The older you get, the more you have to the same task over and over. Here are a few that I’m frankly sick of:
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Cleaning the shower – Water leads to mold and there is no place that gets more water than the shower. I feel like I always just cleaned the shower and 2 months go by. In a place where I’m cleaning my body, it doesn’t make sense to have the shower be dirty.
Trimming my nose hairs – I swear to god they multiply. I’ll remove 5 or 6 in one pull and the next day there are 50 still there. I wouldn’t describe it as painful, but you know you hit a tough one when your eyes start to water.
Dust on the TV stand– I don’t exactly know where all the dust comes from but once it’s cleaned, it rejuvenates right back. Dust doesn’t bother me as much as grime, but still annoying.
Look familiar?
Bills – Knowing that bills will never stop for the rest of your life can be a bit depressing. It’s like you are indebted to water, gas, cable, phone, and electric for eternity. They should offer some sort of extremely expensive rate to never have to pay bills again. I would consider it.
Exercise – It doesn’t matter if you exercise for a year straight because you can nix it all away in a month of being stagnant. Exercising is a way of life and although eating right and not putting bad, well, anything in your body helps, you’ll still notice a difference.
How much do I know about the strength of America? Nothing.
What do know about the people from Chechnya, Russia? They are a bunch of bad asses.
If you watch Real Sports with Bryant Gumble last night, you’d know that the 30 minute segment about MMA in Chechnya inspired this post. I’ve heard positive remarks about Real Sports but never tune in because I don’t know when it’s on. I was watching Highly Questionable yesterday and they did their Si or Non and previewed this piece which is how I knew about it.
What is Chechnya?
Ramzan Kadyrov and Mike Tyson
First things first, Ramzan Kadyrov is the “head of the republic” of Chechnya. He is an underling of Putin and has built Chechnya up with this alliance (I’ve also read he uses public funds for personal benefit). He gained this leading role after his father was assassinated by Chechen Islamists in 2004. Forgive me for not knowing the exact facts of the situation, but Ramzan leads an Islam population that is at constant odds with other Islam groups. It’s a war torn country who has found some solace being under Russia’s wing. It’s a fascinating read to understand how this relationship developed over the last decade.
Why Do We (the US) Care?
Kadyrov has devoted a portion of his time to the creation of Akhmat Fight Club. The Fight Club, named after his deceased father, trains Chechen males in MMA style fighting. Kadyrov says that they are the toughest fighters on the face of Earth because they have been bred by war and fighting in a cage with pads is a walk in the park. Loyalty is unconditional to Kadyrov and the ultimate fighters are those who are not only champions, but also serve in the army. These are bad men and are waiting to show the world, specifically the UFC, how bad they are.
Start them young. 5,000 youths are involved in the Fight Club.
The Real Sports piece was not only an informational segment, it interviewed Kadyrov directly which was an interview he hasn’t given a Westerner in years. Aside from the MMA, he was asked about the way his nation treats gays. Allegedly, the Chechen army goes around and collects gay people and tortures / kills them to rid them from this country. Of course Kadyrov denies this happens (he denies there are any gays in Chechnya), but journalists will report on these circumstances, only to find themselves 6 feet under once their report is released.
Kadyrov is not a fan of the West, specifically the US, and laughed / threatened when he was asked if he sees the West as a threat. I wish I could quote his exact words but it was something like, “we are the toughest people on the planet, they would stand no chance against our army as we’ve seen and done it all.” His personal philosophy (once again not a direct quote) is “to die in battle would be an honor”.
Today I wanted to get a better answer to this question, because as I sat there last night thinking about it, the breeding of an army that has been through war like the Chechnya army has to be an advantage. These are die-hard individuals who have nothing to lose based off of where they came from.
When I Googled Chechnya, I saw they have a population of 1.34 million people. Russia has 144 million. The USA is 300 million deep and I’m not sure it makes much of a difference how tough you are when you are outnumbered 2-1. I certainly would think that invading Chechnya would result in more casualties than I’d care to think, but this doesn’t seem like a war they would win.
