Memoirs & Tell Alls

This is the kinda stuff that goes through my head when I stay up until 4 am on a Tuesday night and need to get up at 6 to get ready for work...I started thinking about funny titles famous people could use if they wrote memoirs and tell alls. I warn you that some of them are really dumb, but remember I came up with them after only 2 hours of sleep in the last 42 hours.

1) "My Life with B.O.: A Memoir" by Michelle Obama



2) "It's Only Got One 'L', Assholle!" by Dalai Lama

3) "I Was Famous??" by Lindsay Lohan

4) "He was an Oops Baby." by George Herbert Walker Bush



5) "Oh Shit" by Pontius Pilate

6) "Serial Killers and Catcher: Why I Became a Recluse" by J.D. Salinger

7) "Hot Steamy Night with Dick...Cheney" by Glenn Beck



8) "Why I Lost in Russia" by Napoleon

9) "Why I Lost in Russia" by Hitler

10) "I Made Russia Look Like Assholes & Something About Marlyn Monroe" by John F Kennedy

11) "Booze, Coke, Hookers & Taking Shit Over" by Moammar Kadafi, forward by Steven Tyler

12) "How Many Times Can I Confess?" by Joran van der Sloot

13) "Hey, Guess What!" by Bernie Madoff

14) "Really? Are You Kidding Me? You Didn't Know?" by Liberace



15) "Life After Brynn" by Phil Hartman

Any of these would be at least an interesting read. I need to start sleeping...

-JB

Don't you have goals??

I was recently asked what it is that I want out of life, what my goals are, where I see myself in 1, 5, 10, 20 years. I'm almost 30, and the one thing that I have been able to say for most of my short life is that I can honestly say I can't answer that "where do you see yourself" question. I never have been able too. But I can say that I know what my passions are and I know that where ever I end up, it will involve something on that list.

I live to be outside. Running on the road, hiking a trail, riding a single track, hunting coyote, or just relaxing on the beach...fresh air, open spaces, adventure. I love these things. I could spend every moment of my life in the woods. I could wake up every morning in a tent, ride my mountain bike out to the job site, ride home to start a bonfire and grill some dogs and drink some beer with friends.
Yes, I enjoy living in the city. It works in a twisted concrete wilderness sort of way. Instead of getting up in the morning and driving my car to the office, then driving to the gym, then driving to the bar only to drive home, I get to walk to the office and enjoy the mornings weather, I get to spend my lunch sitting by the river at a restaurants patio watching boats cruise by. No, I'm not climbing a mountain or building the worlds largest bonfire, but I get to spend my free time out of the house.
All this being said, the city is not a forever thing for me. One of my goals...is to live in a place I can wake up in the morning and go for a quick mountain bike ride, on real mountain single track, before heading to work at a job that allows me to work outdoors or at least with products and services related to being outside. And I want to be able to do this year round. I really do like snow, but I hate winter. The things I love to do don't happen below 45 degrees. From pretty much December 1st until April 1st I'm cooped up, I'm trapped.
I have gone on January hikes, but since I don't ski, ice fish or snowmobile, there's not many other options. And not to be a dick, but hiking in the mid-west really isn't much more than a long walk in the woods.

My professional goals center around owning my own business. In my mind there is nothing more rewarding than the challenges faced and overcome by a business owner. That, and all of the above having been said, my business will be related to something outdoors. I have a few plans in my head, some of which are making their way out on to paper (I'll keep you posted). These plans just need to be viable enough for me to live off of. I have no real aspirations to be a millionaire, I just want to live comfortably off of a day to day life that I enjoy. I want to wake up excited about what I am going to do for the day. I want to care about the work that I am doing.
The great thing (and shitty thing) is that I know what it is going to take to obtain this. It's going to take long hours and hard work. But at the end of the day all those late nights are truly worth the stress and aggravation if I get to wake up in the morning and give two shits about what I am headed to at the office (after a 10 mile mountain bike ride of course).

