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142.8 million? really?

I’ve basically always hated the ways that movies “break box office records,” the insinuation is that more people have watched that movie it’s opening weekend than any other movie in history. So “New Moon” comes in third all time this weekend, as the third supposedly highest grossing opening weekend ever, which it’s really not. This same issue came up when the latest batman was making a run at Titanic for most box office revenue generated, which again, is a misnomer because of the simple fact that box office tickets today cost considerably more than they did 10 years ago, hell even 5 years ago. This could easily be solved if someone would take the average cost of a box office ticket throughout the United States (like they do when they average gas prices), and then divide that by the revenue generated so we could actually get a concise count of the number of people who watched the film. It gets sort of annoying to me when terrible movies like New Moon, Spider Man, and Transformers hit these box office numbers and people misjudge how really popular or great these films are. For the record, I did not watch New Moon, but I did watch the first one, and the first film was one of the WORST films ever made. I am not implying that the books themselves are bad, I am not implying that the story itself is bad, I am stating the obvious fact that anyone who objectively judges movies would be baffled by Twilight’s complete lack of direction, terrible and gaudy special effects, and long instances of staring at each other while actor’s emote what is probably pages of internal dialog through 5 seconds of awkward teen stare downs. Twilight, Spider Man, and Transformers are NOT good movies, they will not be remembered years down the line, and they would receive less credit if people would stop making such a big deal about gross revenue numbers.

I've always liked best buy.

I saw in consumer reports that Best Buy was rated pretty low on satisfaction, well below places like Costco and HH Greg for electronics and I found this pretty shocking. Granted I basically have stopped going to Best Buy since I was in College, but I can’t ever really remember having any bad experiences shopping there or with their return service. This makes me really wonder about some of these polls that come out. I mean, is apple’s customer service really that much better than everyone else? or is the fact that people who buy apple computers/labtops, who have obviously have no regard to money for value purchasing are just less fussy as a general buying populace?

already a crotchety old man

You know, I’ve lived most of my life believing that I’m a cynic. Well, I’ve come away with two quick thoughts on that over the course of this year. It’s been for me, by reasonable standards, not been a great year, so maybe I’m just in bad mood in general. The first thing I’ve begun to realize is that I’m probably not a cynic, otherwise I wouldn’t let people disappoint me as often as has happened this year. Secondly, I think I’m becoming increasingly negative about situations and my desire to put in the effort to correct them is just not there like it use to be. I see this, and it really bothers me, because I don’t want to become someone who behaves like a crotchety old man when his only 25, but I find it has become increasingly harder as I get older to remain optimistic. I got so mad at work today (legitimately mind you), that I just don’t ever want to deal with or talk to the person ever again. I know that this is the wrong train of thought, but I wonder why I bother to be a bigger person for someone who doesn’t deserve it. I was finally able to forgive my brother in most respects this year, but I still think I’m getting worse about it in general. I find that being the person I know I should be is getting harder as I get older, and I really do wonder if I am a better person today than I was a year ago.

for the love of the game...

So here’s something you should think about when you hear the all time annoying, “I love college sports so much better than the pros, in the pros, it’s all about the money”.

Now, let me concede that the college game is better in some ways, the college atmosphere is unique, and there is something about relative unknowns beating top college programs. Neither of these exist in the pros, the only things that comes close are Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium and the St. Louis Rams beating New Orleans.

There’s a lot of obvious flaws about the notion that college sports is better than pros. Why would you want to watch a inferior product? the great games in the pros, whether it be the Bulls against the Jazz and the Giants against the Patriots are about the very best in the world competing at the highest level in their given craft. You think you could see a higher level play at any stage in college? you think their salaries or how much they get paid matters to them at that degree of competition? I can point at numerous instances of pro’s playing with serious injuries during playoff off time in the NFL - Emmit Smith playing with a separated shoulder, Philip Rivers playing on one leg, Terrel Suggs playing with a knee injury that required surgery right after the game. You know what happens in college? well look at Sam Bradford standing on the sidelines or Benie Wells refusing to play at Ohio State because it might hurt his pro prospects. I’m not saying it never works the other way around, but don’t give me this crap that college is nothing but love of the game, is there some truth to that statement? yes. But don’t tell me that reason makes it better than the pros. Using that line of reasoning, the high school game for both football and basketball are more “pure” than the college level that is riddled with corrupt boosters - just ask Reggie Bush.

