Term Returns

Just received my new computer. I have been pretty much disengaged from the world for about 2 weeks, so I need a little bit of time to catch up. Look for a new post from me here real soon, as a lot has been on my mind. Feels good to be back.

Calling Pex and Term?

I mean I know Term's had some problems but where is Pex? Cramming hard for the finals eh???

Eco-Terrorism

This has been a subject Boski has followed for years now. Radical environmental groups that are protecting earth at all costs. I used to follow this in blogs, websites, and youtube but now its in the public eye more than ever. I'm talking about Animal Planet's new show "Whale Wars" which documents the actions of Sea Shepard. Sea Shepard was founded by one of the original members of Greenpeace who left because they weren't taking enough of a in your face action. Sea Shepard's main focus is on protecting whales by ramming the whaling ships, sinking them, trying to disable their props, throwing stink bombs on them, etc. Sea Shepard and Greenpeace are just two of many groups that fit into this category. Animal Rights Militia, Earth First, PETA, SHAC, etc. all take this level to the extreme. I remember reading about African wildlife preserves now whos park rangers shot poachers on site. One guy has like over 100 confirmed kills. The question I want to ask sort of relates to the population discussion we had awhile ago, are these extreme methods needed in this day and age? I mean i'm all for protection of the planet/animals but is it worth putting human life in jeopardy? And just like the population debate this has many layers. Whaling for example I feel could totally be eliminated. I don't eat whales nor use any products derived from whales. So I could agree with PETA and join in a anti-whaling movement. But when PETA says don't eat beef, Boski has got a big problem with that. And certain methods are more agreeable to me than others. Throwing stink bombs on whaling vessels I'm ok with, ramming a ship in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean could cause serious damage and loss of life. Is a humans life worth less than a rhino? The poachers are lured by the high price of ivory and are probably living in terrible conditions. They see Ivory as means of survival. We could also look at some of these groups that sabotage logging operations, oil drilling, etc. These operations are essential to the worlds survival right now, we don't need anyone fucking this up. So whats the answer? Is there a clear one? We need to protect the earth and all of the animals but how far do we take it?

The Last day of the Accord

Yes it is a sad day friends. After tonight the Accord will be no more. Let us reflect on the times we had with her. Who can forget "the run". I'd have to say Pex probably logged the most miles with me on the run. I remember when we watched some people in 3 different cars get into a fight where a soda was thrown and someone (while the cars were moving) handed over a baseball bat to someone in the other car I guess to beat them down? The many, many, races. The drift king. The Accord with Nitrous. The passenger side airbag that wasn't. The race that Apex filmed that got Boski in jail. Almost aqua planing off the road when rolled up on that pack of modified neons and geos. Term almost killing a motorcycle rider while doing a U-turn. The guy in the Eclipse "15 pppoouunndds". Mabs and Scabs compilation talking about the Accord. Drifting in the Accord (which looking back on drifting a FWD car is just funny). Jiggy's in the cut. Boski's various rivals. Hova sleeping the backseat. Listening to the run vol. 1, 2, and 3. Lots of Paul Oakenfold. Initial D. It saw 2 speeding tickets, 2 reckless driving tickets, 1 fix it ticket, 2 driving a un-inspected vehicle, 2 license suspensions and 10 days in jail with 8 suspended. And one night (which Boski was sooo drunk i'm not ever sure happened, had me beached in downtown Norfolk on Boush street where they were repaving the road, get stuck, vomit on myself and had my climb into my passenger side seat and passout only to have a tow truck driver pull me off of the coned off area of work...again its still hazy) Most people did not see the Accord in its later years and thats a good thing. It has deteriorated to nothing. The bumper is held on by zip ties. Two tires constantly losing air. The last time it was inspected....08/06. A small oil leak, faded paint, chipped up hood. Its terrible. But with every death comes a life. The Accord is being sold to someone who is going to try and repair it, to give it another shot. We will call it Neo Accord. I will keep you all updated. R.I.P.

Survivor Take

Not sure how many peeps have watched it, so I'll just give my bulletin of takes about the rough episode that took place last night. If you didn't see it and are planning to watch it, dont read any further as I'll be spoiling the result.

- Basically the show starts off with both tribes meeting into what was thought to be a merge. There is this huge bucket that they cannot open til after their feast, and a blatant clue clear as day underneath it to another hidden idol. These clowns decide they will retrieve it as a group and set it free. At one point, they throw it on the table for anyone to take. My points on this are....1) At this point, I started to think that something was up and this might not be a merge, so I def would have taken that piece based on those thoughts alone 2) If I was a strong challenge player (Matty, Markus), I would have taken it, because I know anytime I dont win immunity they will be gunning for me so at least I'd have one mulligan, and 3) Sugar should have DEF taken that piece. 2 idols?? Who knows how far that could get you.

- So as I was kind of thinking, it wasnt the merge and they get totally new teams (as what always happens when someone starts dominating). As boon said in his last post, the game was Markus's to lose, so they decided to screw him up and put him with black chic and gamer....basically instant death. Markus best friend he finds out is black chic's cousin, so he decided not to vote for her. First point on that, any black friend you have has a 75% chance of being her cousin, this doesnt mean jack. Every player in the NBA has 48 other cousins playing in the nba, so i dont know why he felt a connection there. So they get to the challenege and Matty wins for his tribe (dont even know which is which anymore). Markus decides he wont try to vote Crystal out cause of his "connection". The native american/pakistani chic flips as expected to join the black girl and vietkong gamer to vote out markus. America I'm sure loved this as this is the kind of activity that was voted for a few days ago, blacks will continue to run society just like black chic is running this game somehow. Side note, I think the black chic was out of the challenge in less than 5 seconds, so fast that I dont even know if they showed her going out unless i missed it when i blinked at the start. Makes me REALLY wonder about the olympics

Matty and Bob are pretty much the only people even tolerable to root for. Bob is pretty strong for his age, and Matty is pretty sweet cause he seems like he is constanlty on Hasheesh and reminds me of Patrick Swayze in Point Break. I guess Sugar is ok at least, just a dumb blonde but not necessarily annoying.

My prediction at this point would be for the top 3 to be Matty, Crystal, and Ken, but that could change week to week. Everyone will join Crystal and Ken because they suck at challenges and everyone trusts blacks for some reason. Matty is a prayer but Im thinking he could be able to dominate challenges with Ace and Markus gone, so he may have a shot. Next week if they dont merge Bob or Matty is gone for sure tho depending on which team loses.

A Voice From the Past

This isn't a real post from me, maybe I'll think of something soon since the blog has been pretty dead for a while *cough* where's Boski?  I just wanted to mention that Army, yes THE Army from back in the day, has been trying to contact me on aim.  Of course both times I wasn't around so I haven't talked to him yet.  Anyway, he asked if anyone still lived in the va beach area.  This leads me to believe that fate may have brought him to the area.  Time for an army prime reunion?  Could you imagine if those two ended up being roommates or something.  Just thought it was pretty funny.