What struck me as thought provoking was that I knew 0 about Chechnya prior to this piece. There is so much out in this world that I know 0 about. If I had to fight a Chechen warrior, I would bet on my running skills to cause a draw. If our army was made up of people like me, we’d lose. To know that I grew up with the privilege to be whoever I wanted to be without worrying about my life is what scared me a bit about what Chechnya has. These people are literally not scared of death. I’m worried about getting bitten by a snake. Even with 1.3 million people, it makes me wonder how tough the American army is. The current count is 1.4 million in our Army. If there are 1.3 million fighting Chechen’s, this would be tougher than you think. Even tougher when Russia gets involved.
Hopefully this puts the US’s position in this world with a bit more clarity. Our citizens think we are the strongest, toughest, nation in the world. These people laugh at how weak we are. They see the instability of Trump and the US isn’t even a threat. Very humbling to start to come to grips with the reality of the fragility of this world. I’m sure Floyd knew what he was doing.
I noticed my last 3 months of post totals were 20, 20, and 17. This is coming off of 11 straight months of 20+ posts which would indicate a decline. This month I’m only at 8 (this is 9) and it’s already the 18th. There are a few reasons for this which I understand when I look back at posts from previous years.
Original Content – This is the main reason why my post numbers are down. Since I don’t post as much garbage, it takes me longer to produce posts. With the business that is running, my free time is not what it once was (I used to post a lot at work). When I can’t post at work and I don’t post on the weekends, I’m left with some hours that I’m awake that I’m not always blogging. If I felt comfortable posting in 30 minutes, I could poop out posts a plenty, but I’m hoping to keep the quality up.
More posts ≠ Better – Yes that’s right, I used an unequal sign for the first time ever. Back on track, I look back and I’d posts gifs and videos which are found everywhere nowadays. Barstool is making a mockery of itself by posting videos that are found on Reddit day after day. If you don’t read Reddit, you think how original they are, but websites need more than regurgitating what every other site has to differentiate. Not that this website will ever have quite the following, but it seems that consistent, original content is what people crave. Which technically goes against the title of this section but it’s too late to change it. More posts are better, but not necessarily trash posts.
What To Post – Easily the hardest part of blogging. Topical events are great but people read these everyday from analysts who are way smarter than me and have far better sources for material. No one cares what my thought is on some athlete who made the headlines for being dumb. So that makes me have to be me and come up with topics that no one writes about that relate specifically to my life. I’ve grown wise to the idea that Google is not going to send people to this blog to read about my life. However, if I find a topic that I create meaningful info on, then perhaps it will be read again after it falls into the website’s indexed abyss.
The GoT post is a good example of a post that no one else can write but me. Most people can give reviews of the first episode and what they believe will happen. I can take a position that no one can take because it’s my own personal viewpoint. I’m trying to do more of that with posts but it’s hard because they don’t always pop up on a daily basis. As these years go on, I like to think the blog evolves to a higher form but it is what it is.
Our company sells a product that requires a gas to operate. Most people are familiar with propane (the gas for your grill), but not Acetylene. Acetylene is a gas that burns hotter than propane and is a bit more combustible. I was doing research for a blog post and needed to test out the product with Acetylene gas which caused me to buy an Acetylene tank from the local welding supply. When I called the store, I asked if there were any issues with me picking up the gas in my sedan, he assured me it is fine.
Burnt out Car.
I drove down and paid for the tank. On the counter they have a picture of a car exploding and giving a warning not to store / travel with tanks in enclosed vehicles. RIGGGGHHHT…. So I get the tank and put it in my car and within 5 seconds of moving forward the tank shifts, the valve moves against the door, and acetylene starts coming out of the tank. I start flipping out thinking that the tank is going to explode and try to get my brain to simultaneously put the car in park and exiting the vehicle to move the tank outside. I eventually do so and get the worker to shut it off. No damage done, but I was pretty freaked out.
