Thomas Ligotti

Posted on August 15, 2014 by gumbywan

Thomas Ligotti is my kind of guy, sorta. He always expects the worst. He spends all his time worrying about how he’s going to suffer and die and expects that everyone else is just the same, except some of us are better at fooling ourselves about the outcome. That makes him mad. He thinks all the folks that don’t worry about dying and suffering are deceiving themselves and just distracting themselves with ideas of afterlives or just having a good time, you know, trying not to think about it. And he’s right, but these other folks are a whole lot happier than he is. Now we can see the real problem, sorta.

Ligotti has a big head, a really big head and that’s why he thinks about all these dreary things all the time instead of watching television or playing golf. He’s always talking about how consciousness and self awareness are a tragedy and a curse on humankind; a crappy adaptation that evolution sneaked in there. The thing he forgets is most people are really unconscious most of the time anyway, even when they’re not sleeping; they’re clueless about this kind of stuff, so why does he want to remind them and take them into his pity party? Leave them alone with their fairy tale lives. Don’t bring ’em down. Don’t rain on their parade. Not enough hobbies I guess. Not enough television. Not enough high speed internet downloading those “short films.”

Well what’s Ligotti’s answer? Don’t have any kids. That’s it. What, you say? That makes him feel better about things? Yeah, his basic argument is that by having kids we doom all the future generations to the suffering and death we have so we shouldn’t have any: antinatalism they call it. Let the species die out. Well if Ligotti had any kids he wouldn’t be worrying about his great grandbaby’s suffering, he’d be worrying about his own suffering trying to deal with his own kids, getting them through college and boyfriends, etc. I bet his parents suffered plenty with him. Forget about future generation’s suffering. Besides his kids would be the kind that would suffer because all the bullies would rag them about their egghead dad.

I think his problem maybe is really low testosterone and therefore low sperm count. He isn’t gettin’ it on enough. Only those coffin chicks would even consider hangin’ out with him he’s so dreary and down. He needs to jerk it more too, take some of the tension and pressure off it. He can’t have kids so he wants us to join him. Sour grapes.

Ligotti writes a horror story about once every decade or so, when he isn’t feeling sorry for himself and the rest of us. They’re pretty good, but enigmatic. Now I don’t expect you to understand a word like that, nor a story like that, because you are correctly spending your time feeling good and not worrying about future generation’s suffering or how the joke’s on us. Stay away from funerals. Hide the razorblades.

Sure, we’re all going to step off the pier sometime, but why waste any time thinking about that? Remember I told you to always expect the worst, so now that that’s over let’s move on to feelin’ good.

I’ve given you all the prescription you need in this blog to quit thinking about that dirt nap: TV, NCIS, loud music, giant monster movies, malt liquor. So, mix up some cocktails and turn on the wide screen to some NCIS and put a Chuck Berry record on that stereo set ’cause we’re goin’ out with a buzz in our heads and a smile on our faces.

What’s so bad about feelin’ good for the rest of your miserable little life?

Today on Woot!

Posted on April 1, 2014 by gumbywan

For Safety’s Sake

Perfect for your sexy nite-time bike ride.

Safety is a super impotant issue when bike riding, especially at nite. You need to maintain a certain level of visability at all times to insure that drivers are aware of you’re presence.

Most people acheive this by wearing bright colors or reflective vests. But if noone ever wheres anything different, it becomes a sort of white noise, easily ignored.

But whose gonna ignore a lady wearing a Rhonda Shear lace bra and panties while riding a bike? No one, thats who. You’ll certainly get a lot of attention, some you may even consider unwanted. But is their really such thing as unwanted attention were safety is concerned? If you make the news at 10, you should just consider that a win.

Don’t think we’ve forgotten about you, gentlemen. Your safety is just as important to us. So youl’l be glad to now that Rhonda Shear lace bras and panties are especially affective for bike safety when worn by mails.

Anarchy in the Ukraine

Posted on February 20, 2014 by gumbywan

Russian Backed Ukraine Crackdown

Update: Well now the former (yeah, right) Soviet Republic of Russia has invaded the former Soviet Republic of Ukraine. If people didn’t think that the former Soviet Republic of Georgia wasn’t just a Russian warm-up to imperialistically invading, occupying, and ultimately reabsorbing parts that were formerly the USSR, well then you’re just plain stupid. This is going to make American imperialism look naive by comparison and the Yugoslavian breakup look like a day in the park. Too bad nobody but the poor Ukranians on the ground are going to fight against it.

