Long title but I couldn’t think of how to shorten it without it being more confusing.

I tend to have many conversations where I have no idea what the person I’m talking to is talking about. This can range from global topics (about once a year) where I don’t know what’s happening in Turkey or a mix up when I’m ordering food (once a day) when a cashier asks if I want 2 or 3 and I can’t understand that they are talking about how many sugars I want (isn’t it predetermined?). This happens all so frequently that I’ve developed a system of going with it.

Just a funny gif to get you to keep reading.

My first thought when someone is telling me anything is “does this person know what they are talking about.” I’ve pretty much determined that 99% of the time they don’t. A person has to prove to me that I should care about their points because the more someone thinks they know, most likely, the less they do. I respect it much more when someone tells me that they have no idea what they are talking about and this is only an opinion then people who preach gospel about any one topic. If you go through life remembering this little tidbit, you’ll be better off: most people don’t know shit but want you to think they do.

Since you know, that I know, that I know nothing, you’ll read this post with the understanding that you shouldn’t listen to it. When people talk to me about the myriad of knowledge that I don’t know, whatever you do, NEVER ask them to explain it. Here’s an example, a person at a party  says to you “can you believe Hillary Clinton violated the FOI (people pretending to be smart love using acronyms) law?” There are 2 possibilities that can occur:

1. You say you don’t know what the FOI  is and then the person immediately looks down on you, you ruin the flow of the question by having them explain it to you, and then you are in the middle of a conversation that is trending downward. I will say this would be an unusual lead in as an ice breaker.
2. You say, “what a bitch.”

How I plan to talk to people after writing this post.

You obviously have never heard of the FOI law because you’re a normal human being who doesn’t give a shit about politics because they are corrupt and you are so far out of their world that even considering trying to join the party is a nightmare. So to respond in way #1 is asking for trouble (unless you really give a shit but then you probably wouldn’t be saying you don’t know what it is to begin with). #2 is following along and giving the person what they want. This is the key to life. Follow along with people because people love themselves and the world swims along if you play along. Obviously you know that learning is a crucial element to life so I’m obviously being one sided in this post because there are intelligent human beings on this planet but each conversation holds it’s own weight and it’s better to play along then get caught up. Question everything.

What’s the difference between 1 inch? A huge indentation in your waist and total discomfort.

When I’m feeling the leg game.

I like to purchase my clothes from Amazon because it’s cheap and I don’t have to go to the mall. I usually buy the Dockers, non-cargo, shorts for $24.99 in various colors. Back in college I ballooned up to a 34 waist and since I’ve been out I can comfortably wear a 33. For whatever reason I decided that there can’t be much difference between 32 and 33 and figured I just ran a 5 year PR in a 5k so I must be slim and trim. Unfortunately that extra inch makes a belt fit nicely compared to suffocating the life out of me.

Just so everyone knows how tough I am.

Which brings me to the need to always wear a belt. I can’t quite explain but I feel naked without a belt. I don’t doubt for a second I could wear all my shorts and jeans without one but the idea that it always will keep my pants up is comforting. Plus it would be so weird pissing at a urinal without a belt Any other takers who can’t leave home without a belt?

I was having a small day…

A final pant issue is that I bought some Tommy John underwear to try out and they have a pocket in the front for what I assume is your Johnson to poke out without having to drop your drawers peeing. You can see it in the picture. Instead of pulling the waist band below your dick, you reach in the pouch and grab it up and through. I will touch my penis if I have to when at the urinal but usually I just drop it with my waist band and prop it up and out. This way I don’t have to touch it and never have to wash my hands. Just kidding. Can’t wait to shake your hand next time I see you…

I spent about 2 hours making the celebrity meltdown post. It was a pain in the ass finding the pictures, dating the pictures, and organizing the data. I point that out because it’s not a post that comes together in a few minutes like this one. If you check the counter on the bottom right of the sidebar, you’ll see yesterday produced 274 people, with 120 coming from Facebook. So when Dave Gildea writes “clickbait” under my posts, let’s just say I might know what I’m doing.

