This Is the Dark, Unspoken Promise of Trump’s Return:

For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.”

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The Democrats are a center right party. They abandoned being progressive when Jimmy Carter got smoked by Ronald Reagan in 1980. Bill Clinton put forth many policies that were conservative, like welfare reform and the amendment defining marriage as being between a man and woman. Same thing with Obama. Biden is the most progressive president we’ve had in decades.

I read a book right after the 2016 election by Thomas Frank called Listen, Liberal which opened my eyes to these facts about the Dems. Great read if you’re interested.

Robert Adolph Boehm Obituary:

Robert Adolph Boehm, in accordance with his lifelong dedication to his own personal brand of decorum, muttered his last unintelligible and likely unnecessary curse on October 6, 2024, shortly before tripping backward over “some stupid mother**ing thing” and hitting his head on the floor.

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My company recently started working in Agile. I’ve been in pseudo-Agile environments before, aka a bunch of little waterfalls that management wants to think is Agile. This post gave me some food for thought.

I Will Fucking Haymaker You If You Mention Agile Again:

I agree with everything in this post.

I Will Fucking Dropkick You If You Use That Spreadsheet:

If You Must Gamble, Gamble In Person, Like An Adult:

This seems like old-coot reasoning, but there is a fundamental difference between watching your money grow or diminish on your phone and having to make the effort to sweep it toward you or shove it away. Your entire body is part of the transaction—well, okay, maybe not your feet. That would be a move of theatrical aggressiveness that would convince the dealer to call the pit boss. And it is that full commitment of body, mind and wallet that makes gambling worthwhile…

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My dog the nihilist:

On the rare occassion, he’ll pretend he has an injured paw. Two separate trips to the vet revealed he was faking it, probably to get out of doing dog stuff, like go for walks and play and try to eat human food.

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After discussing how much graded baseball cards could be worth, I told a friend:

This has only one ending. I’ll be found sleeping on a bench in a bus terminal. I’ll be clutching my hobo satchel, protecting the 13 9.5 Lamelo Ball rookie card slabs inside.

The Notorious Board Game That Takes 1,500 Hours To Complete:

He’ll happily admit that this was an unreasonable game for unreasonable people…

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From Twitter:

OMG my brother in law, the gift that never stops giving, was tired of being sent to get rice every day so he decided buy in bulk, talked to the shop about it, wires got crossed, now there is a literal TRUCK FILLED WITH RICE outside the house and my sister is losing her shit lmfao

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From Threads:

Kid Rock makes music for dudes who get outraged when other people’s students loans are forgiven but are themselves about three years behind on paying child support.

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I love me some orcas:

From Threads:

Toxic bosses rarely change. They just change targets. You are never safe, even if you think it could never happen to you because you’ve been “accepted” in the in group. You are never safe because these individuals eventually turn and need a new scapegoat. It’s all by design.

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This is a compilation of the best Jaguars comments from Drew Magary and others on Deadspin and Defector.

Why Your Team Sucks 2013: Jacksonville Jaguars:

re: Question for Cops and Detectives:

… you feel dirty, jaded, and afraid for people you love afterwards.

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These are a couple of good primers for both men and women.

Advice to Young Men from an Old Man:

Joe Sheehan dropping hot fire:

Garcia had a .281 OBP this year and bats ninth because there is no tenth.

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The Royals’ social media team is elite

After the Royals’ series win today, it feels like other teams will try to copy the Royals’ pitching approach. The table is set for a repeat of the Rockies’ $50 million bullpen from 2016-19.

Wade Davis’ greatest service to the game was stealing $64 million from the Monfort family.

Kevina thinks any event with a 1 in 20 chance is so unlikely it can’t happen, and that an odd number can be exactly divisible by 4 if it is large enough (I will include her proof in the comments) : r/StoriesAboutKevin:

This guy was interested in her, and I didn’t think she should go with him because he was in a relationship. Plus, his girlfriend had wanted to be in an open relationship but he’d vetoed that, whilst still thinking he should be able to have sex with other women. That didn’t sit right with me. It seemed caddish.

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Denny Carter on why Dem’s need to adopt litmus tests too.

I Stared Into The Abyss Of The Democratic Party And All I Got Was This Anxiety:

Trump Can Still Win:

Trump flourishes in this environment where nothing and everything is true. He speaks the brain-dead language of low-trust. And that’s the language a lot of the country speaks.

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Frantic Bathroom Deletion Hat:

… Ken ranting about Iranians taking American jobs like undermining faith in elections.

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Kenny Williams implied how deeply he dislikes Tony LaRussa in the best way.

An owner who ‘thinks he knows everything’ led the White Sox to historic disaster:

In response to a person talking about meeting a family that owns a castle she went to in the UK:

I will visit them. I wish to insinuate myself into their lives and find any treasures their ancestors have kept hidden from the world

Like 8 months after I left my last job, one of my pals sent me a screenshot of some old project that was getting resurrected.

• I’d been assigned to one of the tasks and they hadn’t changed my name.
• I just replied, “Please tell them I shan’t be getting my step completed.”

A few years ago, my friend said she was on the keto diet. At lunch that day, I walked into the breakroom and saw her crushing a plate of Aramark ribs. I had to be the one to tell her that the sauce was not keto in any way, and was basically candy.

I made the following SQL based joke:

My list of places you need to bring something back from is as follows:

A co-worker once told me, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people guess whether you’re an idiot than to start talking and confirm it.”

Nationals End Season By Demoting Leadoff Hitter Who Was In A Casino Until 8:00 A.M.:

Poverty, they say, affords moral clarity.

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Shogun’s excellent TV show made me go back and play the videogame adaptations, here’s how they broke me as a man:

I played an emulated version of this game with no manual, which felt roughly equivalent to trying to land a passenger airliner using the Force.

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Unions Can Fix What’s Broken:

We are all lonely participants in this atomized world. The anomie of modern life and all that. Isolated by our cars and inhuman urban design and the collapse of organized religion and the algorithmic encouragement of tribalistic politics, we despair at the sensation of our nation descending into warring, alienated factions. All our differences seem to loom larger as time passes, to grow into unclimbable walls: red versus blue, young versus old, urban versus rural, affluent versus just scraping by, socialists versus the god damn fascists. We embed ever deeper into our little categories and assume that this is the natural order of things. We holler about “elites,” who might be anyone at all other than us. We accept this war of identities because we can imagine nothing more pure that exists to compare it to.

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Jaguars Junction: Bye Week:

As we look ahead, let us all resolve to treat one another with a greater degree of understanding. Each of us is engaged in his own private struggle. None of us are mere entertainers. We are people.

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From a meme on Tumblr:

Tell me a soft memory

You Can Probably Eat More Yogurt Than You Think:

My writing tends to tackle important policy issues with an analytical fearlessness that some have described as “unbearable” or “possessing the sneering tone of one who has given up on life and wishes only to bring everyone else to hell with him.”

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Jaguars Junction: Week 15:

I chose not to attend the game after all, for the same reason that a professional “storm chaser” might not volunteer to plow headlong into a deadly twister: Because journalism should be a profession, not a sentence of punishment.

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I’m going to get a Richard Hidalgo jersey to celebrate the early 2000s Astros. Like Enron, his power was also fraudulent.

I love Hamilton Nolan’s writing.

Jaguars Junction: Week 17:

To a friend:

Your life is dictated by leisurely pursuits.

I loved these covers when I got these books from school as a kid:

There are so many articles about Trump’s utter failure at the debate. These are some of my favs:

A Handshake To End the Race:

In response to people proposing a fight in the parking lot beside the office, and being told my bookmaking was not a valid concern:

There are gentlemen with mozzarella and garlic on their breath who will be very cross with me.

Shannon Sharpe said the following on the Wednesday episode of Nightcap:

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.

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Kareem Abdul Jabbar said the following about Trump voters:

This election has made me more afraid for the future of the United States than any previous election. Not simply because Trump is running, but because the fact that he’s running—and doing as well as he is—after a disastrous four years in office, reveals a larger part of our population than I had realized is more irrational, self-destructive, uninformed, and harmful to their children’s futures.

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End This Farce:

I also know that the Browns allowed late-season 2023 starter Joe Flacco to leave the team in free agency, and then replaced him with handsy turnover addict Jameis Winston.

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When I went to a game in LV last year, I thanked all the Raiders’ fans for Josh McDaniels’ service in destroying 2 of the 4 organizations in the AFC West. Made the Chiefs’ job a lot easier.

When I first got into the data analysis field. We had an engineer who had built a database and the project leads kept saying “We need to make it idiot proof”. The dude got sick of it and yelled, “THEN STOP HIRING IDIOTS!!”

One of the most impressive feats the GOP pulled off was convincing the poor that they should care about rich people issues.

I remember once I was sitting with my father in law, who’s a Boomer. He said he didn’t think it was fair that the Democrats were trying to lower the threshold for the estate tax. That tax doesn’t apply unless you have over $100 million. I asked him when he thought that tax would ever be an issue for us. No answer.

It’s Time For Left-Wing Wrestlemania Politics:

The Democratic Party must purge itself of its technocratic tendencies and embrace a purely emotional approach to politics. The party has to stop pretending the voting public is something they aren’t. They are, to a person, Wrestlemania fans who want nothing more than a good fiction to overwhelm their senses.

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We Get Our Violence in High-Def Ultra Realism:

These images being beamed into their rotten brains are saying softly that they were right all along about These People, that you should not feel bad about hating them, that the policy prescriptions of Donald Trump and his allies are the medicine for this sickness.

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This story is wild. Just goes to show that you need to do your research before putting your wagers down.

The Fake Indian Cricket League Created for Real Online Betting:

I couldn’t put my finger on it before. It now makes sense. I totally agree that the mainstream media makes Trump seem a lot smarter and more coherent than he actually is. It’s a travesty and shows that big media companies in the US cannot be trusted.

Parker Molloy first brought this up in 2020:

They’re wrong for that Drew Gooden nickname!

Is hunting for big NBA free agents obsolete? Plus, remembering the wildest Mavericks trades:

How Biden’s Court Reform Proposals Could Work—if the Court Would Let Them:

The Trump court has been the most ethically compromised court in American history—based, at least, on the receipts we have available. Justice Thomas has taken more undisclosed free vacations than an Instagram model; his wife supported the January 6 insurrection. Justice Alito also likes to take free jet vacations without revealing who’s paid for his ticket; his wife cannot stay off the flagpole. Justice Gorsuch sold some of his property to the head of one of the biggest law firms in the country the moment he was elevated to the court. Kavanaugh is an alleged predator whose debts magically disappeared when he was nominated to the bench.

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GW Bush’s third most harmful act, behind the Iraq War and allowing the assault weapons ban to expire, was nominating Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court.

Roberts’s Rule of Disorder in Voting Rights Law:

Seeing as I have had a direct line to the lord since pushing the Submit button on the Universal Life Church’s website in 2007, I will put in a good word with the big guy.

Kyrsten Sinema is the Democrat Kelly Loeffler. She got one taste of power and suddenly couldn’t sell out her principles fast enough.

This article makes a larger point, which is that Democrats’ emphasis on consensus is dumb and should no longer be a concern. Totally valid. It’s not like the GOP thought about bipartisanship when they blocked Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination and then got Amy Coney Barrett confirmed right before Trump lost the election.

