matthearn.com

Let’s blast through a number of interesting topics on this Freaky Friday:

• I’m always amazed at people who think that stuff happens to them in some kind of vacuum. Folks who associate with douchebags, and then are surprised when those douchebags treat them like crap. Folks who have 4 kids with 3 different partners and wonder why their children act crazy. Folks who do everything in their power to hold up traffic and complain about tailgaters.

  
  I know sometimes cause and effect can be difficult to see, but c’mon, y’all. Please, just stop being dumb. I know it’s a lot to ask, but please try.



• This is a detailed article about Junior Seau, and why the middle linebacker position is the most dangerous in football, and probably in all sports that don’t involve being gored by a bull:
  

  A middle linebacker is taught from his first organized game to use his head and helmet as the first contact point when tackling and when shedding drive blocks of linemen and fullbacks who have the advantage of a running head start.

  
  Terrifying. Then I read this’n:
  

  The N.F.L. is making some of its former players aware of a study that found that they are likely to live longer than men in the general population…The government study found a lower death rate among former N.F.L. players than among men in the general population — the institute had expected to find that 625 members of the group it studied would be dead based on estimates from the general population, but instead found that 334 of the retired players had died. Former players also had a lower rate of cancer-related deaths — 85 players died from the disease, compared with the 146 cancer-related deaths researchers at the institute expected. And the rate of deaths from heart disease was lower, too — 126 players died from heart disease; Niosh had expected 186 deaths.

  
  I guess it shouldn’t be terribly surprising, given the extreme fitness of the skill positions; having a bunch of ex-wide receivers and defensive backs in there is going to make the overall results look pretty good. On the other hand,
  

  The study did not address the cognitive and mental health issues that have recently been linked to repeated blows to the head and that currently dominate the conversation about player safety.

  
  They may live longer, but if their brains are leaking slowly out of their ears, I suspect it’s not a particularly pleasant life.

  
  Note to self: my boys will play tackle football over my cold, stiff corpse.



• While we’re on the subject of sports:
  
  • Sshhh…the Phils have won 5 straight, are a game over .500, and while they’re still in last place in the division they’re only 4 games back. Chase Utley has been taking BP and fielding practice in Clearwater. We got high hopes, y’all.
  
  
  • The Flyers got knocked out, so I haven’t been paying even a lick of attention to hockey. Are the Whalers still in it? How about the North Stars?
  
  
  • I think the Sixers, sadly, have met their match. The Celtics are pretty elderly, but they know exactly how to win. As long as they keep it close, experience will take care of the rest; the best the Sixers can hope for is a 12 point lead with 3 minutes to go. Which can happen if they get hot, but…can they get hot for 3 out of 4 remaining games? At least the Heat seem to be getting manhandled by the Pacers; if LeWade and the Dominos get knocked out in the second round my heart will grow three sizes that day.
  
  
  • The Eagles signed Shady McCoy to a big contract…good for him. I’m sure I’ll watch the Eagles, but football tastes pretty sour since the players seem to average about 3 good post-retirement years before developing Alzheimer’s.
  
  
  • In Soccer news, Liverpool played crap ball since Christmas. Aside from the League Cup win, that is. On our side of the pond, Philadelphia Union is horrible, but the US Men’s squad has won its last three international matches and has a good chance in the Olympics this summer. They have to play France (awfully tough), Colombia (less tough), and North Korea (which has a team consisting entirely of Oompa Loompas). Are you asleep yet? Let’s move on.
  
  
  • In weightlifting news, I squatted 365 and benched 235 today, with which my 410lb deadlift from Wednesday puts me in the “Thousand Pound” club. I may try and bump those numbers next week, because I feel like I can do more, and I’m in an online powerlifting meet, and also the ladies love big squat numbers. Really. Ask any lady.
  
  
  
  
• President Obama came out in favor of gay marriage last week, following the vote by a bunch of rednecks to keep homosexuals second class citizens. This is great and all, but forgive my skepticism for not thinking that white trash voters aren’t likely to be swayed by the black guy in the white house.

