What connection am I missing between waffle irons and banana hammocks?

This is what happens when a song means too many things to you to summarize appropriately in the caption beneath it.

Bubbles, and only Bubbles can make me think a video about kitties is the shit.

I played video games a lot when I was younger.

Most of them were sports games, and every now and then and I’d sprinkle in some Halo or Max Payne (a game only made more alluring by the protagonist’s shared first name).

But no game has received more hours of my dedication than MVP Baseball 2005. I won’t go into why the game is still the best baseball video game ever made, but I still own an old XBOX and a copy of the game just to play it again from time to time, rather than play new versions of other games.

Now, if you know me, you can only sort of see me playing video games. I read and write a lot, and there’s not a whole lot of time for anything else in my daily routine. And for the most part, video games bore me because they lack the narrative that stories possess.

So when I would get burnt out on basic game play on MVP, I would create my own running narrative in my head. The story was always the same. I would create a super player, one with skills unrivaled by any of the ratings on the game. I would then play a career with that one player. This player, in my head, would have been different in real life, not only in his skill set, but in his behavior. He would be the greatest player to ever step on a baseball diamond, but he would also be more brash, more loud, more determined. He would make Ted Williams (one of the most arrogant players of all time) seem quiet and humble. I thought it would be riveting to see a player so talented be so sure of his abilities, so disenfranchised by mortals. He would predict lopsided victories, guarantee home runs and scoff at the notion that other players on other teams were worth a damn.

This is why I love Bryce Harper. He is becoming that player I always created in my head. When the national media recoiled in horror as he blew a post-home run kiss to a pitcher who had mouthed off to him, I found it wildly amusing. I wished he had done more. As someone nicknamed ‘Maximus’ by his closest friends and who watched ‘Gladiator’ come out during high school, Harper is that protagonist that is difficult to embrace fully because of who he is and what he does and how he does it. He can’t be hated like LeBron because LeBron is somewhat oblivious to the public’s perception of him. He’s hated because he knows what he is and will take your worst. He’s almost daring you with his audacity.

But he is my favorite sports personality in a long time because I can envision a day when he hits three bombs in front of a desensitized Washington Nationals crowd, one that’s too used to the ease at which he dominates the game, and as he steps on home plate for the final time, stops and looks into the sea of people and shouts with both frustration and showmanship, “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!”

They won’t be (they might even be horrified). But I sure as hell will.

The 18-year old went 0-for-4 in last night’s Futures Game, but I didn’t care. He fired a laser from deep left field to home and seemed disgusted at his personal effort. He’s still just a pup. But I’m sure it won’t be long before I’m watching way more Nationals games than I ever thought I would.

Life changed forever.

Howl.

See, it’s not like I didn’t mean what I said when I said I’ll put my money where my mouth is, and I put my money where my mouth was.
Until I couldn’t breathe through my nose, and then I was staring at the floor where my second life just ended, where I lost not one but two friends…
I had it all, was sitting on top of the world,
but I threw it away, just to prove that I could.
I put my money where my mouth is…

Eres la unica.

We’ll still be here, when the weather turns and blue skies reappear.

I etched a face of a stopwatch
On the back of a raindrop
And did a swap for the sand in an hourglass
I heard an unhappy ending
It sort of sounds like you leaving
I heard the piledriver waltz
It woke me up this morning
You look like you’ve been for breakfast
At the heartbreak hotel
And sat in the back booth
By the pamphlets and the literature
On how to lose
Your waitress was miserable
And so was your food
If you’re gonna try and walk on water
Make sure you wear your comfortable shoes
Mystery’s flashing amber
Go green when you answer
But the red on the rest of the questionnaire
Never changes
I heard the news that you’re planning
To shoot me out of a cannon
I heard the piledriver waltz
It woke me up this morning
You look like you’ve been for breakfast
At the heartbreak hotel
And sat in the back booth
By the pamphlets and the literature
On how to lose
Your waitress was miserable
And so was your food
If you’re gonna try and walk on water
Make sure you wear your comfortable shoes
Ohh, piledriver

via Reddit

The Tibetan Sand Fox isn’t angry with you, he’s just disappointed.

(via Reddit)

Klaw never disappoints.

This article really pisses me off.

I agree that it is interesting in its talking points, but here’s why pieces like this bother me:

It is, at best, an agenda-based feature looking to fill an emotional and social void with an easy answer and commonly attacked problem. It’s based largely on speculation, rather than actual investigation. While its general idea isn’t without merit, it does not address the larger problem of body image, which is more a direct result of media (including articles like this!) than pornography, based on years of academic studies.

Many women’s magazines encourage all of these behaviors and have for over a decade. To pin that all on pornography is shortsighted. It mostly glosses over the actual opinion of males, and addresses how women perceive their sexual relationships and expectations (this is immensely important, of course, but it acts on the general assumption that this is the standard for males, which is irresponsible). That, again, is a vote for the idea that media is selling a certain lifestyle and approach to sex to women.

Beyond that, the general distinction of how a man views a woman has more to do with the individual’s makeup and his upbringing, rather than the pornography he has viewed in his lifetime. It’s sort of like saying that I only like amazing cakes that look like battleships because I watch Ace of Cakes all the time. While I’m not going to turn down an amazing battleship cake, the truth is that I much prefer an ice cream cake with a cookie crust, and it probably makes me happier and more excited in so many more ways than that battleship cake ever could, despite it appearing much less spectacular by comparison The general consensus would always be that the battleship cake looks way better, but in my eyes, they both look spectacular. My visceral excitement by both would be relatively equal, but I would only truly be happy and satisfied with what matters to me. Which, contrary to popular belief as assessed by both the media and my friends, has nothing to do with looking ideal in anyone’s eyes but mine.

And I’m not trying to trivialize our romantic and sexual relationships by comparing them to food, but I think it’s a fair comparison. It’s about preferences, and the reality is that our preferences are not shaped solely by the most unrealistic version of one of our desires.

The point: it’s not that there aren’t good ideas in the piece, but it’s mostly generalizations backed up by opinions. It reads like a conversation at the salon, which is an insult to journalistic investigation. There’s a lot of “the people I talk to…” moments, and let’s be fair, the people you find in random places could tell you anything. I know my male friends don’t talk about sex this way. It’s incredibly dangerous to generalize when you’re talking about who we are and what we want as a generation or society. It’s the worst kind of journalism because it plays to emotional insecurity, rather than truly informing us of anything substantial.

Furthermore, it’s insulting. I have always marveled in the natural beauty of every woman I’ve dated. I could say the same for my best friends, who talk about their girlfriends as if they are revelations. Relationships, I’m sorry, are still sacred to many and that includes everything that happens in the bedroom. We are all beautiful and sexy in our own ways, and the inability to embrace that in a person has less to do with porn and more to do with poor emotional and social development, of which, porn is at best partially responsible.