| Granger's Mixed Bag |
||||||||||||
| Back to Because I Can |
||||||||||||
| 4.15.02 Greetings, and my apologies for being motivationally-challenged when it comes to my own web site. It has lain dormant, for the most part, for close to a year now. At some point I will find the time and motivation to continue the "Because I Can" legacy, but for now I will take Brother Bad up on his offer to allow me to spew forth my diatribes on his site. My inaugural contribution to Sinbad's site will hit on a topic that Eric reveres: Sports. But, I think that even the cynical Sinbad will enjoy my spin today. As an aside, he may try to deny it, but I know from personal experience that Eric is one hell of a golfer. You should see the way he plays his chip shots down a stairwell - magnificent. Several months ago, in Salt Lake City, the world witnessed the winter olympics. I use the term witnessed very loosely, because I honestly didn't voluntarily watch a single minute of the games (I was forced to watch one of the most boring ice skating races ever when I was stuck in an auto repair waiting room with a gaggle of retards who were heard to exclaim: "ooh I think he lost an edge in turn two..."). Regardless, some people apparently watched and enjoyed the olympics, but I did not. The same goes for the summer games. Even if Bob Costas wasn't contantly crying over some bullshit human interest story about some Bulgarian ice dancer who's father was an atheist until he found god while watching his daughter perform her ice dancing routine, I still wouldn't like the olympics. You want to know why? (actually I don't care if you want to know, I'm going to tell you anyway) The events are stupid and unrealistic. The olympics in Greece started out as a measure of the greatest talent in the country. They were tested at useful things, some of which have survived, like running or jumping. Now we have things like curling. In my opinion sports should not be included. I love baseball and hockey, but they shouldn't be olympic events. I think the olympic games should be reduced to useful athletic tests. For example, pole vaulting is useless - there is no reason in the real world to need to pole vault over a bar nineteen feet high and then land on your back on the other side. Now, if one of the rules was that the pole vaulter must land on his feet - then you'd have something useful. There are all kinds of applications for that kind of skill (military or otherwise). There are countless other useless events in both the winter and summer games that could be made more useful by slightly, or greatly, changing the rules. Please feel free to e-mail me at granger@sexstone.net if you have any other examples. Maybe I'll post them to a future article if they are clever enough, or maybe not. |
||||||||||||
| Road Rage and Concealed Weapons 4.29.02 I was driving home from work last Friday and there was a radio report of a traffic jam (luckily on the other side of town) caused by an incident of road rage. Later I found out that the incident had culminated in the stabbing of a driver. For those of you that don't know me, I don't live in Los Angeles, I live in Kansas City. Of course there is the normal outrage in the city with all the incredulity expressed by the talking heads over how "our fair city" could stoop so low. I, however, am not so incredulous. For those that do know me, you know that I have been known to have borderline road rage tendencies. For some reason anger and hostility boils to the surface when I am behind the wheel that usually lays dormant (deep down inside this twisted mind...). I have a theory on this: I believe that, even though we know that others can see and sometimes hear us, we believe that we are in our own private area in our cars. Ever see some dipshit picking his nose in his car? He doesn't even realize anyone can see him. For a supposedly intelligent species, we can be pretty dumb (hello? that stuff around you, that you are looking through - that's glass, people can see in just as easily as you can see out). Anyway, this feeling of privacy allows us to express what we really think of the people around us, which, in many cases, is not so nice. There has also been a sentiment of sympathy for the stabbing victim. This I cannot possibly agree with. As they say (God, I hate "they" and "them" - they keep saying these things that annoy me, but yet, still I quote them) "it takes two to tango." Or in this case: the one idiot didn't stab the other idiot through his windshield, they both stopped their cars to get in a fight. I find it hard to feel sorry for a guy who was so angry that someone impeded his progress that he had to stop his car in order to get in a fight. If that kind of brainiac thinking gets you stabbed, or killed, then maybe you got what you deserved there, Einstein. It's just a matter of thinning the herd, and I've got no problems with that. The concealed weapons thing can cut two ways (pardon the pun, or don't, I don't care). On one hand, it would sometimes be nice to have a weapon handy to shut some dumb bastard up that's trying to be the big man. For example, when I was about five or six years old I was riding in a car with my father. He was stopped at a four way stop and was getting ready to turn left. Just as he entered the intersection a car ran the stop sign opposite of him and both cars had to slam on their brakes to avoid a collision. The dickhead in the other car jumped out of his car and challenged my father to a fight. My dad, not usually a violent man, said to me after returning to the car (and after not fighting with the guy) "This is one time I really wish I had my gun in the glove box..." In situations like that, it would be nice to have a concealed weapon, on the other hand... If the dickhead in the other car had a concealed weapon, well, I might not still have a father, so I'm not sure where to come down on that one... |
||||||||||||
| 4.30.02 I just checked out the site and realized that I need to add a short update to my article: On my way into work this morning the morning show on the radio interviewed the "victim" of the road rage stabbing. He said that the reason he pulled over was because the other guy looked "like a little guy" and he thought it would be funny. The host said that he had seen the "victim" on television and that he was a pretty big guy. The "victim" responded that yes, he was about six foot three, two hundred and twenty pounds. So, anyway, this big guy thought it would be funny to get in a fight with an irate "little guy" on the side of the road. Again, I must say that he deserves every little bit that he got, in fact, he probably got off easy. To make things worse, the "victim" started the incident on the road. After the "little guy" passed him and "nearly hit my bumper," the "victim" sped up to catch the guy and give him the finger as he passed by. Then, not only did they pull over to fight, but they did so in the center median. It's a shame they both didn't get run down and put out of their misery. |