Ben likes my traffic

Of course 120 people isn’t a huge amount but still nothing to sneeze at. It makes me want to create a part 2 of the same exact topic and use an even more revealing picture as the feature image. Title and image are all people care about. I personally thought the content was very good for that post. I’m not saying I couldn’t have done a better job if I felt like scouring the internet for worse pictures and further details of hot celebrity female collapses but I have better things to do. Oh wait. No I don’t.

Lebron. Dustin. Jon Snow. Richard Hendricks. You name it, Sunday had it.

Let’s start with Lebron. Aside from the joyous pleasure taking Sam and Adam’s money because of their misguided belief in the Warriors, the game was awesome. Yes I watched GoT in between the 2nd and 3rd quarters, but that’s neither here nor there, because I’ve never pledged to be a die-hard NBA fan. The final quarter was tight and right with Lebron proving why HE is the best player in basketball and why Steph is still second fiddle. It’s hilarious to think that all it takes is winning a game 7 to become the marquee player but that’s the way it goes.

Gonna have a good night tonight.

Dustin Johnson won the US Open this week in almost dominating fashion if you watched hole 18. Despite Shane Lowry coming in with a 4 stroke lead on Sunday, and subsequently blowing it throughout the round, DJ played solid golf when the pressure was the highest. For a guy who has blown so many leads and with last year’s heartache looming, I just felt like he was going to shank one into the crowd on the final holes and he never did. Even when some noise went off that caused him to reset completely, he still managed to hit the best shot of the tournament and HIS CAREER when he hit his 6 iron from 185 to within 5 ft on 18. Before this tournament I always assumed DJ would choke under pressure but he proved me wrong and I’m happy to see a golfer of his caliber clear the hurdle. It’s hilarious to think that all it takes is winning the US Open to become a marquee golfer but that’s the way it goes.

Last night’s episode of GoT was a roller coaster ride. Sansa Start coming in with some of the most powerful scenes of the series when she brought Littlefinger and some army I don’t know into the mix to aide her bastard brother. The arrow shooting scene with Rickon was incredible too. One small complaint, why didn’t the idiot run in some curved pattern? C’mon, Rickon, act like you’ve been there before. I’m pretty sure the entire fan base was sighing a strong sense of relief when Ramsay was firing arrows at Jon which he shield blocked. A sick character who finally met their end. All in all it was a wonderful episode that will be talked about whenever GoT is brought up. It’s hilarious to think that all it takes is winning the Battle of the Bastards to be the marquee character in Westeros.

I rarely write about Silcon Valley but Pied Piper is really coming together with its user interface. I particularly like Richard curled in despair in the nasty bathtub. It seems like every character is equally funny at this point. You’d think I would get tired of Erlich but his shtick just doesn’t get old. I was cracking up when he was saying how Richard saved them from their nose dive only to eventually end up creating another crater. Gavin Belson also deserves some sort of award as the best CEO of a fictional series. Hilarious when he was going to bring in the Opossum. Just want to share my still favorite scene from a few episodes ago.

Taking directly from the new Chuck Klosterman book “But What If We’re Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past.”

Voyager

“NASA sent the unmanned craft Voyager into deep space in 1977. It’s still out there, forever fleeing Earth’s pull. No man-made object has ever traveled further; it passed Pluto in 1990 and currently tumbles through the interstellar wasteland. The hope was that this vessel would eventually be discovered by intelligent extraterrestrials, so NASA included a compilation album made of gold, along with a rudimentary sketch of how to play it with a stylus. A team let by Carl Sagan curated the albums’s contents. The record, if played by the aliens, is supposed to reflect the diversity and brilliance of earthling life, This, obviously, presupposes a log of insane hopes: that the craft will somehow be found, the that craft will somehow be intact, that the aliens who find it will be vaguely human, that these vaguely human aliens will absorb stimuli both visually and sonically, and that that these aliens will not still be listening to eight-tracks. The likelihood that anyone in the universe will play this record is only slightly greater than the likely that my dad will play a Kendrick Lamar album, and my dad is dead.”

I had to laugh at this idea but it got me thinking what song would be choose to represent humans in 2016? Johnny B Goode by Chuck Berry was the song selected to by Nasa with “Here Come the Sun” by the Beatles in consideration.

The idea is that you are picking a song to represent your musical culture and it can only be one song. I’d select Michael Jackson’s Beat It. The aliens would be exposed to the King of Pop and a song about masturbation to show the humans have a good sense of humor. What would you pick?