Survivor Update

What a crazy episode....

So what do you guys think of Sugar voting off Ace? I thought it was pretty stupid on her part, seeing that now she doesn't have anyone to back her up and power now shifts to Kenny and SuperNig. But you gotta give at least a little props to Kenny for persuading her to get rid of Ace...seemed like an impossible task to me. Now it's inevitable that they will try to vote Sugar off next week, but since she has the idol it should be very interesting to see what goes down. My guess is that she teams up with Matty and they vote Crystal off, leaving Kenny on his own.

Overall though, I don't think it matters much for anyone in that tribe b/c they will all be dead once the merge happens. Pretty much I think the game is Marcus' to lose. He has 3 very good things going for him 1) He is in a good alliance with 3 others; 2) he has a butt buddy in the gay dude Charlie who will do anything for him 3) He is physically dominant and will start beasting the individual challenges once it gets to that point.

Some random thoughts....
-Other than her idiotic move today, I like Sugar....she is pretty bangin (and the only girl worth looking at that's left)....even though I know others do not agree.
-If somehow Charlie wins this game, there must be some kind of advantage to gay dudes....
-WTF is up with Bob crying so much when they got letters? so pathetic they hadn't even been gone for 3 weeks yet!!!!!
-I'm submitting a video to be a contestant next Survivor.

goooooooaaaaaaaallllllll

Maradona to coach Argentina's national team. I don't really agree with the decision b/c he'll probably get everyone on the team coked up.

Maradona

One reason to stay out of Australia

Just thought this was crazy and worth showing. 100% real....

wowzers

Beckham to AC Milan...WTF?

Thats right folks, it looks like Beckham is heading back to Europe....but only on a loan move. Since the Galaxy are out of the playoffs for like the 3rd year in a row his season is over. Well this move is according to Becks to keep him fit to play for England. I'm loling as I type that. Becks is 33 years old, the last 4 times hes played for England hes come on as a sub and played a total of 29 minutes. News flash to David, you aren't needed on the England team anymore. Look don't get me wrong he is still a good player. But a England national team member he is not. Theo Walcott at the ripe old age of 19 is the new face of the right hand side of England now. He doesn't have Becks vision, or ability to put a ball on a dime, but hes got so much more. The ability to attack players, hes got tons of pace, and when he goes at you hes going to beat you. Hes got good close range passing and general knowledge of the game that is hard to find at that age. And the guy is not afraid to shoot. And why Milan David? That sounds like its being dictated by Posh to me. If it was really about getting in with England he wold be playing in the EPL where the England head coach (Fabio Capello) goes every weekend to watch multiple games to check on how the players are playing. I don't see him missing a entire weekend of where 99.9% of his players are playing in England to fly to Milan to watch Becks play. And wtf is up with AC milan, is the home for old players who don't want to to to the MLS? The average age of team is like 34 I think...thats no lie. Maldini is fucking 40. Dida, Maldidn, Nesta, Zambrotta, Ambrosini, Emerson, Gattuso, Seedorf, Inzaghi, Sheva, all over 30 and most 33+.

High Speed Rail???

With oil prices always in limbo, and raw materials, operating cost, etc. going through the roof long distance travel is becoming increasingly more expensive. Some of you jet setters have really felt the hit. Tickets are astronomical now for air travel and finding flights at decent times is becoming harder and harder. Even travelling by road is becoming costly. Enter the High Speed Rail. Common place in Europe and Asia its a form of transportation that could really help the US out. We fucked up in the early 60s and 70s when we decided to switch from rail travel to building these huge highways and building tons of airports. Well the rail business has seen a big increase in regard to shipping lately but has seen only marginal growth in passengers. The problem is speed, you can't beat the speed that air travel offers.

The only "High Speed Rail" in the US is the Amatrak Acela Express which runs from DC to Baltimore, Philly, NJ, NY City, and Boston. It has a special tilt design that makes the train tilt going around the tight turns found in the US. Its highest speed reached on the run is 150mph, which is quick, however it only runs this speed on certain portions of the route and really averages around 90mph on most of the route. High speed rails require three important things that is not common place in US tracks. The first is power, High Speed Rails run on electricity from overhead wires. Its in place on the Acela Express track and this is easy enough to retrofit. The next is continuous rail. If you've ever walked on RR tracks you notice that they are in sections and there is a space left for expansion/contraction. This produces the common click clack associated with most trains. This also leads to a uncomfortable/dangerous ride when going over 150+mph. Thats solved easily as the tracks in Europe are just welded together. The other issue as mentioned before is turning. Not so much as a safety reason as it is difficult for these trains to fly off the track but more for comfort on the passengers. Imagine going 175mph and taking a hard left hand banking turn. Not good for older passengers. The trains in Europe run around at +150mph. Some in Asia hit 210+mph on certain stretches of the route. This is where we need to be, a constant speed of 150+ would really add another true travel option. These expenses/redesign cost would be negligible. I feel there is a bigger problem if we were to build this.

The problem is our current mass transit system in most cities. In DC, NY City, Boston, Etc. they have good mass transit already established. Taking High Speed Rail else where to other "big cities" that are not capable could prove to be less effective. The traveler would have to ride a train into the city and rent a car or rely on a bus/taxi system. An example would be Phoenix (which they are actually suppose to open up their first phase of their light rail system this year). I still think this is something that should be explored more than what it is being now. I also plan to follow up this post with my thoughts on a light rail (which is currently being constructed in Downtown Norfolk) and maglev technology (which as seen at ODU does not always turn out how it is suppose to) but shows promise over in Japan/China where testing has shown these trains can average well over 300mph.

Survivor 3

I'll go ahead and post my quick thought having just watched the end of Survivor. Midway through the episode I was pretty content to turn it off because this is the kind of episode that typically happens that makes me hate the show. I'm not a fan of the random mixing of tribes cause it always seems to allow the weak nubs a second chance, just like this episode did. The Fang tribe pretty much got even weaker if thats possible, keeping GC, Ken (who is one of my most hated in the game after this episode now), and the black girl....while adding the worst player in the game Kelly.

I thought the immunity challenge was a pretty sweet challenge. However, the performance of all but about 3 people was disgusting to me. I wasn't really a fan of the Markus dude, but he completely dominated the challenge. Randy was pretty solild too, with a hat trick. The real keys to the challenge were how pathetic Ken, black "olympic champ" girl, Kelly, and GC were. No surprise these nubs banded together and voted off Jacquie (who wasnt as hot as i thought, no one on this show i would call hot). I wasn't too mad tho, I feared Ace would go after they lost, so im glad hes still there cause hes actually probably one of my faves at this point

Last observation....GC who was probably my least favorite along with Kelly heading into this episode, gained at least a little respect with me for saying they needed to peace out Kelly cause she is awful. Didnt happen obviously, but at least he actually tried it. Ken and Kelly as mentioned are my least faves. Ken has basically ruined any rep a gamer can have. He is a tool, he is physically pathetic, and his nub comments about girls being hot are sad.