||||||||||||
| Video Game Violence I have a weakness (yes, Eric, just one, you sarcastic one man peanut gallery). My weakness is video games. I know it is stupid and a complete waste of time, but there is something about the controlled environment - failure isn't so bad when you can just throw the controller against the wall and turn the machine off. I usually am especially partial to sports games. It is a great way for me, as an avid sports fan, to make sure that my favorite teams always win. Anyway, like I said, I usually play mostly sports games, but the other day I played a game called Grand Theft Auto III. I was not all that intrigued by the game until I realized the beauty it contained. The concept behind the game is that the character you control is a street thug that goes around the city performing jobs for the mob. Pretty bland, right? But the great thing is that you can randomly carjack and murder people along the way. There are plenty of weapons available to you to use to rob people on the street or just kill randomly. The police will chase you, but if you don't kill a police officer, they don't chase very hard (reminicent of the LAPD, eh?). One of the great portions of the game is the manner in which you regain your health. Say, for example, that you wreck your car and shoot a cop in the head. As a consequence several other cops returned fire and you were hit several times. Luckily you were not killed and you got away, but your health level is low. In real life what would you do? I'm not sure, but the game has a great answer: pick up a hooker. You can carjack a van and drive down a certain street and pick up a working girl. Then you drive to a secluded area and within moments the van starts to rock and your health begins to revive. When finished it is important that you murder the hooker so you can get your money back... Anyway, there has been a predictable uproar over the content of this game. Rightfully so, I think, if children are allowed to play the game. However, it is not only children that play video games - I am a good example of this. My generation is the first that was raised on video games and we still enjoy them into our "adulthood". Games like Grand Theft Auto III were made for my generation. The packaging clearly rates the game for mature audiences. As for me, the game did not create any desire in me to go out and shoot cops or pick up a hooker. In fact, the game was more of a release of the hostilities that become pent up inside after driving home during rush hour with all the jackasses of the world. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to carjack one of those bastards and shoot them in the head... Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say that out loud? I guess it got away from me a little bit there... |
||||||||||||
| Thinning the Herd - 5.31.02 I have referenced this topic previously in one of my articles, but Eric's last posting made me realize that I need to give this topic a whole column of its own. (Using the terms articles and column sure makes this sound professional, right? I mean seriously, are there at least two other people that will read this besides myself and Eric? If Granger writes an "article and no one reads it, does he really have an opinion?) Anyway, after that wonderful little tangent, I think that there is a simple solution to Eric's moral dillema: If a person has a religious belief that compels them to refuse medical treatment, and they do not want their children to receive emergency medical treatment, they should have them wear one of those medical alert bracelets that says: "Let me die!" The real moral dillema is whether or not we, as a society, should allow parents to make this decision for their child. The majority of society would find it absurd to deny a child emergency medical care for any reason, including religious beliefs. However, I think that if the parents want to hold to this belief, we should let them. The result will be a thinning of the herd. I mean this, of course, in the Darwinian sense that the weak and stupid will naturally die off because of their natural inabilities to properly care for themselves and therefore the herd will be stronger as a whole. This concept applies wonderfully to the situation Eric has described. If there are parents that are dumb enough to deny their children access to medical treatment due to religious beliefs, then maybe it is best for society that those children die off. That way the genes of these moron parents will not be passed on for another generation, weakening mankind as a whole. This concept applies to many situations. If you have seen the annual Darwin awards you know exactly what I'm talking about. This "award" is given to the person who has died within the past year due to their incredible stupidity. One year a guy decided to strap a rocket engine onto his volkswagen and see how fast he could go. Moments later he smashed into the side of a mountain killing himself instantly. This year I read of a couple guys that were trying to sneak into an outdoor concert by backing their truck up to the fence and then jumping over. Unfortunately, the ground on the other side of the fence dropped off quite a distance, and when the first guy fell, the other dropped a rope to him to pull him out with the truck, but left the truck in reverse and backed over the edge and on top of his friend. You know how people say that they know that God exists because of all the beauty in the world? Every time they see a rainbow, or a flower blooming, or some other natural crap like that they pronounce that the proof of God is in the order of the universe. I like that theory, but my proof that God exists is the "thinning of the herd." Is there any better proof that God exists than that he punishes extreme stupidity (i.e. "rocketman" or the concert crashers) with death? It's as if God says "You are so dumb that I am not going to allow you to procreate." This is something to celebrate. Right here with this article I am starting my drive for a new holiday. Thin the Herd Day. Go out and call your congressmen and ask them to support Thin the Herd Day as a national holiday. |
||||||||||||
| MASTER INDEX Advice Columns Suck Archives Baseball Because I Can Betting Pool Clark's Corner Fat Guys Get Naked Too Fiction Football The Gogs Guest Article Mitch's Multi-Monthly Meanderings Mixed Bag NCAA Tournament The Professor Sex Stone |
||||||||||||