That’s about all I’ve got for the day, so have a nice weekend, and stay loose, killers.

I know, I know, all I’ve been doing lately is posting links to silly pointless crap, but at least this way I’m not leaving the site unattended for weeks at a time. Once again this year I’m caught up in musical theatre, and it sucks up a lot of time. We’re doing Fiddler on the Roof! It’s actually pretty rad. Anyway, here’s today’s pointless link to ensure that I don’t have to waste time thinking about words. I found it extremely hilarious, which should not surprise you since it’s pretty dumb:

Been a busy day, so no significant updates, but here’s a few amusements for ye:

• I went to high school here. Fire! Awesome.


• One for the baseball fans; this killed me.


• You don’t have to be scared of vegetarians.


• Oh crap. Apparently this is real. Why won’t she just go away?

Sorry for the light day; I’ve been busy every night this week, which is when I write most of my posts and schedule them to pop up during the day. One more night of rehearsals and then I’m off until, you know, we have a baby next week. And whatnot.

Chris Hardwick over at nerdist.com has an interesting post on confidence. The gist: know how to do something that you love, really well. Even if you’re in a situation where that expertise doesn’t really apply, the simple fact that you’re really good at something can be a subconscious morale booster.

I feel guilty for laughing at these things, but cannot help myself:

• Andrew Sullivan shows us how the Catholic Church feels about its youth.


• This young lady loves her some John Mayer. (For which I do not fault her; he’s like a tattoo’d god.)


• A new iPhone app that everybody would want, if Apple hadn’t immediately taken it out of the App Store.


• Penny Arcade brings us a special new Rock Band.

Link day! It’s been a while, I’ve got the hot stuff to share.

• Like photography? Check out this portfolio commenting on how animals interact with the humans that roll all up in their shizzito. Note: the shots were staged with taxidermicalated critters, so don’t worry when you see, say, a little girl in a swimsuit confronting a massive bear.
• This is the greatest musical recording that has ever been made in the history of EVERYTHING. I cannot stop watching this.
• Like hallucinating? Can’t afford those expensive psychotropic drugs? Give this a try! I wonder where I can get a rubber hand.
• I don’t know what more you can ask for from the Internet when it provides this. While we’re a-YouTube-ing, here’s an oldie but goodie. Also: this is strangely enjoyable. And this is simply captivating.
• One more Youtube: Splashdown. Holy crap.
• Your dad is looking fantastic. And he’s been super busy, too! Great job by him.
• Thanks to PassiveAgressiveNotes.com we have fantastic finds such as this. Really? Rambo quotes? Fantastic.
• I’m not saying you should buy me one for my birthday, but doesn’t this price seem like a steal?

• If you’re curious about what kind of economic downturn we could be facing, check this out. It’s pretty grim. I’m pretty optimistic, personally, but that will probably change if I, say, get fired and take up alcoholism.
• A couple Youtube clips worth checking out:
  • Widor Toccata. Probably my favorite piece for organ, but holy crap look at the console for that instrument. 154 ranks! 5 divisions! (By comparison, the organ I usually practice on has 19 ranks, I believe.) Jeepers. Plus, best of all, watch when the pedal part starts at about 50 seconds in. That’s right, world-famous organist Frederick Hohman is wearing pants with elastic cuffs. I know what you’re thinking, “Oh, he’s just German, they wear weird things,” but nay nay; he was born in Missouri, people.

    I need to find out if my dad knows him; they would have been at Eastman, studying with the same teacher, at the same time.

    Additionally: wow.

  • I have listened to this Nickel Creek song no less than 40 times in the last 24 hours. I do not exaggerate. The video itself is kinda nice, but unimportant, and in fact doesn’t really pertain to the song (which appears to be about tenuous Christian faith); just open the link, put it in the background in case your boss comes up behind you, and give a listen.

    I know this probably qualifies as “Contemporary Christian” music, which under normal circumstances I despise (I prefer my religious music written for men, boys, and organ, and also I am deeply suspicious of a genre of religious music featuring commercials with culty audiences waving their arms and singing along with their eyes closed), but in this case I make an exception. Not least because the lyrics sort of hit home.

