Better late than never.....

Here's my list of complaints and grievances vs. Society. As always, its cheaper than therapy.

First, I'd be slacking if I didn't at least mention the creepiest guy I've seen in a long time, this John Mark Karr guy. I don't get it. Who admits to a murder that they didn't commit? Am I missing something? I like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character, and I knew right away that this guy was full of crap. Now, I still believe he belongs in the creepy guy Hall of Fame. No doubt about it. I'm sure he's guilty of something, but we just need to figure that part out. One interesting theory I heard was that he was facing time in a Thai prison, and he decided to "confess" in order to get the hell out of that country. Not sure how familiar everyone is with Thai prisons, but I've heard that they aren't the most hospitable. At the very least, I think he should be charged with obstruction of justice for impeding the investigation here in America.

Not so much of a complaint, but has anybody noticed that the number keys on a phone start with 1 in the upper left hand corner and work their way down, and on a computer keyboard it's the reverse? I am 27 and I just figured this out. Warrants mentioning.

Is there a Spanish internet? I mean there has to be. In fact, I would think that there have to be a bunch of different internets for all of the foreign languages. (ok, as a side note I just tried "google Spanish." It looks like its the same internet, but a different segment for various languages.)

(........Crosses "Spanish internet" off list of things to investigate further)(Remaining items include "why Treat Williams hasn't won an Oscar" and "find nude pictures of the chick from Invincible.")

Back to the complaints. And this one is a biggie. As I was flipping through the channels the other night I noticed a film on TV. The film in question was SlapShot 2. For those of you not familiar with the original Slap Shot films, it is the story of a minor league hockey team that finds success once it resorts to extreme violence. Highly regarded as one of the best sports movies of all time. Anyway, Slap Shot 2 is its illegitimate brother. It makes Godfather 3 and Caddyshack 2 look like great ideas. All I will say is that it stars Stephen Baldwin. Enough said. Anyway, the only reason that I bring this up is that the movie was showing on AMC. That's the same AMC, as in American Movie Classics. Ah.....no. We really need to tighten up security over there. I wouldn't want someone from outside the country to get the wrong impression of us. The international community already hates us for so many things. No need to add cinematic integrity to the list.

~Till next time.
K

Why do I buy bananas?....(and other random thoughts)

We have quite a lot to get through tonight. I promise that if you stick with me, we'll get through it all.

First, why do I buy bananas? Really? Why? A strange potassium addiction? Honestly, I don't know. Quite frankly, I don't think that there has been anyone in America to finish an entire bunch of bananas in the last 50 years. Rumor has it Kobayashi can only eat 4 bananas at a sitting. I buy bananas at the store, and by the time I get them home they have morphed from green to spotted. By the end of the day they are completely spoiled. You would think that at some point I would have learned my lesson. Nope. Two are rotting in my kitchen as we speak. Good times!

Next, I am currently boycotting Wendy's. Not all Wendy's, just the local one by my house. I recently had a bad customer service experience there, and have been boycotting them ever since. Now, for those of you who know me, you will know that I take the boycott very seriously. The infamous State College McDonald's boycott of '98 is still being used as a case study at Harvard Business School. All I ask from each of you is that if you are trying to decide between a few fast-food establishments, don't go with Wendy's. Its all I ask. Thank you in advance for your understanding on this matter.

Finally, at the request of CWG here are my thoughts on the upcoming PSU football season. If I had to use one word to sum up my thoughts it would be this, optomistic. By the way, I am basing all of my thoughts on how well PSU has played in NCAA Football '07 for the PS2. (more on this in a moment)

Offense: Techmo Anthony Morelli might be the best quarterback in the history computerized gaming. An absolute cannon for an arm. More accurate than an atomic clock. As long as there are no pop-quizzes about long division in the huddle he should be ok. Tony Hunt will continue to be a stud tailback, with Austin Scott building on an impressive Orange Bowl showing. Hopefully he can pull it together and avoid being this year's recipient of the annual Lamar Stewart Woulda-Shoulda-Coulda Award. The offensive line worries me a bit. Replacing 4 new starters is not going to be easy. I put the over/under at 2 quarters on how long it takes for The Chad to find his offensive lineman who he will relentlessly rip for the remainder of the season. Past winners include John Blick, Greg Ransom, and Gus Felder. Wide receiver is a position that FINALLY doesn't worry me. We finally have some guys who COULD catch the clap in a whorehouse. Also, for anybody out there working on their 2008 NFL mock drafts, its Derrick with two "r's". Williams is scary good. He almost seems too good to be playing here. We never used to get this kind of athlete. Sometimes I think I am going to wake up one morning and find out that D-Wil was on Oceanic Flight 815, and this was all a big dream.