Those with non-binary genders can feel that they: Have an androgynous (both masculine and feminine) gender identity, such as androgyne. Have an identity between male and female, such as intergender. Have a neutral or non-existant gender identity, such as agender or neutrois.

I was going to write an entire post on how I disagreed with there being other “non-binary” genders. Then I started reading a few opinions on the subject and thought to myself that it isn’t even worth taking a stance on the subject because I understand zero about it. This forced me to bookmark this post until only a few hours I read this from Chuck Klosterman’s new book “But What If We’re Wrong…”.

“The Matrix was written and directed by “the Wachowski siblings.” In 1999, this designation meant two brothers: as I write today, it means two sisters. In the years following the releases of the Matrix, the older Wachowski (Larry, now Lana) completed her transition from male to female. The younger Wachowski (Andy, now Lily) publicly announced her transition in the spring of 2016. These events occurred during a period when the social view of transgender issues radically evolved, more rapidly than any other component of modern society. In 1999, it was almost impossible to find any example of a trans person with any any realm of popular culture; by 2016, a TV series devoted exclusively to the notion won the Golden Globe for Best Television series.”

The book delves into how whatever you think you know now will be radically different in the future. You have no idea. So when I was going to write this post that you are either born male or female, in 2100 it’s possible that there are 10 new genders, This is pure speculation but the premise of Klosterman’s book is that you are most likely wrong. I like this.

I truly don’t understand how someone can be born a male and think they are a female (or neither for that matter). It’s estimated that there are 700,000 trans-gender people in the US which is less than 1% of our continent. This is not an amount that makes it a necessity to create a 3rd bathroom. My feeling is that these people would want to be treated like everyone else which is exactly how I would.

Laura said over the weekend that I’m accepting of other people even if I don’t agree with their stance and I believe this to be true. I’m a firm believer that every person has their individual thoughts that shouldn’t be squashed by A-holes with radical opinions. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with them but it also doesn’t mean I’m going to put up any resistance. I believe if you are born a man or woman and want to be  non-binary, that’s up to you but understand that many people are not as open minded. They believe that God created man and woman and that’s how this world works. I believe that I don’t know how this world works and if I wanted to be a T-Rex, accept it. But this does should show how ridiculous people can get with their ideas.

…you’re a fucking idiot. I can’t stand when people refer to beers as craft beers. It’s a snobbish way to try to separate yourself from a non-educated beer drinker. There is a beer drinker hierarchy that occurs as you age which I’ll happily explain now.

Young’n – When you’re first start drinking you don’t care what alcohol it is as long as it gets you wasted. My Freshmen year of college my older brother of the fraternity asked what my favorite Vodka was and I said, “Banker Club.” With regards to beer – Natty Light, PBR, Beast, or Genesse, whatever is cheapest tastes best.

Working Man’s Beer – Once you get a job you start making some money and you start drinking better beer. Light beer specials (Coors, Bud, Miller) at bars become the norm for money savers. You’ll start to dabble in Yuengling, Guinness, Corona, and Heineken. Staple beers in our world.

Craft Beer Lovers – This next category are the people I despise. These are the people who drink beer to taste beer and not get drunk. Beer with aromas and mad hops that are malted to perfection are what they desire. They turn their nose up to unsophisticated beer drinkers who don’t appreciate a good local brewery or value their beer from across the globe. They probably brew their own beer too for shits and gigs.

The Alcoholic – You look at the menu and you pick the highest ABV for the lowest price. You could care less if it’s brewed in someone’s back yard vs some famous brewery in Belgium. If it tastes fine and gets you drunk, it hits the spot. You’ve probably tried hundreds of beers throughout your lifetime and you understand that the goal of drinking beer is to get drunk and not savor the experience. Beer is beer.

The Result

Calling beer “craft” beer is phony. It’s turning beer drinking into an art, which I understand, but don’t prioritize. This is why when I see restaurants or bars saying they now sell “craft” beer, they are asking for a bunch of phonies to pay more money. I want no part of this target market.  I want my bars to say 5 bucks for 1 bourbon, 1 scotch, and 1 beer. Citywide for life.