had the same birthday as Phelps. No explanation on that.
I was enjoying the swimming trials right up until we had to watch an eight-minute event, the 800M Women’s Freestyle. They went to commercial in the middle of the race…that, to me, means it’s too long of a race.
Anyway, my question is what’s the main reason, in your opinion, that swimming is the most popular sport in the Summer Olympics?
A). Like Julie said, it truly is just the best sport ever.
B). It’s only popular right now because of Michael Phelps and as soon as the next olympics comes and he’s not around, the popularity will drop off.
C). The Summer Olympics sneakily has mostly really terrible events so swimming wins as the default only decent event.
From: Nkilla
To: Rmurdera
I think the answer lies somewhere between B and C.
First of all, I would argue that the Summer Olympics has two major events that do not fall within the realm of main stream sports: swimming and track & field. The Olympic Committee knows these are the main attractions because all the swimming happens in the first seven days, all the track & field happens in the last seven days, and they don’t overlap. I think the general population is attracted to these two events because almost everyone knows how to swim, and almost everyone knows how to run and jump, so people feel some sort of kinship to the athletes. I also have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of people are either into the swimming or into the track & field, but not both.
Back to the original question: I went back and looked at the swimming results for every olympics since 1988 (since that is the first olympics I can remember following) because I had a feeling that each olympics had a dominant swimmer involved. It turned out I was mostly right: 1988 Matt Biondi (7 total medals, 5 gold), 1992 Alexander Popov (5 total, 3 gold), 2000 (Ian Thorpe 5 total, 3 gold and all happening in his home country), 2004 Michael Phelps (8 total, 6 gold), 2008 Michael Phelps (8 total, 8 gold). The only year without a dominant male swimmer is 1996, and that year the US as a whole dominated the swimming, including winning gold in all six relays. What I am getting at here is that I think there is a chance that swimming is only popular because there is a dominant swimmer to follow in each games. I expect that to be fueled additionally by the “Phelps vs Lochte” hype this year. (Side question: Have you done any research yet to see if we should be “Team Phelps” or “Team Lochte”?)
Do you think my theory on “swimming only being popular because there is a dominant swimmer” holds water (pun intended)? Do you have a favorite discipline or race you look forward to more than others in the swimming area? And finally, the front crawl, back stroke, and breast stroke all seem to be natural swimming motions, but where the hell did they come up with the butterfly?
From: Rmurdera
To: Nkilla
I’m in agreement with you that swimming is only popular because there’s a dominant swimmer we can latch onto each year. I think that’s how being a casual fan works. If the network broadcasting the olympics (with the help of ESPN and other media outlets) doesn’t create a compelling storyline that makes us connect with a specific athlete in these obscure olympic sports, then we won’t follow. There’s no such thing as a true, hardcore olympic fan. If someone tells you that they really are fans of any of the sports we’ll be seeing in August (except basketball or soccer of course), be sure to ask them when was the last time they caught the swimming, gymnastics or wrestling world championships on TV.
This brings me back to why I’ll be tuning in for swimming this summer, but won’t even notice when things like track & field, cycling, archery and gymnastics are going on. Swimming has done an incredible job creating compelling storylines for us. And the storylines vary. In the past 14 days, I’ve been tuning into the US swimming trials to see the greatest olympic athlete ever try to qualify for another chance at eight gold medals (Phelps), a 45-year-old woman trying to earn a spot in her sixth olympic games (Dara Torres), a 17-year-old phenom outswim the field over and over on her way to qualifying for seven events in London (Missy Franklin) and Phelps’ closest competitor and biggest “rival” try to overtake Phelps once and for all (Ryan Lochte). There’s so much drama, intrigue and stimulation that my nipples just got hard from typing the previous sentence.
As for my favorite discipline to watch, all I can tell you is breaststroke is my least favorite…it’s just so slow. I think the individual medleys are pretty sweet because the swimmers are tested in all four strokes, and I’m always expecting one of them to screw up and do them in the wrong order. I can also tell you I won’t be watching any events where NBC could theoretically take a full commercial break, return to live action and inform us that the race still has halfway to go (sorry, Women’s 800M and Men’s 1500M Swims…I don’t have time for you).
And by the way, don’t bother googling the history of the butterfly…it’s far less exciting than when I googled the Ancient Pentathlon. Basically some guy didn’t like how slow the breaststroke was and decided to tinker with it. Boom, butterfly born in 1933.