If this had happened to say West Germany in 1972 would we be sitting around on our asses and just wringing our hands? What do we have all these nuclear weapons for? If the enemy doesn’t credibly think you will use them, then we might as well throw them all away.

Oh, and why does the media keep calling it an invasion of the Crimea? If somebody invaded California they wouldn’t say California was invaded, they’d say the United States of America had been invaded. Let’s call a spade a spade: the Ukraine has been invaded.

What happens when they start invading places that weren’t even part of the USSR? I believe we in the West will eventually look on the USSR as “the good ol’ days.”

Ras-Putin “former” KGB agent and present General Secretary of the Communist Party and International Public Enemy #1

While the Soviet Union, er, I mean the former Soviet Republic of Russia hosts the the Wintercon, in Sochi their puppet government in the Ukraine continues to violently oppose the will of their own people to have closer ties to the EU in the hopes of someday joining this confederation of peaceful autonomous states.

Crimean Welcoming Committee

This just proves once again that thetyrannical country of the Soviet Union, er, I mean Russia never

deserved the choice of being the Olympic host. Politics of the IOC swindle awarded these games to a communist, er, I mean country run by a violent dictator. In fact that the entire winter games have been ruled by corruption. It is clear that the people of Sochi, except for the corrupt government stooges, hate that they were even picked for the venue. The Olympic village itself, especially athlete accommodations are a shambles, and outside the village itself is a dangerous host city run by the Soviet, er, I mean Russian mob. This city is also one of the worst areas in the country for ethnic and gender hatred and violence.

Ukraine Repression

The entire mess shows how corrupt the IOC is itself, full of kickbacks and kiss up politicians. The current games are a disgrace and just should have never been held at all.

The Great Spectator Sports Swindle

Posted on January 18, 2014 by gumbywan

Yeah, you know it. I’m talking about the Olympics, that Grecian spectacle of the best “amateur sports talent” the world has to offer. I could provide another cogent and timely expose about the Olympics in general, but you already know I’m going to focus on the ultimate in Olympic swindles: the Winter Games.

You already know of my disdain for the corrupt world of spectator sports in general from chess to the ultimate fixer sport: NBA basketball, so I’m not going over that again. There are numerous posts in the archive that any pinhead can see about the sorry state of spectator sports, so go there for the lowdown and my on-target comments on that life-entertainment waster.

Let’s jump right into the ultimate sports Ponzi scheme. If you hadn’t already figured it out the Winter Olympics is merely an inferior spin-off of the Summer Olympics. When the Olympics were brought back from their justly deserved grave there were only Summer games. This actually made some kind of sense since Greece, the site of the real historical Olympics, was a nice summery place. They didn’t even know anything about snow shoeing, much less ice dancing, in Greece. So some get rich media con men realized that playing childrens games only in the summer meant that only fair weather “sports” were going to be featured. “Hey, hows about we make some more money off the suckers by staging a winter event, then we can rake in a bunch more dough in places like Norway and Canada where the yokels are too stupid to know they could get a nice condo down South and avoid the bad climate?” Well, anyone with only half a brain like you could see that this was going to catch on with the masses like a bottle of Jack Daniels at an AA meeting.

Instead of having the only legitimate full-contact scoring sport possible for the Winter Olympics, ice hockey, the paddock had to be filled with such pseudo sports as curling, biathalon, speed skating, figure skating, cross country skiing, and similar non-events. The only thing close to a sport other than hockey were the so-called Alpine events which all basically consisted of seeing who could fall down a mountain the fastest. Again, I think you can see why these events would appeal to people who only see the sun for half the year. The incredible thing is these non-events are pandered to a global community population many of whom live in tropical or sub-tropical zones where they are still wildly popular to watch.

Not to be outdone in the con game, some wise fixer figured that having both the summer and Winter Olympics in the same 12 months was a marketing snafu so they brilliantly alternated the summer and winter games to be every other year. Now the suckers would have the five rings of confidence tricksters in front of them all the time instead of just once every four years.

This year’s Wintercon is in the former Soviet republic of Russia. In the Wikipedia entry for Sochi it is listed as not only claiming to be the longest (?) city in the world but “was primarily Muslim before 1864” but now is “primarily Christian.” I wonder what hallowed event in 1864 caused all those conversions? We are all hopeful that there are not some hunkered down Chechens in Sochi province thinking about 1864 intending to reenact the 1972 tragedy at the Munich summer games. Anyway, don’t let the Chechens compete in the biathlon and everything will be all right.