Survivor- Week 2 (spoiler)

I finally had the opportunity to watch Survivor yesterday and it didn't disappoint. The show started off with a challenge for blankets, pillows, etc. I took a leave of absence from Survivor for a while, but I'd have to rank the first challenge as top 3 all time as far as entertainment goes (reminds me of the challenge seasons ago when they were playing a pseudo version of smear the queer). Anyways, the object of this challenge was to gank the opponent off a pole and drag them past a finish line about 20 or so yards away (2 v 1). Surprisingly, Fang won their first challenge and got the prizes (as well as sending Sugar to the island). The challenge for immunity ended the same way (with Fang winning). In result, Paloma was voted off.

Thoughts/reflections: Surprisingly, no one has jumped out to me as being super annoying. A lot of people may not like Ace, but so far he hasn't done anything to tick me off. My favorite characters at the moment are Randy and Ken (video gamer), who by the way pretty much single-handedly beat the other tribe to win immunity. As for hottest girls, Paloma wasn't as hot as I originally thought, but I did have my eye on that petite body of hers. I forgot who mentioned it before, but Jacquie is now top of the list. She doesn't get my camera time, but hopefully I'll be able to make a better assessment next week.

From coaching New River United to the head scout of Chelsea FC

When I coached the U-17 team in Blacksburg, it was because the coach at the time, Michael Emenalo, was helping scout players in Africa. He was the head coach of the Blacksburg team, but I was filling in as the temp while he traveled. Anyways, even though I was a coach, I was still learning a lot about soccer because Michael was such a good coach himself...you just knew he was going to go places. We worked together for 1 season coaching the local U-17 select team.

I heard rumors that he was now working for the EPL team Chelsea, so I decided to peep their site to find out what he did. And to my surprise he is the head scout at Chelsea now...pretty cool huh?

Click Me

Survivor- Week 1

Good morning! Since I know most of you are Survivor watchers, I'll try to write a little blurb on Friday mornings about the previous night's show and of course, chime in your opinions. First I'd like to comment that it was a 2 hour premier and I had no idea. I watched the first hour and someone got voted off so then switched to The Office. After The Office, I was flipping back through the channels and caught the tail end of the second episode, so hopefully Boski can fill us in on what happened.

The show's 2 teams are Kota and Fang (even though it sounds like Thong every time Jeff says it). From what I saw, Kota is 100 times better than Fang. Fang lost the first 2 challenges and are already down 2 people. My beef with Fang is that they are morons. They vote off their strongest girl after the first tribal council which is a joke. Girls good at the challenges are hard to come by, and they decide to vote off the best one because of her attitude....give me a break. The first girl off the island's name was Michelle. She was a bad ass and I was really mad to see her go. As she left, she was quoted by saying "I'm not really surprised. Losers stick together. Fat people stick together. They decided to keep Gillian, who's like a hundred and five, and to vote me, who's twenty-four and completely fit. I mean they're all idiots. They're all voting off the strongest member, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens. Very interesting." Of course, the next person to go was Gillian, the 60 year old annoying as fuck nurse....hallelujah!

Sorry this post is so long, I promise future ones will not be this bad....and I'm sure half of you stopped reading already. I just want to point out one more thing- the hot (or potentially hot) chicks. It's still early, so I haven't found my true favorite and I could be off base with some of these girls, but this is off first impressions so no bashing. There is Corrine, Jacquie, Sugar (borderline ugly), Kelly, and Paloma. As the shows go on, I'll probably knock some of these chicks off the list but as of right now, Paloma is the hottest and my favorite....mmm that caramel skin yum. Michelle was kind of hot, in her own bitchy way, but as I said before she is already gone. RIP

Bye Bye iPhone...hello G1 Smart Phone

I'll be getting this whenever my Sprint plan is done.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=google-t-mobile-launch-g1

With open source software, geeks world wide will make some incredible add-ons. I can't even imagine how much cool shit will be available within a few months.

Goal Line Technology...is it time?

One of the biggest problems in Soccer today is actually awarding a goal. Not a strike from 25 yards out that goes right in the upper 90. But one of those hit of the cross bar bounce on the ground/defender sliding into the goal to clear out/9 people in front of goal can't see shit goals. Goal line technology, made by the same people who have built the tennis system (Hawkeye) was testing several prototypes over the past a few years until last year when the funding was pulled. It was tested at several premier league teams stadiums and all the results seem positive. They use the same technology as the tennis system where several strategically placed cameras watch the goal line from various angles to help with any questionable calls. The system was able to tell instantly whether a goal was in or not. They pulled the funding because some soccer purist believed it to be a step in the wrong direction because soccer is a sport not based on technology and has stayed constant throughout the years. I always felt this technology was needed, having witnessed many goals count/not count that where not registered.

The issue was brought back to fore-front this weekend by what was one of the biggest refereeing fuck ups ever seen. Even more of a fuck up that Graham Poll's infamous 3 yellow cars in the world cup 2006. This happened in the English League Championship which is the league right below the premier league. Watford vs. Reading that ended in a 2-2 tie. Well it should have been 2-1. Reading had a corner, which was headed toward goal by a watford (he saw it late and was trying to clear it out for another corner). Now the ball was heading toward the goal but was going wide, and did go wide. A reading player then saved it...having the ball gone out for what should have been either a goal kick. Keep in mind the linesman is standing on the end line (or near it) because it was a corner. After saving a ball that was already out the linesman flagged for a fucking goal...the play kept on because Reading surely did not think it was a goal, and headed against the crossbar had it come back in play, someone shot it and got it deflected out of bounds. But the ref (who is the youngest ref to do big games at the age of 25) saw the linesman call for a goal and awarded it. The players lined up like it was a goal kick, and then to their shock it was awarded a goal. This gets even better because Steve Copell, the reading manager, who I have a great amount of respect for as a coach basically said they would re-play the game because that goal should not have counted. The linesman said after watching a replay that he had made a mistake, was sorry for it, and said it was an "optical illusion". The 25 year old ref has come under fire as well because they think he should have known, and saw it was not a goal and said to the linesman hey man you fucked up. Here is the "goal", view it for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LST-Ch2uVzw

Favorite stand-up Comedians

Alright, time for a little change of pace. Who are your favorite stand-up comedians? This doesn't have to mean 'who are the best of all time', but rather who do YOU like the most. For instance, Richard Pryor is probably one of the "greatest" but I wouldn't put him in my personal top 5. Also, some people are really funny and have made great movies, but I wouldn't say they are great stand-up comedians (i.e. Adam Sandler/Chris Farley).

