Instant replay in baseball

This morning, it happened.

I nearly fell off the shitter when I read that the MLB is instituting instant replay starting in 2014. I was relieving myself of a night's worth of solids reading the news on my phone and I almost fell off. Swear to God.

I'm going to get a lot of crap for this but I'm going to say it: I hate football. I understand it's this grand game wherein one player is the main thrower, there's a kicker, and people score touchdowns and shit but do you know what happens for 90% of that game? No? I'll tell you what. Referees staring at goddamn instant replay screens trying to decide what the perfect call is.

Baseball is already a slow game. Why slow it down with getting every call just perfect?

If you're a sports fan you remember two types of moments in sports: the time your team won the big game and the time the big game was stolen from you. That's a beautiful thing. When a game comes down to one call, one out, one safe... you start to appreciate the human element to competitive sports.

Have we become so intolerant of mistakes that we must review every possible mistake to ensure the perfect game was called? Have we become so dependent on machines to interpret data that we can't trust our own fucking eyes? Sure, there'll be bad calls and there'll be good calls and there'll be calls that are so damn close that there's no way to truly know. That's the beauty of it. There's uncertainty. Let the umps call the games - they're an integral part of it. I'd rather have a human being make a bad call than an umpire staring at an endless video loop of a nano second of a disputed call to get it perfect.

Perfection is overrated.

I, for one, enjoy saying things like, "Is that umpire blind? What the Hell? Get your eyes checked, fatty!" when I'm watching a baseball game.

My Talking Dog now up on the Slagdrop!

Howdy, folks.

My story, "My Talking Dog," is now up for your enjoyment on the Slagdrop. Click here to hear it, read it, and enjoy the illustrations by Todd Mein. 

I had a good time recording this one. I made a theme song for it, played me some guitar, some ukulele, and some singing. Hope you enjoy it.  

Longbrief Vacation from the Cheese. I'm back.

It's been a long time since I've posted. Last time I posted I wrote about a cop-family killer and now he's dead.

There's your update.

I've been hard at work on a new project called The Slagdrop. If you click that name, it'll take you to our site.

Basically what we're trying to do is marry many art forms into a website designed to get short stories heard. It's a "collective" more than a traditional magazine where many people can submit (although we are going to be quickly transitioning into that).

Why are we doing this?

The whole world has changed. Means of distribution have been diluted so much that artists rarely get paid for their work unless they're getting published in the New Yorker. The short story, a form that Americans love but a form that writers can't generally make a living off of (except for George Saunders), is extremely hard to place and most small presses don't pay a damn thing for the honor of showcasing them.

While we can't pay much, the plan is to have a site run on donations. Writers will get pretty token payments as an appreciation for allowing us to have their story. All stories, with few exceptions, will be recorded as an mp3 so readers can become listeners and engage with the story anywhere they want. Download it, listen to it while you exercise or run, sit in your car in traffic; you will not be limited to sitting in front of your computer and staring at a screen to enjoy the story.

We're planning big things. We have a live show coming on May 25th. We want to publish an anthology with a download code for the mp3 album of every story in the book. We want to take the show on the road.

All of this can be done by sharing our page and encouraging people to donate.

To make things really easy, here are individual links to every story published so far:

http://slagdrop.com/home/2013/04/10/kim-jong-il/ - The Miraculous Life of Kim Jong-il

http://slagdrop.com/home/2013/04/04/two-cowboys-settle-a-dispute/ - Two Cowboys Settle a Dispute

http://slagdrop.com/home/2013/03/01/ticket-to-nowhere/ - Ticket to Nowhere

http://slagdrop.com/home/2013/04/05/fecal-matter-in-the-water-cortin-a-zelaznog/ - Fecal Matter in the Water

Christopher Dorner

I've sat back and watched people comment on this story for about a week now but I do feel it's time to say something as it hits close to home. I grew up in the same town that Christopher Dorner is from.

Chris Dorner is no hero.

He's a cold-blooded murderer.