Official Sochi Olympics Welcoming Committee

Now that we have established Sochi as the Eastern bastion of peaceful ethnic bliss that every Olympic host city should be, we can get down to the real nitty-gritty of why this is the worst possible way you can spend your entertainment time this winter: boring and pre-staged. The fact that some of my favorite shows are going to be preempted for this sham is blasphemy and you know the other networks are just going to peg reruns and endless cycles of The Green Lantern until this ratings fiasco is over.

One of the biggest problems the winter games has is a dearth of scoring sports. Other than ice hockey it is really only curling and we already know that any sport where you can smoke a cigarette while playing it is going to be duller than dishwater. Really if you get right down to it you know this north of the border version of shuffleboard has gotta be sad when the hottest player is going to be known as “The Janitor.” I don’t care if there are curling clubs all over Canada. There are rats all over Calcutta and we don’t have rat bashing as an Olympic sport. I rest my case.

Speed skating dull. Ice dancing, not a sport. Figure skating, fixed and also not a real scoring sport. All downhill sports, dull except maybe for ski jumping. Ski jumping would actually be better if they put some of those tire slashers that they use to catch criminals down the slope. You would have to get over these clean to even place. Adds that Evel Knievel factor that would class up the “sport.” Bob sled and luge, again falling down a hill and too few spectacular crashes. X-sports, mainly to attract children and winter-bored skateboarders. All shooting sports, no comment except to say that live ammunition assassins along the course could make this worthwhile TV fare, even more exciting with a live audience along the way. Cross country skiing, give me a break!

So now you know the sad truth about another of the bread and circuses the suckered masses are going to sit down to instead of reading a book or watching the NCIS marathons on the USA cable network. Talk about wasting your life!

Tour de Crap

Posted on January 2, 2014 by gumbywan

Bicycle. Duh!

I took a little hiatus after the 50th post. I figured I deserved a little rest. Even a servant gets to sleep once in awhile. But I’m back and ready to take on another important topic for your betterment.

I was reading about this big bicycle race, the so-called Tour de France, the other day. I know it’s not really bike racing weather here in the northern hemisphere but no time is the wrong time when you find out something that is to everyone’s benefit. The Tour de France is a complete sham! A total spectator sport swindle. For those of you who don’t know what the Tour de France is, and I know many of you don’t get out of bed much, much less keep up with any sports other than boxing, professional wrestling, and dog racing, the Tour de France is a supposed bicycle “race” where guys ride bikes all over France and then finally come to a finish where somebody, no doubt some steroid crazed pretty-boy with a Hollywood contract already in his back pocket, “wins” the race. So what’s the big deal about that you say? I’ll tell you the many reasons why, and by the time I’m done you’ll want to take a shower if you just read about the Tour de France in the newspaper.

Let’s start this tirade with my usual disdain for “spectator” sports in general. Why anybody watches any other adult play a children’s game is beyond me. If you are not going to do it or aren’t trying to learn how to do it, why watch it? Everything from ice dancing to professional football is a waste of your life and valuable entertainment time. Let’s start with the basic statistics, you already know whatever team, or jockey, or bowler you are watching is going to lose approximately half the time. Who invites a 50% failure rate into their lives? Now I’ve told you all to expect the worst, but this is different, this is hoping for the worst and that is a much different thing my friend. Just because you know you are a loser doesn’t mean you have to roll out the red carpet for it. That’s just crazy!

The other reason I hate spectator sports is they are boring. Even when the time isn’t taken up with endless commercials for Duck Dynasty Chia Pets, nothing pretty much happens. Everybody just runs around mostly. Even in high scoring basketball, the ultimate fixer sport, only about one one-millionth of the time is actually spent scoring, the only half-way useful thing that happens during a “game.” Even if the scoring aspect was somehow increased in each sport, how much can you watch a ball going through a net or someone spinning in the air? Compare this to watching the Three Stooges or Castle of Blood and I think I’ve made my point. By comparison you sports fanatics are just wasting your useless lives. Besides, while watching films and TV shows you might actually learn something, like how medieval siege engines work, but you know nothing can come of watching that lacrosse contest. If the alternative in this hell we call life was watching a fly crawl up the wall, then maybe sports would be a step up from your present misery, but this just isn’t the case with cable, WiFi, satellite, and 4G available almost everywhere.

Typical “accident”

Next comes the rigging. Everyone knows that everything from wrestling to to tiddley-winks is run by the mob nowadays. The outcomes are more or less a foregone conclusion. If somebody steps out of line with a muffed dive or a caught pass, then they run the risk of keeping Jimmy Hoffa company. Once the big money came in, what little was left of interest in synchronized swimming was gone. For awhile drownings became synonymous with fair play until the athletes wised up and started following mafia orders. If this alone doesn’t put you off sports, well you are just a hopeless waste of human flesh.