I'm not a guy that wants much. I couldn't care less about a fancy house with all the bestest bells and whistles. Give me an average house, on about 20 acres, a jeep wrangler, and a good sized gun collection. I don't need decorations up the ass, I don't need the fancy slate counters and high end kitchen appliances. In fact, the less shit I have, the better I feel. I intend to spend as little time inside as humanly possible, so why spent the money to decorate and fancify?

Ok, so at the end of the day...I want to spend most of my life outside, I want a job that involves the outdoors in someway, I want to be able to enjoy this stuff year-round, I want to own my own company that does outdoor stuff, and I want an average house on a few acres without a bunch of shit I will never use. Oh, and a jeep wrangler.

I'm a pretty simple dude.

-JB

Ok...now he's just nuts.

In my previous post I defended this clown based on the premise that maybe the sport needs to make their voting methods a little more transparent and they should add a difficulty category. But honestly, this Plushenko guy is a little over the top with this shit now. I'll let the linked article do the rest of the talking...

"In Plushenko's Mind..."

Too bad there's not a "Contact Me" tab on this page, or maybe there is and I just can't find it because it's written like this...

Свяжитесь со мной.

Basically, this guy's crazy and I take back anything I may have said that would lead one to believe I support him in any way, other than maybe a ride to the mental institution.

-JB

Toughen Up Figure Skating!!!

So, I really made a mistake today. I read a note written by Sarah Palin on Facebook about how she thinks global warming is bullshit.



I was going to write a post about it and get all political and shit, but then I decide to get drunk and watch the Olympics (The Palin post will come soon). I love the Olympics. No one would ever watch the biathlon (which I will compete in one day) if it wasn't for the Olympics. No one would give two shits about Apolo Ono if it wasn't for the Olympics and who would really care who was the best at sliding face first down an tube filled with ice was??

The truth is most of these people compete nearly every weekend in some internatinol competition or some championship because they're that fucking good. For many of them, the Olympics are nothing more htan another internatniosal event.

Part of the reason I relly really love the Olympics is the motto..."Citius, Altius, Fortius"; which means, "Faster, Higher, Stronger". The idea is that every day we strive to be better. Whether it's beign a better salesman, father to my dog, or person in general, I should always fight to be a better individual. That's what it means to the average dude, to the guy like me it means that I thoroughly expect each and every moment to be better than the last. Now...I am not condoning this behovior, in fact I to some those words don't mean as much.

This week, Shaun White, for the second time in his young career revolutionised his sport. 4 years ago in Torino he debuted a trick called the double cork 1080. He pushed half-pipe to a new level, he forced his competition out of their comfort zone and changed the game. This shows in the fact that everyone (except Shaun) used the double cork in their half-pipe runs. Shaun, however, beat all of them with a very standard, yet perfect, run. He went higher than any other competitor. And then, having already clinched the gold AND dropping an f-bomb on live tv, he pushed the sport to new limits by landing a double mctwist 1260. I don't like the person, but he optimizes "Citius, Altius, Fortius".

In the exact oposite of this, (yes I spell really poorly when I'm drunk) we have figure skating. The battle for gold came down to a very close fight between the young American (fuck yeah) Evan Lysacek and the veteran Russian Evgeni Plushenko. Lysacek won gold by 1.31 points. Neither man was flawless, neither man executed without a few bumps. But Plushenko lost.

The major difference was the difficulty of Plushenko's routine. He sucessfully pulled off a quad jump while Lysacek didn't even attempt one. Call me a traitor, call me un-American (previous posts prove I'm not), but Plushenko, in my mind, deserved the win. He pushed, he stretched, he moved the sport forward. The International Skating Union, by their own admission, does not consider difficulty of routine in their judging...