1) Dave Chappelle- I'm sure he is in everyone's top 5. He is the comedian of our generation IMO and is specifically great b/c he jokes the white and black race and no one gets offended....aka he says what everyone thinks.
2) Daniel Tosh- This guy is awesome; watch some of his acts on youtube if you haven't heard his stuff before.
3) Mitch Hedberg- He does one liners that can be cheesy, but I think his stuff is great. Too bad he died in '05.
4) Dimitri Martin- He also does one liners like Mitch. I don't know if that's just my favorite style, but he's really funny too.
5) Louis CK- I first heard of him through his HBO show, which by the way was hilarious. Then I started listening to his material online and they are equally as funny...very raunchy guy.

Funniest Female Stand-up: Ellen Degeneres...I've seen one of her stand-ups on HBO and it was really funny. I usually hate female comedians because all they do is joke about men and their relationships with men. However, her comedy was based on real life stuff and definitely the best from a woman I've ever watched.

**I didn't put Dane Cook up there b/c I've changed my perception of him after hearing how he ganks routines. His retaliation CD was awesome but what else has he done? Plus, some of his material from that CD was what he stole from other comedians.

Just Missed List- Bill Cosby, Chris Rock (his old material was hilarious like black people vs 'gros), Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy.

Are We Alone?

The universe is about 14 billion years old, atleast the start of this universe. Maybe there were an infinite amount of big bangs before ours? The cycle could go: big bang --> universe expands until it can't expand anymore --> universe collapses into extremely dense ball --> big bang. Anyway, that's not really what I wanted to talk about, we'll leave that topic for another day. What came into my mind was something that I'm sure everyone has thought about before and probably argued about. Is there intelligent life somewhere out there in the universe?

Odds seem to be undeniably in favor of...yes. In our galaxy there are estimated to be upwards of 250 billion stars. Some scientists say there are more than 100 billion galaxies. So, lets say there are about 2.5 sextillion (2.5 x 10^21 ) stars in the universe. Then let us assume that the earth is not some kind of anomaly and therefore is somewhat typical, atleast when referring to astronomical odds. With this assumption, we see that there should be billions of habitable planets in the universe. Given that the universe spans 14 billion years, it then should not be unthinkable that life has evolved on these planets, from mere 1 celled prokaryotes to species as smart as humans and some most definitely smarter. Unless you're some kind of god freak that believes we were created as the only intelligent species, reason leads us to believe that there are aliens somewhere, probably in our own galaxy.

Okay, so we've come to the conclusion that life outside of our planet must exist. It has to right? The odds against it are infinitely, impossibly low. Why then is there no evidence? No proof of alien communications? Well maybe there is, maybe the government just hides it (area 51 for example). I don't know what I think about that subject, maybe aliens really did crash on our planet, but we don't know for sure, so we have to assume that they haven't. So back to the question, if there is intelligent life somewhere in the universe then why haven't we found them. I'll mention a couple possibilities.

First, the universe is just too big. The odds of a chance encounter are incredibly slim. The sun alone is 93 million miles from earth. The next closest star is 4.3 light years away, or about 25 million million miles. Travelling as fast as our current technology allows, it would take about 100,000 years to get to Proxima Centauri. And that's when we know where we're going. Even if they could travel close to the speed of light, aliens finding earth would be like finding a needle in a stack of needles.

Next is an idea that ignited the fire for writing this post. What if the amount of technology needed for interstellar travel is beyond the point of survival? Take the LHC for example, this obviously didn't cause the end of the world, but maybe something like it could. What if civilizations just destroy themselves with their technology before they have the chance to leave their planets? I recently read an article about advances in nanotechnology, stating that we are getting closer to producing self replicating nanobots. Some of you have probably heard about this idea before, which some fear might lead to "grey goo," an end of the world scenario. Basically, these nanobots consume materials to replicate themselves, eventually consuming all of the matter on earth.

There's more I'd like to talk about, but I have some studying to do. Feel free to share your own ideas, because I'm sure a lot more could be said about the topic that I didn't touch on.

Damon speak politics

I like it when celebs speak their mind and don't give a fuck what anyone else thinks....

Its the end of the world as we know it!.....????

I'm sure most of you have seen something about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Its basically the worlds largest particle accelerator. At around 10 Billion Dollars this thing ain't cheap. Its contained underground is like 17miles in circumference. What this thing is designed to do is basically speed up protons, sending some going one way, and others going the other using various electro magnets and other crazy shit to bend them around this track and slam them together in an effort to better understand things like gravity, mass, and a bunch of theories people have come up with over the years. Theories, not laws, not rules, shit some guys sat around probably stoned and said you know I can bet find out how mass is achieved by slamming particles together flying around at near light speed. Other theories like nuclear fusion and stuff I really don't fully understand are also going to be tested. So along with this great technological creation comes great power. Possibly the power to destroy the earth! There are tons of scientist and experts against this project. Stating that this may be able to create small stable black holes, hypothetical things called strangelets, magnetic monopoles, and vacuum bubbles. Its even gone so far as some of the people working on the project have said it is possible and that the black holes should disappear due to some theory called Hawking Radiation. So something might happen, that might be contained by something that hasn't been proven to even exists....sounds great to me. Do I think anything will happen that is terrible, probably not. But as history shows when we start fucking with the most powerful sciences on earth sometimes it comes back to bite us in the ass. Especially when we are dealing with items, theories, properties, etc. that we are not sure to be true, false, exists, etc.

recycling

saw in the USA Today that Houston has the worst recycling in the usa. 2%....

some cities are in the 20%'s...

discuss

Overpopulation

As the population continues to grow and with life expectancy increasing every year one has to ponder the question...when will there be too many people? To some the answer is easy....right now! Some argue we will reach the limit in 20, 30, 50, 150, etc. years. Others feel the population will never exceed a "limit" as technology will help us along the way. Whats Boski say?

Right now the estimate is 6.692 billion people on earth. Think about that for a second...6.7 BILLION PEEPS! We need to curve this fast. But what can we do? Take China for example. While not being a "law" each family is only supposed to have 1 child. Now certain exceptions obviously apply, almost everyone in China follows this rule. They have curved their population explosion greatly. Now I'm not sure if thats the answer, it raises huge problems and concerns that I won't even go into. Overpopulation is one of the main reasons I am for abortion. But thats the kind of thinking that needs to be brought up. Not the US's attempt by shoveling 50+ million dollars a year into planned parenthood classes. The problem is compounded by humans ecological footprint, and more specifically who leaves the biggest. It is said the US accounts for around 5% of the total world population but consumes 25-30% of natural resources. So we've got overpopulation and over consumption. We can shrink this down from large scale to examples that are easier to understand: Those millions of people in Africa that live in shacks made from bits of metal and cardboard don't really consume that much in terms of food, goods, or energy. We can look in our own country, a Amish family will consume far less that a typical family living in a suburban environment.