Next we have to deal with the aesthetics of bicycle racing. The helmets are stupid, dorky looking things that sit on top of your head like a hen on a nest. At least in sports like auto racing, football, and hockey the headgear looks butch. Also those tight racing pants don’t look good on most people and are a turn off in a sport that you would think would want to be more inclusive. There is supposed to be zero contact in bike racing and even when there is contact the crashes are usually uneventful, unlike auto racing. ‘Nuff said.

Now here is where the real BS nonsense about the Tour de France comes in. Say it takes two weeks, ten days, a month, I dunno it doesn’t matter I’m too lazy to look it up and the exact number doesn’t matter; it takes more than a couple of days for the Tour de France to finish, it’s a really long race. But here’s the real crapola, they get to go to a hotel and get a hot meal and sleep a few hours every day before they all get up to start again at the same time from the same place! You think they are killing themselves with this day and night torture of riding all over France but really they are just having a nice ride, looking at a couple of chateaus each day, stopping for some wine tastings, and all finishing at the same place to have a few cocktails and some escargot each and every night. Who do they think they’re fooling?

Mafia “spectator”

Well, they also do this thing called “sharing the yellow jersey” which means that a different guy gets to do the heavy lifting each day while the others try to knock the other jockeys off their bikes or just enjoy the day. It doesn’t matter because they all get to start over again tomorrow unless they have a heart attack, fall off a cliff, or get run over by a car.

Typical steroid crazed pretty boy

So now you see how it goes. The only day that “matters” is the last day of the race. So everyone stores it up and gets their blood doped, and takes their steroid shot, eats a big spaghetti dinner, and skips the vino for that night and gets a good night’s rest.

So how do you win? Just give the yellow jersey to the best, most rested guy on the last day and have the other guys on the “team” throw banana skins out on the track all day. Except for the teams that are being paid off to take a dive. These teams drop out along the way due to so-called “accidents” like a squirrel in the spokes or a “leg cramp.” The fixers are all along the final leg of the race to make sure each racer does what he’s been paid to do. It has even been reported that a few “warning shots” have been taken at certain racers that had “second thoughts” about throwing the race.

Mob Fixer

So there you go, what was already as dull as dirty dish water to begin with becomes even less interesting when you realize it’s all a sham. The only real excitement that comes is if you can get an insider tip and make a little money off the race. Even then it’s not too smart to win too much because then you are going to get a visit from “Vinnie” and your dog is going to wander off or worse. If you keep your winnings modest all you’ll get is a “warning” Take it from me.

In recent times the Commissioner has tried to make the whole thing seem legit with trumped up charges of blood doping and steroid use. This is a joke. Everyone does these things. You could test any of the athletes and find the same thing. The only reason this happened is a new family in the mob took over power and now wants to show the others that they mean business.

Dogs Playing Cards

Posted on November 11, 2013 by gumbywan

Okay here’s a new one in the self-improvement vein. Most of you have little interest in improving your intellect so just piss off now, you’re wasting your time and my breath here. This is of no import to your life so just move on. For those of you still here, today’s critical essay is about the visual arts. It’s mainly about flat things you stick on the wall but we may touch on three dimensional objects known as sculptures too. What I’m going to do is try to bring your knowledge of art up to at least a Kindergarten level. It’s a tough pull but I’m game if you are..

Crap “Art”

Most colorful objects that you stick on the wall, so-called paintings, are crap. Why? Because they can’t move around and they are not about anything relevant. Since the advent of film and television the static graphic objects: paintings, prints, tapestries, sculpture, etc. are irrelevant and boring. Technology has passed traditional art by. It’s perpetually standing at the bus stop of history during a transit strike. It’s Luddite thinking.

More Crap

However before TV and movies paintings and such were relevant forms of entertainment. There was nothing to do except reading parlor novels and playing the piano, so if you weren’t musically gifted, as you surely aren’t, sitting around literally watching the paint dry was pretty exciting. But of course the graphic arts went through its ups and downs too. There was okay art like the Impressionists and bad art like Cubism and Jackson Pollock.

Dogs Playing Cards

Well the pinnacle of oil painting and most static art in general was Dogs Playing Cards. Yep, you knew it deep down inside if you have ever seen this collection of 19 paintings by the unjustly overlooked C.M. Coolidge. If you look at the Wikipedia entry for this there is a lot of misinformation probably added by some self styled artiste. Don’t believe it. I’m here to set the record straight. Any simp can edit Wikipedia and there is a lot of nonsense in there like the earth is 4 billion year old and earthquakes are from the continents moving around (Did you ever see a continent move?). As if. Just because these were commissioned for cigar adverts doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be the best paintings that ever were. It is well known that lesser achievements like the Moana Lisa were painted to sell olive oil and Andy Warhol was commissioned to sell canned soup. So there!