What are your thoughts on Phelps’s decision to drop out of the 200M Freestyle, thus ending his chance to repeat the eight gold medal haul from 2008?
From: Nkilla
To: Rmurdera
I know one true olympic fan: my father-in-law. He loves track & field almost as much as we love football. He watches the world championships every year in his living room and times the races with his own stopwatch to make sure the official timer does not mess up. (I’m only slightly exaggerating. I went to the Olympic trials with him in Sacramento in 2004 and he did bring his own stopwatch.)
I’m fine with Phelps not doing eight events again. That was such a ridiculous goal he set for himself in 2008 and amazing that he made it happen. He should treat these olympics as his victory lap and only do the events he knows he can win with minimal effort. He deserves it. Though I do wish he would have dropped one of the relays instead. Phelps and Lochte will go head-to-head in the two IM races. Phelps holds the world record in the 400, Lochte in the 200. So assuming they split the IMs, the 200m Freestyle would have been the tiebreaker. I can definitely see the potential for a “Dan-Dave” situation where Lochte fails to qualify for the finals in the 400 and faults his way out of the 200 or something like that. Also, after just seeing Lochte’s picture on his wikipedia page, I decided he looks like a typical Yankees fan so I am completely “Team Phelps” when they go head-to-head, but I’ll switch back to “Team Lochte” any time he is competing against the Russians.
The compelling story lines are nice, but let’s not forget 50% of the reason to tune into the swimming events, Finland’s Finest.
Another thing that makes swimming highly popular amongst the viewing audience: for the first eight days of the games, swimming will have four medal events per day. Should I rank the eight days of swimming from best to worst medal events by day? I think I should:
1. 28-Jul (M: 400 IM & 400 Free; W: 400 IM & 4×100 Free)
I love when you put the TV schedule/event logistics in your email because it tells me it’s time to wrap this conversation up. I never answered your “Team Phelps” vs “Team Lochte” question, but I think it’s fairly obvious from my original email that if I don’t choose Team Phelps, I’m likely to have a girlfriend who refuses to talk to me until the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The Justin Bieber: All Around the World special was on TV the last couple nights, and I had to watch because I already talked about how there’s no good TV on during the summer, and because I know nothing about the Biebs and wanted to see what all the fuss is about. Before watching the special, I had never even heard one of his songs, and I definitely didn’t know he was Canadian.
Here are my quick thoughts on what I saw:
-What’s more awkward…me watching two hours of a Justin Bieber special or these three dudes at the Bieber concert being shown on TV right as Bieber is asking the crowd, “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
Looks like at least one of these dudes wants to be The Biebs’ boyfriend
-He played a concert in Mexico City that had 250,000 people at it. That seems like a lot. I really don’t know enough about music history to put his fame/popularity in perspective. I’d love it if an older person who knows about this stuff could put Bieber’s career in context compared to people like Elvis, The Beatles, NKOTB and Justin Timberlake. Does he only seem like the most popular musician ever because of Twitter and the internet? Or is he legit the most popular person ever?
-The TV special follows him around to European cities like Rome and Paris. One thing I’m not envious about with him is that he’ll never get to go sightseeing in one of these cities like a normal person. He’ll never be able to just decide spontaneously to go see the Coliseum, because 20,000 teenage girls would start scaling the Coliseum walls.
-But if there is one thing I’m jealous of with him (and there should be like 3 million things), it’s that he can approach a balcony or window anytime, anywhere, and a crowd of 10,000 people erupts in the streets. I’d love for that to happen to me every time I go to my balcony at my apartment.
-Before every performance Bieber & his team stand in a circle, put their hands in the middle and chant “ducks ducks ducks, quack quack quack.” It’s like he’s using amazing Mighty Ducks references just to force me to like him.
-Final thought: Which of these girls is going to most regret the way they reacted to an 18-year-old singer 10 years from now? I know how this works (I was around many teenage girls when Timeberlake was at the peak of his powers, and I bet every one of them now regrets the freaking out they did whenever his name was mentioned). These girls get a glimpse of Bieber and they either cry or faint…I really feel like they’re gonna regret this, especially the ones that were recorded on this TV special. Their overreactions to Justin Bieber will be on Youtube forever:
These girls broke into a spontaneous “I love him, I love him, I love him” after seeing BiebsThis is your traditional “let’s hug so neither one of us falls down from over stimulation”
She’s really putting her heart out there for Justin
But this girl will not let another “hand heart” overshadow her’s
And finally, the total loss of control. Emotions bursting out of her, full meltdown mode
Today we achieved an important landmark on the WBFF blog. I say “we” because this wouldn’t be possible without all my readers. I could write the most brilliant blogs on the internet—which I do—and you could completely ignore them—which sometimes, actually, you do.