Now we open up the debate, as all contributors to this blog comes from families and none are an only child. Some come from large families. Should there be a rule in place, similar to China, were we regulate number of children. Its get even more complicated when you take into consideration of who is having children. In most normal middle class families (were most of the US population falls into) I feel like they should be able to have as many children as they want, this ignores the consumption argument but it beats the lower income families who have multiple children that end up getting supported by welfare. Should we say unless you make XXXXX amount of money a year you can only have X amount of children? What about those Amish families discussed where they are taking no welfare or government help and completely self sustaining? What about a selective extermination of certain populations? Do we really need all the people in 3rd world countries? If thats too extreme lets cut all funding for government issued help programs. If your 3rd world country is suffering from a drought and no food can be produced that sucks for you. We won't waste our food and money to help you out when you give us nothing in return. The fact is technology is not keeping up with our growth and consumption. People in the 1960s thought we would be living on the Moon by now. Our reduction in greenhouse gases and population has not decreased as much as it should and while the whole "going green" is generating more buzz is it to little to late? So I open up this topic for discussion.

Left 4 Dead

The blog has been pretty empty for a while, so I'll go ahead and make a post about this new game that's coming out soon. Basically it's a valve game, so it will be available over steam, which of course we all already have. It is a 4 player co-op game that you play online. It's kind of a mixture of CS and resident evil. It also has a 4v4 mode where one side plays the humans and the other side the zombies. I definitely plan on getting it when it comes out, if we had 3 others I think it could end up being really fun. Anyway, here are 2 videos of gameplay footage.

LPGA - Speak English or bounce

I've pretty much spent half my day reading people's reaction to the new rule invoked on the Ladies Golf Tour, so I thought I would bring it to the blog. The rule, if you haven't heard, is the the LPGA will now be requiring golfers playing on tour to learn the English language, and if they fail a test adminstered by the LPGA then they face suspension.

As I expected, this rule is being blasted by the liberal media (and 80% of people I've seen replying to blogs). Words such as "racist" "discrimination" etc. are being thrown around. The arguments against this are that the LPGA is doing this simply because the Koreans are dominating. Other arguments say the game is global now, blah blah. I'm sure you can figure out all the others.

First off, the Koreans dominating is a reason that this is happening. But not because they want to get rid of the Koreans, but rather they'd like to be able to market their top players and actually maybe get a fuckin interview with one of them. No sport in America can be successful if the top 5-10 players can't speak English.

Anyway, this kind of stems back to a blog post by boon a while ago, but I think this rule is awesome. For one, I see people arguing that this isn't required anywhere else, why is the LPGA requiring it? Well, I don't think this is true. I doubt any of us would have our current jobs if we couldn't speak English fluently, better yet just be able to pass an English test. My second argument is, how are these girls even allowed to be permanently in this country if they cannot speak English? Isn't that a requirement to become a citizen? Or maybe they are all here on visas, which raises a whole other issue in my book that I won't get into.

Bottom line is, I think this is a great rule, that I think all American businesses should adopt (MLB, MLS, UPS, Taxi Services, etc.). If some baseball player can't learn English to make millions playing in the Major League's, then he shouldn't be allowed to take the spot of another American. This can apply to all jobs, not just sports. If peeps are going to complain about, go back to your own country and play for their professional league, and make 3 pesos a game, fine by me.

Unfortunately I think this rule will be lifted through some lawsuit however....I'm sure it violates the human rights of illegal immigrants, who seem to have more power than citizens these days

Term's Travel to VB

I am traveling home the weekend of Sept. 26 for the Doors concert and just to visit. Similar FYI to everyone like Boon's blog.

Boon's travel to Houston

I'm going to be staying with Scott for a long weekend (Oct. 16 to 19), unless he tells me otherwise. Just thought I'd post it here in case anyone else wanted to tag along.

Something Different to Listen to

Boon's Final Top 5

After reading everyone's input, plus my own opinions, here are my top 5 (along with their best role):

1) Leo - The Departed
2) Hanks - Forrest Gump
3) De Niro - Goodfellas
4) Cruise - Jerry Maguire
5) Philip Seymour Hoffman - M.I. 3 (haters will bash this one I know, my only response is any role he plays, he is fucking domination in it. He can play a nerd or a bad ass, and both will be pulled off with excellence.)

Just missed list: Brad Pitt- Troy, Matt Damon- Good Will Hunting

My next list will be top 5 single performances in a movie.

Best Actor (pt.3)

I'm just gonna list a few actors with my top 5 and notables with no explanation, and leave it up to debate --- (** respresents a movie i havent seen)

John Travolta
1) Pulp Fiction
2) Saturday Night Fever
3) Swordfish
4) Grease
5) Basic
Notables: Be Cool, Broken Arrow, Face/Off, Staying Alive**, Urban Cowboy**, The Thin Red Line**, Look Who's Talking, Wild Hogs**, The Punisher

Overall: Hard to rank Travolta, because his movies are so random. I probably am even forgetting a movie, because he has had so many random roles. Looking this list though, I dont put him in consideration for #1

Edward Norton
1) Fight Club
2) American History X
3) Prinal Fear
4) 25th hour
5) Rounders
Notables: Italian Job, Red Dragon**, Keeping the faith, The Painted Veil**

Overall: The Top 5 rival Cruise/Leo/Hanks....sorta lacks the depth but thats just because hes younger I think. The top 3 could be interchangeable in my book in order, Primal Fear could easily be #1 based solely on Norton's performance.

Brad Pitt
1*tie) Troy
1*tie) Fight Club
3) Seven
4) Legends of the Fall
5) 12 Monkeys
Notables: A river Runs through it, Sleepers**, Snatch, Ocean's series, Mr/Mrs. Smith, Meet Joe Black, 7 years in Tibet**, Babel** ,

Overall: After seven there a number of debateable choices for 4/5 depending on how you rate them. I don't think Pitt rivals the top 3, but top 5 could be a possibility.

Best Actress...wait do they exist?

I actually thought of this topic about 2 weeks ago but never wrote anything about it due to time/interest. After Primes recent posts, I thought I would throw a quick little one on paper just to see what you all thought....

The thought occurred to me when one of my (nub) friends said she was watching Seven for the first time. As I stated in my recent comment on Prime's blog, I think that this movie is simply the best that I have ever seen. It brings everything to the table: great cast, suspenseful plot, and killer ending. As I was thinking about it, the one thing I thought of that was interesting was that Gweneth Paltrow was in it. I was thinking that, although she is a famous and admired actress, the fact that she was in that role added nothing extra to the movie. I imagine that many other actresses out there could have played that part the same and the movie would have been the same greatness.

Then I was thinking of other great movies without a high impact role from a female. A few titles that come to mind: Fight Club (another Pitt great, debatable top 5 actor), Road to Perdition, Shawshank Redemption, basically any good action movie, There Will Be Blood, etc. Many of the movies in my top 10 have no large impact from an actress. The only movie that I can say (with not a whole lot of thought or research) that was good due to the large role of a female would be Kill Bill. I simply cannot think of anyone who could better play the role that Uma Thurman did.