I’ve never fully understood why people can get so patriotic. This article may explain why.

Stray Thoughts On Patriotism:

Here’s the complicated way I track what I want to read.

1. If I want to read something every day or want to see it soon after it’s posted or sent: a. I send it to a service called Omnivore. b. They allow the addition of RSS feeds and newsletters.
2. If I want to keep track of what a site posts, but want to be able to skim the headlines, that’s where my fake news site comes in.
3. If I want to read something when I get to it during the week: a. I send it to a service called Newsblur. b. They allow the addition of RSS feeds and newsletters. c. I signed up for premium service like 8 years ago and they never turned it off.
4. If I want to check it when I don’t have anything to do and I’ve exhausted everything in #1 and #2, I have some feeds going to a service called Feedland.

Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him:

… it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things

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What’s he going to reset it to? Not being a racist, not being a liar, and being a decent human?

Trump tries to reset his campaign after brutal month:

Color me shocked. People don’t want to go backwards socially. We need to shame and humiliate all the culturally regressive extremists who have taken over the GOP.

Don’t even get me started on Moms For Liberty. They want to enforce purity culture and anti-LGBTQ views while one of their founders is having FFM threesomes.

In the least surprising news to date, Trump is lazy, undisciplined, and complaining about how unfair this election is. When him and his supporters talk about easily triggered liberal snowflakes, it’s a whole of projection.

Trump allies try to energize him as he struggles to adapt to Harris:

The religious people who worship Trump would know they’re repeating the story of the golden calf if they ever bothered to read the Bible.

Trump TV Hosts At Rally Claim Bible Proves God Saved Trump:

‘Very unpopular’: Editor of conservative outlet admits ‘weak’ Trump is ‘definitely nuts’:

Wright noted that throughout Trump’s time in the White House, he won by a razor’s edge in 2016, never enjoyed more than 49% support in public approval ratings and ‘yet has carried on as though he was given a huge national mandate and enjoys major popular support when there’s zero evidence for that proposition.’

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Is Trump OK? Unhinged reaction to rise of Harris worries supporters:

Since Harris assumed the mantle of the presumptive Democratic candidate, Trump has claimed to be better-looking than the vice-president, questioned whether she is really Black and attacked her laugh as that of ‘a lunatic’.

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Anyone who says the GOP isn’t racist is stupid or a liar.

GOP group claims Kamala Harris is ineligible to be president due to Dred Scott decision:

Maggie Haberman Says Trump ‘Clearly Jarred’ by Harris’s Rise:

“Look, he’s very reactive in all things when he is not in command,” Haberman replied. “And we have seen this over the course of the last nine years that he’s been in politics or in the political arena. He is clearly jarred by her.

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Trump can’t shake ties to Project 2025—and it’s driving him nuts:

The denial is in bright blue and red letters: “Straight from Trump’s Platform,” it says. “NOT PROJECT 2025, WHICH TRUMP DIDN’T WRITE AND DOES NOT SUPPORT.”

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Everyone knows I’m the MD-OG. Nice try!

Pundits have been saying that the GOP is on the brink of demographic collapse since the Obama years. Here’s the most recent example from Cassidy Steele Dale:

Three authors at the Hoover Institution back in 2021 did an overlook of support for each party over time and found that the younger the American generation, the far more Democratic they lean.

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Trump doesn’t want to have an election because he’s leading, Kamala led a coup, and other fascist reasons:

You know, they do polls on this stuff, and I’m at like 93%. I said, so why are we having an election? They didn’t have an election. Why are we having an election?

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This was a really cool story that Mike Rowe posted to Facebook:

Last week in Baltimore, Uber charged me $85 for a trip that usually costs $20. I looked into the way their “surge pricing” model actually works, and didn’t like what I learned. So today, after checking out of my hotel in Oklahoma, I called Lyft instead and was picked up by a guy named Mike. He was driving a red F-150. It was clearly a work truck, full of tools and lumber. I sat up front.

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The crowd size talk is him trying to lay the groundwork for another coup. His cult will be more than willing to oblige. Bernie Sanders said it best:

Donald Trump may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. When he claims that “nobody” showed up at a 10,000 person Harris-Walz rally in Michigan that was live-streamed and widely covered by the media, that it was all AI, and that Democrats cheat all the time, there is a method to his madness. Clearly, and dangerously, what Trump is doing is laying the groundwork for rejecting the election results if he loses. If you can convince your supporters that thousands of people who attended a televised rally do not exist, it will not be hard to convince them that the election returns in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and elsewhere are “fake” and “fraudulent.”

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Asking Trump to change and become more serious is the dumbest form of wishful thinking possible:

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump told “rattled donors” he thinks “I was right” to mock Harris for being biracial. He shrugged off concerns about his gutter-style politics, saying, “I am who I am.”

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I began reading Denny Carter for his fantasy football articles, but he’s fast becoming one of my favs on politics

Democrats Are Saying No to Leslie Knope Politics:

What happens to the Republican Party if Trump is defeated?:

But it’s just as likely that something even worse emerges. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the modern conservative movement, it’s that they always manage to find a new bottom to hit.

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I love the fact that Kamala Harris has shifted the Dems’ messaging from “we have to fear Trump and the master plan he has to ruin us” to “look at this weird, doddering old criminal who doesn’t ever make sense”.

The Harris Campaign Is Extremely Online. That’s Good.:

Baez’s dark powers can counteract anything the Epstein cabal can come with. Dude has repeatedly gotten the guiltiest people freed. I think he’s made a real life deal with the devil

Robert Kardashian had a soul. People say that when OJ was declared innocent, Robert K had this look like, “What have I done?” on his face. Baez has never had any remorse when springing the worst of the worst.

Why you shouldn’t allow any extremists into your establishment:

I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”

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I’m tired of the Democrats’ weird dedication to civility and bi-partisanship when it hasn’t been reciprocated at any point in the last 50 years. All the Dems have done is become a center-right party instead of sticking with the Progressive principles that allowed the New Deal and civil rights legislation to pass. The GOP has no issues using scorched Earth tactics to get their way. Time for the Dems to fight fire with fire.

I want a bulldog who gives Trump nicknames, laughs in his face and calls him a business failure, and is so relentless in highlighting JD Vance’s hypocrisy that he curls up in the fetal position. During the debate, I want her to make Trump fall down and cry like the woman in the Life Alert commercials.

When your entire identity is trying to be hypermasculine while blindly following a preening, vain narcissist, there’s bound to be some cognitive dissonance:

Tim Walz is the negation of the desperately insecure, performatively masculine MAGA man.

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We all know that the Supreme Court is now a MAGA apparatus. Trump is planning to use the courts to challenge any loss, no matter how large the margin.

Between 1982 and 2017, the RNC was subject to a consent decree limiting its ability to take “poll-watching” measures like, for example, sending armed off-duty cops to polling places in Black neighborhoods.

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One positive bit of news about The Devil: She was seeing a dude for a year. He broke up with her the week of her surgery. I am happy when bad people are sad.

Also, my pal who also worked for The Devil reminded me of this: The Devil was apparently always complaining about how hard it was to find men to date. Another thing she’d always harp on is that she reads every email she gets by the end of the day.

Chris LaCivita has said the quiet part out loud:

“It’s not over until he puts his hand on the Bible and takes the oath. It’s not over until then. It’s not over on Election Day, it’s over on Inauguration Day, cause I wouldn’t put anything past anybody,” LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager, told Politico’s Jonathan Martin during a lengthy interview…

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This is an untrue, but hilarious story about Yusuf Dikec, the shooting gold medalist from Turkey:

“… he was an ex-mechanic who became a world-renowned shooter after a bitter divorce. The picture showed Dikec in his full glory with the caption, “Sharon, if you’re watching this, I want my dog back.”

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Nicole Cliffe’s post about autism hit hard for me. I’ve felt out of place in the world for most of my personal. I totally get it what it feels like to feel like an alien who is always just slightly abnormal. It’s a hard way to live.

Any of you ever just stay social media friends with someone because they post all their drama and it’s the type of train wreck you can’t look away from?

Impeaching Alito and Thomas will not succeed. That’s not the point here. We need to shine a light on their corruption and underscore that no one is unaccountable to society.

For too long, Democratic politicians have approached the Supreme Court with a deep-seated sense of learned helplessness, reacting to each revelation of flagrant corruption and/or partisan hackery with, at most, somber press releases expressing the sentiment that someone (not them) really ought to do something about it.

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Back when I was an attorney, people would try to explain what the law on a topic was. I would say, “You know what? You’re totally right. I went to law school for 3 years, you’ve been watching Judge Judy for 20.”

I would enjoy this game very much:

imagine a video game where you create a hero whose destiny is to save everyone, but throughout the game you start making harder and more questionable decisions, and the game gets darker and darker. and in the end you’re just standing there, clutching the controller and finally realizing you were playing the villain all along

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People in Texas keep it real at all times:

I used to review Texas obituaries for a living and these are some of my favorite lines describing people who were apparently awful during their lifetimes:

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JD Vance Memes About His Weird, Far-Right Policies Are Actually Fine:

“Mocking the Vances of the world online and calling them “weird” angers and defangs them. It lessens their grip on us and reveals the truth — that the far-right’s policies are laughably unpopular. The majority of the country supports abortion, divorce, IVF, and civil liberties for transgender people. Most Americans don’t seem particularly fazed by drag queens, single people, or cat owners…”

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Alito and Clarence Thomas are the main reasons we need Supreme Court term limits.

Alito has long given off an air of vexation, even as he is regularly in the majority with his conservative ideology.

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There’s now a player on the Padres named Bryan Hoeing. Please let his number be 69. If it is, I’m buying my first authentic MLB jersey.

Florida’s MLB teams are a vehicle to steal money from a mentally addled populace.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to effectively deal with Trump supporters. I think the best way to go is to point out how dumb their ideas are. Ridicule their words mercilessly. Point out how absurd what they believe is.

Fascists and their sympathizers (which anyone voting for Trump is) think of themselves as the most serious people in the world. By laughing at them, you cause them to experience an internal dissonance they can’t deal with. They haven’t thought through their ideas or are acting in total bad faith. Exposing either isn’t something most people can take. Anyone who supports MAGA deserves nothing but scorn. They deserve it.

My Political Depression Problem—and Ours:

This is why I now describe the history of conservatism as a ratchet. It must always move in an invariably more authoritarian direction, with no possible end point but an apocalyptic one.

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Many thanks to the extremists at the Heritage Foundation for finally creating a policy platform that goes too far for the average voter, no matter how uninformed they are.

Who Wants To Talk About The Issues:

These are some hilarious quotes from my pal Steve:

A prophet can find honor anywhere but his own country.

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I love this so much. We need to call him out for all the crazy things he says and does:

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Whenever someone is too for or against something, I am instantly suspicious. And it’s stuff like the party that hates all gays crashing the #1 gay hookup app that proves me correct every time.

I said to someone at work who told us about drinking at a work function:

I feel that statement is hard fought wisdom, gained at great personal cost.

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Kareem Abdul Jabbar describes Trump exactly how I’ve wanted to:

… a person for whom no rational, moral, or patriotic person could vote.

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How little do your teammates respect you that one of them gladly signs a jersey clowning you?