Nevertheless, today we crossed the 3,500 all-time views mark on the blog, but more importantly, we have our first month of 1,000+ views (and June is only two-thirds over)!
Traffic on the blog is moving in the right direction; ever since I quit my job I’ve been posting more frequently; and we even have a regular guest blogger on board to discuss the world’s most obscure sports. The WBFF blog is alive and well.
As far as the geographic breakdown of my readers, 77% of the views come from the U.S. This means that I have a 23% international reader rate, which is the 7th-highest international rate among U.S.-based blogs that have been on the internet less than six months and are run by an unemployed 29-year-old (proof of this stat is not currently available).
WBFF has gotten views in a whopping 47 different countries over its lifetime. 47! I wouldn’t have even been able to name 27 countries before looking at the list. As expected, most of the English-speaking countries are on board (Canada, UK, Australia), but I’m amazed by the obscure countries that are logging on to check out my work…some of them I never would have guessed even have internet or computers. Check out the list:
United Arab Emirates? Sri Lanka? Montenegro? Kuwait? Where are these countries even located? And is Bosnia and Herzegovina one place? Or should I be counting it as two countries?
By the way, great job hardly contributing, Mexico, “neighbor to the South.” Jesus, I live like 150 miles away from Mexico, and all they can do is clock in with three total views in almost five months. Guess I won’t be scheduling a Mexico stop on my first book tour.
So here’s the deal, loyal readers: I’ll keep pumping out mind-blowing blog posts, adding guest bloggers that have something interesting to say, and tackling any topic I think I know something about. All I need in return is for you to keep reading, spreading the word to your friends when you think something is funny or interesting, and giving me feedback on things you wish I’d discuss more (or things you want me to never discuss again). Deal?
Don’t you dare say all I’ve ever given you is a daily dose of humor. I’m essentially handing $6 to anyone who reads this blog post. You’re welcome.
While you sit there on your fat ass all day long—doing nothing productive for mankind—I’m busy perusing all of the open class action lawsuits going on in the world, looking for anything that could make us all rich beyond our wildest dreams. And while this Ben & Jerry’s lawsuit probably won’t make anyone “rich” in the traditional sense, it’s still free money for doing absolutely nothing.
Here’s the website where you can get all the info on this lawsuit and even download the claims form you need to fill out to get paid: http://icecreamsettlement.com/
The basic overview is that Ben & Jerry’s and Breyer’s were claiming to sell an “all natural” product for years, but they were using an ingredient that’s technically not considered natural. Therefore, anyone who claims to have purchased these products within a certain time period is entitled to a piece of the settlement. While the total settlement figure is upwards of $7 million, your cut is exactly $2 per unit of ice cream you purchased. And before you jump the gun downloading the claim form ready to say you bought 10,000 units of this ice cream, they state that any person claiming to have purchased more than three units will have to show proof—like a receipt or bar code from the tub of ice cream. Good luck with that.
But seriously, why not fill out the claim form, mail it in, and happily accept your $5.55 (subtracting $0.45 for the cost of postage)?
Better yet, if you don’t care about earning this $6, why not send it along to your favorite blogger? A guy who’s been entertaining you for months (years in the case of readers of my other failed blog attempts)…A guy who’s never asked you for anything except for constant positive feedback.
I’m planning to setup 10-20 P.O. Boxes and fake identifications to really cash on this ice cream debacle.
The article is titled “Pale is The New Tan.” The argument they are trying to make is that women shouldn’t feel like only extremely tanned people can be beautiful, and that naturally pale women can be more beautiful than overly tanned women.
I don’t know who BuzzFeed is, or what they’re trying to accomplish as a blog, and I don’t care…This is irresponsible journalism at its worst. First of all, I’m not sure there’s even an argument to be had here: of course there are plenty of pale women who are hotter than tan women. Only a buffoon would be simple-minded enough to think tan = hot and pale = ugly.
But where I really take offense to this article is the supporting evidence they use to prove “pale is the new tan.”
