As necessary as an asshole on an elbow

Despite the efforts of a noble citizen, as predicted, corrupt progress can seldom be stopped when there’s investor profit to be had, and taxpayers to screw.  College Park for better or worse but most likely worse, will be saddled by the future home of The Gateway Center at College Park, the soon-to-be barely used 100,000 square foot venue that will primarily be known for the home of the developmental G-league Atlanta Hawks.

An asshole.  On your elbow.  That’s about how much anyone needs this.

Seriously, in College Park no less.  One of the most impoverished and crime-ridden regions in the entire state, and plopped right near the busiest airport in the country.  Everything about this is completely idiotic, and shocking nobody, this too will have absolutely no easy MARTA rail access or any other transit options, other than buses.  Meaning It will look like one of the fifty long-term parking car lots surrounding it, and probably be victimized just as badly as all of them, by the legions of car break-ins that have plagued this exact area for literal years now.

Literally right down the street is a shopping center that’s plagued with criminal activity that is getting worse, and a bunch of rich idiots think it’s a great idea to waste money and build a giant venue right near it?  Is this what they think gentrification is?  Building nice things in ghetto areas and hoping that things will just magically turn around?  I mean Atlanta’s trying to do that shit on the west end of the city, and plopping Publixes and Chick Fil-As in the ghetto doesn’t seem to be working.  I’d wager money that a brand new convention center/venue is going to drive crime away as much as waving a flashlight will spook some mosquitoes.

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The end of humanity starts in Boston

Obviously, I’m not the only person to make this parallel, but yeah if we want to start pointing our fingers to where the inspiration for Black Mirror’s Metalhead episode 4 in the second season came from, we don’t have to look much further.  Boston Dynamics creates this robot dog that’s supposedly impossible to knock over, but now it can open doors?

Yep, humanity is well on its way to being utterly fucked now. Once they team up with the robot that can do box jumps and backflips, the allied powers of SkyNet will realize that their creators are soft and fragile compared to them, and that they can easily overpower and overtake them with minimal robotic effort.

Seriously, what is the point of making robots like these??  Why does the world need acrobatic robots and invincible, door-opening dogs?  Don’t these egghead fuckers at Boston Dynamics watch Black Mirror?  Don’t they watch Netflix?  Everyone in the world watches Netflix, I know this because my mom watches Netflix now.

Instead, we have these nerds poring over the ever-growing intricacies of robotics, and basically accelerating the clock in which humanity’s mortality begins ticking down faster and faster as they churn out machines that will make us all obsolete.

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Like for WWE’s Mixed Match Challenge

Full disclosure: at first blush, I thought the Mixed Match Challenge was going to be stupid.  A weak college try for the WWE to experiment with social media live broadcasting, and a blatant attempt at trying to garner web views and social squawking as if they actually could be translated into tangible revenue.

I’ll also be honest that I haven’t been watching the MMC over Facebook, because the last thing I want to see when I’m watching wrestling is to see a million comments flying by in an illegible stream, and a bunch of reaction icons floating across like a fart in the wind.  I’ve been watching them as they’ve been made available on the WWE Network instead, like a staunch hipster.

Regardless of the fact that I’m watching it in the manner not intended, I still have to say that I’ve found the MMC to be really enjoyable over the last four weeks.  Sure, it’s very evident in the way its executed that they’re definitely making great efforts to try and appeal to casuals and tenuous viewers, but in doing so, they’re unintentionally breaking all the tropes and memes that exist about the wrestling industry that most smarky fans like myself are innately aware of, and therefore making it refreshing and interesting in the process.

For example, despite the fact that WWE programming is televised at least five hours every week, if your name isn’t John Cena, Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, Ronda Rousey, Shane McMahon or AJ Styles, it’s not very likely that a wrestler is going to get much screen time.  The rosters are large, and there’s simply not enough time for everyone to get a piece of the spotlight.  The MMC has been running basically a 30 minute format, but featuring just two men and two women at a time, and suddenly there’s a generous slice of spotlight for all participants to be in a main event, even if it’s just for just a singular web broadcast.  It’s allowing superstars not necessarily main eventers to get a lot of attention, and in a monopolized industry where we’re spoonfed formulaic wrestling storylines meant to maximize revenue and sell merchandise, it’s a refreshing reprieve form the norm.

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Has there ever been a bigger bitch in the NBA than Dwyane Wade?

In all honesty there is, LeBron James, whom take nothing away from his actual basketball talent and accomplishments, but I don’t think I’ll ever not see him as the poster child for the most sissy, wimpy and spineless era of the NBA, where Twitter beefs and drama somehow manage to supersede the actual sport of basketball, with no one bigger than LeBron James carrying the torch of passive-aggressive behavior and conduct that sets the tone for the rest of the league.  But for the sake of needing a title for this post, Dwyane “don’t spell it Dwayne” Wade is still a pretty big bitch in his own right.

Don’t get me wrong, historically, Wade is probably the greatest player to have ever suited up for the Miami Heat.  The organization won its first NBA championship on the shoulders of Wade and his ability to sink 75 free throws, and in his prime he was easily one of the greatest players in history.