@_kingkareem_ Successful day at the office #zackwilson #nfl #fyp #nyjetsnfl #garretwilson #saucegardner #trainingcamp #football #foryou ♬ Empire State Of Mind - JAY-Z

The Dems need to stop clinging to some stupid set of unwritten rules about civility while the GOP doesn’t give a crap about any of that stuff.

I want a bulldog who gives Trump nicknames, laughs in his face and calls him a business failure, and is so relentless in highlighting JD Vance’s hypocrisy that he curls up in the fetal position. During the debate, I want her to make Trump fall down and cry like the woman in the Life Alert commercials.

This was a succinct explanation of how to separate the people who want to attack each other and one up each other’s liberal credentials vs. people who actually want progressive government:

“…socialism now has a worthy successor in the Hayekian triangle — what for purposes of this essay I’ll call Social Justice Leftism (SJL) but is more commonly referred to as “wokeism”.”

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This Starbucks fan fic is such a great story:

Actual conversation I had at register:

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Packs of wild karens can often be found at Applebee’s brunch, one of their last remaining natural habitats.

There is an underlying aggression amongst the pack as each karen tries to assert dominance over the others. This is done by enlarging their hairdos, bragging about their childrens’ accomplishments, and subtly insulting potential challengers.

Hyundai makes the safest cars out there. Can’t get into an accident if the car can’t leave the garage.

I read a biography of Charles de Gaulle. Even though I hate France, I really admire him.

• After WWII, there were like 13 governments in 15 years. The Parliament asked de Gaulle to come back because the country was close to civil war.
• He said he’d only do so if he wasn’t subject to any elections and was allowed to rewrite the French Constitution. He wanted to ensure that the conditions that led to all the instability was able to be solved.
• He took power in 1958, did what he said he would, and resigned in 1969.

The decision by the Supreme Court shows they are an official arm of the MAGA machine:

To the extent that John Roberts ever imagined himself as a meaningful check on Trump’s power, that version of John Roberts is gone. He is as staunch a proponent of the MAGA agenda as any of his colleagues who fly coup-sympathetic flags above their homes; he just manages to be a little less uncouth about it.

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Me and some pals agreed that “The game is fraught with greed, betrayal and duplicitousness at every turn.”

When my best friend heard about this, he said we sounded like some grizzled gangstas.

My friend told us he’s going to have to go camping with his son’s scout troop. I said he needs to do the following:

Man, you need to take your own tent over there. Set it up like a Bedouin king. Lined with the finest furs, manservants and wenches. Go all out and capture some of the other children and have them bring out each dinner course.

There is a very concerning storyline I’m tracking about the Pakistan cricket coach after the World Cup loss to the USA:

• Pakistan lost to the US in the initial stages of the tournament. That’s like the Royals losing to the lowest level minor league team out there.
• As a result, they didn’t make it to the semifinals, which was the minimum expectation.
• The last time a loss of this magnitude occurred, in 2007, the national team’s coach died a few weeks later under very murky circumstances. It’s widely believed he was poisoned.
• If I was the coach, I’d hire 24 hour security, a food taster, and see if I could lease the Popemobile.

I shan’t be updating data types in Excel, DataCamp. Begone with your foolishness.

What better way to combine government waste, MAGA cult worship and child care than baby gates built out of those pieces of the border wall that have fallen down and are just lying around? I’ll also get someone to authenticate each baby gate to verify it was used to block immigration into this country.

My friend told me “BFFR,bro” after I said I wouldn’t get Netflix. I replied:

I am ostracized and excluded because I have violated the group norms. I’ve seen nature documentaries. I know how this plays out.

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A couple of friends at work were talking about a TV show, and one of them was watching the exact scene the other had started talking about:

There are supernatural powers at play here. I don’t like this one bit. I’m going to sprinkle holy water on both of you.

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I wish the Black Sox had this much swag.

Gambling For Life:

Told my friend when he was talking about getting a new gun:

Please purchase a Rambo style bandolier. This is a turning point in your 2nd Amendment journey.

When the weather turns warm, the hearts of reggaetoneros like me wander to San Juan, Medellin or perhaps Santo Domingo.

I’m too impressionable for this type of content. The evangelicals warned me about the dangers of a godless world.

In S1 of Jersey Shore, Angelina threatens the Situation by saying, “Yo, I will cut your hair while you’re sleeping.”

I began saying this to everyone as my standard threat/promise to them. I once said it to my friend’s daughter, who is black. That was seen as “insensitive” and “crossing the line”.

I was watching an Instagram reel of some Bama sorority girls doing a choreographed dance where they were showing off their formal outfits.

Someone commented, “I’d let the second one ruin my life.”

This is a great story about a man trying to show his appreciation for the parentified brother who raised him:

Hello again! I’m sorry if this is hard to follow English isn’t my first language.

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She’s So High was the beginning of my transition into the outspoken feminist I am today

I got the MP3 of that song from Napster and put it on one of the first mix CDs I ever burned. It was my sensitive mix, that I only listened to in the dead of night, with all windows closed, at low volume.

Humans have been terrible to each other since the dawn of time. It’s one of the things we do best.

The real villains here are the Western European countries. If they hadn’t had WWI, then

This quote hits too close to home:

Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination.

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Best line today: They have a recurring Amazon subscription to the audacity!

an exhaustively researched compilation of the greatest black erotic thrillers ever made, i.e. the reason i still pay full price for a subscription to starz !

This is a classic Samantha Irby banger. Read the whole thing to get your knowledge up on urban erotic thrillers.

I told a pal to get me some money from the ATM since she was getting some. When she asked why, I told her it was to make it rain on a co-worker. She asked why. I replied, “Raining money on him and reinforcing that he’s an object to be bought and sold will be a nice reminder of his station in this company.

I know Bill Cosby is cancelled, but Cosby Show had some iconic moments. There was one where Rudy was singing about “doing it all night long”. A very concerned Bill Cosby asks her what she thinks that means and she says something like “Jumping on their bed.”

Although given later revelations, maybe I mistook him being dismayed when he was actually intrigued.

The only movie I recall seeing in 2012 was Les Miserables. I still maintain that if inmates were forced to sit in a room and watch the song where Anne Hathaway shaves her head on a loop, it would be a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Come on. Who you tellin? You know I’ve been checking mugshawtys for all the fine, law breakin’ hunnies for a while now.

A friend was telling me about a wild group of people she know. One of them named his dog after an ex. As I was getting more info, I said the following:

Unless he was also romantically involved with the dog… But at that point, we have much deeper issues to deal with.

Once, I hadn’t talked to a pal for the entire day, so I IM’d her, “Why have we become estranged?” Popped up right in the middle of a presentation. The others on the call were like, “That’s an odd thing to say.” She said it was from me and everyone was like, “Ah. Now it makes sense.”

Back before I met my white American wife, my parents were allegedly looking for an arranged marriage for me. I said fine because it’s not like I was meeting anyone I liked on my own. Then I found out that they’d actually just created a profile for me on a matrimonial site. I was annoyed but I saw an opportunity.

I told my mom and dad that my requirements were that the woman needed to have a MD and be a specialist. No general practice doctors. They asked for the age range I wanted; I replied the older the better. My mom asked me how I could be with someone older and asked why I needed a specialist; I replied it was because I required a 10000 square foot house. They asked why I needed that; I replied so I didn’t always have to look at her stupid face.

I’m convinced that Jose Baez is a legal witch, tapped into the dark magic that exists in this world.

The only conspiracy theory I wholly believe and that I personally created is that Baez convinced Aaron Hernandez to unalive himself.

My fav weird NBA conspiracy theory is that Lebron left Cleveland the first time because a teammate of his named Delonte West was having an affair with his mom and then actively destroyed Delonte’s life.

• He played really terribly in the playoffs after that rumor came out.
• Delonte was later black balled from the NBA and became a homeless drug addict.
• Lebron has never addressed it, but we know he’s obsessed with the levers of power.

I love this ad so much:

You want a car that gets the job done? You want a car that’s hassle free? You want a car that literally no one will ever compliment you on? Well look no further.

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This has always been my favorite snack. BECAUSE ALL I DO IS HARVEST MY CHEDDAR!

My pal had no issues getting NFL Sunday Ticket before getting married. They got married in May or June, and she was beefing about it when renewal time came around in September.

I should have given the context.

My destiny as an attorney was to become a corrupt judge nicknamed Judge Bread.

The A’s to Sacramento is a done deal. An MLB team will play in front of a 10000 person capacity crowd for the 2025-27 seasons.

They get to share the stadium with the Giants AAA team. I’d see about trading affiliates so that they can have their own minor leaguers ready to join the team at all times.

On Shota Imanaga’s early season success:

He’s out here, throwing that gyro ball, confounding the gaijin with his mysterious Eastern ways.

This article makes it seem like marrying an old man is a new financial hack that has never been contemplated until now.

While the article has some choice quotes, my favorite was someone else’s quote about the article:

My working theory is that since MAGAs and other nutcases define themselves by what they don’t believe in, there’s ample space for dissonant views. It’s when you have to clearly define a set of guiding principles that you have to do the hard work of reconciling your world view.

Sports bettors everywhere got to be shook.

Next phase of this: CPS agents storm the stage at the Outhouse and confiscate the tips from a dancer whose baby daddy got primary custody.

Craig Calcaterra is a baseball writer and a lawyer. His analysis of the Shohei betting scandal was interesting to read.

Wire transfers are not like paying for your DoorDash order with a credit card. They are not like Venmoing your weed dealer. You cannot effect a wire transfer, especially a multi-million dollar one, without a lot of paperwork and verification. You cannot effect a wire transfer on behalf of someone else without explicit authority to do, which entails even more paperwork and authorizations.

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One day, we were trying to figure out who had brought in some sweet treats and placed them in the break room at work. It was a complicated case. I IM’d a couple of friends:

We must begin a Spanish style inquisition. Please prepare a tub where we can drown witches and fetch me my sceptre.

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I really enjoyed this ghost story from agwitow:

It just became second nature to close all the cupboards first thing in the morning (even though they’d been closed the night before). Which was when things escalated from banging cupboard doors to actually breaking things.

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Mike Tanier with a banger

An NFL Network report, later quoted by the New York Post, claimed that Judge and his Patriots pals “exuded an alarming aura of haughtiness” when addressing other coaches…”

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I saw this quote and used it to describe a former friend:

He is conducting a master class in how to be an unlovable crazy person.

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This is unfortunately true of most of the MAGA cult. They can’t get enough dopamine at home or in their normal lives, so they have to ruin everyone else’s personal.

The Americans Who Need Chaos:

The song “Bills, Bills, Bills” was the apex of a trend in 90s R&B when female singers were demanding that dudes pay all their bills. On the other hand, there were rappers bragging about stealing rent money on their way out of a lady’s house. Perhaps it was a matter of need rather than greed for the R&B singers

Me and a pal were talking about why I have beef with the city of Houston. I went there in 2009 to meet a woman for a possible arranged marriage. She decided I wasn’t the one for her when I made it clear that she couldn’t be a housewife forever and would need to work outside the home.

As someone who needs these medications, this is infuriating. I get the issue with the paperwork. But then send in overseers and make the company pay for them.

The Adderall Shortage: Is One Factory Magnifying the Crisis?