So Scarlett Johansson, possibly the hottest woman on the planet regardless of skin tone, is compared to Snooki, maybe the biggest abomination on the planet?
And Amy Adams is compared to Hulk Hogan’s daughter, who looks strikingly like Hulk Hogan?
And let’s not forget about Nicole Kidman, who isn’t even that attractive, being compared to that man-woman-beast Donatella Versace…
I’m only exaggerating a little here when I say this article basically took the 14 most attractive light-skinned celebrities and put them up against 14 of the least attractive celebrities (regardless of skin color) and said, “Here you go, point proven: pale is hotter than tan.”
Two more notes on this article:
-Tilda Swinton shouldn’t be on the side of any argument that is supporting beauty.
-The author of this article should have gotten a man’s perspective first because he would have told her to scrap the Emma Stone vs Kim Kardashian comparison. In that picture, Kim looks damn good and the perfect amount of tan so that one isn’t going to help your argument.
My final concern is that this article might convince some people to stop going for extra tan and actually start going for extra pale. And we all know how this ends, don’t we, Sammy Sosa:
Totally worth the wait for a 1-in-176 million chance
Well look what we’ve got here…not since the days of Wonka’s five golden tickets have people gone this crazy over a game of chance. I’m talking of course about the Mega Millions lottery. You know this story has gotten big when even I’ve heard of it. I’ve said it before: I don’t read the news, I don’t watch the news, I seriously have no idea what channel the news would even be on…so for me to be hearing all about this alleged $640 million jackpot, it’s gotta be big. How big? Well I’ve been approached by no less than six people asking whether or not I’ve bought a ticket for this drawing. Up to this point in my life, I never had a single person ask me if I was playing the lottery. So that’s a pretty large increase of people asking me about this.
At this moment I’m still refusing to buy even 1 ticket. My take is that if I stay out of this mess, when it’s all said and done, I will be $1 more wealthy than everyone in this country who is poorer than me (distancing myself from the pack), and I’ll be $1 closer to catching all the rich people in this country who currently make more money than me. It’s a very small but important step in my plan to be the richest person in the world.
So what I’ve been doing when people either ask me if I’m playing the lottery or tell me they bought some tickets is to get very serious with them and say, “Listen, I think you’ve honestly got a good chance to win this thing…have you thought about what you’re gonna do with the money yet? You don’t wanna win $640 million and not have a plan, right?” It really gets people thinking.
And I’ve heard plenty of people rationalize their spending on this certain disappointment by saying it gives them a few days to daydream about the possibilities, which is a nice escape from the real world. Well, let’s see how imaginative some of these people can get.
In no particular order, here are the results of me asking five people what are the top things they’d spend the money on:
-Quit my job
-Move out of my shitty neighborhood
-Build myself a regulation basketball court
-Buy a new car
-Build an incredible media room
-offer Bob Sagat $1 million to blow me just to see if he will. Turn him down if he says yes, of course
-Spend more time with my family (maybe four weekends a year instead of three)
-Buy a bunch of pork shoulders and donate to will-blog-for-food.com (THANK YOU, anonymous hero)
-Take a year’s vacation and travel the entire world
-Give a couple million each to the family members and friends that I don’t hate
-Rent Fenway Park for a weekend to organize the coolest softball tournament ever
-Hold a contest with a $5 million reward for the person willing to humiliate themselves the worst, as judged by me
-Finance my own movie
-Buy some real estate like a beach house, ski cabin or condo
-Give a bunch of money away since I could never spend it all
-Take a ridiculous vacation around the world
-Start a company
-I’m getting a coke habit
-Start building churches in Nicaragua
-Sponsor a little league team
-Spend $100K in a strip club
-Go to Vegas and do a free roll on Roulette
-Pay off my school loans and all my debt
-Pay off my parents’ house
-Go on a year long vacation
-Either buy a car a boat or a craft store
That’s some pretty weak daydreaming for the most part. I love how someone knows if they could only afford it, they’d have a coke habit. I also like that someone is so overly responsible with their money that they won’t splurge for a car, boat AND a craft store…they’ll have to choose just one. Taking a long vacation is the most popular answer, and building an incredible media room is the most confusing answer.