I think my main arguement would be this: there are certain roles in which I don't think any other actor could play a particular part better than who was cast. Examples would be Daniel Day Lewis in TWBB, Pitt in Fight Club, Spacey in Seven, Nicholson in Shinning. These kind of roles are amazing and unforgettable. What role that a women has had the same impact as some of the roles I have listed? Any? I would say no, but I am very interested to hear, for my movie knowledge isn't great.

So what does it all mean? Do writers not provide enough impact roles for women in Hollywood today? Are we all just guys and can't relate to women's roles in movies? Or are women just not as good on the big screen as men? I'd say it is a combination of them all, but what are your thoughts?

Best Actor (pt. 2)

I'm gonna go ahead and highlight 2 people in this one since most of the names I had planned on doing have been mentioned already:

Tom Cruise

1 - Top Gun - One of my top 10 movies of all time

2 - Last Samurai - Also could be in my top 10, although this one I have a feeling may be argued

3 - Mission Impossible - 3-7 of Cruise are all pretty even to me, I give MI the slight nod over the rest

4 - A Few Good Men - Like I said, Ive been flip flopping on like 5 movies for the last 3 spots so these could go either way

5 - (tie) Cocktail , Jerry Maguire, Collateral - Cocktail is a classic, Jerry Maguire was great minus the chic moments of the movie, and Cruise's character in Collateral was sweet

Notables: The Color of Money (really might be in my top 5 but I excluded it due to low popularity), Days of Thunder, Born on the 4th of July, Rain Man (only excluded this because half credit goes to Hoffman), Eyes Wide Shut, Minority Report, War of the Worlds (haven't seen), Vanilla Sky (Haven't seen), M.I. 2/3, Risky Business

Overall Outlook: You can't deny the quantity of solid movies Cruise has, definetly should be at least in the discussion for #1


Leo Dicaprio

1- Titanic - Considered moving this lower to avoid the flaming I'll receive, but I can't do it. Highest grossing movie of all time, and it was C-A-R-R-I-E-D by Leo.

2 - Blood Diamond - 2-5 are interchangable in my book, but I'll give this the edge because he carried this movie imo more than the other 2

3 - The Departed - Probably my favorite movie with Leo in it, but a lot of credit goes to the rest of the cast. I still think he was the best though

4 - Gangs of New York - Bill the Butcher was equally as good as Leo, which is the only reason I have this at 4 and not higher.

5 - Catch me if you Can - Actually think some might argue for this to be higher

Notables: The Beach, The Aviator (haven't seen this, but it was up for a lot of awards), The Basketball Diaries, What's Eating Gilbert Grape (havent seen, or heard of until mentioned by boon)

Overall Outlook: If you just look at top 5, I think Leo takes the crown. But he seems to lack the quantity that some of the others have (not his fault). The fact that I haven't seen a lot of his movies (Man in the Iron Mask, Romeo and Juliet, Aviator, etc.) may also be why I see a lack in quantity.

Best Actor (pt. 1)

On vacation in the Outer Banks this week, a discussion formed amongst the fam and co. about who the best actor is, which made me think this would be a great debate for boski's blog. I'm not really sure who my pick is, so I'm going to do a blog on all the top actors and then rank my top 5. Starting off pt. 1....Tom Hanks

Top 5 Movies (my opinion obviously)

1 - Forrest Gump - I think this is definetly his clear cut #1. You may have liked some of his other movies better, but as far as individual performance in the movie this has to be his best.

2 - A League of their Own - This will probably be heavily debated being listed at #2, but Hanks is pwn in this movie

3 - Saving Private Ryan - Great movie overall

4 - Apollo 13 - ditto

5 - Catch me if you Can - Leo really carried this movie but I still throw it in Hanks' top 5

Other Notables-
Big (I wasn't as big of fan of this as most, but I think a lot of people would top 5 this)
Cast Away (Could make an argument for this as high as #2)
Road to Perdition (Sleeper)
The Terminal (haven't seen)
Da Vinci Code
The Green Mile
Philadelphia
Sleepless in Seattle (ive actually only seen maybe 10 minutes of this)
You've got mail

Overall outlook: Outside contender for #1.....definite contender for top 3

Boski on the Olympics (Pt. 2) Controversies

I touched on a few in my first post but now that the games have progressed I figured I could do a full post on all that has transpired over the past few days. Lets start with one that happened even before the torch was ignited. China hosting the Olympics. Man people (including several high profile Hollywood celebs who really know nothing about this topic) protested against China hosting the Olympics for many reasons, but the main one being China's control over Tibet. This is still being protested today during the games. Signs are everywhere showing the Olympic rings made of handcuffs talking about China's rule over Tibet. Now granted i'm talking from afar living in the US but China's has been in control over Tibet for like 50 years now. If Tibet couldn't fend them off then oh well, thats the way shit goes. I'm not saying they don't have a right to fight, but China is allied with so many countries, including the US. We are "encouraging" China to loosen its grip on Tibet, but truth be told I don't think Tibet really wants to be its own separate entity, and why would they be, they are part of the dominant country in the world. Anyway no reason why the games should not be held there. Hell if this is the case half of the world would protest the games if they were held here with our presence all over the place (see boon's post).

So now lets talk about the games, and first up is swimming. With Phelps going for a ungodly amount of golds and world records being shattered left and right one has to question the new suits. Laser cut, designed by NASA, mimicking a shark's skin, these things can take 15+ minutes to put on and are used to dice through the water. This suit, created by Speedo, is unstoppable. So much so that other country's who were sponsored by the likes of Mizuno said that they had to wear the Speedo suit to be competitive against the other swimmers. This upset their sponsors but they allowed it to be done. They are calling this "technological doping". My thoughts, everyone should just swim naked. It would make more of an even playing field.

Next Olympics Baseball and Softball will be eliminated form the games. Some say for scheduling problems. Others say that in the case of Softball it is because the US women are so dominant. My thoughts are, and while i'm not too big of a fan of baseball in the olympics, it is far better than equestrian. Why is this in the olympics? As Term and I were talking it is more horse than human. And this games there is BMX? This sport should be reserved for the X-games, not the olympics. Term said we might as well add Formula 1 into the olympics. Maybe a form of motor racing should be incorporated. All using identical cars. Also thought up, and hes made this pitch before, lethal lefty Phil Mickelson says golf should be included in the olympics, i'll let the debate begin.

Now on to some more serious issues. First up there has been serious complaints about the China boxers getting favorable scores. Many athletes have shown frustration in the ring. I'm not sure how much anyone has watched of this, I've actually seen a lot of this action and can say it does look fishy. But the whole scoring system for boxing in the olympics is shit. The points are awarded for the most random shit. This part of the sport needs some help and fast.

We've had 3 cases of athlets being D.Q. for drug testing. The latest one is in a sport I would never think would have such a thing. Shooting. Kim Jong Su tested positive for Propanolol which is prevents shaking, obviously giving a huge advantage where steadiness is everything. Pretty interesting.