“On god” used to be “on my mama” back in my day. But I would promise anything on my particular mama’s life, so I may have made some false promises and assertions.

I think that if a person is hyper religious, then they’ve got dark impulses that they’re trying to keep at bay through faith. They need an external control on their behavior because they don’t feel like they can totally control themselves. These folks then think the whole world is just like them, and thus they try to pass all types of oppressive legislation because they think you and I are just like them.

Like Usama was really anti LGBTQ, even though his dad is gay. He wouldn’t let his daughters hang out alone with his dad because then they might become gay too. But, all of us in the friend group have a suspicion that he wants to be with a dude but can’t bring himself to do it. UBK is also very Catholic. So he has to use god to control himself.

Back in the day, my pal Steve was driving through downtown at night. He saw a billboard whose lights were partially broken.

What he did see were the words “Dinner with Hos for Father’s Day.” Had the billboard been lit properly, he would have seen it was a dinner with Eric Hosmer.

It’s the root of all the Trumpism. Insecure white dudes unhappy about their fading relevance in society.

Back in 2008, after Obama was elected, people started saying that a Republican may never get elected again. I’d always say that South Africa lived under the control of less than 10% of the population for 100 years. The group that controls a country will never give up power without a fight.

I cannot go to any event where the social contract at risk of breaking down.

I got a little overwhelmed with having to do too many things at once, and made a betting mistake. I explained it as follows to a pal:

Now I’m out like $5 from these various errors. And I only have a bet on VCU for their game tonight. I don’t know why I operated with such hubris, thinking I could do it all. I am not a woman of the 80’s.

The Chiefs were all amped for the AFC Championship:

Travis Kelce on wearing all black to the AFC Championship Game: ‘Chris Jones made sure to tell everybody, Make sure you're wearing all black this week. We’re going go in there, we’re gonna hit the bank like ChiefsAholic baby!’

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This is the best Big Brother strategy:

… building a shield of chaos and mistrust around himself to keep himself out of the inevitable line of fire to come when the House reunites after Thursday’s double eviction.

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Problem gamblers are built different.

This is a great tale about a woman getting back at her toxic family:

Here I am, writing this long tale in my honeymoon, but it does feel cathartic to finally type it out, and my husband is more excited about this than the resort drinks, lol Anyway, this is a throwaway because I don’t have a reddit account and my husband, the reddit fanatic, said he doesn’t want this associated with his main. As to why the reddit guy isn’t the one writing this, it’s because he said “since it’s my family, I should be the one with the honor of posting the story”, but he is looking over my shoulder to help out.

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There’s a hilarious moment in the Hulu show “Ramy” where the dad is listening to various popular songs and telling his wife what he thinks the hidden meanings are. Some Megan starts bumping and he says “Megan the Horse is very wise. Perhaps the wisest.”

Manufacturing Consent For The Office:

In any case, the problem with young people’s careers isn’t remote work - it’s the people they work for. If you are a manager that is giving an assignment to the person you last saw in the hallway rather than the person who can do it the best, you are a scumbag. The person in question that’s also ignoring someone who’s remote is likely ignoring someone because of the color of their skin, or their gender, or something else they don’t like - they are biased, lazy, and cretinous.

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I’ve tried to articulate my view of liberalism for years, but this comment from Crooked Timber explains it perfectly:

There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.

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This is the only way that a Mahomes Broncos jersey will ever exist:

The first line from Charles Oakley’s autobiography is “I didn’t punch Charles Barkley, but I did slap the shit out of him.” On brand.

Gow took heavy criticism in 2018 for inviting porn actor Nina Hartley to speak at UW-La Crosse.

I like how he abused his power to help do market research for his startup porn business.

I decided to buy lunch for my friends at the office. A pal of mine said she didn’t want her allergies to be the reason we went to a specific place.

I replied, “If anyone beefs about Cane’s, I’ll just be like, “OH! I’m so sorry this FREE food doesn’t meet your exacting standards!”

My nephew is a huge Jags fan. I gave him a Jags hat last Xmas. I told him on Sunday that if Uncle Muneer’s Jags bets don’t pay out, I will repo the hat and throw it in the trash. Xmas this year will be very interesting at my in-laws’ house.

I told my fellow gambler, about what he’d give to a child he’d agreed to get gifts for through a charity drive at work:

You’ll wrap up 5 of the Tootsie lollipops from the office kitchen with a note saying. “Sorry Jennifer, but the Packers didn’t cover and Gus Edwards rushed for less than 50 yards. Maybe next year…

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What Do The Kansas City Royals Know About Shoulders?:

An organization like the Rockies, which makes its baseball decisions by incorporating the advice of a Synod Of Nephews and the writing on various inspirational mugs will make the same sort of statement upon acquiring a mildly distressed pitching asset that a much more scientific team would make.

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There was a time my wife said I wasn’t doing enough around the house and that she felt that she was carrying the entire load. After the initial emotions had soothed, we agreed to write down every single thing we do around the house. My list was longer than hers. All I said was, “Wow, this is really embarrassing for you…”

In 2011, Jessicca came to me and asked, “Muneer, how can I explain US to my friends and family?” I let her know that I had just the thing and asked her to sit them down and play this video.

Broncos got beat by a guy who studied his mom’s friends’ signals more than the playbook.

I am also in favor of creating and imposing arbitrary rule structures upon friends and loved ones

This was a very hard read. All I can say is: believe women.

A Raised Hand:

A great dad had an idea about how to make his kid’s Little League games more interesting:

So for any of you who have kids that play little league baseball, you’re aware of how mind-numbingly exhausting these games can be. It’s so difficult watching from the stands as little Timmy pitches his 11th straight 4-pitch walk in a row.

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A kid’s uncle takes care of a bully for him:

When I was 8 years old my dad and brothers moved across the country. My brothers started high school while my dad started a new job. My mom and I stayed back so she could sell our house before we moved to join them. During this time my dad asked my uncle to keep an eye on my mom and I.

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Jaguars Junction: Week 1

After all, who are you to question me?

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This is a great story about a woman pushing back on her toxic husband:

Context: I work in my own start-up, husband John works in a movie theater. Before I started my company, we both had similar income, but now I earn ~5 times as much as him. The chore dynamic at home was always heavily skewed; I’m very neat and like cooking, so I handled the lion’s share of chores on top of my job. After the company started growing, John invested himself more in chores because he was staying at home due to movie theaters being closed. His workplace reopened a few months ago and he immediately stopped doing most chores.

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A man is forced to teach his daughter a lesson:

So my daughter is in a sorority, which I 100% supported. My wife and I paid for her dues and supported her when when she asked if we would be okay with it. Unfortunately, last week I found out something very upsetting. My daughter was trying to enroll for classes but had holds on her account with prevented her from doing so.

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This is unfortunately true of a lot of religious folks. They live by the letter of the law, and ignore the intention.

(I work with a pair of identical twins for the overstock night shift. They know I’m atheist, so they’ve made it their business to preach their religion at me non-stop.)

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This is a wild story about a woman who loves caramel a bit too much:

It was a hot summer day in Southern California, I was ten minutes shy of finishing my shift at Starbucks and was super excited about my afternoon plans to see my boyfriend, who lived several hours away and was home for the first time in months. It had been a pleasant morning up until that point, lots of nice regulars, easy traffic, good co-workers, and I was feeling prettay, prettay, prettay good. I’d brought a cute outfit to change into and spent time fussing on my hair that morning, making sure I’d look good when he arrived to pick me up. It was dead at that point, so the manager taking over told me to wrap up early and head out.

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A few years ago, I was snacking on a Reese’s cup right before dinner at my in-laws’ house. My nephew came to me and said, “How come you get to eat chocolate before dinner???” I told him, “When you start paying taxes, then you can also do whatever you want.”

When I went on a cruise with my in-laws, we had walkie talkies so we could talk to each other and plan what to do each day without having to meet up. I insisted on being called Brown Whale at all times when I was being walkie-talkied.

On Day 3, my mother in law gets on and asks, “Muneer, is [wife’s] cruise ID in the room?” No answer. She asks again. Still no answer. Finally, I hear this huge sigh and she says, “Ugh. Brown Whale, is [wife’s] cruise ID in the room?”. I pop on all chipper and said, “Yes! Yes it is!”

Anyone who says people shouldn’t get “handouts” and nonsense like that are the first ones who are bewildered when something bad happens to them.

Back when I was at the law firm, the calls I got the most satisfaction from would follow this pattern:

My friend told me that there was a couple, man and woman, in a small town somewhere near McPherson or Wichita who wore matching San Francisco 49ers Starter jackets and rode around town on a motorcycle while smoking. That would be a 10/10 doubles mullet.

This is a great two part look into why AI is a scam.

Crypto collapse? Get in loser, we’re pivoting to AI – Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain:

The pilots at some airline had what was called a non qualified 401k. That’s where the company can fund it, but it goes poof if there’s a bankruptcy. This airline had just gone bankrupt.

Well, the way this plan’s document was written, the non-qualified balance would become guaranteed if the employee got a divorce.

Paying off my mortgage made work much less stressful. I may not have FU money, but I do have F this money.

Revenge Served Cold: Salesperson Climbs Ranks And Takes Down Former Managers Who Dismissed Him Early On

This is a very satisfying story of a man who was able to screw over the managers who stole from him early in his career.

Back in the day, when I was working at the law firm, I was the one who would go around and try to get a consensus on which restaurant we’d order lunch from.

All people would tell me is what they didn’t want. Eventually, I got frustrated and started saying, “You have to tell me what you do want. Stop being part of the problem and become part of the solution!!”

I got a call from a dude whose house was going to get foreclosed on. He had gotten a loan and bought a house. He did not have a job or any discernible source of income at any time during this process. He just told the bank he had a salary and they took his word for it

He wanted to save his house even though he’d gone into default when he missed the first mortgage payment.

tags: work title: Emotionally invested date: 2023-01-11 –

I was trying to get people at the office to eat the rest of a cake I’d brought in:

It’s close to the end of the day. Some of us have sleep problems. You know what could help with that? A slice of chocolate espresso cake with salted caramel butter cream frosting. The sugar should make your system crash at just the right time.

A guy from my high school was arrested for cattle rustling in Olathe back in the mid 00’s. He had fallen in with some people who were addicted to meth. He wasn’t an addict, just not good at life.

Anyways, they’d rustle the cattle and then rent a U-Haul to drive the cows to cattle auctions in TX. After the cost of the U-Haul rental, fuel, and probably paying to have the truck cleaned, there wasn’t much left over for the meth.

I’ve been banned from all sports betting and related activities.

It all started yesterday when I doubled my money on a bet

I told my best friend about some ill advised financial moves that ended up working for me. His response, “I’m just saying, if you’re going to be a full-on bro, don’t be “invests sports bet money in crypto” bro.”

Friend was getting harrassed by a Karen co-counsel. Told him, “You need to call her up and scream at her. Tell her she’s a piece of shit and that you won’t tolerate this type of behavior from a Tier 2 law school piece of trash.”

I was talking to Usama bin Kevin one time and asked him, “If you’re so anti-abortion, then why don’t you have 30 kids living at your house?” He replied, “What do you mean???”

“You want these kids to be born, but the parents don’t want them. So why aren’t you taking them in?”

