Deathbed Confession

Confession is good for the soul they say.  I have no idea who “they” are, or whether “they” are correct, but there is at least one person who took that axiom to heart.  Val Patterson wrote his own obituary which was published by the Salt Lake City Tribune after he passed away earlier this month from throat cancer.  The thing about Val’s obituary is that he…confessed…certain things.

Among the things Val confessed to (you can read his obit here if you’d like), was not actually earning the PhD that he claimed from the University of Utah, and stealing a safe from a business when he was young.  While I think some of his “confessions” are circumspect, his widow Mary Jane says they are all true, so who am I to judge?

Haha…don’t ask questions you don’t already know the answers to.

Indeed, “Markus.”  This obit actually leads to many more questions than answers.  Was he suspected before but got off?  Was it a great unsolved mystery?  Who is this masked man?  Anyone else…?

Y’know, when I was a kid I had a cat named Socks and he used to disappear after we put him in the laundry too…curious.

Right “Captain.”  Cause that’s exactly how the law works…

That IS what you get for thinking “Susan.”  Imagine if you’d have “thot” some more; you could have found the missing letters from that word.

I like your comment???

Yes, “Greg.”  You wild man from Wichita!  I bet the six people who liked your comment would be the six who would give an eff about reading your whole page confession too.

Not only does it do no good; it’s physically impossible.  Do you really think Val wrote this obituary after he was dead?

So why is that the bar for comparison then?!?  I want that deal to!  When I die I want my mistakes to be compared to Jeffrey Dahmer and the Unibomber…

Maybe “Jet” has the right idea.  We all should confess things in our obituaries, or better yet just make up lives that we never led.  In 2012 I began a blog that became wildly successful and netted me over a billion dollars in worth.  I always claimed that I worked hard to make it as a funny and entertaining as possible, even though most of the humor was derived from things other people wrote.  I often claimed that this stuff doesn’t write itself.  But the truth is: It does.

Be Reasonable.

Commie or Killer?

It seems those are the only two choices left with President Obama these days, either he’s a Communist or he’s a killer.  If he’s not killing off senior citizens through the infamous “Death Panels” that Sarah Palin warned us were coming with Obamacare (motto: “now Supreme Court approved for your pleasure”), he’s taking matters into his own hands and killing off senior citizens directly.  Take the recent story of Josephine “Ann” Harris, who despite being a proud Obama supporter, was nonetheless targeted for extermination mere hours after meeting the President herself, apparently having met the Obamacare maximum age of 70.

Okay, that’s not actually…y’know…true.  But that doesn’t seem to matter in today’s politically charged atmosphere.  What actually happened is that Ann unfortunately had a heart attack and passed a few hours after having the personal thrill of meeting President Obama when he visited her diner.  As you might have guessed, there was lots of news coverage of this ‘event’ and thus lots of comments about it as well…my favorite thing!

Do ya think, Ben?  You don’t think people will simply give their condolences to the poor woman’s family, see this as an unfortunate coincidence, and be done with it?

I guess not…

Okay, “Theresa,” the last person?  Really?  Even Jerry Sandusky is higher on the list?  Interesting standards.  (Yeah, I said it...)

Haha…see it’s funny to “Ana” because she has painted welfare recipients with broad brush strokes that she knows some people will associate with blacks but she’s done it without ever actually saying it…oh, soooo clever.  Especially here in a story about a woman's death.

Wait a second “Yes Me”…first of all, I ALWAYS try to have witty responses, and second, when is this time you speak of when the common folk weren’t racist, self-centered idiots?  Is this way of thinking really just a product of the internet age, or is it simply an example of people always thinking this way but now being able to speak what they truly feel behind the safety and obscurity of a keyboard and aliases?  (oh, but that’s one of the key points of this blog isn’t it?)

Wow.  Paging Dr. "Lee Ann!"  We need you to diagnose a bunch of other illnesses based strictly on viewing photos on the internet!  Except me...I don't want to know if I'm sick.  Just stay away...