In wrestling in one of the lighter weight categories we had the Bronze winner from Sweden throw his bronze medal on the ground and walk of the podium because he was upset at some of the calls and said he wanted to win the gold and nothing else but the gold. I understand you are upset but you are acting like a 10yo. Have enough respect and dignity to make it through the medal ceremony and then pitch your bitch.

And now the two that are getting the most attention. The Spanish basketball team has come under fire for a photo they did for one of their sponsors. It shows the entire team pulling the corners of their eyes to make "slant eyes" in an effort to look like the Chinese. This add, for a company similar to UPS here in the states, has run in several newspapers. Spain thinks they did nothing wrong, this is also the country who high power people throw around N-bombs and whos soccer fans make monkey noises whenever a black person touches the ball. Jason Kidd has stated if the US would have done that they would have been kicked out of the games, all of them would have been fined by the NBA and would have made to have done major PR work. I agree. Its a double standard the US has to be PC all the time while others are not. There is talk that the 3 NBA players on the Spain team may get some form of punishment but more than likely nothing will happen.

I touched on this in my first post but more info regarding the Chinese gymnastic team has come out. Several newspapers and other media outlets reported a year or two ago about several members on the team who were only 13 at the time. Making them ineligible. Several of the competitors birthdays were listed making them only 14 now. The gymnastic boards are really saying nothing, only that they go by the athletes passport and that those of the Chinese checked out. My thoughts are i'm pretty sure some of them are under the age of 16. But regardless we lost to them. Did they have an advantage by being younger? Maybe, but we still could have won the team event had we not made so many mistakes. I do not think anything will change this games, nobody will ever do an "official" investigation. But I think next olympics we will see much tighter and more in depth background checks and documentation to verify ages so that this does not happen again.

Good Shows

I'll be honest, this topic wasn't completely my idea. I recently read one similar and it got me thinking. I know this topic isn't that great, but I figured a weak post is better than no post ( as is evident by some of bosk's articles =P ). What TV shows out there are really worth watching? I'll start off with the ones that we all have heard about and probably watch.

First is Entourage. I won't go into much detail since everyone knows it. I don't have HBO here so I'll be streaming the episodes off of sidereel.com, which by the way has episodes for all of the shows I'm going to mention. Anyway, the new season starts September 9th. The only real thing I have to say about it is that Drama reminds me of Boski.

Next is Lost. Everyone has heard of it, not all of us watch it. First I'll state bluntly that it is my favorite show on TV. Alot of people are turned off by the fact that questions are almost never answered, and in fact usually lead to even more questions. But I actually like it that way, as long as there is some plan to it like the writers say (they already know how everything ends). The beginnings of this show were very similar for those of us who do watch it, Boon, Term, and myself. Basically, I watched the first couple seasons in a week, about 40 episodes at 40 minutes a pop. You do the math. So if you ever do get the time to try it out Bosk and Prime, I would recommend it.

Then there are the shows that I personally have not watched but have heard good things, and I plan on watching them on sidereel if I get the chance. Weeds and Dexter were both recommended by Boon as well as other online sources. I've seen previews of Weeds and it's definitely high on my to-do list. I've also heard a lot of good things about Battlestar Galactica. I've seen previews, and the plot really does look pretty good.

Now onto the only show that I watch every week, Mad Men. You may or may not have heard of it, it's on AMC. I first watched it randomly on demand over the summer and got hooked. The writer of the show was also a writer for the Sopranos, and the show won a couple emmys last year for best drama and best actor in a drama, I believe. It takes place in the 60's, back when women were harassed at work and liked it, smoking was cool, and everyone drank scotch during the day. The main character works at an ad company and is pretty bamf in general. His wife is also really hot, almost worth watching it just for her.

Anyway, if theres a show you think I'm missing out on let me know. Good shows, the kind that you can't wait another week for, are really rare.

Boski on the Olympics (pt. 1)

For those of you who don't know, Boski is a big fan of the Olympics. Especially the summer games. For me it started in 1996 with games in Atlanta. I started watching mainly for the girls gymnastics. I had a bit of a crush on Shannon Miller and Dominque Moceanu and got caught with them winning the gold. Because you never really knew when they would come on tv I started watching it and really got into the other games. So lets talk about China 08.

The opening ceremony was incredible. The best ever. I watched the entire thing and have it recorded so I can watch it again. The thousands of performers, the worlds largest LED screen, the lights, the sounds. From the hundreds of guys operating the pop-up blocks with computer precision to the guys who created a human version of the "birds nest" stadium. It was simply awe inspiring. It will be difficult for any country to top that (we shall see how England does during the London Games in 2012). Now lets jump onto the games.

Having started two days before the opening ceremony we got a glimpse of the soccer action early on. So let me talk about the US team. With a 1-0 victory over Japan and a heartbreaking last minute tie 2-2 against the Dutch, I think we have a shot going into the next round. But lets asses the team. Bringing Brian McBride out of international retirement as one of their overage players was a good idea, however he has proven to be more of away to draw defenders and allow space for others than really showing his real power. I've watched both games and these are my thoughts. The US needs better defenders, BAD. I don't think there has been a decent defender since Eddie Pope. And before him I'll Thomas Doley as the next best defender the US has came up with. I do like Bocanegra but as you can see he was dropped from Fulham and is more prominent attacking set plays than being a true defender. The guys we have now suck. The other are where I think we need development is in the center of the midfield. I do like Bradley, but he is way more defensive oriented (which in truth he needs to be). The US needs a true attacking center mid. The closest we've ever come has been Tab Ramos. Reyna had good vision but was never a goal scorer. Our wingers are ok. With the senior squad we have two strong ones in Beasely and Dempsey. But these kids Holden and Rogers can play decently.

On a few other events/topics. The bad mitten action has been great. I've also been trying to catch as much of the handball as possible. The womens fencing(saber) was incredible. Gold, Silver, and Bronze all going to an American. I guess the lesson here is don't fuck with American women who have swords. I have found the water polo this year to be boring and have really tried to follow the weight lifting. The marksmanship has been good, but they have not shown much of it this year. Some of the controversy i'd like to talk about mainly regard the Chinese gymnastics team. There has been a lot of talk that they are using underage girls and that the government has faked documents stating their age because gymnastics is HUGE and I mean HUGE in china. When the discovery channel did their special on China a entire segment was dedicated to gymnastics. Word is almost all the girls on the team are underage. They are saying around the 12 to 14 year mark. If this is true its extremely sad. The other controversy that has really not got too much air is about the media coverage, or really accessibility and censorship. The internet in Chinas is regulated and controlled by the government. They are saying that many sites that were anti-china were blocked, even from journalist who were promised complete freedom of the internet. Also they said that the media was not allowed too many interviews, and would not be allowed to film many of the protest going on. But on the other hand the media has made it so several high profile events be held first thing in the morning in China (which is prime time easter US as we are 12 hours apart). The China gymnastic teams has openedly complained about having to preform at 8am their time for world wide audiences. They denied a move to play basketball games at that time. More to come when Boski provided everyone with part 2 of his Olympic coverage.

boon's first blog

I happened to cross CNN.com this morning and the front page says 'Russia Invades Georgia'. Whatever, I don't care, good for them. What pisses me off is in the first paragraph it says "The United States is calling for an immediate cease-fire". Why do we have to play Big Brother for shit that's got nothing to do with us? Is it our "duty" as Americans to stick up for the little kid who can't stand on their own two feet? I say fuck that. We have our own problems, but yet we keep stretching our military to places we don't belong.