Walter White was on one:

Okay Walter White was actually pretty funny as a character bc he was so toxic that seasoned drug lords were like I cannot work w this man I have to put my mental health first

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Factory Girls

This is a fascinating look at how Korea algorithmically created a pop music industry out of thin air in 20 years.

Drew Magary is one of my favorite writers. He has great lines all the time. Here are my favs:

It’s Decided. I’m Moving To Arica, Chile.:

I worked for someone who was similarly toxic. I hope Mace and my ex-boss end up selling oranges on the side of a freeway on-ramp.

Nancy Mace Is So Toxic That Her Entire Staff Ditched Her:

This guy is a maniac, and I’m convinced he’s partially to blame for officers becoming so trigger happy.

“Are You Prepared to Kill Somebody?” A Day With One of America’s Most Popular Police Trainers – Mother Jones:

Bob Denard is a bad person, but this quote is too good:

He met people who noticed that he was quite gifted for shady affairs…

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I was banned from a friend’s house for a few years because of an incident involving his son, who was like 6 at the time.

I was playing basketball with him. As his wife was bringing drinks out for us, I blocked the kid’s shot, swatted it down the street and yelled, “DON’T EVER BRING THAT WEAK S**T AROUND HERE!!!” right in his face.

The excitement of an urban lifestyle no longer has a strong appeal for me

Friend’s wife wanted to run for elected office, and he didn’t want her to. I told him to do the following:

Tell her you’ve converted to Islam and are searching for Wife #2. If Republicans have taught us anything, it’s that competition should be encouraged in all arenas of life.

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I’ve really enjoyed Gabby not taking any BS this season:

She’s deeply invested in the power of therapy and making men feel bad about themselves in a fun way.

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I loved how this woman dealt with an angry bully at work:

So I’m an engineer and I’m working on a team with 7 decently chill guys and one guy with anger issues. Like he can’t just have a respectful disagreement, he’ll raise his voice and yell and get up close to your face. I hate it.

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This is a great book review looking deeper into the obsession with work and work resisters.

The Shame of Work:

I love this email sent after a work holiday party from a boss to his employees:

Several years ago, a reader shared with us this epic email that was sent by their company’s boss after a holiday party gone terribly awry, and as we enter the holiday season we remember its glory.

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This was an interesting looks at what constitutes fact based vs opinion journalism:

What are facts?

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The one thing I’m happy I’ve maintained from my foreign culture is that I don’t see work as an integral part of my identity. I want to do a good job, but work ends when I leave.

We’re Killing Ourselves with Work:

Unlike Lou Bega’s inauthentic happiness, Return of the Mack hints at the depths of the world’s coldness, while still being funky as hell

These are a couple of solid Cookie Monster memes:

This is from when J.K. Rowling was first exposed as a monster:

Being a Harry Potter fan is like being a fan of Chase Bank during the housing crisis.

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Love these:

Oh honey, you’re not pretty enough to be acting like that.

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This obituary told the truth about a terrible person:

Lawrence H Pfaff Sr. was born in Belmont, NY, on April 16, 1941. He passed away on June 27, 2022, living a long life, much longer than he deserved. He is survived by his three children, no four. Oops, five children. Well as of 2022 we believe there is one more that we know about, but there could be more. His love was abundant when it came to himself, but for his children it was limited. From a young age, he was a ladies’ man and an abusive alcoholic, solidifying his commitment to both with the path of destruction he left behind, damaging his adult children, and leaving them broken.

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This comment says it perfectly:

… if you can’t quite put a finger on his exact philosophy and goal for the world, you can’t create a coherent plan to fight it.

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Urban Meyer has been trash since the beginning of his career:

It’s ironic that Meyer was fired from perhaps his last coaching job for bullying a player (Lambo ) when, in fact, one of his first coaching jobs nearly ended with him bullying a player.

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I told my friend this when he mentioned his wife might go see Thunder Down Under:

It’s all fun and games until a buff Australian dude says she’s his Sheila now.

You don’t want kids around when you’re floozy adjacent.

The US continues sliding down the path to autocracy.

James Meek · What are you willing to do? On the case for civil war:

Wisdom from Reddit:

If you put something up in a common area with the express purpose of pissing people off, you’re an asshole.

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Jeff King Hated Baseball:

In honor of Opening Day, this is one of the wilder stories I’ve read about.a player. And it happened with my Kansas City Royals:

This is almost the whole article’s text, but it’s too good not to share:

Here we find the old man robbed of his schtick by the punishing cold, the usual cartoonishness of his persona replaced by the pained look that you find on the face of every old man who has been forced to leave Florida. This is the first time we’ve ever seen the real Dickie V.

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I had to confront a Karen and her family at a restaurant:

Karen and her family came in without masks and then asked if the restaurant had masks for them.

A co-worker said she’d had too much coffee and felt like bouncing off the walls. I told her, “There’s only one thing you can do here. Postmates some Benadryl.”

When I worked for a small company, all the mothers would take tons of time off when school was off or their kids had something going on. The work we did required us to be in the office. So, on the days the mothers took off, the rest of us had to pick up the slack.

A couple of years in, I decided to see when the local schools were on Spring Break. I put those days into the calendar as time off for me. This happened in January. As late March approached, the mothers figured out what I’d done.

I love this story about how Jim Harbaugh dealt with young women who were flirting with him:

“He said to the first girl, “keep your hands up, thumbs down,” and he showed her the proper motion with his own hands. When she didn’t get quite right, he grabbed her wrists and showed her how to position her hands. He then paced off 15 yards, held the ball in front of him, squatted like he was under center, patted the ball hard, took three hard steps back, planted his back leg and fired the ball at the first girl. As he let the ball go, you could hear it click as his fingernails hit the ball and, I shit you not, as the ball whizzed through the air you could hear it ssssssssssss… THUNK! It hit the girl in the shoulder and knocked her down.

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Great quote from Reddit:

It must be hard taking your car to 100 mechanics before you get to one that tells you your brakes are working just fine. It must be hard going to 100 doctors before you find the one that tells you your cholesterol level is healthy.

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This guy went to grad school with me. He was OK for the first few years I knew him, but then began listening to conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones. This made the worst aspects of his personality come out.

• Kevin is a hardcore misogynist. On one occasion, he was arguing with a female friend in my Facebook comments about how women don’t have any actual medical need for for birth control pills. When my friend saiid that women sometimes need to take birth control for other medical reasons, he told her she was a silly girl and didn’t know what she was talking about. When she (correctly) began tearing him a new one, he blocked her and messaged me about how irrational she was being.

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A classic line from The Simpsons:

“There’s no need to murmur, ma’am. Here at Itchy and Scratchy Land we’re just as concerned about violence as you are. That’s why we’re always careful to show the consequences of deadly mayhem, so that we may educate as well as horrify.”

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I don’t see enough Muslim memes. This was a phrase I used to hear all the time as a kid:

None

I’m getting heavy Karen vibes from the letter writer. And always remember that the company doesn’t ultimately care about you:

I’m just kind of floored that she’s getting gift cards after speaking to her superiors like that. I’m also uncomfortable because why is our company responsible for her fiscal irresponsibility? Her personal finances or debts are not the company’s responsibility. I just don’t think it’s the company’s responsibility to give her more than what she’s earned (the extra $500 from the employee emergency relief fund) to fix things for her if she overspent or didn’t prioritize her bills or save smartly.

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anfscu-blog on tumblr did a great series of posts on movie tropes. Here are all the posts:

Rescue as Aphrodisiac

The Myth: If you rescue a woman, she will fall in love (or at least go to bed) with you

Arthur Rhodes was left handed, and was mainly below average during his career. He played in Major League Baseball for 20 years, making a total of $37.9 million in the process.

This is unsettling.

As the self-proclaimed Drama King, this memes is accurate:

I love Jon Bois’ writing:

I’m fascinated by trolls, mainly because a former friend became one. It’s interesting to read about the darkness that resides within these people.

Troll with it:

I usually read Drew Magary for his funny, but this letter from a veteran named Brett really struck a chord for me:

I’m from central Pennsylvania. My parents live just outside of Hershey, and I go home every third weekend in October when the leaves are at their most beautiful. My closest friend still lives there and when I go home, we watch the Philadelphia Eagles, we talk about the Philadelphia Eagles, and we smoke meats and cigarettes. Every time I go home, we eat out once so that I can get what I truly believe are the two delicacies of our home: Stromboli that has mustard in its innards along with marinara, and truly fantastic wings. A dry rub BBQ wing with a side dipping sauce of mango habanero is a great way to marry flavors and decide how much hell you want in each bite. It’s glorious, it’s sometimes masochistic, and it’s my home.

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From the book Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, this great story about outfielder Billy North:

In a May 18 game against the Royals at the Coliseum, however, he let slip his bat on a swing against reliever Doug Bird, the lumber sailing harmlessly between the mound and third base. While going to retrieve it, however, North took an unexpected right turn and pounced upon the unsuspecting pitcher, peppering him with as many punches as he could before being tackled away by players from both teams. The only guy in the building who wasn’t confused as hell was the guy swinging his fists.

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For the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I offer you the following templates for all of your social media needs.

[insert anecdote about the banal things you were doing when the Two Towers were hit]

This story is about UPS workers who defied their supervisor and walked off the job during the 9/11 attacks. The article also talks about how workers can take their power back in the early days of COVID-19. Hint: they had a union.

In the days after 9/11, I felt more pity than anger toward Billy. Faced with a quick decision, he humiliated himself by revealing a middle manager’s instinct to put the interests of a corporation that didn’t know his name before his own life. But I felt that way because there was no third plane that day, and the only consequence of his bureaucratic bumbling was the loss of his own dignity.

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Back in 1993, I got this card in a pack. It was worth $75 when I got it. I thought for sure this card would be my retirement fund. I should have sold the card the moment I got it.

As the years went on, Eddie’s taciturn face was a rebuke for my idiocy. I eventually gave the card to a family friend who’d started collecting.

Warren G’s song “Regulate” has inspired a couple of epic summaries.

First, this is from Wikipedia:

I sent this to my guys’ group chat when there was talk of a couple of them sleeping with the same woman. I was the one who initiated that talk.

I love Weird Celtics Twitter!

A few fun articles about it:

Every season I played fantasy basketball, I had to have Rudy Gay on my team so I could name it The Gay Community.

Swag is on a million for both of these slides!

Baez did it better. pic.twitter.com/Zhe3CWXnCK

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Roger Ebert was always at his best when he didn’t like a movie, like 1980’s Spit on Your Grave:

I wanted to turn to the man near me and tell him his remarks were disgusting, but I did not. To hold his opinions at his age, he must already have suffered a fundamental loss of decent human feelings. I would have liked to talk with the woman in the back row, the one with the feminist solidarity for the movie’s heroine. I wanted to ask if she’d been appalled by the movie’s hour of rape scenes. As it was, at the film’s end I walked out of the theater quickly, feeling unclean, ashamed, and depressed. This movie is an expression of the most diseased and perverted darker human natures. Because it is made artlessly, it flaunts its motives: There is no reason to see this movie except to be entertained by the sight of sadism and suffering.

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“You need to dress like you have a job and parents who raised you in some kind of shame based American religious tradition.” - Liz Lemon

These are pics of some real life borders.