The ISU not only omits difficulty, something every other judged event uses, but they no longer identify the judges. They hide behind anonymity while scoring the competition. I'm calling shenanigans, I'm going to stand beside Plushenko in his dissatification. The sport will never advance, it will never push the limits, it will never live up to the Olympic motto if they don't consider the real difficulty of the individual's routine.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I don't watch enough figure skating (even though they cover it like it's the only winter Olympic event), but until they pull the veil off their scoring methods I cannot respect it as a pure competition by the meaning of the Olympic games.

Citius, Altius, Fortius.

-JB

Are we really this stupid?

Quite frankly I’m disappointed in this countries short sightedness. I get that we are a live for the moment society where we’re more than willing to spend $150 on a night out with friends, but can’t muster the energy to throw $100 each month into a retirement account. And long term planning isn’t about leaving money for your kids; it’s about eating after you quit working. However, this post isn’t about retirement or financial goals, so I won’t dwell on it. It’s about the stupidity that runs rampant in this great nation of ours and our willingness to consciously overlook the bigger picture if it means we’re right in the present.

Let me first touch on something I really don’t want to spend a lot of time with, but need to address. Guess what people, it’s February. It’s winter in North America. And that means snow. It always has and always will. Now, I get that the snow in D.C. broke a 110 year record, and it’s expected to snow in Hot-lanta and Mobile, Alabama. But all this means is that it’s winter time. This has nothing to do with disproving global warming. Let me say this again, just because it’s snowing record amounts and in place it doesn’t normally happen, does not mean that global warming is false. In fact, it proves it.

These wack-job jaggoffs in D.C. that think they can use the snow as a political tool to shoot down climate bills and “embarrass” the current administration are the same assholes that you voted into office, over and over again. These clowns are exactly what is wrong with our nation’s government and anyone that believes a word this faulkers say is exactly what is wrong with our country.
No, I’m no tree-huggin’, green party, Al Gore worshiping asshole that smoked too much dank in college to know my ass from a hole in the ground, but I do believe that there is this thing called science. And if we take two seconds to understand it, we’ll get what’s going on. And you won’t need a meteorology degree to grasp this…

First, one storm proves nothing. Yes, an extremely rare, intense snowstorm dumped feet on a region that barely gets a dusting. But did you also hear that Vancouver is trucking in and making snow for the winter Olympics? How does that play into you scheme? Or does it not count ‘cause they’re Canadian?

Next, there is this little thing that you may or may not have heard of called…El Niño (Spanish for “the niño). Here’s how this works…the surface of the Pacific Ocean warms up, causing a shift in the jet stream, developing and redirecting winter weather systems south of their typical paths. Now the intensity of this shift and size of the systems it brings increase in direct correlation with the temperature change. Meaning the warmer the surface of the ocean, the more intense the systems are. So, what this means…if we are experiencing a general warming of the earth’s climate, that would mean that the temperature of the Pacific Ocean’s surface would also increase…bringing more intense winter weather to southern regions of the country that don’t typically see more than a light flurry.

look! the northwest is hot while the southeast is cold?

One more time for Glenn Beck…global climate shift (commonly known as global warming) has caused the temperature of the earth’s surface to increase (which includes the Pacific Ocean). The warming of the ocean’s surface has and will always cause a shift in the jet stream which brings winter weather into the United States. The warmer the temperature, the more intense the weather systems…they kind we haven’t seen in 110 years, because our overall global surface temperature has increased to levels never recorded in human history due to…global climate shift (or Global Warming). Taa-Daa!!! This ain’t magic kids, it’s called science! I know you right-wing creationist don’t believe that science exists and that “God” personally controls every single thing that happens on this earth, but that’s just your own insecurities in your ability to make your own decisions and your desire to push the accountability onto something other than yourself.

Tomorrow we discuss the rise and fall of Toyota and why it shouldn’t be a surprise.

-JB

Facebook Fucking

Wow! One of the cardinal sins of Facebook. Facebook Fucking is the digital equivalent of pubic display of affection, commonly called PDA. In this post I will address some of the forms it takes, how to spot it and it's real life equivalent.

