Three wrongs don’t a make right

This is where the kids say ‘smh’ – Former NBA player accuses woman of being a racist on social media because she refused to let him sit next to her on crowded train

I’ve read this article several times over, and each time, I roll my eyes and judgingly criticize all parties involved, because it’s ultimately a tremendously stupid story as a whole.  However, because it elicited a response in my brain, to the brog go the thoughts!

But long story short, former NBA player Etan Thomas takes to social media to accuse a woman of being a racist, because she didn’t want him sitting next to her on a train with allegedly no open seats, despite the fact that it appears that he ended up sitting catty-corner to her anyway, because she claimed the seat was taken when he asked, but then made available the seat to a white man when he asked.

Did he have reason to believe it was racially motivated?  Absolutely.  But was it racially motivated?  Etan Thomas didn’t definitively know, and frankly I don’t think he had the right to make the accusations he did without a little bit more basis.

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WWE revisionist fail

Like many people, I get a kick out of lists.  Among them, I’ve typically enjoyed a lot of the lists produced in video format, by the WWE’s YouTube channel, and I appreciate the general transparency, and willingness to stop taking wrestling fans as idiots and pretend like alternate wrestling options don’t exist, by showcasing guys that aren’t with the company any more, or those who have left this world in passing.

Except for one man, whom yes, did truly horrific and terrible things, and the world is a better place without him in it.  But like I’ve said numerous times about the topic, such things can easily be said about the man himself, but as a wrestling performer, I will still say he is one of my all-time favorites, and someone whose body of work as a performer I can still admire and appreciate, separate from the human being he was when not performing as a wrestler.

This man is obviously Chris Benoit, who murdered his wife and son before taking his own life.  But make no mistake, the wrestler Chris Benoit was a tremendous competitor and had a laundry list of A+ matches throughout his career.  Twice a World champion, with numerous secondary and tag titles won in his career, Benoit was a technical wizard in the ring and could really go in any style at an excellent level, be it submission, technical, strong style, or just plain brawling entertainingly.

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Death seems like kind of an extreme alternative

Impetus: Residents of English Avenue, near the site of the new Falcons Mercedes-Benz Stadium, express their staunch unwillingness to sell their properties in light of potential progressive development

Honestly, I’d take this whole campaign a whole lot more seriously, if it weren’t called “Unite or Die.”

Unite… or die?  Death, as a result of not joining others in a subjective cause?  That seems kind of extreme, and under the right (or wrong) circumstances, potentially extremely illegal.

Seriously, it sounds as absurd as the old Nintendo game, Skate or Die, and about as silly of a premise there as well.

Delving a little bit into the Unite or Die campaign and their subsequent website (unlinked, because I don’t really want to promote something that can be easily Google’d), I get what they’re trying to do.  The voice is a little too black militant and tiptoeing a little too much on the racial fault line for my comfort, but I understand their goals and objectives.

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I don’t know how people do it

Lately, I’ve been feeling kind of depressed and stressed about how I haven’t really traveled or seen some particular friends or family in quite some time.  Sure, I had a trip to Disney back in April, but almost at no point of that trip was I really able to sit back, relax, and kind of do nothing.  I’m not saying nothing is all I want to do, but there are times that I feel that I’m pining for occasions where there is nothing really on the agenda but loose ideas, and little or no stress if any of these ideas are acted upon.  But really, I’m finding myself missing people I used to see on a pretty regular basis, and the number of days, weeks and months since I’d seen them grows, leading to this perpetual cycle of feeling detached.

What isn’t helping the entire conundrum is the fact that I no longer have the ability to up and hop on any flight as I used to, and which is serving as impetus for writing this in the first place.  I’d like to travel and visit some friends or family pretty soon, but simply put, I just can’t afford it, or find myself being able to stomach the cost of flying, without privileges.

Frankly, I don’t know how people do this, planning so far ahead in advance to get reasonable rates, and looking at $600+ round trips if one actually wanted to make a last-minute flight somewhere.  I don’t know how people do this.

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Not even Fredi deserved this

Not that it will make a difference; Fredi Gonzalez fired as manager of the Atlanta Braves after the team falls to a Major’s worst 9-28.

So often times is the case, not just in baseball, but in all professional sports, when a team is playing poorly, the manager is thrown under the bus and fired.  In some cases, it’s well deserved, like a coach showing unwavering loyalty to a veteran player and giving them premium playing time when a younger, more talented player rides the bench. 

However, in more often than naught cases, the coach/manager is shit-canned for no other reason than being a sacrificial lamb; as if it’s their fault the place kicker missed a field goal, the team can’t shoot free throws, or the hitters can’t hit the ball.  This is often times the case, because in the perplexing world of professional sports, accountability is demanded, and regardless of logic or truth, coaches and managers are representative of those who should be held do it, and are the first ones to go when things are going bad.

I’m not even going to pretend like I was a Fredi Gonzalez fan.  At first, I supported his hiring, because I was one of many going through the post-Bobby Cox separation anxiety, and a guy like Fredi, who worked so long under Bobby Cox seemed like a good guy to transition the Braves organization into a new era.  Opinions quickly changed, as Fredi managed the team like a robot, quick with clichéd statements that became memes within the Braves community, and decision-making that went against the ever-evolving game.

Ironically, if Fredi were shit-canned at any point between 2011 and 2014, I would’ve said that it was well deserved, because Fredi Gonzalez simply was not a talented nor competent manager for today’s game.

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Why don’t final bosses ever get their comeuppance?

I make no promises that the things I write won’t blurt out spoilers to certain works of storytelling.  I can tell you right now two things I have in mind are Netflix’s Jessica Jones and the Game of Thrones television show, which has begrudgingly surpassed the novella, and will probably utilize plot points that will be spoilers to us book nerds but anyway.

Okay, it’s kind of a spoiler, but I’m not going to go into specifics; but the final conflict of Jessica Jones was pretty unsatisfying.  It’s a show that could’ve been wrapped up in 6-8 episodes, but since 13 is the magic number in terms of “seasons,” the song and dance kind of repeated itself twice over before it finally reached its conclusion.  Somewhere around the eighth episode, I knew the ending was finally coming, and I had an idea of what I wanted to see, but then I told myself to not hold my breath; because final bosses never get their comeuppance.

Needless to say, the fate of Doctor Who was not what I was hoping for, and I was left with this Kermit face when the final credits began rolling.  Perhaps this is a chief reason why I so unanimously and without hesitation, anointed Daredevil as the superior show, among the Hell’s Kitchen chapters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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I will be nobody’s measuring stick

Every now and then, when watching The Price Is Right, you’ll come across an episode where during the bidding part of the game, where someone bets something like $500, and then the last bidder bids $501.  And if and when $501 wins, you can just see the look of disdain and hate from the person who bid $500.

Well, not really, but it’s fun to imagine that the person who lost by a dollar is infuriated and driven homicidal by the troll who bets a dollar more than they did, and wins.

Anyway, the $1 more person, is an asshole.  Sure, they sometimes win, but they’re still an asshole.

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