Wabi-Sabi

So it seems that Plaxico Burress managed to shoot himself in the leg last night, while trying to rehab his hamstring injury at a New York nightclub. Oddly enough, this shooting took place exactly one year after Sean Taylor suffered a fatal gunshot wound.

 
My guess is that the gun may have accidentally gone off while Burress was pistol-whipping his wife. I hate it when that happens. One minute, you are busy trying to teach your wife a lesson, and the next thing you know, the bitch makes you look like Cheddar from “8 Mile”.




What the hell was Plax thinking? Clearly, the man doesn’t understand the basics of thuggery. At least Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson are smart enough to have their boys do their shooting for them. I guess it’s hard to blame him though; Marvin Harrison managed to shoot somebody earlier this year, and wasn’t arrested or suspended. Of course, Harrison is a “nice guy”, which also explains why he never got in trouble for beating and choking three teenagers that made the mistake of asking for an autograph in 2005. Burress is simply too big of a douche bag to get away with shit like that.

On a more serious note-

Where the hell was Ray Lewis when Plaxico Burress “accidentally shot himself”?  

 

 

 

Today is Black Friday. This day has become a national holiday that is symbolic of the wanton greed and rampant consumerism that has become a virtue of the United States. Citizens no longer extol the importance of politeness, social manners, love, care and compassion for your fellow human being.

No, instead, we are trained to buy without abandon. The worth of a person is tied directly to an individual’s purchasing power, and is measured by the amount of useless shit they fill their lives with. We no longer have respect for human life. The only thing that matters is keeping up with the Joneses. The American green god is the almighty dollar, and our greatest sin and taboo is to be financially frugal. This is why citizens of this nation have nearly a Trillion dollars in outstanding credit card debt.

That is why it comes as no surprise that a worker in a Long Island Wal-Mart was trampled to death by a large crowd of people who were eager to save money by spending money. Jdimytai Damour had worked at the Wal-Mart for about a week, and stood six foot, five inches tall and weighed in at an impressive 270 pounds. Yet, even a man of that size could not stand up to a crowd of several hundred people who were so driven by the ardent desire to buy worthless shit at year-low prices, that they literally tore the doors off the hinges.

How pathetic is it that a man suffocated to death under the weight of a hundred clamoring consumers, who did not stop to help a fellow human being who was clearly in distress. Instead, they ran over his struggling and screaming body so that they could buy their electronics at half the regular price. And that mans family, now without a husband and father, must spend the rest of their lives without the man that loved and cared for them.

Oh, and on a lighter note, I sent Sassafras out to Wal-Mart to do some shopping for us, and this is what she came back with:

 

 

Yea, that’s right; I got a bitchin’ new 32” HDTV. Of course, by the time she got to the store, they were all taken, but thankfully some dumb bitch left her TV unattended in a line towards the back of the store, so Sassafras swiped it. She didn’t even have to get in a fist-fight with someone for it (which she was fully prepared to do), instead, she just picked it up and walked away. Now I can play video games and watch television in stunning clarity, and I don’t have to be burdened with the shame of owning a SDTV. Man, have I got myself a special lady, or what?

It is the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. (Canada already had Thanksgiving on Oct. 13th), and it seems like every year, when the second half of November starts rolling around, we get bombarded with facts and trivia about the Thanksgiving holiday. In a sense, this is in itself a Thanksgiving tradition.

So let’s talk turkey.

The turkey is native to North America (in fact it is the only poultry native to this continent), but most don’t seem to realize that the turkey we eat today is not the same animal as the one eaten by Native Americans. Turkeys are, to be specific, from Mexico, and were brought to Europe in the early 16th Century by the Spanish.

Once there, they were traded throughout Europe by the Turks. In fact, this is the most likely reason for the turkey’s name. Although the bird itself has nothing to do with the country of the same name, they were called “Turkie cocks” by the English quite simply because they got the birds from Turkish traders (to add to the confusion, this was also what they called the guinea fowl). This is why corn was originally known as “Turkie corn”- it was introduced and distributed around Europe by the Turks.

There is some debate about where the turkey actually got its name, but I must admit, this seems like the most plausible answer. Others claim that the name comes from the Native American name for the bird: furkee. Trouble is, this word has no known origins or meanings in any of the Algonquin languages. We only “know” that this is the Native American word for turkey because the Pilgrims said so. What likely happened is that the Native Americans did their best to pronounce the name of the strange fat bird that the Pilgrims brought with them from England.

Another theory is that the name comes from the Tamil word for a peacock: tuka. The claim here, is that Cristóbal Colón (AKA Columbus) believed that he had landed on India, and thus, mistook the birds he found inhabiting the land as a type of peacock (they are actually a type of pheasant). The trouble with this theory is that the Spanish already had a word for the domesticated peacock, so there would be no reason for Columbus to have chosen a word from an Indian language. Furthermore, we know that Columbus did not in fact call the birds he found “tuka”; instead, he called them “gallina de la tierra”, which is Spanish for “chicken of the earth” or “ground chicken”. It should be noted however, that the contemporary Spanish name for the turkey is “pavo”, which literally means “peacock”.