I see people saying, "It's good that somebody's taking out the trash." I don't know that I'd be saying that if I was the daughter of a lawyer who had "wronged" Dorner. I don't know that I'd be saying that if I was the fiancee of the daughter of the lawyer. I wouldn't be saying that if I were those two because those two are dead. Shot in the back of the head in cold blood. Two people who had probably never met Dorner, probably never knew his name, probably never knew he even existed. He knew they existed because he is a predator, plain and simple.

The world owes Dorner nothing.

If his cause were righteous, there would be no innocent blood spilled. He could have pursued legal means, he could have pursued media attention, instead he chose violence.

I see plenty of anti-war liberals saying that Dorner has a "point." Your bullshit has now been called. Our governments are reflections of our societies so if you're against war and violence, it's time to start speaking out against it in your own country, in your own states, in your own cities. We will never have peace on a global scale without peace on a community scale.

The LAPD are no angels. They are brutal at times, they deserve to be called out and cleaned out through legal means, but if you are crying out against one instance of police brutality and you go around targeting innocent people, you have NO moral argument. You are every bit as bad as the enemies you are warring against.

Every mad man has a manifesto that he believes absolves him of all guilt for his actions. The joke's on you if you fall for that.

Why is it that some people are so quick to take this guy at his word? Do we know what actually happened? I suspect these are people who simply hate cops and want to see as many dead cops as possible regardless of who's doing it.

This is not the "cool" opinion to have but, here's a newsflash, cops are human beings. They have families, they have people who love and hate them, they hate and love just as anybody else. Not every cop is crooked. So enough of this bullshit. This guy got fired over circumstances that are largely unknown to the public. We only have one side of the story and that side is coming from a guy who supports gun control but is going around shooting people vaguely connected to his troubles with guns. He wrote a 20 page manifesto that, at one point, compliments the First Lady's new hairstyle. If you take that kind of shit at its word the first time you hear it, you need to strengthen your bullshit detectors.

The LAPD isn't a shining beacon on a hill. They shot up a truck that matched the suspect's and two innocent ladies were shot. They do need to clean house and treat their citizens better. Christopher Dorner is not the man to lead that charge. He is a cold blooded murderer and I have absolutely no sympathy for him. He has no honor and he believes the world owes him something because he believes he is something more than the world.

New Yorker Caption Contest

I demand to be looked at.

He complained that I cut off his sideburns so I straight up killed him. 

North Korea's karaoke video from Hell

North Korea has officially stooped to cyber bullying which is the only resort for cowards and leaders who steal food from their people to spend money on shitty karaoke videos proclaiming that they will destroy the United States. 

The North Korean government is not legitimate. It is a rabid dog kept on a long leash by China because China does not want a flood of refugees if the North Korean government fails.

I'm starting to doubt that the North Koreans even have a working nuclear weapon. Most countries don't make music videos threatening other countries with them. Most countries threaten other countries by the simple virtue that they have them. I don't know which apocalyptic meltdown scenario I prefer.

When the history of Earth is written by space aliens from the Pleiades, will they say that civilization was destroyed by a man who loves American music and making 3am call spoof music videos? 

There are no solutions to this problem. We labeled North Korea part of the Axis of Evil, then we attacked Iraq. Iran and North Korea took note: The United States only attacks countries without nuclear weapons. They did the logical thing and pursued a weapons program. 

The difference between Iran and North Korea is that Iran is actually a semi-responsible government ruling over a country that is well-educated and has the most web-connected citizens in their region. It is not in Iran's interest to blow up other countries because they do business with quite a few of them.

North Korea is the Cartman of the world. It demands to be fed because they can't feed themselves. Other nations, nations that North Korea threatens with destruction on a daily basis, sends food meant for their starving people. Most of that food is stolen by the ruling class in Pyongyang while the rest of North Korea starves. North Korea has no interest in the consequences of nuclear war. They have no consequences; they're already the most isolated nation in the world that is driven by a cult-worship of one family. There are no ideals behind their rhetoric. The Kim dynasty is in power for power's sake and nothing else. 

And the world can't do a damn thing about it because North Korea has nuclear weapons and they will use them if backed into a corner of life-and-death.  

What's wrong with Burger King horse meat?