Belgium-Holland is at a cafe.

From Filip Bondy’s book about the Pine Tar Game:

And then Martin made a move that led to one of my favorite baseball moments: At the start of the game, Martin had reliever George Frazier appeal the play at first, claiming Brett had missed the bag during his home-run trot. When that was denied, Frazier appealed that Brett had missed second base and then appealed that Brett had missed third base. After all that, Martin stormed out of the dugout to shout there was no possible way the umpiring crew — a new umpiring crew — could know whether Brett had touched all the bases. Ha! Martin had them!</p>

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How Bad Should We Feel When the Willfully Unvaccinated Die?:

So when your cousin/high school friend/neighbor and people like them who choose not to get vaccinated contract COVID and die, while the temptation is to be all, welp, what did you expect, you fucked around and found out, entertain the notion that, alongside anything else about the situation, they have been victimized by people who largely knew better. There are people who know that a virus doesn’t care about politics, but decided to frame it as a political issue because doing so ultimately allows them to sell pillows and nutritional powders and reverse mortgages and gold coins and whatnot to the people they terrified and made angry and ignorant, and because they think that in the authoritarian future they are working so hard to bring about, somehow they will be the ones wearing the boots instead of being crushed under a heel like everyone else.

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All the people on Love Island need to be given a GED study guide and a Bible.

At the core, the Republicans hate anyone with swag. They don’t have any, so they’re jealous of anyone who does.

Men lie, women lie, buckets don’t.- Dion Waiters

A conversation I had with my pal, Lora a couple of years ago, when we’d both reached our 40s.

Lora: I’d be so much better and popular if I went back to high school now.

I love Mike Birbiglia’s comedy. His book had gems like the following:

The closest I had come to seeing a woman naked was in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Since my parents never gave me a sex talk, all I knew was that sex had something to do with swimming.

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This is the granddaddy of rap song translations. I think this was the first thing that was viral that I ever encountered.

What a life! I’ll return you to LaGuardia in time to catch your 8 o’clock flight. The timing is perfect because I have scheduled a date with a second woman who arrives at the same gate at 9 o’clock. I’ll seduce her in the same way that I seduced you. I rap well and I am a positive reflection of my home town. Not only am I a sexually deviant, misogynistic, immoral, wealthy, male prostitute, but I also sit on the board of directors of the organization that governs others of my kind.

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Bigger cash gift = better dinner?

What is it about weddings that make people think that insane stuff like this is OK?

I was talking to someone today about analyzing projects that have gone wrong at work. I said, “I love digging through projects and finding out what happened. It’s like a puzzle. But the answer inevitably infuriates me. So I am left with a conundrum: the thing that I love the most also brings me the greatest sadness.”

These are the types of people who are the greatest threats to our system:

…the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (ie. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (ie. the standards of thought) no longer exist.

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Game’s the same. Just got more fierce. - Slim Charles

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This is a very accurate reflection of my feelings about the Internet at large:

This is all exacerbated by the fact that the current state of the Internet and social media essentially renders it an emotional outlet plugged directly into each person’s id. It rewards extreme behavior, and people crave to be a part of something bigger than themselves, so of course they get pulled into taking part in a mob of like-minded individuals who are all saying similar things. It’s easy to get swept up in a sea of validation. I found myself there so many times, and only later, once the storm dissipated, did I sit back and consider the consequences of my own actions in that situation.

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I wish more people had this view today.

Gen. Mark Milley Delivers Powerful Defense of Studying Critical Race Theory:

Someone actually thought this was a great idea.

Houston tiger is being secretly passed around safe houses, police believe:

I am holding on to a conspiracy theory that this dude fed his victims to the tiger.

My great uncle Mohammad O’Halloran had a stop in Brussels when he was going from India to Ireland. He managed, in the span of 24.5 minutes, to father a boy named Pieter van der Ahmaad. I must travel to Belgium and reclaim my birthright.

Muneer: Steve and I have decided to embark upon a new business venture that we just realized has been approved by God. We are going to tailgate Covid vaccine lines and sell tasty ribs, sausages and hot links to the unwashed masses. The name of our business will be a combo of our names: Steer. God gave us both the perfect names to combine into a name for a predatory BBQ business.

Wife: Who’s doing the cooking?

I appreciate this man’s dedication to late night grilling.

In Grade 9, I accidentally became the head of a gambling syndicate at my school.

I was a young, fresh faced kid, and found out that you could win money playing blackjack. So in my usual fashion, I began expanding the operation. I soon had 5 tables in the lunch room with games going at lunch.

I think this is the best sports nickname ever:

Joe Biden Is Right: For America to Heal, We Must Find Common Ground With Trump Supporters:

TO STEAL ALL THE REMOTE CONTROLS AND SHOELACES FROM THEIR HOMES TO GRAB THEIR HANDS WHILE THEY’RE SLEEP AND PLACE THEM IN A BUCKET OF WARM WATER CAUSE I HEARD THAT MAKES PEOPLE PISS THE BED AND I ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE IF THAT WOULD REALLY HAPPEN I’LL REACH OUT THE WAY TOMMY REACHED OUT TO BILLY BATTS THE WAY OMAR REACHED OUT TO STRINGER BELL

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4 years ago, I woke up at 6am and navigated to Google. Seeing the words “Donald Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States” made my heart jump and sent me into a stupor.

America had just repudiated me and others like me. America said that they believed lies and fear mongering over facts. That day, America became just a country; it was no longer the shining beacon that immigrants strive to go to.

The True Story of Donald Trump, Secret Action Hero:

Jalen Rose, about Jimmy Butler’s boombox shaped fish tank:

I told my friend that my favorite cologne in college was Drakkar Noir.

She told me she’s glad to hear I was using birth control.

This is my favorite GIF to put into a group chat at random:

Police unions are all about protecting their own at all costs. Which I’d normally support. But not when it helps murderers walk free.

How Police Unions Fight Reform:

Steve: Donkey nannies are pretty cool.

Lisette: I am also too young, small and adorable for journeys. I want a donkey nanny.

Here are some great-lines from the book Unplugged by Joe Barrett:

You have to admire a man who has so thoroughly given up on life.

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I have this co-worker on a team full of people who manufacture idiotic crises that don’t actually matter. I was talking to her on Friday and she was talking about how vital she was to the company because she’d caught a potentially catastrophic error caused in part by her team’s unwillingness to improve. 

In a later conversation about this conversation with another co-worker, I said, “Yeah. We find our heroes where we can. Some people rescue children from burning buildings, others work with Covid patients. Nadine saves us from non-issues that everyone will forget about in 2 hours.”

I was forced to warn my good pal about this man. The following is an excerpt from that conversation:

Kyle Brandt Perfectly Called Out Coronavirus ‘Tough Guys’:

This video is what convinced me to drop my tough guy act and take Covid-19 as seriously as was warranted.

Even though the Dunning-Kruger Effect has been disproven, I think it still has some validity as a general yardstick.

the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

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This quote by Andy Warhol has always resonated with me as a way to explain my youth:

When a situation develops gradually, no matter how weird that situation is, you get used to it.

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A moral defense of Chidi’s swoleness:

As character, however, does Chidi’s clearly obsessive working out make sense? In other words, is it ethical to be that jacked? We examine the moral implications of obsessive working out through the lens of the three dominant philosophies Chidi himself mentions in the episode as ways to be good.

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mvp soundsystem

This is a really cool way to keep track of entertainment and ensure that you’ll always have a context for when and where you found it.

The Curse of Having an Opinion About Everything

To say: “I don’t have an opinion on that.” (Even if deep down we do!) To focus on the things in front of us that matter, or more importantly, that are in our control. There is plenty there for us. Plenty to keep us busy, and not miserable.

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Conspiracy Theorists Aren’t Really Skeptics:

Conspiracy believers are the ultimate motivated skeptics. Their curse is that they apply this selective scrutiny not to the left or right, but to the mainstream. They tell themselves that they’re the ones who see the lies, and the rest of us are sheep. But believing that everybody’s lying is just another kind of gullibility.

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The time we spent in Punta Cana was amazing. However, American Airlines was horrible during each trip.

Our flight going to the DR was supposed to be at 7.30am, Sunday, May 11.

The more I read through this article about Harold Ballard, the more I’m struck by how the rich can do whatever they want.

A History of Harold Ballard’s Villainy:

I was alleged to have written this. Believe me, I’d claim it if I had.

Back in 2013, it just said “BOOB”. It’s now at “BOOBS”:

There’s a family of hooligans currently laying waste to New Zealand. It’s delightful to read about.

As a nation, we are crippled by a pervasive tall poppy syndrome, which means all our comedy must be deadpan and every one of our heroes is obligated to be taciturn, lest they accidentally let on they’re proud of themselves.

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From the movie, the Seventh Seal:

“My indifference has shut me out. I live in a world of ghosts, a prisoner of dreams. I want God to put out his hand, show his face, speak to me. I cry out to him in the dark but there is no one there.

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My best friend got me this. It is one of my most treasured possessions.

These are some great-lines from Roger Ebert’s book, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie:

In which we determine how werewolves are made, how they are killed, and how they spread their wolfiness.

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Here are some great-lines from the book, Larry’s Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant–and Save His Life by Daniel Asa Rose:

I very much respect the fact that she misrepresented herself. It shows a native cunning that I appreciate. ___

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Towa Tei’s been the bomb since he was in Deee-Lite.

Most of these pastors are charlatans, but I appreciate that this guy takes it to the next level.

I really needed to read this post on Facebook from Will Sternberg:

I hate “we’re fucked.”

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Michael Lewis always does a great job of finding stories about blowhards who get exposed in public:

There were many stories very like the one Tom Vilsack told, about a loan they had made, in Minnesota, to a government-shade-throwing, Fox News-watching, small-town businessman. The bank held a ceremony and the guy wound up being interviewed by the local paper. “He’s telling the reporter how proud he is to have done it on his own,” said Vilsack. “The U.S.D.A. person goes to introduce herself, and he says, ‘So who are you?’ She says, ‘I’m the U.S.D.A. person.’ He asks, ‘What are you doing here?’ She says, ‘Well, sir, we supplied the money you are announcing.’ He was white as a sheet.”

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I loved this story from the Onion before the Cubs broke their curse:

I must be killed by a dagger, clutched in the hand of a true Cubs fan, plunged directly into my heart, and only then can the Cubs win a World Series title.

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Billy Crystal was really trying to fulfill all his fantasies in his films:

There is a lot of wish fulfillment in Forget Paris, from Billy Crystal falling in love with Debra freaking Winger—who plays Ellen, and quite charmingly—while having Laker Girls, Knicks City Dancers, Spurs Silver Dancers, and whatever they called the Supersonics’ cheerleaders as road beef.

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I love stories like this about simple kindness:

Jaden said Marshall and Kelley had complimented him on his Colin Kaepernick 49ers jersey when he walked into the video game store to inquire about the price of the Xbox One. Kelley said Marshall overheard Jaden mention something about saving up to buy the video game console and Marshall asked his teammate if he was interested in pitching in to buy it for him.

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You know you’re an adult when you can be right without proving the other person wrong.

I love Supreme’s typography, and then found out that they stole it from Barbara Kruger. Her stuff is much more interesting than Supreme.

