We’re getting p90x this week! So excited! It’ll be hard as balls at first but I’m sure the wife and I will be able to get through it all in time.
TOUGH MUDDER TRAINING WEEK 1
So, my wonderful brother decided a a couple months ago that he wants to take me to the tough mudder in dallas for my birthday. The tough mudder is a 10 mile obstacle course. My birthday is in October. This might be more intense than I’m thinking.
I went ahead and said yes, because I just did a 3 mile inflatable obstacle course with the wife. I feel like I overestimated myself right now. As the only time I can walk with my training partner in 90+ degree weather. I already have a couple weeks training under my belt. But now with the huge increase in temperature my enthusiasm wanes. And I can’t afford to let that happen. So, I’m gonna post on here every week detailing how I’m doing.
You know, times and exercises and stuff. Wish me luck guys.
The Post about other Posts
I had a GOT post all ready to go. It was long. It was full of facts about a fictional show. It was horrible.
You’re asking why it’s horrible, aren’t you? You’re an inquisitive little mouse, so I’ll tell you. It was horrible because I was only going to post it showing how much I disliked this season as well as basically all the other ones too, and I still watch the damn thing. But, I don’t watch it that much anymore, as I can just read about what happens on my facebook feed.
That post was an exercise in my narcissistic tendencies to think people care what I think. It was also just a regurgitation of all the other articles out there discussing the very thing I thought I had a unique spin on. So, it failed on at least two fronts.
I thought about whether I was going to post it for a long long time. I started this 10 days ago y’all. I like a wide variety of things. I’m a huge nerd/geek/whatever you call someone who’s into Dr. Who basically. I have strong opinions about the media I consume and like to share these opinions. The only issue is that I don’t feel like adding to the flood of available content discussing all of those things as it is. I want my blog to be about everything else I like to talk about that others don’t seem to care about.
Yeah, I know. I won’t have many readers (or possibly any) with this strategy. But, the readers I will have are the ones who enjoy the random shit I like too.
So, you’re probably also wondering why I’m even writing a post about why I don’t think I want to write posts about what amounts to pop culture. Well, that’s a good fucking question.
This is what happens when I read non-fiction
I’ve been reading a book I already reread long ago before…again.
The book, “Just How Stupid Are We?” by Rick Shenkman, is well written. It’s good. Goodreads.com rates it a good read on the bad read – good read scale. It’s a political science/sociology book about how blissfully ignorant American voters can be. The writing is very much on the nose. I mean, look at the title… what you see is what you get. The author, Mr. Shenkman, gives an in-depth analysis of the extent and reasons behind the stupidity of the average voter.
OK, so now that the book report is out of the way…
I won’t deny that I purchased the book and read it over more than once because it confirms my views. I agreed with everything he discussed in the book when it was news. Way before I ever saw it at Hastings. He talks about the things that are now off-limits (like blaming Bush for getting us into 3 wars [Iraq, Afghanistan, and the general war on terror] because of his foreign policies) in the conservative media. The topics he discusses or the thoughts gleaned from those topics aren’t new.
He doesn’t really seem to shed new light or go at what we all think any differently. He just says, sadly, that the idea of “The People” is a myth. “The People” being a reference to the preamble of the Constitution. He thinks the authors of the Constitution created a mythological blanket persona as the reason for and protectors of how the government… well, governs. He says this because there’s always time to change. Because, if you don’t know about a problem, how are you supposed to fix it?
That’s the vibe I got from his writing style. He’s genuinely concerned that people don’t pay enough attention to what’s going on in the world of politics. If we don’t change our general collective disinterest (I use “our” very generally as I’m a bit of a news junkie) in politics then we will regret it. The people who vote are the ones in power. I think his concern came off, to many, as either whining or elitist after reading some reviews.
The only thing I can say about his “elitism” is that he thinks it’s important to think before acting. Especially when your actions determine who your leaders are. He’s saying maybe don’t care so much about whether you can drink a beer with the candidate. Maybe look at his economic plan or his views on education. You know, issues. I feel like, at least where I live, there’s a general stigma surrounding politics. That the people who care about it are know-it-all’s and no one likes those people.
We have to face our disinterest and apathy with something other than filming celebrities telling everyone to go vote during an election year.
There’s more to politics than voting.