I drove back in total horror before reaching my destination safely. I share this story not to make mention of how much of an idiot I was, but to harp on how easy it is to be afraid of the unknown. In my mind, this acetylene tank could blow up if a ray of sunlight hit it. I have no experience with it and it’s easy to get caught up in a worst case scenario type thinking when you are uneducated. More likely than not, acetylene is way safer than I perceive if treated properly. This experience though taught me valuable lessons though that I won’t forget. 1) Secure gas in a vehicle 2) Don’t fuck around with your life 3) Understand what you are getting into before you actually get into it. In this scenario me taking the word of the employee was a bit too nonchalant for my liking.
When you don’t know something, it’s easy to be scared of the results. For me, I feel like I have a good feel of the unknown in the general sense. Not too much can upset me with the future but when I put my life at risk (in my mind), I had to be more cognizant.
I’m leaning towards yes, but that’s just me. I’m hoping this post gets an Andrew Gourlay response because I like to hear his views on our President. I personally find mocking news reporters a bit childish acting as the President. Not a good look. These are the type of comments that take neutral party people like myself and get me to start to ask, “how dumb are you?” My general political views are apathetic. There are so many parties caring about what is going on that they don’t need anymore. I’m not even sure what the President’s responsibilities are and what he actually does on his own. As such, I don’t worry much because – checks and balances, Congress, the House of Representatives, Senate, the FBI, the EPA, the NBA, the EPL, Ronald McDonald, and the Hamburgler. They’ll figure it out.
My tech world has been spun upside down lately. I’ve been using “make your head spin” when people aren’t going to understand what I’m trying to communicate. It’s also is a good way to make what I’m about to say more important. Back to my tech world which has been in a twirl.
Back when hacking was cool.
Security Scare – I was worried that my computer was infected when I got an email from Google saying someone tried to log in to my Gmail account. This put me on a mission to alter passwords and make sure I was up to date on all my patches. It’s alarming to think that I was altering passwords that someone may have had a keystroke log on my system (Evan assured me this isn’t much of a concern). There were no real indications of a breach and I moved from Windows 7 to Windows 10 for extra security. This process was relatively seamless but caused a few new problems. I want to add that the Gmail email was a phishing scam as well.
Outlook -After I moved to Windows 10, Outlook was not indexing my emails properly which was causing issues searching through 3 years of emails (a major hindrance). I had about 3 years of emails on one PST file and I wanted to back it up to move to Outlook 365. Unfortunately the file was so big (19gb) that I was having a significant problem getting the file to backup properly while I was using the computer. I ended up archiving a few years worth of data to make this more manageable with the hope that the switch over with multiple PST files to upload is easier.
JC’s Laptop – In one of the weirder stories, my dad allowed some random 3rd party to get remote access to his computer (old people…). The guy told him that he needed $100 dollars to install the latest “malware” defense. JC had no idea what was going on, called me, I told him to shut down the computer immediately (having no clue who it was), and next thing he knew he couldn’t boot up. I took his computer and ran defender scans and it came up perfectly clean with no issues whatsoever. He ended up going to a fake Discover card website and inputted his card number and either social or who knows what else. From what I can tell he came out clean but people are getting low nowadays.
I posted my finishing picture, race start, and a link to the post I wrote on my Facebook page and it received 50 likes. That’s unheard of when you lead with a quote from Dave Gildea. Plus I didn’t even put the post on the FB race page because the link wasn’t taking which is a whole other issue. For those wondering, which is not many, instead of adding the link to my page, I added the album with a link to the blog which is seemingly preferred.
If the fill in the blank is “black man”, I have to shake my head. Using the underline isn’t exactly being obscure.
I ask myself, “why did this post receive more attention than pretty much any post I’ve ever put on Facebook?” A few thoughts:
It was a decent picture. I ran a high pass / overlay in Photoshop and it made it come out sharp with detail. The picture itself is what it is, me finishing a 5k, which apparently is new to a lot of people as well.
The time was surprising for a 33 year old. Most people have families or work and are unable to stay in shape throughout their life. Considering I have neither, I’m able to post a reasonably fast time for my age group. Whether people can translate this effectively is as good as anyone’s guess.
A few people started liking / commenting on the post. Once the post gets more than 10 likes, the group think starts churning and makes people think it’s better than what it really is. The exact number of people who came over from Facebook was 50 with a bounce rate of 80%. At least read the post!