The only time I have ever been to a Burger King is during a lunch rush and the Burger King is right next to a McDonald's whose drive-thru line wraps around the building a few times so I'm no Burger King expert. Now that Burger King is in the news in a big way, I thought I'd comment.

Horse meat ain't so bad. It's even better when it's mixed in with beef. The only reason we are disgusted with eating horse meat is because we are used to seeing horses as majestic animals that little people ride on for money in Kentucky. If horses possessed special skills besides farting and mooing, we'd be disgusted by their meat too.

Fun Fact: You cannot ride a horse through Burger King drive-thrus.

Horse meat is higher in protein and lower in fat and nobody noticed a difference in taste until somebody tested the meat. Who cares? Any fast food burger pales in comparison to a real barbecued one, why not leave it up to the gods whether there's any other kind of meat in there?

If McDonald's was Jack in the Box, they'd capitalize on this. They'd have billboards that say, "NO HORSES HARMED." McDonald's is not. McDonald's maintains a sterile and safe advertising strategy. This has worked wonders for them. I'm lovin' it.

Fun Fact: Horse riders warm their buns on horses before they eat them. 

When I was but a lad, my father used to say Jack in the Box tacos were made out of kangaroo meat. He didn't like Jack in the Box and this was done to gross us kids out. It didn't.

"If this is kangaroo meat, I fuckin' prefer it," I said seconds before a fresh bar of Irish Spring hit my mouth.

We're eating crap anyways. Horse meat is legal everywhere and was only made legal in the United States recently because Americans can't get over eating their friends. The issue should be that Burger King is mislabeling their meats, not that they're expanding our tastes to a more exotic palette.

Look, I've eaten a gator sausage. Alligators can be cute and cuddly but, god damn, chunk them up into a sausage and I'm salivating.

Listen, I don't want to beat a dead horse too much but you've got to tenderize it.

The worst part of Rick Perry's State of the State Address

Particularly.

Granted, particularly is a particularly hard word to say clearly. It's much harder than nuclear.

Rick Perry says particularly like his tongue had just spent five hours licking cocaine out of a coyote's asshole.

He said something about the rainy day fund and using funds to fix Texas' water situation. That was good.

He said something about education funding.

He said something about how Texas doesn't fund art at all but it's thriving. Which is true on both points. Not lying there.

But, dammit, he said particularly in a particularly peculiar manner and I just couldn't hear anything else.

Manti Te'o and a big glass of who cares?

Manti Te'o, noted Hawaiian and phoniest Mormon since Mitt Romney, is on everyone's hearts and minds these days.

Was the poor guy duped by a sociopath friend?

Was the poor guy a sociopath who used a fake girlfriend's death as a way to get into shilling for Best Buy commercials?

Who cares? Really, who cares?

Manti Te'o (left) and his girlfriend (right). 

I didn't know who Manti Te'o was until someone asked me, "What do you think of Manti Te'o getting duped?"

I stared with a blank face for a few minutes then asked, "How do you spell that?" and searched it. BAM! There's more on it then there is on Lance Armstrong.

He's not kissing little kids. He's not killing people. He's just playing with imaginary friends that he may or may not have been aware that they were imaginary. He's either naive or stupid. I'm betting stupid.

In other news, America kills some people with flying death machines and Facebook launched a new search engine! Is Google jealous? Find out next time on every fucking channel that exists.

Bar patio smoking ban

It's come to this.

Austin is mulling whether or not to ban outdoor smoking at bars and restaurants. Fine. Ban it at restaurants. I could care less.

I was listening to KUT this morning and the joker who wants this thing to pass says banning outdoor smoking is for child safety. That's a valid point at restaurants. It's not at bars.

First step to strengthening child safety: don't bring your kids to bars.

Nobody walks into a bar thinking I am going to be super healthy here. 

What happens inside a bar? Drinking. No smoking. What happens on the bar's patio? Drinking and smoking. You don't like smoke, be an adult and go inside or go home. Don't legislate legal behavior out of existence.

Those same restaurants that you want to be healthier? Tell them to stop serving kids platefuls of french fries and to stop encouraging unlimited refills on soda.