Vintage Olive Oil Adverts

But C.M. was no sellout. I know for a fact that he was really commissioned to paint people playing poker but true to his artistic ideals he refused to change his subject matter and you cannot say he wasn’t a true revolutionary, nobody painted dogs doing stuff other than walking around or chasing foxes before this. He risked being ridiculed and never making a dime. My personal favorite has always been Sitting Up With a Sick Friend but all of them are classic. Coolidge even created the school of anthropomorphic art and this has continued until even today, but the zenith was still Dogs Playing Cards, a success never to be equaled.

Sitting Up With A Sick Friend

To digress for a moment, one thing that Dogs Playing Cards has also shown is that women don’t get true art. Women just don’t dig Dogs Playing Cards, or the Three Stooges for that matter. Dogs Playing Cards prints can mostly be found in places like a wood paneled finished basement where the pool table or second TV with the video games usually are; a man’s realm. Or so called “Men’s Clubs” around the bar area. Men appreciate good art and drunks can spend literally hours looking at the exquisite details in these paintings when they aren’t watching sports or action movies..

Well even Dogs Playing Cards is ignored these days, swamped by the technological artistic wonders of television, movies, and “short films” on the internet static art has been left behind. Now the only reason to buy a a painting or print is to cover a hole or stain on the wall, or a safe. You might as well put another TV up anywhere where there used to be a painting.

So go out right now and get some Dogs Playing Cards prints to cover up that place where you put your fist through the wall in a drunken rage. Also avoid those self styled art museums like the plague unless you want to be frisked for a few bucks to look at your shoes for two hours. Go to a movie instead. Better yet find a rerun of NCIS on TV and If you got this far, don’t say I never did anything for you.

Charity

Posted on August 6, 2013 by gumbywan

One of my pet peeves is people who engage in their beloved hobby “for charity” and take credit for somehow being a better person than the rest of us. The worst offenders are runners, bicyclists, bowlers, motorcyclists, and especially golfers. They line up donations for how many miles they go or just finishing the event. Of course nobody ever checks to see that the person actually finished the race or didn’t pocket the donations. However I do believe most of these people are on the up and up so outright embezzlement of the funds or cheating is probably low.

Musicians “Giving Back”

I liken this somewhat to rock stars and their ilk who give concerts where the proceeds go to some supposedly worthy organization and get accolades for “giving back.” Most of these leeches and debaucher’s are multi-millionaires who if they really wanted to give back would carve a million or so of their filthy lucre off for the charity. The concept that playing a guitar for 90 minutes without getting paid is giving back somehow is ludicrous. Most of these guys and gals who couldn’t hold down a real job if their lives depended on it don’t deserve to be paid anyway.

Anyway back to the main subject. These so-called charity hobbyists have to presumably present some entrance fee. Corporations tend to jump on the bandwagon and sponsor these deals with everything from the charity itself to all the setup and production and things like bottled water, etc. Now when you get to the end of the line here just how much of all this money that is spent is actually getting to the charity? Wouldn’t it be better to have no event at all and have all the expense and corporate “support” dollars go directly to the charity and have the cyclists go off to the park to indulge in their hobby by themselves or with their buddies? Let’s face it these people are “giving” nothing. They are getting paid and donating the proceeds to their favorite charity for indulging in their fitness hobby, something they would have done anyway. If these folks were truly giving up their time they would be down at the soup kitchen slingin’ soup instead of wasting time riding around on their bikes or running in a 10K. In fact they might just work for a day at their job and donate that day’s pay to charity. Then they can just go jogging like usual or run in a regular marathon race.

Now why can’t I get the same deal, say for reading a certain number of books or winning a beer drinking contest?

Ping-Pong Charity Pool Party

So I don’t sponsor any of these yokels. I give plenty of dough out to charity but I’m not going to do it for you to go out and play ping-pong or poker so I sure won’t do it for anyone else’s hobby. Let’s just pony up for breast cancer or whatever and feel better about that and get on with our lives without pretending we’re giving any of our time to anyone in the process. Oh, and see if you can wheedle the same amount out of the corporate sponsors that they would have spent in event expenses. Bet you can’t because how are they going to get their logo on your t-shirt or some banners along the race course? They’re just buying advertising and not “giving” anything either.