If I won the money, I’d go overboard. Every piece of clothing I own would be made out of either gold or dollar bills. I would never wipe my own ass again, I can promise you that. I would buy a new house in a new location each month, and live there for only that month. I would buy a minority stake in the Cadbury company and push them to make Cadbury mini-eggs year-round. I would most certainly be the next person to step foot on the moon, and I’d potentially buy it. Safe to say eight months after winning the money, you’d find me back at my corporate job on the bottom rung of the ladder, scraping to get buy again.
I was searching for one good picture to attach to this post, but I found a lot of them. Let’s kick the weekend off with photos of people who have won the lottery:
Don’t worry, this guy’s got enough money now to get that head enlargement surgery. Those glasses will be fitting in no time.
Oh, I see. Those are official lottery-winners glasses. How exclusive.
Yes! That’s how you celebrate winning millions. You act like you just won the World Series and then some.
Ok, looks like her first time ever holding a champagne bottle, but still, she’s getting it.
Exactly…you just won how many millions of dollars? Do something stupid, flush part of it down the toilet. This screams “I’m so rich one dollar bills are my toilet paper!”
Yikes. Let’s quickly get that will updated, shall we?
Ehh, whatever. At least he can afford rehab to go along with the habit.
San Francisco will be in recovery mode for a long time
Dear Bay Area,
Hi, Rmurdera here. We need to have a talk. I think we all need to come to an agreement on when an earthquake is newsworthy. I don’t mind that the morning news mentions every time there’s a little jolt while we’re all sleeping, but to treat these minor tremors like high priority, press-stopping news is really fucking annoying.
Here’s the deal I’m willing to make: when an earthquake causes death, serious injury or property damage over $45, we can scrap the regular news for hours upon hours of “breaking news: special earthquake coverage.” But in return, whenever an earthquake can be best described as “a 10 second jolt that didn’t knock anything over,” we’re gonna have the news anchor come on TV and say, “this just in: a 4.0 magnitude earthquake hit just now. It was centered in El Cerrito…no harm was done. Let’s continue on with actual news.” And that’s it.
Otherwise we have a situation like what I witnessed this morning. I woke up at 5:30 to the 10 seconds of shaking. It seemed similar to the other 200 quakes I’ve felt in six years of living in San Francisco so I thought no big deal. I go back to sleep until about 6:45. When I woke up and turned on the news, I thought for a second that I had slept through a history-making quake. We’re talking breaking news, geologist experts on the phone every five minutes explaining what happened, all of the station’s reporters being sent to random towns throughout the bay area to collect stories of all the horror that residents witnessed when the shaking started (“wow, so this bottle of soda slid right off your counter?”). My god, it was such a huge tragedy here that one poor woman lost a whole container of lemonade mix when it fell off her shelf! (I’m not even exaggerating…KRON4 spent 10 minutes where the reporter scrolled through the station’s facebook page on her phone relaying what residents were experiencing, and sure enough, the biggest incident was the lemonade falling over…oh the humanity!)
By the way, the Red Cross has setup a website for anyone who wants to help out the people who have been affected by the falling lemonade and soda: The Great Quake of 2012 Fund
Not only did this earthquake not cause any damage, but just today there have technically been 12 earthquakes in the SF Bay Area. Check it out for yourself: earthquake list for San Francisco. Let’s say anything under a 6.0 doesn’t get wall-to-wall news coverage anymore. Let’s save that for the real disasters.
Speaking of the real disasters, I don’t know if other Bay Area residents feel like me, but I’m screwed when the big one comes. All these little shakes have conditioned me to ignore an earthquake as if it’s a rain shower. When the 9.0 hits later this year, you can find my body under a pile of rubble, iphone in hand, mid-tweeting “hahaha, another little shake to scare the masses.”
I’m probably late to the party with this post as I heard twitter is already blowing up about it, but I can’t help myself. I just have to blog about Tiny Kox. No, I didn’t say “tiny cocks” because I’m not talking about particularly small penises.
I’m talking about the man named Tiny Kox. The less observant people might have missed it while reading CNN this morning, but sure enough, there’s a very upset Tiny Kox in this article: Observers Slam Russian Vote
Now, I did some research on this Tiny Kox, and it turns out his real name isn’t “Tiny.” As you’ll notice here on Wikipedia his name is actually Martinus Josephus Maria (Tiny) Kox.
If that’s my real name, I’m going with either Martin Kox or Joe Kox as the name people should call me. Hell, I’d gladly have people call me Maria Kox before they’re calling me Tiny Kox.
willblogforfooddotcom 