• I am spending altogether too much time playing with toys.
• Whopper-scented body spray for Men. This seems like it’s marketed to the wrong gender. I mean, as much as a guy would enjoy smelling like a burger, wouldn’t he enjoy his wife smelling like one WAAAAY more? I’m not a big fan of perfumes and whatnot, as my wife can attest, but always prefer food-smelling ones (fruit, etc.) to flower-smelling ones, because the latter make my nose clog instantly. But I’ve said for years, if they made a perfume called “Eau de Boeuf” that smelled of Prime Rib, I’d
  1. make sure Sarah had a lifetime supply, and
  2. immediately buy stock in the company.

  Maybe I’m just weird.

The debate was last night, I’m sure everybody watched at least part of it. I’m dramatically unqualified to judge the candidates on their political merits, particularly in the area of foreign policy and economics (aka the only two real issues in this election), so take this with a grain of salt. What I said on Twitter earlier (in shorter form) was this: Senator McCain looked tough, a real badass. The kind of guy that would likely get us involved in a bunch of wars, but also the kind of guy who would have the sack to finish the job.

On the other hand, Senator Obama looked Presidential. The kind of President who would bring some quiet reserve to the white house. The kind of President who, if Iran were to get ideas about nuking Israel, would simply stroll into the negotiations and say “You are going to back down,” and stare Achmekfdjaldfajfanad (as Sen. McCain refers to him) in the eye, and Iran would be all “Yeah, our bad on that. Sorry for the, uh, misunderstanding.” Because they know if they didn’t, he’d simply make their country into a wasteland.

Do with that information what you will. On to some lizinks:

• Is it just me, or is the damage to Galveston from Hurricane Ike not receiving even one-millionth the coverage of Katrina? I mean, sure, there wasn’t a lot of dead people, but still. Are we just Hurricaned out? Anyway, here are some pictures of the devastation.
• As a lover of ice cream as well as breasts, I’m not sure how I feel about this. Oh wait, yes I do, it’s fricking disgusting.
• The folks over at icanhascheezburger.com have developed something almost as awesome: roflrazzi.com. Best one so far.
• The Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator tells me that if she was my mom, I’d be named Mole Valdez Palin. I have to say, that is way better than my current moniker. (Sorry, Mom.)
• I’m describing my feelings about this news as “guardedly excited.”
• Are you colorblind? I wouldn’t click here then. Hope you have a decent monitor. (Note: I got 100% because I am brilliant. If you get less, well, don’t feel bad.)
• Heehee…if a black guy was tasked with introducing John McCain to a convention crowd.
• Ever wanted to learn how to use a slide rule, without spending the dollaz to purchase one? I can make your dreams come true. If you don’t want to learn how to use a slide rule, well, then you aren’t cool.
• Last but not least, I love this: Chill the F out. Probably safe for work, but if your kids can read don’t open it in front of them.

Rad times, y’all.

UPDATE:

• Nevermind; Bad times, y’all.
  

  He was smiling… That’s right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn’t know it ‘fore, they could tell right then that they weren’t a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he’s a natural-born world-shaker. – Cool Hand Luke

Did you notice I’ve started using titles on my posts? I totally am! The reason is this: I felt that the Chase Utley post from last week needed a title, so I turned them on. That’s it. I guess I could turn them back off, but meh. At least this way the RSS feed will be a little better organized. A few quick things, and then I have some fun links to share:

WebMD may well be the best organized, fully-featured, almost unconscionably useless website to be found on the Intarwebz today. I have some kind of problem wherein my left foot feels like it has a broken bone in it, so I went to WebMD, entered my symptoms, and was presented with a list of something like 15 possible problems, such as “stress fracture in foot” (Really? You think?) and “sciatica,” which I thought went out with gout and scurvy. (Actually, I know two middle-aged gentlemen who are suffering from gout. I keep begging them to start dressing up like Benjamin Franklin, but they refuse.)

