Jumbo Shrimp

There are lots of things that don't make sense in this crazy world of ours. For instance, the existance of a word called oxymoron. I mean, why would there even need to be a word that describes something that contradicts itself? It seems really stupid that we have words and phrases that are capable of contradicting themselves, but alas, that is the case, and such is the way of life.

Everyone is familiar with oxymorons, you've got your jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, southern hospitality, not-awesome-people named jon and so on and so forth, but overall, the true meaning of the word seems overshadowed by the fact that none of these things are truely that contradictory.

Sure, there are funny plays on words, but i propose now that we should in fact change the definition of the word oxymoron to describe things that are moronic. Doesn't that seem to fit better? Isn't the fact that the word oxymoron doesn't have "moron" in the definition seem moronic already? Or should i say, oxymoronic? Ok, that was terrible, but bear with me here.

One of the things i've never understood was lights or whistles or anything that takes extra power to do, that indicate that you're running out of power. My cell phone makes all these extra sounds, and starts blinking icons when the battery is about to run out. It uses way more power telling me that the battery is going to run out instead of i don't know, saving it's batteries. That, my friends, is oxymoronic.

My laptop actually does the same thing. When I unplugged it to sit somewhere else to write this, a little light came on, indicating that the battery was now in use. Thanks. Well, i guess i shouldn't be too critical lest the battery might explode in my face, but if that happens, well, i guess you won't be reading this anyway, so it won't matter.

Perhaps one of the most mind boggling vortexes of oxymoronic behavior i have ever seen was on an iron. Not iron as in the chemical compound "fe" but an iron as in the thing you press your clothes with. What's that you say? It's fashionable to have crumpled up clothes? You don't even know what an iron is? Well, you, my friend, suck. And look like a hobo. So go out and buy a fucking iron to see what i'm talking about.

But i digress. I witnessed an iron once, that was plugged in, used, then turned off. Now, the entire time it was being used, it made no indication that it was on except for the fact that you could burn your hand off if trying to grab it by the metal end which one could have done quite easily due to the fact that nothing on the iron (save the heat) indicated that it was on at all. Once the iron was turned off however, a light came on. A light to indicate that the iron was off. Let me repeat that. A light came on to indicate that the iron was off.

Needless to say, upon seeing this, my brain melted and leaked out my nose. In the most mind-bogglingly dumb show of terrible design ever conceived by man (and this includes the invention of the fart extinguisher), i could do nothing but take a step back and take in the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Like i said, my brain melted, and leaked out my nose. What more is there to say? I'll tell you what, nothing.



Mitch Hedberg's QotD:

I got a lamp in my hotel room and it has a 3-way lightbulb in it. If you don't know a lightbulb is a 3-way lightbulb, it messes with your head, because you go to turn it off and it just gets brighter. Like "Damn it, lightbulb, that's the exact opposite of what I wanted you to do." And then you turn it again and it gets brighter once more. "I will break you."

Five Years...

(Yes, it's gotten to the point where my ability to come up with stuff has been a bit stifled due to splitting my attention between job, blog, other blog, so I present to you, a reprint from an article I wrote on Fulmer's Belly)

It’s really hard to believe that it’s already been 5 years since that morning where the world changed. Up until that point, a lot of the dangers, as real as they were, seemed somewhat distant. Somewhat lessened in impact and severity because it was all happening on another continent, in another world. That all changed that morning in New York, and in Washington, when a handfull of people took it upon themselves to forever change the lives of an entire country.

As unfortunate as it is, it seems that every generation has a rallying cry, a focal point, which usually manifests itself in some for of tragedy. This was ours. Our chance to stand up in the face of fear. Our chance to make a statement about our resiliancy. Our chance to be strong.

I am an avid believer that we must move on, but also believe that we should never lose sight of the lessons we learned on that day. No one is immune from the harshness of reality, but in the face of ultimate despair, often we can find our greatest strength. The world will go on. We will survive. Freedom will persevere.

It’s an incredible world we live in, and on the fifth anniversary of the day the world changed around us, we should always be thankful of the world we live in. We’re able to write about and discuss sports with our friends and colleagues, we’re able to root for our team, go to the games and escape from the sometimes all-too-real world if only for a few hours a week. I for one, will try my best not to take for granted the fact that freedom isn’t free.
I realize that this has been incredibly solemn, and assure you that there will be an exceptional amount of tomfoolery and ridiculous writing to make up for it, and I’m almost done, I swear.

Here we are, half a decade later, and it’s sometimes hard to see if we’re any better or worse off. I can tell you, we are in fact better off, because we have moved on, and we look to the future.

Thanks for putting up with this. Go out and do something that brings you joy today, it’ll make ‘em crazy.

It's Football Time...

I realize that i've neglected to post anything here in two weeks. Well, i was back in the motherland of tennessee for the last week, and while i was getting my sweet tea on, i was also unable to find an acceptable place to pirate someone's wifi signal.

That being said, i will try to have something good up and going, and i'm going to try to get some guest posters on here as well.

Stay in school.