The only people who are not hypocrites in this area are baseball fans, since the little league world series generates higher ratings than the college world series. I think I would rather watch paint dry than watch the college world series, well, only if it was an exciting color like amber.

I find the idea that people get mad about how much pro athletes make to be one of the most ridiculous statements I’ve ever heard. Often I find that these people are jealous because they don’t feel they make enough money themselves.

First off, looking at athletes historically, all of them from the ancient Mayans to elite Olympic Athletes of the former Soviet Union have ALL been treated significantly better than the average every day individual.

I have had numerous teachers, mostly all older men, point out how they make such a difference in people lives but a baseball player like CC Sabathia makes more in two innings of pitching than he will all year (that is an actual true estimate btw). But looking at things objectively, which requires you look at each profession on their own rather than in comparison, we find that baseball is inherently more fair than the profession of teaching. Think about this, take the highest paid educator, like a professor at Harvard, and compare his salary to that of a terrible professor at your local community college and you will see that the top talent is extremely undervalued in regards to how much more he makes than the terrible teacher. In baseball, however, we find that CC Sabithia makes far and away more money than a terrible pitcher does in the MLB (Barry Zito aside, and thats only because baseball has a corrupt players union).

So in short, we find that regardless of the arguments, pro sports are substantially more popular than their college counterparts (woman’s basketball aside, but that’s a whole other can of worms) because they are simply a better product. Take away your prejudices and just watch the product, you really think Arkansas versus South Carolina is better action than Green Bay against Cincinnati? The game is loved at every level, there is corruption at every level (even the Little League World Series with falsified birth certificates), and there are different things to love about each. Let’s just not delude ourselves that no one but the college athletes are playing for the love of the game, most of them are playing because they want to enter the pros and become the Barry Sanders and Steve Young’s they grew up worshiping.

Being a libertarian makes you....

On a recent facebook quiz of mine, I asked the question, what political affiliation do I most closely align with? the correct answer to that question was libertarian, but a few who took that quiz reasonably guessed that I was a democrat. This makes a lot of sense given some of the views I have, my hatred of the bush administration, and my intense hatred of Fox News. I made it a point in college to never consider myself a democrat, and this conscious decision has made it especially easy to align myself with libertarians - I don’t feel as if I’m betraying an ideology or party that is my own.

I think the idea of consciously deciding what you are is more important than most people give it credit for. If I were to consider myself a democrat, I’d identify myself in the same way I identify myself as a fan of the Dodgers and Cleveland Browns. I am these things (what I identify myself as) because I choose to believe in them and want to give them my devotion and loyalty (the same applies to adoption) . I know by making this decision I will likely make myself inherently bias, unreasonable, illogical, and prone to prejudice. Sports are the only thing in which I believe such decisions and beliefs are harmless.

Unlike almost everyone I have ever met, I am willing to admit that I am, to a large degree, shaped by my surroundings. Years of living in intensely conservative areas with conservative people has made me more conservative (3 conservative adj in a row!) than I was when I was in high school, and my years in college studying history/religion have made me inherently more religious than I use to be. As long as you can recognize yourself being changed, I don’t really see any problem with this fact. I’m not sure there is much more I hate than people who cannot understand how easily their environment can change the core beliefs that drive their behaviors.

So to put a long introduction to an end, I think being a libertarian makes you a pessimist. True not all libertarians are pessimists, but I would argue that this idea is an integral character trait in the same way that being super conservative requires you have to have a giant ego, and how being super liberal requires you to think your a better person than everyone else who doesn’t try to save the whales, children, forests, old historic buildings, the world, and so on and so on.

I hypothesize that almost no one is born a libertarian, it is a result of years of being jaded by the stupidity and ignorance of pointless political battles and arguments. Two types of libertarians arise, the idiots that believe in no taxes at all, and the ones who aligned with either republicans or democrats at one point and weren’t stupid enough to buy into the crap their parties kept feeding them. But delving deeper into the psychology of it all, I think that libertarians who came from democrat roots are even almost always pessimists because they lack hope. To be a true liberal, I believe you almost have to have a hope that things will get better to stay liberal. Usually they take the steady natural/progressive movement of societies as small victories that will eventually lead to everything being the way they think it should be. This character trait is not required to be conservative, who tend to see the evolution of societal change as a negative, so rather there is a much stronger imperative placed on preservation and defending. The more things change the more conservative they get, see the progression here?