#1) The Shameless Lovers
This is the most obvious type to spot. It usually begins with a status update or wall post that goes something like this: Status - "Pauly Shore misses his baby so much! I love you hon!" and is typically followed by the significant others comment: "Whoopi Goldberg: Pauly! I love you too, I can't wait to see you tonight. What do you want for dinner, the same as last night ;-)"
This type of activity is best compared to the couple holding hands at the bookstore, kissing between sentences and gently stroking each others hair. The fact is, we know you're together and don't need it flaunted. The truth is, it's almost acceptable...if you won't be seeing each other for a few days or one of you is on a business trip and been gone a for a while. But the simple fact that you saw one another this morning and will be together again tonight negates every reason for this type of post.

B) The Passive Aggressive Infatuation or Puppy Love
Subtle comments hidden behind a veil of mystery. Was she talking to/about me? Not sure, I'm going to comment and see what she says back! Sounds something like this: "Marla Thomson is so happy! I'm so glad my life is so good!" A typical follow up comment would go as follows: "Deshaun Johnson: Babe, you've made me happy too. I love you so much." The best comparison is to the couple you see out with friends that are talking baby talk to each other, and constantly giving little kisses. The real life version says things like "Can I have a kissy poo?" "No...yes!" "Oh I love you, you're so cute."
More than likely this couple just started dating, if they haven't then they need a serious kick to the head. More annoying than gross, but unacceptable none the less.

#69 The Porn Star!!
These people have always been a little out there. Not afraid to let the world know their business. Usually goes like this: "Adam Lambert is crazy horny and will be hurrying home!" Replies as follows "Simon Cowell: Oh John, this little boy toy of yours is impatiently waiting your stunning performance."
Now this real life couple are very easy to spot. They'll be playing tonsil hockey at the coffee house or rubbing each others legs at the dinner table and maybe groping on the dance floor at your second cousins wedding. People, your aunt and little cousin are on Facebook now, it's just wrong on so many levels.

Q) The Kiss and Make Up
Commonly seen in real life vocally fighting at the grocery store, only to make up and get all cutesy. "Natalie Maines is so pissed!! He was actually checking out the cashier and flirting with her! Helloooo, I'm right here asshole!!" "Toby Keith: big pappa's sorry sweetheart. The girl ain't got nothin' on my sugar plum. Come on home and I'll give you a big ole kiss." "Natalie Maines: I'm sorry love, I overreacted. I know you love me! Make up tonight? :-)"
Now these people need to learn where to draw the line, I don't care about your fight, I don't give a shit that he thinks someone is hot and you busted him. Duke it out at home, alone, in private. It ain't my business and I don't care.

Lastly - The Lone Wolf
This poor soul doesn't get it. Comments come out of the blue and are rarely, it ever replied too. Many times they just get ignored with hopes the Facebook fairy deletes them accidentally. You'll see this happening: "Al Gore is so glad that Project Environmental Rescue Act 1992 passed unanimously in the House. Now on to the Senate. Hope this regressive president doesn't veto it...AGAIN!" "Monica Lewinski:Alan darling, you're too cute. I'm proud of you and I love you! And not like I loved the Governor I interned with, I mean deeply in love with you."
When he doesn't reply, he's guaranteed to get the obligatory question "Did you see, I commented on you status today?" his response is typically "Yeah, I was busy though". But the constant ignoring doesn't stop here. In fact the next day he says, "Al Gore will run for president some day or maybe write a book about saving the planet. Not sure where I'll have a bigger impact." And yet again she comments "Monica Lewinski: You're so good at everything you do. I'm so happy to be with you Alan." This will continue until he gives in and blocks her from posting comments.
The real life version can be seen riding the bus together. One half is reading a book while the other is gabbing and gabbing and giving pecks on the cheek between paragraphs.

I hope this clarifies a dire situation we face in our digital society amongst our 359 best friends. When you see these actions take place, it's best to just delete these people from your Live Feed. We all know these people, consider yourself warned!! Jus Sayin'!

-JB