Today’s subject is a relatively new phenomenon in an America where it’s becoming increasingly obvious that more people need to find work and, quite frankly, it’s also a fairly disturbing sign of the impending apocalypse if you ask me. I’m talking of course, about bronies.
What is that you say? You’ve never heard of a brony? Please, allow me to elucidate but be forewarned, this is not for the faint of heart and quite possibly may in and of itself cause intestinal cramps. To simplify the explanation process, I will use an excerpt from a Wired.com article by Angela Watercutter from June 9, 2011...
Each day, out-of-work computer programmer Luke Allen self-medicates by watching animated
ponies have magical adventures.
The 32-year-old, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, loves his daily fix of My Little Pony
Friendship Is Magic, and he’s not alone. He’s part of a growing group of “bronies” (“bro ponies”)
— men who are fans of a TV show largely intended for a much younger audience.
“First we can’t believe this show is so good, then we can’t believe we’ve become fans for life, then
we can’t believe we’re walking down the pink aisle at Toys R Us or asking for the girl’s toy in our
Happy Meal,” Allen said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Then we can’t believe our friends haven’t
seen it yet, then we can’t believe they’re becoming bronies too.”
I can’t believe I didn’t just throw up in my mouth a little bit.
I'd feel better if I thought Allen’s comments were written by a friend who discovered Allen had left his computer on after a debauched bender the previous evening and thought he’d have a little fun with his pal by making up outrageous claims of love and devotion to a three-inch high platic horse-like being.
The thought of Allen having friends who might go to bars or engage in anything not involving 20-sided dice seems remote at best, so most likely my party-like-a-rock-star theory won't hold up.
From a journalistic point of view, I’m not sure Watercutter needed to mention Allen was a computer programmer – or out of work. It just seems to fit somehow. The story doesn’t actually tell us whether or not he lives with his parents, but if I was a betting man, I’d take the over.
Now, I’m not indicting Allen and the bronies for their fascination with My Little Pony. I myself have, on occasion, walked “the pink aisle” at stores looking for just these very items. Keep in mind, however, that I have a 5-year old daughter and even she is starting to move on from the ponies – learning to read will do that for you.
No, what I guess I’m really indicting them for is actually admitting it to the general populace – that and the mutton-chop sideburns Allen is sporting in his photo for the Wired article.
Still, I’m not willing to revoke man-card privileges for bronies. Let's face it, you absolutely have to give them serious cajones-credit for admitting it in the first place. Brony-outing has to be considered the social equivalent of a 7th grader who lets everyone know he wets the bed.
Coming out as a brony, in short, takes some serious stones when the deck is already so clearly stacked against you.
So, inasmuch as I’m not a fan of most cartoons made after 1985 in the first place, it would be more likely that I would simultaneously win the lottery the same day I’m on the cover of a magazine as one of America’s 10 sexiest men, before I would ever watch (without my 5-year old daughter) an episode of My Little Pony – much less devote a good deal of discretionary time to following and building a fan base for the show and then going public with my devotion to same.
Despite all that, however, I have to admit, the idea of mutton chop sideburns…it’s kind of intriguing.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Wounded Warrior Project bike ride - I need you
So, the other day I’m sitting around BOB 2.0 and not feeling particularly gracious toward anything on Netflix after having spent 85 minutes of my life watching “Zone Troopers” at the suggestion of my friend Jason. So, I was looking at cycling stuff and I made one of those rash, impetuous decisions that has become a hallmark of why things happen to me like they do.
I signed up to ride in an event called Soldier’s Ride San Antonio. It’s for a great cause – The Wounded Warrior Project – which provides wounded veterans assistance and helps them rehabilitate and get back on with their lives after being wounded in service to our nation.
The ride is one of those deals where a person who has never ridden more than 20 miles at a time (and that was today, by the way) gets people to donate money for them to ride a set distance. Now, a little research shows that the distance for these rides tends toward the 20-60 mile variety which, I can say without fear of reproach, will be a stretch for me, but well worth it considering the cause.