It’s an ongoing conversation about everything.
OK So It Seems Like I’m Back
I started this blog on a whim people. There was little for me to blog about and I think I was just bored. I wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it or whether to say it or not. So, naturally, I wrote a few posts. The “This is me” post and a couple of others that I should’ve kept to myself. At least until I understood how to say what I meant.
The post on my relationship was the only one I felt okay about (it was about chivalry), and, oddly enough, the only one that got any traction and attention. I realized I don’t want to write this for attention (it’d be nice but I also get anxious when I’m given even the slightest amount). I want to write this as a way to express what I want, when I want and that’s all. Knowing I won’t be able to post on here w/o hearing from people time to time is stupid; I argued myself out of being here for a couple years.
I kept thinking of coming back with a new idea on so many occasions. I obviously didn’t and then I got married. Being married is no different for me than being in a serious relationship. I’m young, dumb, and inexperienced in that topic but I know how I feel and how she feels. Now that I’ve been defensive for no reason… I have a strong urge to just talk and talk. I’m the one who knows when to shut up but secretly wants to over analyze all over the place.
So, this one is full of fragments of thought and sad attempts at humor. Without going into other avenues, I enjoy this place and am back. As inconsequential it is to anyone reading this, it means I have a small part of the internet devoted to what I have to say.That means a lot.
Social media’s effects
The effect social media has on the lives and career trajectories of celebrities and political entities is undeserved. Plain and simple. A controversial tweet a person of fame posts right now shouldn’t appear on the nightly news or late night talk shows. But they do, and people care about that? People care about what that guy said to that other guy? Usually it’s not funny by the way, usually whatever they say is just stupid, incendiary, troll-ish, or in a drunken rant.
Patton Oswalt tweets and Louis C.K. tweets are hilarious (consistently) and they don’t get much publicity except for when they make someone mad somewhere. Why is that the case? Ever? Schadenfreude is soooo rampant in the US and a site like twitter is used by the “entertainment industry” to publicize feuds? Why isn’t it used by all the networks and shows to showcase what people are generally talking about all over the country. Or heaven forbid read some funny tweets by legendary comedians that have an intelligent voice? The comedians and regular users tend to post things more socially conscious and less ethically ambiguous than all the stupid shitty celebrity tweets that end up on shows like Web Soup, Entertainment Tonight, or TMZ.
Although twitter is not the only social media site out there (obviously) it is the most relevant tool used by the celebrity propaganda machine. Facebook is used the most (from what I’ve read) by government agencies to spectacularly make people think less of their institutions by arresting teens for making sarcastic comments on gaming threads in the site. Put simply, facebook is in the news more for how the government misunderstands (on a grand scale) sarcasm and gaming culture generally speaking. Its also used to catch actual stupid criminals who post statuses about the crimes they commit. So, facebook is relevant, just not in the way I was focusing on.
There are too many social sites to count and talk about and so I only picked on twitter for its constant use by the media to showcase stupid posts celebrities make, simply because they’re celebrities. So, yeah. Rant done.
Chivalry
I was reading about how and why chivalry was dead today. Because of facebook I did this lady and gentleman who read this. It’s interesting to see why others think we’ve lost that part of social behavior.
I really don’t think chivalry is dead, and you can talk all about your personal experiences all you want about how he doesn’t open the door for you or pull the chair out. The truth of it is that no idea is so widespread that EVERYONE does it and not so isolated that NO ONE does it either. It depends on where and how you were raised. It depends on parenting styles and doesn’t really depend on the technology and social media available to you. I can say that because I still open doors for her and get my food after my fiance does (from time to time), and she also does the same for me. We have an addiction to social media.
The personality of the relationship dictates how chivalrous each person is to the other. Feminism suggests that chivalry is sexist and demeaning to women, and romantics say that chivalry is about respect and love for your lady. I say that everyone is over thinking a set of actions everyone calls chivalry. The mindset of chivalry is mostly a sexually repressed religious ideology that suggests long courtships that continues entirely upon the whims of the woman. The man is not supposed to do or say anything to suggest sex before marriage to her because sex before marriage is un lady like. That mindset is not mainstream anymore, and as far as I’m concerned that’s not a bad thing at all. Respect for women hasn’t gone out the window because of the lack of chivalry, that was because of pop culture. I have more respect for women than the photographer telling models how to pose in the sexiest way possible. And I think the majority of men have the same level of respect for women as I do.