Defense: We'll start here on the D-line. I could see Jay Alford making a Tamba Hali-like leap to big time this year. The one thing holding him back? A constant reason to run the same 3 minute TV puff piece on him, ala the Liberian civil war last year. Ed Johnson gets my Danny Earl "Shouldn't He have Graduated 3 Years Ago?" award. Great to have you back. The secondary is another area that worries me. We lost a lot of talent there. I think Justin King will benefit from playing mainly on defense this year. Although I am waiting for them to use him when they pull out the old-school Chafie Fields reverse around the 3rd or 4th game of the year. Techmo Justin King has returned 6 punts for TDs through 5 games on NCAA '07. Congrats to Knowledge Timmons on picking up the Peerless Price "It seemed like a great name when we were drunk" award. Some valuable hardware there. I saved Linebacker for last. What else can you say about Posluszny? One story that I heard after the Orange Bowl was that in that game after he tore his knee ligaments he asked the trainers about his status. He asked them if he could go any more damage. When they replied no, he requested to be shot up with painkillers and wanted to go out to play the rest of the game. Wow. When you want to look up what it means to be a Nittany Lion, look it up in the dictionary under Posluszny, P. I think it would be great if Dan Connor could make the same leap Posluszny made last year from really good LB to off-the-charts wrecking ball. Finally, Tim Shaw collects the Mac Morrison "I can tell my grandkids I started with two other All-Americans at LB" award.

Overall: I see another solid season for the Lions. They aren't going to sneak up on anybody like they did last year. However, based on my play on the PS2 they will beat Notre Dame 97-0. I see them dropping 2 games: the Ohio State game on the road and then either Notre Dame or Michigan. Personally, the entire season would be a success if they could finally beat Michigan. I mean, even A.C. Green didn't go this long without getting some satisfaction. I see them at 10-2 and in the Capital One bowl.

Till next time

~Kevin

War of the Worlds.....

Sometimes you come across information that will shake your belief system to the very core. Occasionally, you find out something that you once held as fact, is nothing more than a rumor a best. With that being said, I came across this little tidbit today.

For those of you who are too lazy to click on the link, there is a group of scientists meeting in the Czech Republic as we speak in order to determine if we should keep Pluto as a planet. I am going to say that again because I think it needs some time to sink in. We are meeting to see if we can to keep Pluto or vote it off the island. It's basically an Inter-Galactic American Idol. Up until this point I didn't know that this kind of thing was debatable. I guess I was wrong. I mean, growing up you learn that there are nine planets and thats it. Done. End of story. However, I just found out in that article that there is no strict criteria on what makes up a planet. I know that there must have been a few smart astrophysicist types at MIT during the years who could have came up with this kind of material. Before we start sending people to other planets, I think it might be worthwhile to actually have some sort of formal definition of what a God-damned planet is.

Now, I'm worried. What other kinds of information that we take for granted is really up for debate? The mile? Sorry, we were just guessing at that. We never took the time to measure. It's 5200-ish feet. Close enough. Water is H2o, right? Well, not exactly. We took a closer look and its actually 2 parts hydrogen, 1 part oxygen, and 1 part blueberry Jello. A little known fact, but apotentially important breakthrough. Any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated.

You're gonna be disappointed......

Wow, this post is going to involve a bigger steaming pile of horse crap than usual. Now, with that being said, for those of you still with us, hang on. This post is basically going to involve complaints and greviences I have.