Basically my selling point is this, if you donate money you can rest assured I will be in no small amount of pain by the end of it – probably well before the end of it actually.
The good thing about this event is that whoever organizes these things made sure it was in mid November here in Texas. This does a couple things – first, it gives me time enough to prepare to the point where I can fool myself into thinking I’m in good enough shape to finish whatever the longest distance is they put in front of me – and second, it’s not going to be 110 degrees.
Like it was today. Ok, not really 110. I think the actual temperature was something like 103 or 104. But when you’ve never ridden 20 miles at a stretch before and it’s 103 it may as well be the eighth ring of hell. If you’re not familiar with that place, it is, according to Dante, where those involved in fraud and treachery hang out in the afterlife.
Rarely do you feel more of a fraud to yourself than when you’re 10 miles from your car, without a map (which goes without saying), wondering how much water you have left and discovering how those shorts with padding, while nice, don’t really compensate for not having an ass in the first place.
So, I’ve made the move and put my name down and now I just need to find some folks willing to throw some money my way – well, not my way specifically, but to the Wounded Warrior Project. Ideally, if I could get all 226 of my FB friends to kick in 10 bucks that would more than double the $1000 goal I’ve set for myself. But I’ll settle with whatever you can do and I’ll thank you for it because there are loads of good causes.
So, if you’d like to help a great cause, or perhaps you’d just like to see me on ass-crutches, please follow the link below. If you want to donate but don’t want your credit card information online, send me an email or respond to this blog or on my facebook site and I’ll send you my address. You can address a check to the Wounded Warrior Project and send it to me.
One last thing – please go to my FB site – I posted something there the other day and link my post to your facebook sites – or link this blog to your facebook sites – maybe you have a friend who has been looking for a way to help a vet.
Thanks for your support for America’s wounded veterans.
http://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=447736&lis=0&kntae447736=D37418DC04A240E58F94CC3521DDC2AA&supId=334307797
I signed up to ride in an event called Soldier’s Ride San Antonio. It’s for a great cause – The Wounded Warrior Project – which provides wounded veterans assistance and helps them rehabilitate and get back on with their lives after being wounded in service to our nation.
The ride is one of those deals where a person who has never ridden more than 20 miles at a time (and that was today, by the way) gets people to donate money for them to ride a set distance. Now, a little research shows that the distance for these rides tends toward the 20-60 mile variety which, I can say without fear of reproach, will be a stretch for me, but well worth it considering the cause.
Basically my selling point is this, if you donate money you can rest assured I will be in no small amount of pain by the end of it – probably well before the end of it actually.
The good thing about this event is that whoever organizes these things made sure it was in mid November here in Texas. This does a couple things – first, it gives me time enough to prepare to the point where I can fool myself into thinking I’m in good enough shape to finish whatever the longest distance is they put in front of me – and second, it’s not going to be 110 degrees.
Like it was today. Ok, not really 110. I think the actual temperature was something like 103 or 104. But when you’ve never ridden 20 miles at a stretch before and it’s 103 it may as well be the eighth ring of hell. If you’re not familiar with that place, it is, according to Dante, where those involved in fraud and treachery hang out in the afterlife.
Rarely do you feel more of a fraud to yourself than when you’re 10 miles from your car, without a map (which goes without saying), wondering how much water you have left and discovering how those shorts with padding, while nice, don’t really compensate for not having an ass in the first place.
So, I’ve made the move and put my name down and now I just need to find some folks willing to throw some money my way – well, not my way specifically, but to the Wounded Warrior Project. Ideally, if I could get all 226 of my FB friends to kick in 10 bucks that would more than double the $1000 goal I’ve set for myself. But I’ll settle with whatever you can do and I’ll thank you for it because there are loads of good causes.
So, if you’d like to help a great cause, or perhaps you’d just like to see me on ass-crutches, please follow the link below. If you want to donate but don’t want your credit card information online, send me an email or respond to this blog or on my facebook site and I’ll send you my address. You can address a check to the Wounded Warrior Project and send it to me.