If I don’t have a firm grasp on what chivalry is then by all means educate me :). All comments welcome
Weird
I’m weird. I have weird ways of saying things. I have a weird sense of humor. Read my tweets, and you’ll know its true. Weird is a blanket statement though. At first it was meant to be hurtful (which I never got hurt by it), then it became what it is today. It’s just the way things are, people are weird. Weird, in my experience, can mean a couple things,: the “stare at you for way too long” kind of weird and the “lets go get milkshakes and dip fries in it while talking in a British accent” weird.
Everyone used to be normal, doing the things normal people did and if you deviated from that then you were weird and no one wanted to play with you. It was a word no one used to describe interesting, creative people like they do today. So, to me, weird is just better to be than normal. Being normal is like being a Stepford wife or something. It’s like eating vanilla when there are flavors like Rocky Road or Chunky Monkey out there. And, the thing is that everyone has something that people will find weird, making them weird themselves. So, love me for my weirdness and just accept it because its just fun times.
Just the thought of the day.
The Newsroom
The Newsroom is a fantastically written show that has the enormous of being able to look at everything known at the time to show what should have been said as opposed to what was said. It takes a stab at today’s news organizations and basically says, “you can do this, if you want”. The problem is, they don’t want to and the show does a good job explaining why. The show’s characters are flawed human beings and some of them are annoying ,but they all try to do what they think is right.
With that being said they are characters, so you can’t assume that Aaron Sorkin won’t make a character be the living incarnation of “insert adjective here”. I’m talking about why people hate the character Maggie, and I don’t think any character should be hated simply for being the “annoying girl” character. Alison Pill plays her well, and you know why she does what she ends up doing. Just because you don’t think an intern at a news organization would behave like Maggie behaves doesn’t mean she ruins the show’s authenticity. She’s around to remind everyone that its a SHOW. Her antics are entertaining and its fun to watch her match wits with some of the smartest characters then be completely moronic over guys.
Also, just for the record. Anyone who doesn’t think all news anchors should be like Will McAvoy should stop watching so much Fox News and/or MSNBC, they’re ruining you.
Bro, why you biased?
By now most people know about Lauren Green of Fox News’ horrible “interview” with author Reza Aslan. The interview was supposed to be about Mr. Aslan’s new book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. What it turned into was am awkward conversation between Lauren Green, the religious correspondent for Fox News, and Mr. Aslan, a man with 4 degrees in different areas of religious and historical study. Reza is a Muslim, he started as a follower of Islam converted to Christianity then went back to Islam while studying and researching Jesus for 20 years afterwards. I don’t know any of Lauren’s credentials at all other than she’s a television personality on Fox News and she apparently is a concert pianist according to her bio on the Fox News website. To be fair you don’t need credentials for being a news anchor or t.v. personality at all, you do however need to have objectivity when interviewing so that you can report facts. I think you can put things in context for viewers without appearing biased for or against the interviewee.
Now, the interview begins with her asking why he, being a Muslim, would want to write about Jesus. At first it sounds like a fairly typical question to ask, as long as you just forget that the person you’re talking to has multiple degrees and many years in the field of religious history. Giving her the benefit of the doubt he tells her his credentials, which is to say “I have every reason to write about a religious figure because I’m an academic who writes and studies all religions, because it’s my chosen career”. This is where the interview should have went on to what he writes in the book. However, she keeps asking the same question, just in different ways. Reza Aslan, dealing with an awkward situation, handles himself in the same manner he did at the beginning, by explaining that’s what he does for a living.
A lot of people believe that its another example of bias on the part of Fox News. I can’t think of any other reason why the interviewer would keep asking the same question over and over unless someone, whether it was her or the EP or another higher up, believes there is no such thing as an objective work on religion. I think its because they have a problem with believing there are people who can write about a divisive issue with no bias intended. They can’t believe that the only thing someone can want to accomplish is to give an accurate account of the life of a misunderstood historical figure. They can’t believe it because they wouldn’t write about a non-Christian religious figure without having their religious beliefs skew the work. I say that because they can’t report NEWS without their conservative bias getting in the way of telling people what happened.
Bloggerything 