I conclude that people follow the herd. I’ve been doing races for over a decade and no one gives a shit. This particular case was sprung by a decent picture, a few comments, and maybe a slow news day in summer. It’s pretty much why trying to understand social media can be a giant headache. We all know that the only events people care about are getting married, getting a girlfriend, or having a baby. Guaranteed 100 likes.
I’ll comment on the vanity it takes to need social media approval. This little experiment of posting the race doesn’t have me yearning for more approval. I don’t want approval from someone who doesn’t know the difference between a 5k and 5 mile time. I’d rather have 1 “genuinely understanding” like than a million sheeple. It’s sad if you prefer the inverse which is more apparent nowadays.
I was sitting at the bar and the movie Kick Ass was playing. The girl in the movie is Chloe Grace Moretz and a guy at the bar said, “that girl is gorgeous, I’d totally F her.” I’ve never seen Kick Ass, or know who Chole Grace Moretz was, so I was judging off a quick glance, but I felt like the term gorgeous didn’t apply. Now since I’ve done some further research, I see that she’s the girl in Neighbors 2 who I thought was pretty, but not “gorgeous.” I’ll also add that the bartender said she has a potato face which I gathered was mushed.
Gorgeous = beautiful, very attractive Pretty – attractive in a delicate way without being truly beautiful or handsome
I would say that Chloe Grace Moretz is more on the pretty side, but obviously no slouch (that picture was chosen to make my point but she looks way better as she’s aged). Words get thrown around too recklessly that they start to lose all meaning. When people use the word “interesting”, I substitute “I can’t think of any better word to use and don’t give a shit”. Since I’ve been doing the crossword puzzles, my vocab has gotten better, but I still have a hard time placing precise words. Yesterday I learned what astral means but I could never use it in a sentence. This comes from aging which means that your brain is getting filled with a lot more useless information like words and shit and shit. I would love to sound smart, but it ain’t happening.
If I was going to use “gorgeous”, I’d go with these:
I’ve been looking at moving rnningfool.com to a dedicated server to speed it up. I know it’s like a turtle with all of the gifs I put on. Only little problem is it moves the annual expense of about $150, to nearly $1,000. I’ve never run ads on the site (except that one time Gapinski clicked on the same ad 20 times and got me banned from AdSense) and I don’t intend to. I’d also never ask people for money. I’m only writing this post so people know I’m struggling to make this decision. As much as I want to make the site as best as I possibly can, the benefits of a speedier site have little pay off to me personally.
All that being said, I’ve been extremely busy at work and haven’t had my usual breaks to post like I prefer to. I’m not sure how many people actually check this site on a multiple times a day basis, but know that I do my best to update as much as I can even if the post is filler like this. Also please comment and tell me the site is extremely slow as that may sway my decision. Enjoy the video below.
We were considering some team names for our bowling squad and the title of this post was my favorite. There’s something about the absurdity of the way the words go together. Gaping is a word that runs its course with moist, that isn’t associated with any other activity other than you know what. Throwing in a grapehole is just flat out funny. Next you have to take into context the movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Leonardo plays a special kid. I still literally laugh when I read the title because I’m not sure if it’s offensive or ridiculous.
I’m a big Jimmy Carr fan too. His jokes are always crossing the line and I find him hilarious.
She’s a walking, talking, Stephen Hawking. She’s brainier than Kurt Cobain’s garage ceiling.
Went to my daughter’s netball finals the other day. What a semi!
My girlfriend gets annoyed about my loud chewing, but I don’t complain about the pubes in my teeth. It’s a joke. My girlfriend doesn’t have pubes, yet.
A Few From Reddit
A family walks into a hotel and the father goes to the front desk and says “I hope the porn is disabled.” The guy at the desk replies. “It’s just regular porn you sick fuck.”
My girlfriend caught me blowing my dick with the air dryer, and asked what I was doing? Apparently “heating your dinner” wasn’t a good answer.
And one final joke to top it off: What has 4 letters, sometimes 9 letters, but never has 5 letters.