Now to answer the obvious question of “you think being a democrat or republican is an bad decision, isn’t considering yourself a libertarian the same thing?” - the answer to this question is no, because being libertarian in many ways is just a cop out, because basically it is the political affiliation with the most flexibility to pick and choose what you believe in. The fact is that most “libertarians” don’t vote for libertarian candidates because they never have any chance in winning, therefore I could have easily voted for Obama or McCain without ever once thinking “I am going to vote for McCain even though I am democrat” - that qualifier is what I hate, you should never have to use them when it comes to making a decision over political matters.

So ultimately I believe that being a libertarian makes you a pessimistic, non-committal, fence rider who believes that almost everyone is stupid, but is too lazy to put forth any effort into something that requires you to have any faith in your fellow man.

I don't like Brett Favre

There’s one thing that my mind cannot comprehend when it comes to Brett Favre. I find the man love that is thrown his way to be almost like a Greek style homosexual attraction. Too macho to admit their admiration of his looks, play style, and wrangler commercials, every analyst I see makes excuses for the fact that not only is he way over the hill, but that his played well one year in the last five. You know what I remember when I think of Brett Favre the last 5 years? I remember him throwing two game ending interceptions in both championship games he got into. Still, his never killed for his terrible play like other players. What I find MOST annoying is that this tends to flow past the typical sports analyst and fill into regular sports fans. I have heard some people make the argument that Cal Ripken Jr’s Iron Man streak was actually detrimental to his team, but often, these same people never seem to point this out about Favre. It has been widely reported by ESPN that Favre played extremely well with the Jets leading them to an 8 to 3 record before he hurt his arm…. So let me think about what that means… doesn’t that mean he played knowing he was injured and hurting his team? So why won’t a SINGLE person on ESPN point out that he should have sat out, that he simply played to keep his streak alive? And this is 10x worse than Cal Ripken because in the NFL, a single game makes all the difference, where the reality of baseball tells us that one out of a 150+ games makes absolutely no difference in the overall outcome of a season. And good Lord, spare me “he just wants to play the game,” bullshit, I think he needs to see a shrink for multiple personality disorder. On one hand, his a good ol country boy who plays the game with the enthusiasm of a kid, and on the other his a diva who can’t make up his mind, who likes to have all the attention on himself, who believes he should be exempt from doing any preseason work, and has spoiled the good will he had in GB with his revenge talk.

fantasy football

Is my gambling of choice, better than black jack, no-limit texas hold em, or slot machines, I find myself more excited at the start of every NFL season than I can ever potentially get for any other form of gambling that I’ve ever done. If you ever stop to think about most gambling you do, you’d probably never ever do any of those games if there wasn’t money on the line, but I did fantasy football for fun a few years before I ever got into gambling on it.

Here is to a good season, go browns!

I find that..

I can’t bring myself to watch the daily show or colbert report anymore. I think that subconciously I can’t shake the feeling that I’m watching someone gloat now that the Dem’s are back in power. That, and part of me feels like if they were as enlightened and informed as they probably think they are, they’d tend to drift to the middle during times like these. Unfortunately, middle ground receives no ratings this decade.. oh well.

Something I miss

I’m not sure I will ever get it back someday, and I’m not really sure if it’s something that is true for most other people.. but I remember the days when I was younger, when I was good friends with people where I could be honest with them. Not 100% in things like “I hate your family members” or something along those lines, but when I grew up, I always felt that I could genuinely be honest with my friends. I would tell them when I thought they were being a complete fucking moron, let them know when they made mistakes, and it worked the other way too. As I become an adult with regular adult relationships, I feel I will always miss the aspect of true honesty from the vast majority of relationships I will ever have, with new friends, with in-laws, and so on. I can’t tell someone their kid is punk, I can’t tell someone at work I think their being hypocritical, I can’t hardly ever be honest anymore. My honest side is what would makes me an asshole in many ways, as being “honest” can also be interpreted as being judgmental. I think line of thinking is a cop out though, as I have yet to meet anyone in this life who doesn’t form opinions and impressions based on insufficient knowledge. To this effect, I think I am more “honest” than most people, and in return, I feel as long as I am honest with myself that this keeps me grounded enough not to become something that I will hate down the road. Sometimes I wonder if the last genuine and honest relationship I will have ends with Julie and the kids we’ll have later on. I make it a principal to try and be as honest and myself as much as possible, but sometimes I do think it will always be like this and never change.