Speak for yourself.  One man’s trash is another man’s gold.

Right on time…both sides showing their asses.  Speaking of which, is everyone in agreement that these comments are despicable?

Well, almost everyone…

Twelve thumbs-down for you “Starduster.”  I know…let’s all try to  guess how many of those 12 made comments about Stardusters hometown…I'm thinking at least 11.  (Intercourse...snicker)

Exactly my point, “Daniel G”…from now until forever…

Be Reasonable.

Faster, Higher,...oh, nevermind

Last weekend the USA Track and Field Olympic Trials were held in Eugene, Oregon.  I happen to love track and field events, especially sprints and jumps, so I was tuning in whenever I could find time.  Something pretty remarkable happened at the end of the women’s 100-meter sprint – there was a tie…a dead heat…for third place.  Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh finished precisely at the same time, according to all analysis of the photo finish.

NOTE:  For those not up on Track and Field rules, the winner is determined by the torso…not by arms, legs, head, hands, feet, etc.  The line drawn vertically through the picture is the finish line, and as you can see, they both hit it at exactly the same time.

This was something that had apparently never happened before and the reason that we know this is because there was no tie-breaking procedure in place.  None.  Zero.  Zilch.  As if nobody have ever dreamed the possibility of this happening.  You may be asking yourself, what’s the big deal about a tie for third?  Well, only the top three finishers make the Olympic team, so a tie-breaker would be needed.
Not shying away from making an incredible situation devolve into something ridiculous, the USATF organization came up with an asinine tie-breaker:  Felix and Tarmoh could choose between a run-off or a coin-flip to determine the outcome.  To add to the ridiculousness, the decision had to be unanimous.  This generated a lot of “interest” from the interwebs.  Since it’s my job to read idiotic comments so that you don’t have to…I sifted through over one-thousand comments and can break them down thusly:

A portion (although larger than I expected) were racist.  I’ll spare you from those.
Another portion were predictably sexist, such as:

Some were cleverly offering alternatives to the coin flip:

Then there were the folks who thought the race officials either eye-balled the results with the naked eye or thought they had better eyesight than those paid to make these calls for a living:

Another camp was made of people who wanted to change the rules of track and field to match what they (mistakenly) thought the rules were or should be:

Then there were the typical interweb crazies:

I’m sure the US Olympic committee were suitably distressed by your email “Gregory .“  Way to give ‘em “what for.”  I’m sure it totally changed their minds.

WTF?  “Jack,” what does this even mean?

So…Felix and Tarmoh first decided that they would have a run-off.  Many thought Felix, after winning the 200 meters (her best event) might just concede the 100-meter spot to Tarmoh, since it would be Tarmoh’s only spot on the team.  But Felix wanted to race, explaining that she uses the 100 to improve herself in the 200.  The race was scheduled to be a “prime-time” event on Monday night in front of a national TV audience.  On Monday morning Tarmoh pulled out of the race, saying that she felt “in her heart of hearts” that she had earned the third spot and felt backed into a corner.  That led to more interwebs discussion, most of them falling somewhere like this:

 
Medal for sportsmanship…whiny baby…God, I love the internet!!!

How patriotic of you “JimH”…America’s team sucks!  Hell, yeah!  Let’s root for Canada!

Holy crap!  Yes, "Disapline" was what was called for...at least "Jerry" had enough discipline to keep misspelling it "disapline"!  What a wild detour though…from choosing not to participate in an Olympic run-off to drawing a comparison to Columbine…

Ah…yes…I knew politics would get in there somewhere.

Although I usually let the interweb denizens end my posts, I wanted to end this one with the “Olympic Creed” and let you decide whether Jeneba Tarmoh was living up to it with her decision:

The most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight;

the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.

“Faster, Higher, Stronger” indeed.

Be Reasonable.