In most other languages and countries, the turkey is named after India, simply because it was brought from the Indies. However, in both Portuguese and in India itself, the bird is referred to as the “peru”, likely because of its sudden popularity in Portugal around the time Pizarro conquered Peru, and because the Portuguese are the ones responsible for introducing the bird to India (never mind the fact that it would be odd for Indians to refer to a non-native bird as an “Indian fowl”).

Scientifically, the bird is known as Meleagris gallopavo, which means “guinea-fowl chicken-peacock”. Clearly, scientists themselves had no idea what the hell a turkey is, and decided to cover their asses and name it after as many birds as possible.

Now, to get back to how and why the birds we eat today are different from the birds that were originally found in Mexico, we need to get back to those Turkish merchants. They did such a good job of spreading the bird throughout Europe, and popularizing its consumption, that by the end of the 16th Century, the turkey was a staple of English Christmas meals.

In Norfolk, farmers domesticated the bird, which up to this point, had been completely wild. They also worked on producing a larger and meatier turkey, which resulted in the Norfolk Black, and the White Holland. It was these two breeds that the Pilgrims reintroduced to North America. The birds that are traditionally eaten today have as much in common with the original animal as domestic pigs do with wild boar.

In summary:
Turkey (the bird) was named after the country of the same name, and not the other way around. No one really knows what to call a turkey, because we are not entirely sure what it is. The Pilgrims are responsible for introducing the domestic turkey to New England. And turkeys are Mexican food.

Happy Thanksgiving!

“I hereby declare this meeting of ‘Anime Club’ to be in session.”

When I first watched this commercial, I was sure it would end in a really cheesy way. Maybe someone would slip out of a window, or end up hiding in a closet. Or worse, it would end with the Husband getting his non-Mercedes stuck in a snow bank, only to be passed by the Mercedes driving Cheater who was just banging his wife.

I was hoping that it would end with a very angry Husband arriving home with a pump action shotgun in-hand. Doors would be kicked in. People would be hurt. Naturally, my disturbingly violent and deviant fantasies go unfulfilled:

Luckily, the ending was refreshingly unanticipated, and much more clever* than anything I would have thought of.

As an interesting aside, it’s amusing to see products being marketed by poking fun at how unreliable and unfaithful spouses are. Oh, how far we’ve come.

*I intentionally used “more clever” here, in place of “cleverer” because I hate the way the particular morpheme “erer” sounds.

It’s like one day, some guy just said, “You know what? I’d eat more eggs, if only they weren’t so goddamn round!”

And he decided to do something about this. And thus, this great man, this genius of invention, left the world better than he found it.

Bravo, good sir. Bravo.

Please sit back, relax, and enjoy the following “educational” cartoon about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

I have always found Mormonism to be an interesting sect of Christianity. How many religions let you be the god of your own personal universe when you die? It would be a pain to give up all those earthly carnal delights I enjoy, but it would totally be worth it in the end. It’s too bad that I simply can’t bring myself to believe in magic.

 

The video has been criticized for certain inaccuracies by the LDS Church, and they claim that this video presents a false depiction of the church’s beliefs. And generally, most people will laugh at the video because of how silly and absurd the Mormon’s beliefs are. But I don’t really see how they are any crazier than the dogma of any given religion. Religion, by its very nature, requires believers to have faith in many things that are absurd, illogical and impossible.

 

Although that isn’t to imply that Mormonism is “legitimate”. The church was founded by a con man who wanted to exploit people’s religious devotion for personal gain and prophet. Kind of like Scientology (and the similarities between the two don’t end there). But still, you have to give them credit- they don’t fuck around when it comes to making up some fantastical shit to believe in.

Ya’ll best be showing ‘spect fo’ the Vets.

I’ve always enjoyed watching movies from the 80’s. Despite being born in 1985, thus really to young to fully enjoy the 80’s in their heyday, watching movies from the period brings about an odd sense of nostalgia. I never got to rock parachute pants, sweatbands or a “Flock of Seagulls” haircut, although I still wore Day-Glo mesh tank tops and a pretty kick ass Rat-tail (and yes, I do believe my mother was trying to get me raped as a child).

 

For some reason, I have always just enjoyed sitting down and watching an awesome movie from the 80s. But the strange thing about most movies from the 80s is how nonsensical they were. It must have been pretty awesome to be a scriptwriter back then. It seems like studios just threw money at every movie that got pitched to them. But this is also explains why movies from the 80s are so hit-or-miss. Some are pure entertainment. Some are so bad they’re good. Almost all of them didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

 

Take for example Better Off Dead. It is about a suicidal teenager. Nothing too unusual, expect that this movie is a comedy. And when you add in, among other things, the drag racing Koreans who talk like Howard Cosell, and a deranged paperboy out to get his two dollars, you get a classic (and underappreciated) 80s movie.