One thing about technology is that it gives us the ability to do things that 20 years ago would have been impossible. Think about it. Science fiction has a way of becoming Science Fact. Imagine a world where you can get all the music you would ever want to listen to on a single player that fits in your pockets. Yeah, its called an iPod. Well, if we can do that kind of crap, why can't we do the following? I am watching one of my 300 channels of cable TV bliss, and I find that Wilds Things 3 is playing. I am going to say that again because I think it bears repeating. Wild Things 3. I didn't even know this was out. Is it asking too much for me to get some kind of email, text message, blog posting, or sky writing to let me know that this has hit the airwaves? So I'm watching this thing. And here's what the preview says: "Two teenage vixens go on a sex and murder spree in search of valuable diamonds." I caught the program already in progress, and those bastards made me wait about 15 minutes before the first nude scene. At this point I am cursing the screen. And then we hit the lesbian, lockerroom make out scene. (At 27 minutes and 35 seconds into it, for those of you scoring at home.) Classic. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that there should be some sort of central repository of this kind of information. I just feel like you need to know these things.

Moving right along. You know what really disturbs me? I mean REALLY disturbs me? Clogs! Listen, here's the rule. If its unlikely that you are going to be called on to put your finger in a dyke or have tulips in your front yards then you don't have a good reason for wearing clogs. End of discussion.

Here's a list of all the years where "Von" predicted that it was the "year of the FIN" and the Dolphins ended up winning anything:
1997: (empty)
1998: (empty)
1999: (empty)
2000: (empty)......well, you get the picture.

Till next week.

~K

Many apologies.....

First, off I'd like to thank you in advance for your understanding regarding my not posting yesterday. (God, I really think I am going to start using that line in real life situations. I truly think that I am onto something here.)

Next, I don't know quite how to tell you all this, but I recently did something that I regret and am utterly ashamed of. Often in life you come to a crossroads, and the demons pull you down paths that ought to remain untouched. I can not change what occurred. I can only hope to learn from my experiences. What was my horrible act? That's right, I tried a Boca Burger! And I enjoyed it! (For those of you that haven't left the house in a decade, the Boca Burger is a meatless burger. That just sounds silly saying it out loud.)

I know. I know. How does one get to such a place? It started out innocently enough. A simple trip to my local mega-mart. And there they were in the freezer case. They called to me. Next thing I knew I was throwing them on the Foreman. Delicious. Kind of like an old school bacon burger. Who knew that soy could be so tasty? Like I said before, I hope that this doesn't become a habit for me. In all honesty I was expecting the culinary equivalent of hockey puck or a beverage coaster. But that wasn't the case. Now, I don't expect that I will be making the permanent switch from my beloved all-beef patty anytime soon, but I felt that it was important to get my message out to you all. God bless.

Ok, finally. Onto the good stuff. Drug war. Total BS. Totally. Let's look at it from a purely economic standpoint. First, for all the billions of dollars that have been wasted I don't see any impact on either the supply or demand sides of the equations. Second, I'm not sure I would agree with total legalization of drugs. That being said, I can't believe that the government has let such a lucrative cash cow go untaxed. DWB said it, and now I'm saying it. If you can't beat 'em join 'em. Instead of spending billions a year and getting ZERO results, I'd much rather take the other side, and see a HUGE influx of tax revenue be generated. And I'm not even talking about more serious drugs. Third, this would greatly reduce the strain on our courts and the prison systems, which would in turn save us even more money. Seems to me that would be a pretty efficient way to cut into the huge Social Security and Medicare liabilities that we have sitting on the books. Quite frankly, I can't think of two more dangerous drugs that alcohol and tobacco, but the last time I checked it was pretty easy to get either one. And don't you think that we would have learned something from Prohibition? I guess not. When you limit a person's personal freedom of choice, its only going to drive up demand and limit supply. And when Congress used the 21st amendment to repeal Prohibition, I don't think that the country as a whole turned into a bunch of alcoholic animals. I think that alcohol and tobacco just have bigger and better lobbies. Additionally, I don't think that ANY politician has the ballbag to go in front of the country and admit what a failure this has been. It's been the domestic policiy equivalent of Gigli. We've spent so much money and wasted so much time, that I don't think that there is anyway that we'll do an about-face and draft a policy that makes sense.

Finally, guess who has Castro in the death pool? Oh yeah!

Later.