One last thing – please go to my FB site – I posted something there the other day and link my post to your facebook sites – or link this blog to your facebook sites – maybe you have a friend who has been looking for a way to help a vet.
Thanks for your support for America’s wounded veterans.
http://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=447736&lis=0&kntae447736=D37418DC04A240E58F94CC3521DDC2AA&supId=334307797
Sunday, August 14, 2011
What's in a name? Depends if you're a Katherine or a Charo
As you know, I generally don’t post links here but I have to make an exception this time because you really need to see it for yourself.
Below is a link to a story I saw while looking up the word ‘catharsis’ used in a previous post. Yes, every now and then I go to Dictionary.com and look up words – more people should. Anyway, the story drew my interest because it was a story about names and a study done under the premise of what does your name say about your socio-economic status and education etc. (your best bet is to highlight the whole thing and paste it into your browser)
http://hotword.dictionary.com/names/?__utma=1.464618247.1292379951.1304560770.1309136548.3&__utmb=1.4.9.1309136555625&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1309136548.3.1.utmcsr=(direct)utmccn=(direct)utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=-&__utmk=193397805
Of course, when I read something like this it inevitably devolves into me having a dozen open tabs on the internet and learning all kinds of junk I didn’t need or necessarily want to know – but as I now get to write about them, I know you’ll have wasted precious moments of your life as well and if I’m going to waste hours of my life here in BOB-2.0 then it’s the least I can do to share the experience.
Anyway, a couple things in this story caught my eye: First, “Katherine” was the highest scoring name and, according to the story, “Katherine goes to a private school, statistically…”
This is great news for me because my daughter’s name is Katherine – and while I hope she goes to a good college, I also hope she wins the lottery or something because my name is Rosaire and while there isn’t a listing for my name in the story, I’m sure it would say something like this: ‘Rosaire’s are generally gender-confused by others who can’t physically see them and they display a disproportionate unwillingness to accept they might be wrong which leads most to be lucky to graduate from high school much less find meaningful employment which will allow them to pay for a daughter named Katherine.’ But that’s just a guess.
The article also mentions Sierra and Dakota. Apparently, again according to the article and not me so don’t send your hate mail my way – Sierra and Dakota don’t go to college.
Well, duh! Gather a group of men over the age of, oh, 17, and ask them what Sierra and Dakota do for work – go ahead, I’ll wait – I’m going to tell you what they’ll say, they’ll tell you that Sierra and Dakota are strippers.
Those are stripper names – like Moonlight or Destiny - and it makes me laugh every time I see it – usually on a reality TV show. The father has got to know this isn’t a good thing and I think he should be obligated to say something - unless it's a family name (!) To my mind it’s the equivalent of naming your son Dipthong or Mortimer.
No, names don’t dictate what we become and the whole study is really rubbish, but if you think about it, how many Rachels do you know who are unattractive? Probably some, sure, but usually, Rachel pans out pretty well. And I don’t know their names but it also seems that an overwhelming majority of women who drive VW convertibles with the tops down – are (or were) attractive women. It’s not a dead certainty, no, but do a study of your own sometime.
Now, you may be thinking, ‘hold the boat here boss, what’s your name and what gives you the right to talk about what other people are naming their kids?’
Well, having a name like mine is exactly what gives me that right. I did not name myself Rosaire, but still, according to my mother I was very nearly Jeffrey – and truth be told, I’m much happier with Rosaire - it's a great conversation starter and has served me well in the past in that capacity.
But there are precious few of us around. In fact, according to another site that purports to use Social Security card application data, there have been exactly zero Rosaire’s since 1998 in this great land of ours. At the same time there have been 26 young men named Josephus and 219 named Horatio. So, statistically speaking, I am a Mortimer.
And while I know of a number of Rosaire’s out there – some of which aren’t even related to me, I do take a little umbrage at the fact that most sites classify my name as a female name, despite the fact I have never seen or heard of a female Rosaire before. Every Rosaire I know alive or dead is or was a male-gendered individual.