Mugly Dog

I am a dog lover.  Dogs are empathic, intelligent creatures while at the same time being just dumb enough to provide truly unconditional love.  There’s a country song by Billy Currington (yeah, I’m a country music lover, so sue me!) in which the key lyric is “I want you to love me like my dog does baby.”  I think everyone can relate to that kind of love.  Dogs feel for you, even at the expense of themselves.  I begin the blog this way today because of this guy, Mugly, who recently won the “World’s Ugliest Dog” contest.

I gotta say…I think they got that one right.  Let the arguments begin!

Hey now!  That’s not what I really meant by ‘arguments.’  What?  Oh, no argument there…

Really “WilliamR”?  The last thing?  You just named two things right before that which are infinitely worse than an ugly dog contest.  And, not for nothing, but Mugly “won” $1000 and a year’s worth of treats.  Not a bad haul, if you ask me.

Interesting.  I mean, I am assuming that you have never met Mugly, amirite?  What if Mugly is a dick?  Would it be okay with you then?

Well “Sean”…you might be an early frontrunner.

Oh, “Ronald.”  I just…I really…I have no idea where to go with this one.  It’s a little creepy that you’re so enamored with Mugly’s sex life, but a million dollars on whether Mugly is the canine equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain?

Hey “Wake Up”…it’s a grand okay?  Get a grip.  This contest is not the reason for the country’s economic problems and it certainly wouldn’t do much for the “millions” of other dogs.

Geezus “Dottie” you’re givin’ me whiplash here!  He’s ugly, he’s cute, he’s ugly, please invite me.  WTF?  Do you really think there are talent scouts scouring the country and “inviting” people to this contest?  How ‘bout you use that there google machine and find out how to enter you and your cute but ugly dog next year?

Well good, we all agree that people suck.  Especially people who type things like “so haven’t I”…tragic.

Get it?!?  See, Mitt Romney is famous for strapping the family dog to the roof of the car for a vacation trip to Canada.  And President Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, where he ate dog meat as part of the culture.  Sooooo effin funny…now that we’ve given equal time to offend both presidential candidates in this election year (to say nothing of offending poor Mugly), I will leave it at that.

Happy Independence Day everyone!

Be Reasonable.

Err Marshals

Quietly this weekend, the Transportation Security Administration (you know, the people who frisk your 90-year old meemaw and your 6-year old daughter for any dangerous contraband at the airport) announced that they had fired eight Air Marshals after an investigation that began in February concluded that these eight drank alcohol during lunch while attending training.  This was in violation of agency policy and comes on the heels of the Secret Service prostitution debacle in Colombia.  The information came from one of their own – another Air Marshal that was present at the time.

So, these were federal law enforcement officers, several of which were armed at the time and at least one of which was a supervisory marshal, drinking alcohol on duty in a public place and in clear violation of agency policy.  One might conclude that this shouldn’t be all that controversial a decision.  One would be wrong…

Well that seems a little harsh for an extra “o”…

Yeah…thanks for not naming any agencies.  Mighty big of you.

Hmmm.  I’m not really sure that “changing oil” is in the TSA’s job description so it’s good you don’t go there for oil changes.  I mean, I don’t go to Jiffy Lube for ice cream either but I’ve never done that because they have “no standards.”

Interesting point “KnowerFact.”  I remember my momma always told me, “Sonny, if you want to be rich and famous you best be working on becoming a government worker.  The public holds them in the highest regard and they always score the most tail.”

A month?!?  You think this stuff writes itself “Karsim”?  Hell, I’m having trouble getting one crappy blog post out of it, no thanks to you.

Thanks for clueing us in “azcat87.”  We probably wouldn’t have been able to pick up on it from the exclamation point with no more words following it.

Well, hell.  Maybe this stuff does write itself.  Takes one to know one, “Drunkin Mom.”

You don’t drink by choice?  Does this mean you drink by force?  So sad…

I’m a dolt, he’s a dolt, she’s a dolt…when did we become a society that can’t tell the difference being committing a crime and violating a workplace policy?  They were fired, not arrested…you dolt.

Yeah, cause that’s the same thing.  Thanks “Paul Statz” for finishing us off with something totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Be Reasonable.