 

Or one of my personal favorites- Weird Science. This is a movie about two nerdy boys who summon managed to create a woman using only their home computer and some magazine clippings. Then this completely hot goddess decides to use her magical powers to help these guys hook up with the hottest chicks in school. And this is after they accidentally create a nuclear missile in their bedroom and fight off a biker gang that trashes their house in the middle of a party she threw to help them get said chicks.

 

Then there is The Goonies. This is a movie about a bunch of nerdy misfits who manage to find a map to a pirate treasure in an attic, coincidentally the day before their families must fork over thousands of dollars to prevent foreclosure on their homes. Taking the map, these kids manage to elude a violent family of murders to discover the pirate treasure of “One Eyed Willy” (which is a name with no sexual connotations whatsoever), only to be captured by the bad guys right at the end. Luckily the day is saved by the retarded member of the murderous family, who the fat kid in the group had thankfully befriended. Then the day is saved and everyone is rich.

 

These all don’t make a damn bit of sense, and yet they are amazingly entertaining.

 

But for every 80’s movie that managed to still be entertaining despite being hastily written by a coked up screenwriter, there are 10 that suck ass. The Peanut Butter Solution is one of them.

 

First the trailer:

 

 

 

If you didn’t catch the premise of the movie from that awesome advertisement, here are the basics of the movie’s engrossing plot:

 

An 11 year old kid, named Michael, explores an old burned out mansion only to encounter the ghosts of two hobos who died in the fire. The boy is so frightened by these ghosts, that all of his hair falls out. The ghosts visit Michael in his sleep to give him a recipe for a magical formula that will make his hair grow back. The primary ingredient is peanut butter. Some other stuff happens, but basically Michael and several other kids from the neighborhood are captured by their former art teacher so he could use their hair to make magical paint brushes that will paint anything you can imagine. The kids then trick the art teacher into going into the burned out mansion where he too is frightened and all of his hair falls out. Then he is arrested.

 

If that little tale of dead hobos, ghosts, emotional scarring, and kidnapping left you confused, then you should know that this film is intended to be a comedy. For children. To top it off, the movie’s soundtrack also features the first English language songs by Céline Dion.

 

For some reason I have trouble seeing this charming little film being all that entertaining for kids. I can, however, see many children being traumatized by the fear that their hair will start growing and refuse to stop, thus leading to a nervous breakdown at the onset of puberty when hair starts shooting out of every damn nook and cranny on their body.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not intend for this blog to be serious. I don’t want things to get too heavy around here. I don’t want to kill anyone’s buzz.

 

That being said, I would be remiss in not talking about the election results.

 

The 44^th President of the United States of America:

 

 

No matter what your political beliefs or affiliations, you cannot deny the historical significance of this election. An African-American will be the next President of the United States. It was within the past 100 years that Americans have been beaten to death, hung, and burned alive because of the color of their skin. Even today, people are denied the rights and respect that everyone deserves simply because of their race.

 

And yet, as a nation, we have managed to move beyond these ignorant and hateful actions to elect a “black” man to the highest office in our government. Many things will be said about this event, and we have no way of knowing whether or not Obama will be a good President or not. But we can all agree that this event is a watershed moment in American history. We have proven  that although racism is still alive in our country, we will not allow it to continue its stranglehold on the American psyche and political system.

 

Even now, as I write this, Obama is giving his acceptance speech behind bullet-proof glass, a nearly invisible reminder of the real and present danger faced by every president. And while the color of Obama’s skin may put him at more risk of assassination than the average politician, it has not prevented him from making history.

 

And regardless of your race, gender, or political leanings, it is important that we come together now, as a single nation, to overcome the challenges before us. One man cannot solve all of our problems. We can only do it together. We must not allow the differences that have been highlighted and exploited by political parties to keep us apart any longer. This nation needs to unite in purpose and goals to overcome our challenges. I say this with no sarcasm or cynicism. This is not a joke. For far too long we have allowed our opinions to be manipulated by unethical political tactics, and this has created a great divide in public opinion when we need to stand together more than ever before.

 

I am no great patriot. I am, and always will be, highly critical of the United States government. But I can honestly say that today I am for the first time truly proud of my country. We have sent a message to ourselves, and to the world: “Yes We Can.”

 

This is no cute campaign slogan. This is a symbolic phrase that is a statement about our dreams and the hard work we are willing to do to achieve them. I cannot help but feel we have come to a turning point in American history. I only hope it is a turn in the right direction.

Finally, I would just like to congratulate John McCain on giving the best concession speech I have ever heard. He was sincere and honest, despite being clearly disappointed. I have always like John McCain as a person, if not for his politics. His speech just goes to show he is a man of admirable character.

Check this out: