Random thoughts

[jasonfish11]

If Brett Favre wants people to pronounce his last name as "Farve"... why wouldn't he just spell it like "Farve"?

Who still says his name frequently enough for this to be an issue?

[legitimatebeef]

They don't call em random thoughts for nothin.

[legitimatebeef]

I have this nagging feeling that there are lifeforms on one of more of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.

[legitimatebeef]

I am watching some C-SPAN or whatever the fuck it is and the Facebook kid is testifying in front of Congress. I see that he got himself a nice tidy haircut for the occasion.

WHAT A GODDAMN DORK. The guy is worth like 60 billion dollars, and still dweeby enough to care what the grown-ups think of his appearance.

Then again, these Silicone Valley sick fucks are not making money for the normal reason, which is to ENJOY LIFE. No, these entrepreneurs aren't sacrificing their normal lives and identities to make money. They are not about ENJOYING LIFE. They are doing what they do for power, influence and because they have some sort of cockamamie messiah complex. Like they are going "leave their mark on humanity" or some such lunatic shit. As far as pathologies go, I consider this kind of entrepreneurial megalomania to be about as fucked up as any other mental sickness. But it's economically productive, and people worship wealth, so these maniacs are foisted up as some sort of ideal for people to aspire to.

[jasonfish11]

Serial killers and executives of large companies both have a higher rate of psychopathy.

[legitimatebeef]

Exactly. We have rationalized the behavior as "innovation" or "entrepreneurial spirit" but really it's just another form of crazy. This one provides jobs though, so it has that going for it I guess.

[legitimatebeef]

I am about to throw down another proclamation. The greatest guitar soloist in rock is Brian May. Others might have conceived better riffs (Page) or lit the world on fire with their prowess (Hendrix) but nobody composed a solo like May. He is up there with like, Paganini or Brahms or some shit. Most other guitarists are aimless noodlers compared to May.

[legitimatebeef]

I am usually impressed whenever a person can use both the words "your" and "you're" in the same sentence without fucking up.

[jasonfish11]

I am usually impressed whenever a person can use both the words "your" and "you're" in the same sentence without fucking up.

Except when that person is over the age of 13?

This should be pretty standard, and I consider myself pretty substandard with grammar and spelling. Unless you're setting your bar for grammatical aptitude too low.


Do I get extra credit for the correct too?

[srogers13]

You're your own worst enemy with grammar, eh.

[legitimatebeef]

Added a new emoticon, just for you guys.

[bkuehn1952]

Added a new emoticon, just for you guys.

Thanks but I am used to the old one ...

[legitimatebeef]

Today I learned via the NYT crossword puzzle, that lawn darts ("jarts") have proven to be extremely hazardous to human life and thus are now BANNED in the USA! (and Canada)

[MattF]

Were they ever available anywhere else?

[DougE]

Geez, how are horseshoes not banned then? I played both Jarts and Horseshoes growing up on a regular basis. Loved Horseshoes and was pretty damn good at the game, until the right rotator cuff in my shoulder became a problem in my late 40s. (Though a righty, my left one went bad much earlier in life. Not sure why. I think I may have done something while sailing.) Can't pitch horseshoes anymore without irritation, inflammation, and ultimate detriment to my golf swing.

[legitimatebeef]

Here's my take on race relations. White people ain't white, and black people ain't black. More like peach and brown, respectively.

Can anyone think of a more polarizing rhetoric than calling one group of people "white" and the other "black"?

We will never truly get along as long as we keep up this horseshit. Pure evil, right under everyone's nose.

[legitimatebeef]

The term white supremacy is sort of redundant then, wouldn't you say? Soon as you hear a human being say to another human being, "I am white. You are black." there is no need to further explain about value systems and ideologies now is there.

[legitimatebeef]

I know what you are thinking. Oh heavens, how dare you talk about race and racism--a most incendiary topic--on a golf messageboard.

Well this ain't your dorky dad's golf messageboard. This is my board, we can talk about real, painful shit here. Love it or leave it Jack.

[jasonfish11]

I make the argument that racism is a spectrum. Everyone is racist to an extent.

If you walk into 2 different unknown bars. One is full of people who look exactly like you and one is full of people who look completely different. Do you have the same reaction? If you are being honest the answer is no.

Translation you are racist, just like everyone else on the planet. Racism is just a form of similarity bias which is ingrained over thousands of years. If you were living in pre bronze age tribes you would be killed if you ran into a different tribe. Solution is people who aren't like you are dangerous.

Do you make judgement decisions based on that reaction? Do you encourage others to make decisions based on their reactions? Do you protest to make laws based on those reactions? Do you murder people based on those reactions? Where on the spectrum do you lie is the real question?

[legitimatebeef]

I wholeheartedly agree with that. But my specific beef above has to do with the institutionalizing and standardization of racism via loaded terms like black and white. So-called civilized enlightened people are running around referring to their fellow humans as "blacks" and "whites" and that is considered perfectly acceptable. Take a sheet of copier paper. What color is it? Now put a "white" person's hand on the paper. Are they even close to the same color?

We are all racist, but that doesn't mean we have to use such shitty, primitive, insulting language to refer to one another. It stops here. I'm no longer going to refer to people as colors. Unless I am specifically trying to disparage them or be an asshole.

[Duke of Hazards]

What a gay discussion.

[legitimatebeef]

Facebook, it occurs to me, is kind of like an all-in-one golf club box set. Yeah, it does all these things, all in one place, but none of them are particularly great. And you are better off using specialized application for each purpose. If you want to share photos, use Instagram. If you want news, go to a newspaper site. You want to discuss shit topically, go to a discussion forum. You want to dick-joke around with your jerkoff buddies, start an email list.

In other words Facebook is basically the AOL of our times. Pre-formatted pre-digested pap. Okay maybe it's good for grandma who doesn't know how to do shit on the internet but the rest of us can and should manage just fine getting around online without the help and guidance and bumper guards of Facebook.

[bkuehn1952]

I have a Facebook page. It was only to keep track of the grandkids. I might sign in once a year.

[jasonfish11]

What is this Facebook you speak of?

I closed down my account in 2010 or 2011, I did open it back up 1 day in 2013 to get someone's contact info but I've survived with out it.

[legitimatebeef]

Part of my own personal Facebook problem is that I never learned how to converse or to comment on that thing. I am always at a loss for words. I have little to no reaction to people's insignificant little life events perhaps. "That looks like fun!" "Amazing!" -- that's something a normal person might say right? But I just can't, can't do it. So I never comment on Facebook. Here, I feel comfortable saying almost anything that comes to mind. There, I feel so self-conscious. Let's face it I am afraid to be myself around people who know me from high school. I never did the work to cultivate a certain online persona there maybe, and now I am without an identity. No person can express themself without a sense of identity.

A few years ago I made a rare "status update" type thing saying I was effectively done with facebook and if you want to keep up with me, check my stupid golf blog. In retrospect I think I might have lost a couple of actual friends over that, at the very least a rift has opened up. Even though I was being rather light-hearted, or thought I was. I guess though at the end of the day I insulted a thing, that people hold very dear. Of course bad feelings are going to arise. How pathetic is that. At least I have this place. Plenty of people in the world feel alienated on Facebook. But where do they go?