lol, idiots are so predictable

TL;DR – Nike makes Colin Kaepernick the face of the company; right wing extremists react predictably by burning their possessions

I think of all the tropes that exist in busted-ass America, I think one of my favorites is when a notable company takes a liberal stance on a divisive topic, and people who disagree don’t just disagree, they disagree with fire.  Literally.  As in they set fire to said company’s products that they’ve presumably paid for, owned and used at some point in their lives.  Because they disagree with them politically.

Sometimes it’s not just fire, or fire at all.  People shot their YETI coolers with actual ammunition, and then some people good old fashioned spiked their Keurig coffee makers onto the ground.   But the end result is still the same, that things end up destroyed.

Things, like Nikes and YETIs and Keurigs, that at some point, someone paid money for; money that went into the coffers and accounted into the annual reports of millions and billions of dollars for companies as the aforementioned.

Yeah, people destroy their shit when any of them take a stance on something that not everyone agrees on.  As if destroying them will magically get their money back, which of course is not the case.  So people end up angry and bent out of shape, and on top of that, now have to go out and buy some new sneakers or workout apparel, or a new cooler, or a new coffee maker.

All because they’re attention whores who feel required to make videos of themselves demonstrating their eagerness to waste their own money and resources, all because some people don’t agree with your line of thinking.

Real intelligent reactions, there.

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Another Dragon*Con in the books, another year of future uncertainty

By now, I’m pretty sure I’ve written the same post a few times over, over the last few years, as another Dragon*Con is now in the rearview mirror, and I’m left pondering on whether or not I want to go the next year, if the con is still something for a person like me, and wondering just what the heck is different between myself from absolutely everyone else who also goes, but still thinks it’s the greatest event in the world.

This isn’t to say that I thought Dragon*Con 2018 was terrible or bad by any stretch of the imagination; quite the contrary, I did enjoy myself several times throughout the weekend, I treasure the time spent with the friends that I saw, have remorse for the idea of not seeing other friends swept away in different waves amongst the alleged 75,000-82,000 attendees throughout the weekend, and I took some pictures here and there.

As we know, Dragon*Con is by no means an economical event, and if the whole experience weren’t over $700 a year, it’s kind of a no-brainer that there’s still merit to going year-in, year-out.  One of the things I often pondered if simply getting older and having life priorities shifting around has something to do with my perpetually declining enjoyment of the convention, but seeing as how there are plenty of people who are older than me, with children and/or much later stages in their lives who still think it’s the best event in the world, this is a theory that holds no weight and alternatively points at the notion that my brain the one with the hang-ups, not my age.

But as I stand now, a day removed from the convention, and having had some time to decompress and try and gather my thoughts, I’m once again left in the position on wondering if I want to bother going again next year, and teetering on that seesaw of leaning towards no.  Granted, that’s pretty much been the case every year for the last like 2-3 Dragon*Cons I’d been to, including the one before the one I took off to go cruising in Europe alternatively, but the fact of the matter is that I keep having these thoughts, because I keep seeing this pattern of wanting to go to this event that costs a lot of money and I’m not having nearly as much enjoyment out of it as I hoped I would versus the fear of missing out and letting that be one of my primary impulses to going regardless.

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Reason #1,728 why social media is cancer

The other night, some friends of mine and I went out to Hooters for dinner.  Ironically, it was actually the girls in the party who suggested it.  However, it turned out to be one of the worst dining experiences in recent memory, because the particular location we went too apparently had the equivalent of TNA Wrestling management working the kitchen, because it was the slowest service I’d received in months, and when the food came out, it was not really hot and was subpar.

However, it did give me a lot of time to watch TV, and I caught the very tail end of the Braves game, where Braves pitcher Sean Newcomb came within one strike from throwing the first Braves no-hitter in 24 years.  Despite the heart-breaking near-miss, it was undoubtedly the greatest start of a very young and budding career for the once-highly touted prospect.  Newcomb should absolutely have been feeling really good after the win that prevented the Dodgers from sweeping them at home.

Nah, instead the afternoon turned sour really fast when some Twitter troll(s) dug into his Twitter history and found some tweets he made when he was high school that were yeah, racially insensitive and pretty homophobic.  So shortly after having the best start of his career, Newcomb was sitting at the media table for the post-game talking about how regretful and apologetic he was for saying stupid shit for when he was a teenager, instead of talking about his fantastic start, in the present.

From what I understand, the person who started this shit storm was supposedly a Nationals fan, so some vindictive Braves fan(s) decided to eye-for-an-eye the situation, so they took it upon themselves to go digging through the old tweets of one of the young Nationals players, and found one in rising star Trea Turner.

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Full circle

Back to where it all began: Tampa Bay Rays trade Jonny Venters to the Atlanta Braves

Honestly, I thought I’d be more pumped up about this trade, considering how much I love Jonny Venters, and that he’s coming back to the Atlanta Braves.  But I guess there’s this permanent small resentment towards the Braves in my brain, involving their unnecessary move, their affiliation with ScumTrust, the tax increases they caused, and their general apathetic baseball operations that kind of makes me feel that they didn’t deserve to have the services of a classy guy like Jonny Venters.

Especially since the Braves basically cut Venters loose while he was at his very lowest point after numerous injuries, it was the Rays that kept his career alive, and I guess it was with the Rays in which I would’ve liked to have seen his career reignite.  Or at least, I would’ve loved to have seen the Rays trade Venters to an actual contender, and not like the currently free-falling Braves, who need starting pitching and not more relievers.

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Long past mainstream now, smarks

Over the weekend, I went to a Ring of Honor house show with my brother while I visiting Dallas.  Despite my general revulsion of the idea of going to another WWE event in my life, I was looking forward to this one, because I’d been to a ROH show back in like 2013, and enjoyed it a great deal. 

Back then, Kevin Steen was the world champion, and I was exposed to wrestlers whose names I’d heard before but never actually seen, like Roderick Strong and Jimmy Jacobs.  I saw some guys I’d never knew existed, like the Briscoes.  And there were a few familiar faces still proving they could still work, like Steve Corino and Rhyno.  Shelton Benjamin was on the card and got a massive beatdown after the match; apparently he was on his way back to the WWE, and as is often the tradition in the biz, a wrestler must go out on their backs as to repay the promotion for keeping them employed.

Plus, the crowd was smaller, and not a clusterfuck of humanity like a big-box WWE event can get, so I found it wholly to be a way better experience as a wrestling fan.

But that was over five years ago, and a lot has changed since then.  Most of the names and faces I saw back then have moved onto to the WWE or gone to New Japan.  After TNA collapsed, a lot of their wrestlers entered ROH, among other promotions.  And this little stable known as Bullet Club that was just being formed in 2013, is now probably the biggest brand in the industry today, and yes that is taking the WWE into consideration as well.

Overall, the ROH show in Dallas was pretty decent, in spite of the particularly weak ending, which saw a title change of the ROH Television championship going to a big oaf wrestler known as Punishment Martinez.  The fans in the crowd hated the shit out of him because he had a slight resemblance to Roman Reigns, and derided him with taunts of being Roman Reigns, therefore we hate you.  It’s a title awarded to a guy that doesn’t quite embody the reputation of ROH, which is fast, exciting technical wrestlers, but who really knows what direction they’re trying to go?

It doesn’t really matter.  I’m not that hardcore of a fan anymore to add ROH to my weekly list of promotions to keep my ear to the ground for to care that much.

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The very definition of social media being miserable

Not news: man uses app to order Chick Fil-A

News: that man is Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and this occurrence happened to be in the midst of pride month

And because Chick Fil-A on the internet, is known first and foremost for hating the gays (despite it usually being known as one of the better fast food chains in actual human dialogue), the users of the CEO’s very own company that he runs, go full internet on him, meaning insufferable passive-aggressive shaming, finger pointing and being the keyboard tough guys so many turn into when they feel all safe and cozy behind the anonymity of the internet.

The CEO of Twitter getting obliterated by his very own platform, all because he wanted to enjoy some delicious chicken.  This epitomizes how miserable social media is, when a guy can’t be a little bit pleased with saving a little cash from use of technology, without the masses of keyboard warriors and the finger-pointing Chick Fil-A Watch scrambling to the tops of their soap boxes to shame and go way out of their way to publicly shame others.

And as I’ve said before, I would wager an ungodly amount of money that in spite of the holier-than-thou attitude so many people portray themselves on the internet, whether they’re gay, gay-supporting, or whatever, the people that love to act like they boycott and hate Chick Fil-A, still eat Chick Fil-A from time to time.  It’s just fucking food, and it’s okay to eat it, and surely without the necessity of the judgment of the internet.

Bottom line is that social media is garbage.  The analogy I keep going back to is that it’s like the whole world is connected to AOL at all times, and anyone can IM anyone at any time, with mostly useless nonsense, spam and negativity.  My weekend was kind of soured because of something I found out about over social media, and it’s put me in a mode where I don’t want to really look at it for a little while.  And I’m just some nobody in the world; I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for any sort of celebrities or actually important figures out there.  When the day is over though, I don’t really care.

I’m over having my Star Wars fandom invalidated

I’m a fan of Star Wars.  This shouldn’t really be that much of a surprise, as I am very nerdy and have many nerdy interests.  However, throughout the years, I have been told that I am “not as much of a fan” of Star Wars as other people because of a myriad of reasons, with more recently because I don’t have a strong definitive opinion about The Last Jedi.*  Or the fact that I’m not remotely associated with the 501st or have a Rebellion or Empire sticker tattooed on me or brandished on my car.

*I didn’t think it was the best SW film, but I have not declared a jihad against it either

With the standalone Solo film around the corner, I’ve noticed people on social media being super curmudgeon about its release, and how they’re going to make zero effort to watch it and have basically denounced Star Wars as a franchise.  Or any other rhetoric along those lines.  I mean that’s fine and all that they’re not looking forward to it, but I think it’s a little excessive to be lifting a leg and farting all over those people who don’t take SW as serious as a religion.  Perhaps consider learning how to temper expectations, because even the best people in their fields don’t bat 1.000, and it’s only with the possibility of failure where the cream of the crop can truly rise.

But because I tend to not be so extreme in any direction about my excitement or apprehension about Star Wars, or anything really, I often get accused of being something of a filthy casual fan, who knows little about the franchise, and whose opinion about the franchise doesn’t matter as much as someone who, has SW tattoos, emblems on their car, or dresses up as Stormtroopers at Dragon*con.

The thing is, just because my fandom in Star Wars isn’t as vocal, as outwardly or so open to the rest of the world doesn’t mean that I’m no less of a fan.  I could name planets that aren’t mentioned in the canon films like Kashyyyk.  I played my fair share of X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Knights of the Old Republic.  There has been a lot of Star Wars in my life over the years, it’s just that I’m not so obnoxiously outward with it as the whole rest of the narcissistic world is.

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