I went to the doctor, who said it might be a stress fracture, so she had me go get an X-ray, the results of which have not yet come back. On the other hand, the X-ray technician was a stone cold fox. If I wasn’t so lazy, I would TOTALLY stalk her.

A few weeks ago, Charles and I went to the Brandywine Zoo (Sarah is frantically trying to finish her “case study,” which is sort of like a master’s thesis, but not really, so we try to stay out of her way) because they had advertised that Curious George, in mascot-sized form, was going to be there, and also because if I have a chance to see a capybara, I am going to take that chance. Sadly, apparently every other parents in New Castle County had the same idea; the line was, according to other folks nearby, THREE HOURS LONG. So Charles and I went over to the monkey house, which is separate, and stood outside and watched simians leap from tree to tree.

Screw you, Curious George, I wanted to see a rodent of unusual size.

Teh Linxorz:

• This is beyond creepy: Coffin Calendar. Click the picture in the middle. MIGHT be a little NSFW, as some of the ladies are en lingerie. (I don’t speak French very well.)
• You may remember last fall when I posted a completely nonsensical post involving Christianity, homosexuality, and why some people seem to think the two are incompatible. The comments got a little wild, and then there was a follow-up post that did nothing to stem the tide of ignorance coming from my fingers. What I really meant to say was this post by Rev. Wendy Porter, who was an associate priest at my pops’s church for a while, and has since moved back to her old Atlanta stomping grounds. Sadly, while she was in the area, we didn’t really get to hang out, because she’s cooler than the other side of the pillow, if that pillow was in a freezer. Also, I was dismayed to log into facebook and discover that she’s YOUNGER than I am; there’s really no reason to think she’s OLDER than I (she certainly doesn’t look any older than about 25), but my worldview up to that point had no place for Episcopal priests who were not at least five years my senior. Also: no one who is younger than I am has the right to be that eloquent.
• It’s common knowledge that groin injuries are always HILARIOUS if they are happening to someone else.
• This guy is a total winner:
  

  Peckman, 54, who is single and lives with his parents . . .

  You don’t say?

• One more game that I was unaware of the other day, but is taking up FAR too much of my valuable time: Armor Picross 2. Simple puzzle game with a Sudoku feel that will not allow you to stop.

Somehow I managed to write this in its entirety last week, and not post it. Good job, Hearn! Idiot. Here it is, a week later:

In lieu of actual humor and important stuff, I give you a modified link day! Today’s links are all games that I’ve come across lately, and they are AWESOME.

• Storm Winds: an opportunity to buy anti-aircraft weapons and use them to blow up steampunk enemies. A good way to waste a half hour or so after you eat your Lean Cuisine at lunch.
• Sea of Fire 2: The sequel to Sea of Fire 1, which had basically the same plot but the gameplay was pretty weak. They fixed that in SoF2; if you liked “Age of Empires” or “Command and Conquer,” this is along those lines. Build stuff, upgrade it, use it to build weapons, and blow up your enemy. I’ve beaten both sides of the conflict up to the “normal” level; the “hard” level lets me get to about 2/3 of the way through and then just says “screw you, you aren’t getting any further, jerk.” Frustrating, but still fun.
• Magic Pen: I quite literally spent something near to four hours playing this earlier this week. It was one of the most depressing displays of wasted time since college. Either you will not really get this game, and give up after round 3, or you will simply not move until you beat it, which will take a while. Oh, what’s it about? Drawing objects and watching how they interact with physics. Seriously, it’s awesome.
• Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 3: Do you like Guitar Hero, but don’t want to shell out the benjies for the guitar and game combo? Have you always wanted to play your keyboard like a guitar? This is the game for you. It’s basically a complete Guitar Hero ripoff that you play on your keyboard. The first few songs are pretty easy, but it gets Hard with a capital iz-aitch.
• Forum Warz! They warn that this game is highly offensive, although I’m about 3 levels in and it hasn’t been TOO execrable yet. A little gross, to be sure; I’d imagine anybody over the age of 40 is probably not going to like this game. Or if you’re just a prude. I’m having fun with it, though.

That’s all I got. Have a good’n.