Television

Posted on August 3, 2013 by gumbywan

I promised to tell you how watching television can enhance any part of your life and with today’s 21st Century wireless technology the future of 24 hour TV is even closer than you think. As you know I’m not here to disappoint so hang in there while I get up a full head of steam.

Now think about it, what do you like better than watching TV? Be honest. Okay, I’ll give you that but TV second best, I’m going to show you how even #1 can be made better with television. So now we have established that TV viewing is just about the thing you most like to do. On top of that it is one of the most relaxing pastimes. It’s so relaxing you can even sleep in front of the TV and you should for your mental health. C’mon, what other hobby lets you sleep while you do it? So don’t tell me that mountain biking or kayaking is more relaxing than TV viewing. Even going to a movie or, god forbid, live theater, isn’t as enjoyable and relaxing as sitting front of the ol’ telly. Try to sleep sitting up in those “stadium seats” after you’ve shelled out $100 for tickets and concessions. You can’t rewind, record, fast forward through the boring parts, stop to get a better look at an actress’s breasts, none of that. You can’t stop it to go to the bathroom, that’s a game breaker for me. Inferior entertainment. The good news is that even if you are chained to your spouse, friends, family, or kids that insist on doing any sort of these tier two or three hobbies or entertainments you can now always enhance that experience and make it less tedious with television!

Let’s get right down to first and second best: sex and TV. How can we combine these? Well there’s a rich mans solution and the poor man’s solution. Rich Man: 60 inch or better LED 1080p on every surface in your bedroom even above the head board and the ceiling. The poor man’s solution has some actual advantages over the rich man solution: mirrors on every surface and only one or two 1080p LEDs (as big as you can make ’em) placed strategically. Now when your team scores you can score! You’re doing both your favorite things at the same time unless she’s a two bagger and then you can stick with the sports. In case you’re wondering both these solutions are actually gender neutral and also work for the G&L crowd too, I just used a guy example because they generally like both sex and TV more than gals.

Here’s another problem solved. How to use TV when engaging in a more active lifestyle. Let’s take mountain hiking and camping. Both spouses can mount a small TV in their backpack. All you have to do is cut a little window in the back of each pack and voila, even the remote will work. Now only the following parties can watch but if you change places regularly everyone else can take their turn. You can even get your kids to participate in active leisure time (what an oxymoron) activities with you. Only broadcast and DVDs will work with this setup while moving (make sure you get a shock-free DVD player and a battery powered or better yet a solar powered setup). Once you setup camp or your picnic you can break out the dish and enjoy literally hundreds of channels instead of telling dull stories or worse yet, singing around the camp fire. Have each person haul at least one extra (or better yet more) charged Li batteries and a solar charger. Leave out food, water, and other extra stuff if necessary to save weight.

Now with the heads-up-display TVs in glasses offered there literally is no excuse to not watch TV constantly and we have now proved that everything is enhanced by television. Today there is no reason for you to whine about that mall trip or the amusement park so no more bitching about how I never make your life better.

I’ve got to finish this NCIS marathon I’ve been watching while I’ve been putting this together so excuse the typos. I hope your miserable life has at least been slightly improved.

Special NCIS Agent Ziva David

On The Ropes

Posted on June 30, 2013 by gumbywan

Today is kind of different so no goofing off. Hey you, sit down and pay attention. Unlike other posts where I’ve kept things back for your own good, or those posts that I told you not to read because they were too esoteric, well here we’re goin’ to school so sit down and shaddup. Don’t make me come over there! This is a serious topic, not like the Casey Anthony killing or Jon Benet Ramsay. What I want to tell you about is the sorry state of Professional Wrestling today.

Now I don’t watch much television but what I do watch I like a lot. On Monday nights I’m usually watching Naval Criminal Investigative Service, NCIS, on USA network. I love it, back to back episodes. That Goth forensic scientist Abby Sciuto is a hoot, and Gibbs, well, will Gibbs ever crack a smile? I’ll tell you someday why NCIS is the most sophisticated and intellectual drama ever aired on television, but not today. Think future. I don’t want to make your head explode. Anyway on Mondays at 8 pm ET my NCIS bliss is interrupted by that abomination that calls itself Professional Wrestling: WWE Raw.

Now WWE just sucks. John Cena and The Rock suck. Big breasted women holding match cards suck the worst. Half the time it looks like Cena is wrestling in capris which is a disgrace to both pro wrestling and our armed forces. The people who like wrestling now are retards and knuckle-draggers. The only thing worse than the current crap that pawns itself off as “professional” wrestling is reality television and MTV. Vince McMahon ruined professional wrestling. Wrestling today is 1970s Elvis versus 1950s Elvis. That pretty much sums it up.