And while I’m on the trail of umbrage, here’s the real felony of it all – if you were to believe these sites, even though I don’t know what kind of job or education I’m supposed to have, apparently the nickname for Rosaire isn't 'Roe' or 'Rosey' at all - it is, of all things, Charo.
I think I’d prefer Mortimer.
Below is a link to a story I saw while looking up the word ‘catharsis’ used in a previous post. Yes, every now and then I go to Dictionary.com and look up words – more people should. Anyway, the story drew my interest because it was a story about names and a study done under the premise of what does your name say about your socio-economic status and education etc. (your best bet is to highlight the whole thing and paste it into your browser)
http://hotword.dictionary.com/names/?__utma=1.464618247.1292379951.1304560770.1309136548.3&__utmb=1.4.9.1309136555625&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1309136548.3.1.utmcsr=(direct)utmccn=(direct)utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=-&__utmk=193397805
Of course, when I read something like this it inevitably devolves into me having a dozen open tabs on the internet and learning all kinds of junk I didn’t need or necessarily want to know – but as I now get to write about them, I know you’ll have wasted precious moments of your life as well and if I’m going to waste hours of my life here in BOB-2.0 then it’s the least I can do to share the experience.
Anyway, a couple things in this story caught my eye: First, “Katherine” was the highest scoring name and, according to the story, “Katherine goes to a private school, statistically…”
This is great news for me because my daughter’s name is Katherine – and while I hope she goes to a good college, I also hope she wins the lottery or something because my name is Rosaire and while there isn’t a listing for my name in the story, I’m sure it would say something like this: ‘Rosaire’s are generally gender-confused by others who can’t physically see them and they display a disproportionate unwillingness to accept they might be wrong which leads most to be lucky to graduate from high school much less find meaningful employment which will allow them to pay for a daughter named Katherine.’ But that’s just a guess.
The article also mentions Sierra and Dakota. Apparently, again according to the article and not me so don’t send your hate mail my way – Sierra and Dakota don’t go to college.
Well, duh! Gather a group of men over the age of, oh, 17, and ask them what Sierra and Dakota do for work – go ahead, I’ll wait – I’m going to tell you what they’ll say, they’ll tell you that Sierra and Dakota are strippers.
Those are stripper names – like Moonlight or Destiny - and it makes me laugh every time I see it – usually on a reality TV show. The father has got to know this isn’t a good thing and I think he should be obligated to say something - unless it's a family name (!) To my mind it’s the equivalent of naming your son Dipthong or Mortimer.
No, names don’t dictate what we become and the whole study is really rubbish, but if you think about it, how many Rachels do you know who are unattractive? Probably some, sure, but usually, Rachel pans out pretty well. And I don’t know their names but it also seems that an overwhelming majority of women who drive VW convertibles with the tops down – are (or were) attractive women. It’s not a dead certainty, no, but do a study of your own sometime.
Now, you may be thinking, ‘hold the boat here boss, what’s your name and what gives you the right to talk about what other people are naming their kids?’
Well, having a name like mine is exactly what gives me that right. I did not name myself Rosaire, but still, according to my mother I was very nearly Jeffrey – and truth be told, I’m much happier with Rosaire - it's a great conversation starter and has served me well in the past in that capacity.
But there are precious few of us around. In fact, according to another site that purports to use Social Security card application data, there have been exactly zero Rosaire’s since 1998 in this great land of ours. At the same time there have been 26 young men named Josephus and 219 named Horatio. So, statistically speaking, I am a Mortimer.
And while I know of a number of Rosaire’s out there – some of which aren’t even related to me, I do take a little umbrage at the fact that most sites classify my name as a female name, despite the fact I have never seen or heard of a female Rosaire before. Every Rosaire I know alive or dead is or was a male-gendered individual.
And while I’m on the trail of umbrage, here’s the real felony of it all – if you were to believe these sites, even though I don’t know what kind of job or education I’m supposed to have, apparently the nickname for Rosaire isn't 'Roe' or 'Rosey' at all - it is, of all things, Charo.
I think I’d prefer Mortimer.
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