I don't mind businesses choosing whether or not they want to allow outdoor smoking on their premises. That's within their rights. But to send a law like this from on high is idiotic.

Ban it at restaurants. Don't ban it where adults congregate under the dubious claim that it's to protect "the children."

I bet you these people wear Livestrong bracelets, too.

Movies you don't want to see reviewed by somebody who didn't see them: OSCAR NOMINATIONS EDITION

It's Oscar time again which means all of Hollywood is suiting up for the year's biggest circle jerk! Lube is selling out in the millions and Angelenos can hardly get a hand on a box of Kleenex. Let's go through each picture nominated, one by one, and predict who's going to go home with a hard one and who's going home on a depression fueled drug bender.

Amour: No American has seen this film but it's here to show the world America kind of cares what's going on in the rest of the world but not really. Look, we elected Obama twice. We're not total imbeciles but do we have to prove it to you every year by nominating some foreign flick that moves at a mile per minute and says nothing in English? Be on the lookout for Amour 3D, though. I hear the subtitles really jump out at you.

Life of Pi: Any movie that's billed as a coming of age story that takes place almost entirely with the protagonist in solitude that doesn't include a ton of masturbation is just one fucking lie.

Argo: Ben Affleck gets to portray a hero in his own movie again. We've seen it all before. Ben Affleck can't close his mouth all the way which leads me to conclude he's a mouth breather. Ben Affleck plays the same role every time: Ben Affleck with slightly different hair styles. This time, the hair style was a beard but it was too well trimmed and manicured. Unbelievable.

Lincoln: If I wanted to see a movie about the greatest president ever I'd be waiting for the one about George W. Bush.

Beasts of the Southern Wild: This is the Academy's answer to including a foreign film. Let's just pick this movie that made no sense and nobody saw and everyone will think American film making is experiencing a revival. I've got news for you, movie-about-a-young-person-on-the-water, Life of Pi had better special effects so it's going to win.

Silver Linings Playbook: Bradley Cooper is a pupil in the Keanu Reeves school of acting. Ryan Reynolds is also in that school. If Ryan Reynolds is Keanu Reeves without the personality, what is Bradley Cooper? Bradley Cooper is Ryan Reynolds without the paycheck. At least Ryan Reynolds gets to play super heroes and gets a fat check for appearing on a box of french fries. What does Bradley Cooper have? Playing a public school teacher in 90% of the movies he makes.

Bradley Cooper doing an impression of every public school teacher I've ever known. 

Django Unchained: What is there to say about Django Unchained that hasn't yet been said? It's an ass-number. If movies continue this trend of being 2+ hours long, I'm just going to quit watching movies. That's the end of it. I can think of one scene that stuck out like  a sore thumb in this movie and if it would've been cut, the movie would have been just under 2 hours and I wouldn't be here typing with one hand and applying Preparation H with the other.

Zero Dark Thirty: A racist exploitation film.

Les Miserables: Why do people feel the need to make musicals out of novels? You don't seem that miserable when you're whistling while you work. You seem downright happy when you're breaking into song and dance while you're eating pigeon droppings and sewing up the holes in your boots.

Obviously, folks, nothing is going to win this year just like nobody won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction last year. The crop is just too crappy.

Fuck AIG

Sometimes it's hard coming up with a post title but this one was easy as all Hell.

AIG is a collective of fuckers. They spend their days sucking each other's toes while masturbating and cleaning up their mess with $200 billion worth of dollar bills provided by the American taxpayer.

How great would it be to tank the economy, be bailed out by the taxpayer, and then turn around and sue the taxpayer for the terms being unfair?

They're goddamn right it was unfair. It was unfair to bail their asses out while hard working citizens can't find jobs. They got a sweet deal. Take it and grovel at our feet. Instead their dropping their boxers and taking a shit all over us.

All that being said, they're just thinking about joining a lawsuit saying the terms of the bailout were unfair. For them to even consider that kind of bullshit is a joke.

We let massive banks loot the treasury and poor people still have to beg to get $200 worth of food stamps a month. It's a joke.

FUCK AIG. 