Here are a few of my favs of hers:

I checked back in on this dude. He has not excommunicated men from his bedroom.

The astronomer’s nose: Tycho Brahe’s controversial prosthesis

Why did medieval people do all the cool stuff?

This shirt is so petty towards the Angels:

My pal to me at work today: “How about no one gets to rent a person?”

Here are some great-lines from Paul Feig’s book, Superstud:

What just a few minutes earlier had been my closest friend and comforter was now revealed to have been the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

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This is a collection of great-lines from the book Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubenstein. I highly recommend the audiobook:

There was his mother, naked with another man. Attila ran back to the cart, crying, while his father shouted, “Happy now?”

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A fan of my podcast, Hamsterdam, made this. Still one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me.

When I was in my freshman year at KU, I was playing basketball at the Robinson Center one afternoon. We had the run of the court because of my teammates’ scoring prowess and my extremely dirty play and ability to pull down rebounds in traffic.

Then, a group of tall gentlemen walked in. Among them was Paul Pierce, then a sophomore. I was assigned the task of guarding Pierce. I remember setting up in my stance. I looked to the left to check the guy on the wing. When I turned my head back around, Pierce was gone. I looked behind me, and he was laying the ball in about 10 feet away. Pierce is the quickest person I’ve ever encountered in my life. He blew past me twice more, and then I faked a calf injury to preserve what little of my pride was left.

I love this Reddit conspiracy theory about Belichick:

The Bill Belchick Theory, someone else posted this before in r/nfl.

From El-P, now of Run the Jewels, then of Company Flow:

From the TV show Justified, the great Raylan Givens:

You run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole; you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.

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Cam’ron dropped this jewel in “Losing Weight”:

Can’t get paid in a earth this big? You worthless kid!

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I got a call on a Thursday afternoon from [Suzie]. It was a curious call because the address on the intake form was a Canadian address. Prepaid Legal only sold plans to people in the US. Suzie had met [Gavin], a Canadian, online. After a whirlwind romance, Suzie and Gavin decided that they live together in Ottawa, where Gavin was living. They packed up all of her things into a U-Haul and then hitched her car to the U-Haul on a trailer.

The couple set out for the border crossing near Buffalo, NY. As Suzie and Gavin reached the border, the Canadian immigration officials asked if them if Suzie was emigrating or coming to Canada for vacation. Suzie replied that she was coming for vacation. Since most vacationers don’t bring 4 rooms worth of furniture and a car on a trailer for a vacation, Suzie was turned away at the border. At this point, Gavin got out of the truck and hitched a ride to Ottawa with another driver.

Right after the 2016 election, a lot of people on Metafilter commiserated about this new, horrible turn the country had taken:

First:

From Morgan Housel:

Real contrarianism is painful. It’s lonely. It hurts. It’s when everyone thinks you’re nuts.

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Before:

• In the event Donald Trump wins, I will be at my home until 4am, after which I will flee to Canada. I hope they have Starbucks near my company’s Saskatchewan office.

After:

I found this on Metafilter. It’s petty, but this a time for it. Please let me know what happens if you try this:

Just had someone comment about ‘agreeing to disagree’ after a ‘ HA HA this is great’ comment.

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When a company’s retirement materials say “Live to work now so you can work to live later”, run far, far away.

Von Miller explains commitment to Texas A&M over LSU by comparing them to girls:

A&M really wanted me,” Miller said. “You know that girlfriend that’s really not that attractive but she’s going to do everything she can to keep you? That was A&M. . . . That hot chick that just talks to you on Mondays? That was LSU.

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Odor should get five to eight games for throwing a punch. Anything more is penalizing him for effectiveness. - Joe Sheehan

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Some great lines from a Reddit thread:

“How you live each day is how you live your life.”

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Panthers CB Josh Norman: ‘Went Dark Knight’ after Dez Bryant disrespect

[Josh] Norman said he was so fired up during the week with talk about [Dez] Bryant possibly having a big day against him and the unbeaten Panthers (now 11-0) being an underdog that he had to go watch the movie “300” to get him to a dark place.

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I’m going to acquire a taxidermied white man to help me avoid unwanted interactions with the police.

This led to the following exchange in the Facebook comments:

From Joe Sheehan’s baseball newsletter:

The Mets seem to have real edges on both sides of the ball, ones that should be enough to make them the pick. However, they’re not managed by a witch. Royals in seven.

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I love this quote from Grant Brisbee’s article about the Royals:

They took the momentum into the 2015 season, and they’re a fully functional death machine right now.

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This morning, I saw a man driving a car with a hole in the bumper. Covering this hole was a teddy bear speared on there. I want to follow this man and learn his ways.

This is an eye opening comment from Reddit about the rich:

I can answer this one. For some reason, I attract these people into my life. I don’t do anything super extraordinary. I am not famous. But I count many peoplewith ultra high net wealth among my close friends and I have spent more time than even I can believe with 8 different billionaires. This is not just meet-and-greet time. This is small group and even one-to-one time. I dated the daughter of one billionaire several decades ago. So I have gotten a peek into this life.

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Have fun at your “work is forcing us to hang out, so I drink to loosen up, cheat on my wife in the supply closet, have to get a divorce, now my kids are from a broken home” parties.

From the Wikipedia entry for DJ Khaled:

After going to a doctor due to a bald spot on his beard the doctor told him he was “suffering from success” which inspired the album title.

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This is from a Fark comment:

1. You will have to choose from a wide selection of what are varying shades of white.

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Sports related pettiness is my favorite. Here’s Jeremy Guthrie taking a shot at his old team:

From The Onion:

Royals Defeat A’s, Ned Yost In Epic Play-In Game

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Whenever I need to test an artist’s skills, I ask them to draw me a salmon eating a bear.

Today, I conclusively proved to my wife that if something is not O.K., it is right. If we accept noted logician Whitney Houston’s 1999 theorem, “It’s Not Right, But It’s OK”, then we must accept that the converse is also true, ergo if it’s not OK, it’s right. Me FTW.Some great comments on this post:Lisa: Fail. Ms. Houston was not suggesting that all things that are “not right” are “ok.” In fact, the very subject of her song suggests that there are things that are both not right and not ok. Ergo, the logic that all things that are not ok are right doesn’t quite work….but she’s gonna make it anyway, so don’t you worry!Jes: A partial counter proof conclusively establishing the implicative ambiguity of Houston’s association: This chart is something I’ve loved since I first laid eyes on it.

I’m writing a reboot of Magnum P.I. where Magnum moves to the UK and serves in the House of Commons. It’s going to be called Magnum PI, MP.

If I went to jail, I’d get a waterfall tattooed on my face. If someone asked about it, I’d say, “The human body cannot produce that many tears.” It would make me a boss from Day 1.

He was on the same ship as my other uncle, Muhammad O’Halloran. They had a great enmity and so when Muhammad O’Halloran expressed his intent to get off in Ireland, Muhammad Cobretti jumped ship in Italy.

He became the eminent sausage maker in the country, which was puzzling because he remained Muslim and thus could never eat his creations.

On this day in 1845, my ancestor Muhammad O’Halloran reached Ireland after fleeing a famine in India. He only had a chance to have a couple of potatoes before the Potato Famine hit. My bloodline has never had good luck.

I spent a couple of weeks at one of NCS Pearson’s grading warehouses back in 2001.

When I got there, it was just as was described in the article: I had a one day orientation and then was given sample essays to grade to see that I could follow the rubric.

These are some good quotes about conservatives from Metafilter:

2nding George Lakoff’s Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think. He uses cognitive metaphor theory to elucidate how different the basic political intuitions of American conservatives and liberals are. For both the nation is like a family where government plays the role of parents, and the rest of us are the children. Conservatives, however, see the world as a dangerous place where a tough-love parenting style is appropriate, while liberals see the world as a basically pleasant opportunity for personal exploration where the appropriate parenting style is nurturing.

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Ice on “The Hunger Games”:

If they can hunt so good, why don’t they just hunt food?

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I was thinking of watching the movie where Common falls in love with Queen Latifah, but I’m not really in the mood for science fiction.

This article articulates my opinion of corporations claiming religious conscience better than I ever could:

…if someone serving in the military came to me and said they wanted me to defend their right to refuse military service, but that they also wanted to keep their job and be paid as if they were actually serving in combat, I would laugh in their face.

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Kendrick Lamar’s verse on “Control” has sparked a controversy in the hip hop world. After going down a rabbit hole, I found this awesome article about the stories behind 50 rap beefs. I will present the highlights without comment, because they need no embellishment.

Nicki Minaj “Roman’s Revenge” (2010) Target: Lil Kim “… the track left the once-legendary Kim grasping for straws and desperately lying about mixtape sales on Paypal.”

English teacher: What do you think of as the American Dream?

Me: To live in a mansion with Benzes.

My speedometer says “BOOB”.

Is there any evidence that it was stolen, or is it possible she just forgot it at the café and an unscrupulous barista picked it up? I mean, sucks to lose your iPad, and at best the barista behaved unethically by not reporting it, but this wasn’t necessarily a premeditated crime.

Yeah, this is extremely classist, self-righteous, and condescending. Especially because she was not actually robbed – as far as I can tell she forgot her iPad at a cafe and then didn’t even notice for several days.

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It’s easy to be snarky and cynical. Hell, that’s my default mode. But, we all need to take a few minutes each day to think about how amazing and wondrous the world around us is. We are all able to live in the best country on Earth, we have our health (most of us), and there are people out there who care about us. To get mad at little things like someone cutting us off in traffic or someone getting the last Diet Coke out of the vending machine is a drop in the bucket of life. I’m going to start trying to brush these things aside and look at the brighter side of things.

Bad things can and do happen, but through all that, we need to maintain our sense of hope and optimism that the world is a good place. We need to actively make our world one we want to live in. A smile and a nice comment can brighten everyone’s day and doesn’t cost a thing. Doing something for a loved one without them asking can turn their day around. Simply spending time with someone shows that they are valued. We have the ability to change our environment from negative to positive.

There is a man out there named Boris Chinchilla, and he has made love with a woman.

My pal Steve posted this to Facebook:

I’ve been helping out at Bonner Animal Rescue recently, and I’m slowly getting to know its denizens on a level that is only achieved when you’ve thrown off all pretense, looked someone square in the eye, chucked them under their chin and scooped their poop into a plastic bag for disposal. Take this handsome devil—he’s gone by many names over the years, making use of a dozen passports and at leas…t as many types of currency. For now he is known as “Snickers,” an obvious reference to his unflappable air of self-satisfaction and inability to eat just one peanut. At a standing height of 12” and a frolicking height of 20.3”, Snickers cuts a diminutive figure. Don’t be fooled, though—this feline has lived life (several of them, in fact) to the full.

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A man called in to complain about his car being damaged. He was working at a building where people had to pay for parking. So, this man decided to park in a side street to avoid the fees.

Man: They forced me to park in the side street.

A man called in the day after Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. Obama’s victory had convinced this man that the U.S. would soon become  a “Socilist” haven that would target God fearing people such as himself. So, this man decided he wanted to emigrate to Ireland.

Man: So, do I call the U.S. Embassy in Ireland about this?