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further. This rant has nothing to do with that so-called amateur sport (see above) where geeks (or Greeks) grapple on mats; that stuff they do in college and the Great Spectator Sport Swindle: The Olympics. Not that crappy amateur stuff. We’re talking Professional here not the stuff where nobody gets paid and nobody gets to wear the unbelievably ostentatious title belt. Nobody, but nobody, really likes watching that even if they say so, even if there seem to be certain doppelgangers that show up in both the professional and amateur “sports” from time to time. They have nothing to do with each other. Forget that amateur crap. Now that I think about it, it may be even worse (= more boring) than the WWE.

Pro wrestling now is expensive and sleazy. I liked it when it was cheap and sleazy. The classic wrestling era was the ’50s to the ’80s. After that it went downhill. Overshadowed by glitzy and expensive special effects, people forgot the true nature of the sport and worse yet, wrestlers forgot how to wrestle. Today’s wrestler is a poster boy for steroid abuse who cannot even master the basic “Claw” maneuver. Some of them actually think they can “act” and have fall back careers in traditional entertainment.

But here’s the real bombshell, unlike the classic era, today’s Battle Royales are staged! That’s right you heard it here first, the whole mess is rigged; fixed worse than a Las Vegas roulette wheel. Big money took over and the whole thing turned into show business with the outcomes as predictable as a Stephen King novel. Hell predictable, they’re scripted! Everyone except you, my microcephalic reader, knows what’s gonna happen in the ring.

So the current state of wrestling is essentially that of a big-buck crappy Broadway show (see above). A theater performance nightly, and we know where that leads. No wonder some of them think they can become “actors.” Now you don’t know this but I will enlighten you in a future post, you’re just going to have to trust me here now (you know you can): live theater is not worth talking about or watching because it is technologically inferior to movies and television. Hence the current “staged” state of wrestling is not worth a longhorn turd as far as sports or entertainment is concerned. Don’t you love how I bring logic into the mix to prove incontrovertibly the sorry state of things today?

Well what’s to be done? Here’s my prescription: first throw out the current WWE management and replace them with the likes of the golden era’s American Wrestling Association (AWA from now on), guys like Verne Gagne (see photo below) who could spot a real wrestler, not just some steroid pumped pretty boy. Clean house!

Verne Gagne

Move the matches to smaller venues. These big arenas draw graft and cheating like flies to a dead carp. Let’s use high school gymnasiums, church fellowship centers, senior centers, places that keep the mob riff raff and fixers out. Places where folding chairs can be substituted for “stadium seating.”

Bring back real international athletes. That’s right: Crushers, Bruisers, Chechens, Nazis, Bolsheviks, titled nobility, Sheiks, ethnically stereotyped berserkers, throw in a few Al Qaeda athletes for an international terrorist flavor. It is essential to get not just talented athletes but ones people can hate without a second thought. How can somebody possibly get worked up about someone wearing makeup called “The Undertaker,” “Triple H,” or guys with monikers that sound like rapper’s names?

Titled Nobility

Impose mandatory drug tests. The current crop of steroid crazed thespians need to be weeded out. No more steroids. No more performance enhancers. No more athletes that trained with Lance Armstrong. I favor a one strike and out philosophy. None of this namby-pamby rehab and second chance stuff. You’ve brought disgrace on a time honored sport and you need to be degraded and humiliated for it.

Make the rules stick. For crying out loud, a lifetime suspension should stick for at least, say, two weeks minimum. Suspended athletes should not be allowed anywhere near the venue until the Commissioner has lifted the suspension. Foreign objects (see brass knuckles below) in the ring should never be larger than a folding chair. Coming off the top rope should only be allowed when the referee’s back is turned. You know, put some common sense back into the rules and enforce them.

And finally, keep the big money out. That’s what ruined the NFL and NBA where rigged games are now considered the “norm.” Once the big money is in then the mafia moves in and before you know it so-called athletes with a trumped up college transcript are making millions of dollars to take a dive, drop a ball, or throw an entire game. That’s one of the reasons I don’t “participate” in today’s spectator sports. They’re all staged, unlike the classic era of professional wrestling where you could count on a generally good clean match with athletes you could really look up to.

Maybe there is hope. Ring of Honor Wrestling looks like it might have all the elements that made the classic era so great while still being updated for the 21st century. We can only pray and count to ten.