Say what you will, proletariat, I'm wiping my ass with this tonight!

RIP Huell Howser.

Few television figures can incite as many feelings of nostalgia and sadness as Huell Howser can. He died today and, although I am no longer a Californian and no longer paid much attention to his show, I am deeply saddened.

Huell Howser hosted a few shows about California. He'd visit weird places and interview people and he had this natural curiosity about everything. His joy was contagious. For god's sake, this guy got excited about everything. This was not some TV ruse, either. Huell was the real, happy-go-lucky deal.

There was a radio show called Conway and Steckler and they'd play Huell Howser clips and make fun of it. This was actually part of the fun of Huell's show. His child-like happiness and wonder was something to scorn and laugh at but truly, everyone I know loved Huell like crazy.

When I was a kid I saw his show as something only old person watched. I still would catch it every now and then but as I got older I appreciated it more. We lose our interest in new things as we get age and dance in sandwich costumes for the grand opening of a Subway for $6.75 an hour. Huell gave us an hour to empty our minds and be awed, not only by the quirky stuff he did but, by the way he reacted to it. Huell provided some real squeaky clean fun that wasn't available anywhere else.

"I've never seen a dog eat avocados."

I haven't either, Huell. Not until your show at least.

I'm sure the afterlife is blowing your mind.

Introverts, shut up about being introverts

That book Quiet came out and now all the introverts won't shut up about themselves.

Everyday on Facebook, there's a new photo with text superimposed about being an introvert or, there's a new quiz result displaying that the person who's posting results is, indeed, an introvert. It's become the en vogue thing for latte sipping, NPR listeners.

I don't think bragging and putting on display your introversion matches the character trait.

It's fine to be an introvert. Hell, it's even fine for you to label yourself one. But to do so almost every fucking day, multiple times a day, reminds me of a child begging to be noticed at a family Christmas gathering by standing up in the middle of the room and belting out Jingle Bells in the style of Whitney Houston. You're special, we get it. The adults just want to drink egg nog.

Here's the thing, you who beg to be recognized as different and special by constantly reminding us you're introverted: you're not introverted. You're an unappreciated and ignored extrovert. Don't mistake introversion with being loud and everyone tuning you out. You don't have to prove just how introverted you are, doing so proves the opposite.

Hey, now. You're still special and hey, I noticed you! Here, take this Whitney Houston video for comfort:

A new year

2012 came and went like a kidney stone. It built itself up, lodged itself in your urethra, and then came out in a bloody and satisfying fashion.

The world didn't end in 2012 despite the media building up every stupid doomsday prediction. I think there were four. Maybe the world did end and we all just slipped into another dimension without even knowing it, man.

Anyway, I've let this blog develop cobwebs in December. It ain't going to be that way in 2013.

You know how sometimes you can just tell that you don't need to do something? Whenever I see a band fronted by a guy with a goatee, I know I don't need to listen or pay attention. It saves me time and annoyance. Some of you will say, it's about the music, not the looks. Yeah, well I can just tell that a guy under 50 who decides a goatee is a good look is not the kind of person I want to hear music from. A bass player can do it. A lead singer can't.

The top five posts of 2012 were:

Operation Offend Arizona, Day 2: From the Comments 5218 views

The Black Keys and why they suck 3904 views

Unmanned drones over America 623 views

Technological breakthrough 595 views

Wherein I examine laughter over the internet 317 views

My favorite comment of the past year was this gem in response to The Black Keys and why they suck:

G. B. MillerMay 15, 2012 3:19 AMDid someone give you a turban wedgie and got your panties in bunch today?
Is your musical speed Justin Beiber, et al and the other nonsensical garbage that the record companies peddle to people such as yourself?
Because this post sounds like a whiny petulant little child wrote it.
Must suck to be such a "open" minded indvidual.

I don't even know what a turban wedgie entails but I love how once I make fun of a band this gentleman likes, he assumes I must be a Justin Beiber fan. A Belieber, as they say. No way, dawg, I'm a huge Justin Guarini fan.

Here's to a new Justin Guarini Old Navy jingle in 2013. The Cheese lives on!