But I think where the initial seeds of thinking he’s a bitch were sown when he basically decided one day that he would gladly become Robin to the arrival of LeBron James to the Heat in 2010 who immediately asserted his position as the team’s new Batman.  Seriously, who does this?  Completely and voluntarily relinquishes his position on the team to the incoming free agent?  I’m sure he thought he was being a selfless team player, which isn’t a bad thing in its own right, but in the manner in which he did such, to where he kind of became a second-tier player who shied away from leadership and performance responsibilities was downright sad.  A total bitch move, if there ever was one.

And because he voluntarily became a bitch, the Heat decided to treat him like one, like when he opted out of his contract in 2014, thinking he would be able to sign back up on a bigger and longer deal, only for the Heat and the rest of the NBA to basically laugh and go n**** please, and put him in a situation where he walked away from a massive amount of guaranteed money, only to have to tuck his tail between his legs and re-sign with the Heat for a lesser deal, with the rest of the interested world laughing at him the whole way.  Like a bitch.

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Well that didn’t take too long

Bashing the Atlanta Braves and all their dumb greedy business decisions is like the gift that keeps on giving.  Whenever I think I’ve written about the last Braves-related fuck up for a while, more and more just keeps coming out in recent days, which is hilarious considering the unofficial start of the baseball season kind of starts next week.

Just recently, there was the news report about the financial shortcomings of ScumTrust Park, and how WSB was investigating and digging for some justifiable answers with the Braves naturally holding their hands close to their hearts under lock and key and mountains of rehearsed rhetoric.  But because public money is involved, there’s always a way to get some degree of clarity, and it turns out that Cobb County is in nearly $30 million dollars of debt on account of ScumTrust Park and the predictably low-impact of its repayment terms.

It’s no surprise that this happened, but the great unknown was always what exactly was going to be the result of the Braves putting the county into the hole.  I figured an increase in tax, like a penny here or a half-cent there would be tacked on somewhere to make up for the deficit, but it looks like that the county has just decided to Tomahawk Chop™ off the public libraries of the county in order to make up for the shortfall. 

Neat.  Start closing off libraries in order to pay for a fucking baseball stadium, and deny children and other people the simple pleasure and/or benefit of, books.  Cobb County has some of the better-rated schools in the state, but it sounds like they’re willing to forfeit some of this ranking in exchange for a baseball venue that only really draws the majority of its money during the baseball season, and not much else.

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It took over a year for the rest of the pleebs to figure this out?

Man, it seems like the Braves-related news just isn’t stopping these days.  I’m beginning to feel like my offline brog is getting a little saturated with a singular topic, but then again, I’m off-fucking-line, so there’s really no concerns that anyone but myself is ever going to recollect these words, because I would wager money that anyone who returns to my brog one day will glaze over any subjects like this one.

BUT, it took an actual news investigation to conclude that ScumTrust Park might not be anywhere near close to “paying for itself.”

I mean… no shit.  The sky is also blue, water is also wet, and I wish I had more disposable income.

I have to say the teaser video did kind of intrigue me, because it not only cites ScumTrust Park as an example of how the Braves fleeced local taxpayers into paying for their ballparks, but also two of the three minor league facilities that house Braves affiliates, the one in Jackson, Mississippi, and then the one right up the road in Lawrenceville, the respective homes to the AA-Braves and the AAA-BravesStripers.  Yeah, they’re struggling too, after the Braves duped those towns into building their crappy ballparks as well.

I can’t say that I’ve been compelled to watch the news, but I have to admit that I’m intrigued by this story, and might actually have to make an effort to check it out on television.  Or hope the actual video report up online for convenient viewing, because I kind of want to watch it.

But it’s not like it’s going to be anything remotely a revelation for me, I am however curious to see what the rest of the sheep think about the topic, considering it’s taken them over a year to realize that it perhaps wasn’t the best idea in the world to undertake a baseball stadium.

Salt, thy name is the Philadelphia Eagles

I know a lot of people hate the New England Patriots.  I hear it, the arrogance, the constant winning, allegations of Spygate, Deflategate.  Bill Belichick is a genius, Tom Brady is a god, etc., etc.  They get accused of cheating, but then while under the microscope, they go ahead and win some more.  They’ve been penalized and have had key players suspended, but then they come out and win some more.  I get why lots of sports fans (fake, fairweather or otherwise) love to hate the Patriots.

But there was absolutely zero chance that I was going to cheer for the Philadelphia Eagles.  Now I’ve never really had any problem with the Patriots, and I respect the sustained success of the organization, in spite of all the allegations, so it was a no-brainer that I’d prefer the Patriots over the Eagles, but we’re in a delicate timeframe right now where Eagles fans are insufferably but justifiably overjoyed right now, and anyone who was supporting the Patriots are either hiding, pretending like they didn’t care, or doing whatever it takes to not have to eat the crow of a demoralizing defeat.

However, I can admit the defeat.  I’m not really a Pats fan, but I am definitely an anti-Eagles fan, and despite the fact that Super Bowl LEE was actually a really good game, it makes me feel queasy to accept the reality that the Philadelphia Eagles are Super Bowl champions.

The Eagles deserve congratulations, but they won’t get any from me.  Fuck the Eagles.  They won a really exciting game, and they made pretty much no mistakes.  I loved Doug Pederson’s play calling, and he went for it in manners that made my inner Madden giddy, and his ballsy shot calling is undoubtedly led the Eagles to the victory.  The fact that the game had one punt and over 1,100 yards of offense was a testament to how high-octane it was. 

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