Physical Fitness

Posted on June 24, 2013 by gumbywan

By now you’ve probably started to model your life around this blog. That’s what I’m here for. Between my Grandfather and myself, we know pretty much everything there is to know, so relying on this blog when making big life decisions is a good thing for you to do. That’s what I’m here for. Ooops, already said that. Well you know what they say about repetition being the…

Let’s now turn our weary heads to look at something I’ve begun to notice: those little oval stickers on cars that say “13.2” or “26.4.” It’s a secret code between a secret society of fitness nuts that we, the slovenly, are not supposed to know. Except they really do want us to figure this out so we can ask them: “When did you run your last half-marathon?” or something like that. For some stupid reason these people put this magic number on their car or t-shirt and we are supposed to be clever enough to break their code and realize that 13.2 is how many miles are in a half-marathon. So what? Why didn’t they just put a sticker on their car that said “Ask me about how I ran my last half-marathon?” No, I’m supposed to play dumb and say: “Hey, What’s that 13.2 sticker for?”

First, yours truly has zero interest in your current jag of ego-stretching self-torture that you like to call fitness. Second, I know nothing about it. I don’t know or want to know anything about your shoes, your special running shorts, your iPhone running app, your running social network, your training regimen. Remember you are talking to someone who has zero interest already in spectator sports where they actually keep score, so watching, hearing, thinking about a little thing like running faster has no appeal; especially listening to your self-torture sagas, isn’t on today’s to-do list.

I used to try to run. Actually ran a few races but I found I hated it. I have some physical debilities which we won’t go into here that makes running a pretty painful and unrewarding experience anyway. Let’s call it a physical limitation. That got me thinking about exercise and physical fitness in general.

Exercise is always painful. It is always harder to do than not do, as Hamlet or Yoda would say. I mean what’s so bad about being lazy? Why are we so crazy about exercise? We take the idea of a pleasant walk hither and yon to some extreme painful sweating, pounding, breathing, agonizing speed obsession. There you have it. “I can run a Marathon just like some Greek messenger with a Post-it Note did a coupla thousand years ago.” Big deal! They didn’t have cell phones back then so this was pretty much the only form of speedy communication. Pick up the phone! Why do we imitate this poor sucker who probably had to do this or he wasn’t getting any dinner?

It makes me feel better…

What? You felt better while you were trying to come up that steep hill at 10 mph than you would have if you had been sitting with me having a few watching Spongebob Squarepants? I don’t think so. Oh you meant afterwards, like when you puke your gravy at the finish line and have to drink only Gatorade for two days straight to get rid of that headache and the trots. That feelin’ better. I tell you what, I feel a little winded when I get up to get another cold one from the fridge, so why don’t you put on those fancy shoes you just bought and get me a brew and then we’ll both be feelin’ a whole lot better.

So now we have established the universal rule that all exercise that’s going to be “good” for you is also going to be painful and boring while you are doing it.

Our next hurdle:

You’ll live longer…

Yeah, so you can torture yourself with more marathons. Here I introduce the science of the “life extension equation.” The principle is simple: exercise effort time (feelin’ bad time) has to be less than life extension time for exercise to be a net gain in life. So, say I run a marathon in four hours (what is a reasonable time? doesn’t matter just for example), if my life is extended by only four more hours I want my money back. See 4 hours of pain = four hours longer life is the game breaker. If I can’t at least get more life extension than time I’ve spent in exercise hell then I’m a loser.

Well this is easy, sure you’re gonna get more than four hours of life back for running that marathon (versus Spongebob + Beer). Now wait a minute. The devil is in the details. How do we define the feelin’ bad time, the torture time? Is it only the actual exercise time, or is it something else? Maybe we should include the training time, or the warmup time, or the time it took to drive, fly, bike to the event. But hey, those were all “feel good time” life wasters, weren’t they. Yeah sure. But were they as good as they could have been? (Spongebob + Beer) To be fair you’ve gotta include all the time you spent jogging, preparing, training, shopping, etc. for the marathon as bad feelin’ time. No way were they as fun as Spongebob+Beer time.

I’m pretty sure when you total it all up you would have been better off in the old life extension equation spending your time with me watching Spongebob and drinkin’ beer.

So I don’t run, I don’t go to any gym, I don’t own any exercise equipment (=clothes racks). When I go for a walk it’s to get somewhere, or listen to the tweet tweets (Mother Nature), or an excuse to listen to an audiobook or some loud music my family hates. I don’t wanna live longer if it includes some self flagellation ritual I have to exchange daily for my life to be extended.

Because I figure when I go there are going to be three options: nada, Spongebob+Beer, or a Treadmill machine and I won’t get to pick when the so-called inevitable comes at whatever time of life. I’ll know when I get there if I’ve been good.

Welcome to my dreary life…

Hide the razorblades…

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