A man called in about evicting his adult stepdaughter from his home. Stepdaughter was originally supposed to stay for two weeks while she found a new job, and then was to get her own apartment. Six weeks had now passed, and stepdaughter was whiling away her days sleeping and watching TV. He asked what the usual eviction process was. I explained that a letter would usually be sent to the tenant, along with a notice of eviction being attached to the apartment door.

Man: So, can you send a letter to [stepdaughter]?

A woman called in about the deterioration in her cellphone service. She was a legacy customer of Cellular One, which had recently been acquired by U.S. Cellular. I asked her when her contract was up, and she told me it would expire in 2 months’ time. So, I offered to contact U.S. Cellular to see if they would let her cancel her contract with no penalty.

Woman: I don’t want to cancel! I want better service.

A man called in with an unusual request. He needed me to contact Interpol on his behalf. This man had gotten into touch with some men in the African nation of Benin (I wasn’t told how the two parties met). The man calling me had completed a couple of transactions with these men to buy diamonds, spending around $2,000 each time. After the completion of the second sale, the Beninois told the man they had an unbelievable deal for him. They would send him a diamond worth at least $1,000,000 for only $50,000. The man promptly wired the money to Benin. After the money was received, the Beninois mysteriously disappeared.

Me: Did you know these people personally?

An elderly woman called in about a website she had “bought”. A nice man called her approximately two months earlier and said that for only $10,000, his company would sell her a website that would make her money. After the money was sent to the nice man, he mysteriously stopped taking the woman’s calls.

Me: So what exactly were you going to be selling?

A woman called in about being discriminated against at work because she was African American. She said that her manager was not giving her the same hours as all the other employees. I sent her a questionnaire to fill out to get more detail about the case. About a week later, I got the paperwork back and called her. She sent in a work schedule as part of her packet.

Me: I am looking at this schedule, and I see that there is a Sheneneh and Laquanda [names changed]. May I presume that they’re African American as well?

This woman called in wanting me to contact a lender who had not sent her money from a loan she was promised. The woman had seen a commercial about real estate investing. This commercial directed viewers to contact a specific lender to get the loans they needed to begin living their dreams. After doing some research and finding the lender on LendingTree.com, the woman determined that the lender was “legit”.

Me: Well, what did you use as collateral?

A man called in about his son’s expulsion from the local school district. Dad wanted son to be reinstated at once. It was imperative because the young lad’s cheerleading career hung in the balance. The new school didn’t recognize the son’s brilliant cheering abilities. It was the kid’s senior year; his time to shine.

Man: He’s really a good kid. All he did was a dance called the “Party Boy”. Some teacher got all bent out of shape about it and told on him.

A woman called in about the police unfairly targeting her son. The son’s phone was found near the scene of an arson; he was currently sitting in jail.

Woman: They’re always accusing him of stuff!

One of the first consulations I did at the law firm was a head scratcher. This woman went to Odessa, TX and booked a three night stay at a budget motel. The premises were apparently so unsafe that she was forced to stay inside her room for the majority of the day. When she did go out once a day for ice, she had to be escorted by a member of the hotel staff. Of course, she wanted the hotel to compensate her for “pain and suffering”. Naturally, some questions arose.

Me: Why didn’t you go to another motel?

I was once screamed at by a woman outside the Monterey Bay Aquarium for not being proud of my Latino heritage.

Everyone knows I love a good rap song translation.

Here’s one of Bandz A Make Her Dance by Juicy J:

6 Insane True Stories More Badass Than Any Action Movie:

Upon coming to the conclusion that the robber wasn’t going to leave, even despite his bitchin’ speech, Khan strolled to the counter and grabbed a handful of chili powder – which you’ll note is absolutely not money – threw it in the criminal’s face and then punched him with a chili-laced fist for good measure. Now if you’ve ever touched your eyes or, heavens forbid, your wang after handling chili powder, you can just imagine this criminal’s immense pain, which was hopefully only compounded by the punch to the face and the resulting shame he felt as he ran bawling while Khan chased him out of the store.

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This is an awesome in-depth look into Tupac Shakur’s life:

He always thought he was going to die young, and his paranoid (but very real) mindset obviously is a factor on how much he recorded.

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I was in Bangladesh back in 2006. I am much lighter skinned than most of the people in that country.

While I was there, my 20 year old cousins had several friends over for a birthday party. While we were talking, I let slip that I used 3-4 tubes of Fair and Lovely every day and had done so for the past 10 years. Thus, I had much lighter skin. All of the girls ooh’ed and aah’ed, delighted to see someone they knew who had gotten such great results using such a product.

And that’s why you should learn to pick your battles.:

This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read

Too Close for Comfort:

He threatened he would start wearing a suit to games, because “this is obviously just a business.”

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Fred Davis, Attorney at Law: The Courtroom Transcripts:

Chaka cross-examination of Davis on April 10, 2012

These are some Muneerisms to help you live a better life:

Early to bed, early to rise means that the opposite sex doesn’t find you attractive.

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I want to buy $1 houses in Detroit and become a land baron. My property would be guarded by a team of street urchins. My wife refuses to let me put my plan into action.

Soon, Muneerian Detroit will have the same connotations as Disckensian London

Watched ‘Accepted’ last night. The movie reminded me that I need to buy hobo stab insurance.

With one exchange, my self-identity has been thrown into doubt:

Steve: Hate the game, not the player…

The one thing my parents taught me was exactly how interest works. So, when I got to college in the late 90’s, I avoided the credit card company tables like the plague. My friends and dorm mates snapped up the hats, t-shirts, and knick knacks along with the credit cards they were subsidized by.

One night, I’m sitting in my friend’s room and notice that he has a new CD changer. On top of that, he’s ordering pizza for the third straight night. We came from similar economic backgrounds and I was broke as hell, so I asked him how he was making all this dough. “Oh man, I just charge it, and then pay $20 on it each month.” I began to tell him that he was only paying interest, and if he’s only making $20 payments, he’ll be paying that card off until he’s 30. His face suddenly fell, kind of like when a dog figures out that the steak you’ve just made isn’t for him.

Physical, emotional meltdown haunts Hunter Strickland, costs Giants:

Machi, whose locker was to the left of Strickland’s, wanted no part of it at all. A clubhouse attendant cut through the throng to grab Machi’s pink jeans and plaid shirt for him.

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When Mr. Belvedere first started airing in Saudi Arabia, it enthralled me. (Note: I was 8 at the time.) Here’s this English dude who seems like he did alright for himself in England. He moves to America and is no better than a common servant. Plus, he knew the Royal Family, corresponded with British officials, and seemed to possess things that only a rich person could afford.

It made me think that America was a place where any immigrant would be forced to live in servant quarters and serve his new American master. Which was significant because the next year, my dad announced we were moving to the USA.

The Shame of College Sports:

This article is what opened my eyes to the predatory practices of the NCAA.

(Author’s note: I am stealing an idea from Sean Keane and expanding upon it. I am assuming his mantle as a distinguished scholar in hip hop theory, philosophy, and technique. My first lesson will go to a time before Mr. Keane’s seminal essay and analyze “Nuthin’ But A G Thang” by Dr. Dre and featuring Snoop Dogg.)

The song in question is a tale of mutual loyalty and general badassery. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg not only illuminate the listener as to their individual and combined strengths, but also pass on individual personal lessons that young listeners can apply to their own lives, lest they get burnt.

This hippo always makes me laugh:

My favorite XKCD line ever:

A pal of mine is an attorney, and was doing a deposition related to a mesothelioma case in Illinois.

He asked the witness how long he worked each day. The guy replied, “You want to know how long I worked, or how long I clocked in?” My friend asked him to explain.

Baron Davis’s reaction to this dunk always gets me amped up.

Last night, I was being bullied by my co-workers into bringing treats today. I know it was bullying because I watch Oprah and she knows what she’s talking about.

So, I go to Munchers, and ask them for 2 dozen mini cinnamon rolls in a box and then 6 in a paper bag. I walked into the office belligerently holding the paper bag, telling people that their treats are here. I got death stares, looks of confusion and hurt, and outright rage.  Once I felt that the blood pressure of my co-workers had risen an acceptable amount, I went to my car and got the box. Looks of relief and phrases such as, “I was trying to figure out how I was going to screw you over” flowed in abundance. 

[Friend]: We’ll bring something nice to eat. I’m not sure what, though. Any suggestions?

Muneer: I believe you should bring king prawns simmered in butter and curry powder.

A friend of mine and I were recently talking about this and came to the conclusion that there is no longer a positive reason to be an “adult”.

Back in the times of our grandparents, there were sectors of society (lodges, etc.) that one could only gain entry to if one was deemed an adult. It was an exclusively adult realm and thus may have made getting a wife to keep up appearances more desirable.

Besides Dick Cheney in a Go Kart, this is the most unsettling picture I’ve ever seen.

My schedule for July 2010

I don’t know where I found this, but it checks out:

I’ve figured out the moral of the LeBron story: Stay in school.

I don’t know why, but this pic always chills me to the core. The smile is that of someone who knows he’s about to screw over tons of people.

Truer words were never spoken:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with an eviction notice and a restraining order.

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Report: Majority Of Newspapers Now Purchased By Kidnappers To Prove Date:

“The sober authority of the printed word continues to hold value for those attempting to extort large sums of money from wealthy people who wish to see their loved ones alive again, and not chopped into pieces and left in steamer trunks on their doorsteps.”

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Reggie Miller – I’m No Homewrecker, Just a Flirt

The entire Southern California coastline was roped into the story last weekend, after Alex von Furstenberg – the son of designer Diane von Furstenberg – hired a small plane to fly over the beaches with a sign that read, “Reggie Miller Stop Pursuing Married Women.”

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One of my fave FML posts:

Today, I walked home from a guy’s dorm early in the morning, still wearing my dress and heels from the night before. I walked by a mother and her little daughter, who said “Mommy, why is she so dressed up so early in the morning?” and the mom replied “Because honey, she makes bad decisions.” FML

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This week’s post concerns a plan I’ve had in my mind for quite a while. It’s a bit unorthodox, but I am convinced that if I can pull it off, I will be rich and notorious beyond my wildest dreams.

With the advent of democracy throughout the world, there has been increased attention paid to public works. Part of these public works are zoos. As most people know, the more animals a zoo has, the better. The panda has long been a subject of fascination in the U.S. I remember back in the day when the major networks’ nightly newscasts had a panda sex watch for the two pandas in the DC Zoo at the time. I later learned from my pal Chiangstein that the reason these pandas didn’t do the nasty was because the wily Chinese government gave the silly Americans an old male panda and a young female panda. Think Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones in “Entrapment”. Yeah, I wouldn’t have done it either.

My friends say that my hatred of the French and France is an overreaction on my part. They say that I was only in the airport, and thus did not get a true picture of the French as a people. To these points I say boo. If you would have been in my shoes on that fateful day in December of 2005 when I had the misfortune of landing in the Most Horrid Country On Earth™, you would feel the same as I do.

Before I begin my tale of woe, let me make two points:

Darko is a Serbian gangster!

“I’m telling you, Darko is a Serbian gangster,” Rasheed Wallace said. “Darko’s got some bodies back there (in Serbia-Montenegro). He can go psycho on guys.”

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My favorite quote from Volltaire is from Candide:

For my part, I read only to please myself. I like only that which serves my purpose.

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