"What is Boon's solution?" you ask. It's very simple, actually. We retract our troops and use the trillions we save by building a wall along the Mexican coast with Laptop guns at each mile marker. Then, we take $10 mil of taxed income from Exxon and build a new Sonics stadium. Done and done.

Theres no I in the word TEAM!

So I was preparing this post to follow up on something I touched on with the last topic regarding the spAnd that is taking credit for other peoples work. My soon to be ex supervisor is always bitching and complaining when she is not included in everything. Take for example yesterday. We are implementing a recycling program here. We started looking online for some artwork and started making signs. Well because we all do not have color printers we emailed our signs to one of our designers/tag makers/buyer who has one. Well he took a look at the signs and started making his own. Now Boski doesn't give a fuck. It literally took me 90 seconds to make my sign. Gust google image searched recycling, copy image, past and done. He can tweak them and create new ones. Its a sign that is going on a trash can, what do I care. Then our ops manager (who most of you know) got involved and started making her own tweaks. My supervisor just starts flipping out to me. "Why are they changing our signs? What are they doing? Thats not what I want!" I'm like just let it go, they are some signs that are just going on the containers. She says she is not "as easy going as I am." OK, if that shit pisses you off, you are fucked in the head. But this is the way she is. Everytime something she does is changed, or she isn't involved with everything she freaks out and throws a fit. Its so bad that even people from other departments remark on it. One of the problems we are dealing with right now is regarding some new loading doors. Needless to say this is something I have been trying to fix for 2 weeks. I was swamped yesterday and she says can I call the guy for you and get him out here to talk about it. Sure, thanks for the help I thought. Well she meets with the guy and all I hear is I did this, and I got this...umm Boski did all that shit 2 days ago. Don't take credit for my work. I am the first to make sure I give credit to those who are due it, but this girl just takes it. And if something fucks up, she places the blame on someone else. If shes not in a meeting she freaks. Once I was called into a meeting just by myself with the owner. It was a simple 5 min convo about a company car for one of his family members that he wanted to keep private, no big deal. She starts grilling me after the meeting. What was that about? What were you talking about? If the owner wanted you involved he would have asked you in on it, just fucking nosy. I'm sure everyone has to deal with at least one person at their work like this. Sorry for the rant, more serious post tomorrow. anish languae in America but something came up that I just wanted to touch on real quick.

What are the kids watching?

This maybe more prevalent to me as I have kids, then to others, but I can't help but to comment on what is on TV these days. The shows that are out now for kids are far different then when I was growing up. These shows actually teach you things. Now don't get me wrong, I think this is great, however there should be some sort of happy medium to balance this out. For example...I'm watching Go Diego Go. Which teaches kids about animals, conservation, and Spanish (which learning this language is huge in this country...this will be another post very soon). Normally the show will have a animal that needs to be rescued and Diego will help them. When Diego is helping Linda the Lama they encounter a Puma. They have to run because "Lamas are afraid of Pumas" Why don't they just fucking say a Puma will tear a hole in the Lama's ass and eat it for breakfast. This is nature, this is what happens. Sure they are afraid, but they never tell why. Another show that irks me is the Wonder Pets. Most of you have probably not seen this one as it is relatively new. This show is about 3 pets (turtle, duckling, and guinea pig) who live in a classroom and help other pets who are in trouble. They do it through teamwork. And only do it through teamwork. They even have songs that say "Whats gonna work? TEAMWORK!" OK, teamwork is good, and needs to be learned. But fuck sometimes you are gonna be in some shit and nobody will be able to help your ass. You need to be able to think for yourself and not rely solely on others. These shows are a far cry of what I used to watch. You want to know what I learned from the shows I used to watch??? Roadrunners taste good, call ACME to buy some TNT and try to blow the fucker up. If not resort to dropping a anvil on the fuckers head. Also sticking your finger in Elmer Fudd's shotgun will cause it blowup and you will be ok and Elmer will be fucked. Thats what I learned. Now a days you will not see a gun on TV with a kids show. It just doesn't happen. Seeing a knife or sword is a big deal. Any of you guys remember the old Ninja Turtles? I remember one of them saying "Eat pizza or die!" DIE?!?!?! You can't say that shit now. Hell remember GI Joe? What was the point of that show? Kill all the cobra terrorist fucks. So whats happening to the kids? They are getting smarter (hell i've learned more Spanish watching Diego and Dora then I ever did in Spanish 1), but are becoming wimps. Sometimes kids you have to kick someones ass, sometimes nobody will be there to help you and you will have to do it on your own, in the wild animal kill one another, humans kill animals, and if you can't catch that roadrunner by chasing it call ACME...they will hook you up.

Initial

www.freewebs.com/teaminitial

basically made this site so peeps could see upcoming matches, it looks like were gonna have a lot of forefits coming up because of random stuff so this will help organize i think

Boski on Creepy I.T. guys

So most of you guys have to deal with an I.T. guy, or some form of it. Why are most of them fucked in the head? Here we've had normal guys, we've had some guys who were just slightly geeky, we had a girl who was smoking....well she did have a butt'er face but who cared with an ass like she had. But more often than not, they are just screwy. We had a guy who was a Pagan, he asked for Halloween off as a religious holiday, I asked him if he was gonna kill any cats. He also kept a knife collection in the trunk of his car. We had one guy that came in stoned everyday and just sat around. One guy who they almost hired came in dressed entirely in all black and our head IT guy said the dude was giving him an evil look the entire time. One guy who is currently employed as a stock guy and wanted to move up to IT makes his own chain mail armor. And paints figures of dragons in his spare time in the stockroom. Our newest guy is great, hes a headcase with big glasses and some completely jacked teeth. Now normally I would not rag on a guys looks but there was something said yesterday that I had to laugh. Someone was asking for him to fix their printer, it was one of the girls and he did not know which one. One of her coworkers who is a girl said its the girl with the curly hair and the big ass. Which this girl does have. He said "you don't need to describe her, i didn't need to hear all that." Then says to me that girl ain't nothing special, I will tell her that myself. Now shes not hot, but if this guy even came close to tapping it I would claim it a miracle. On top of that the guy just says the most random shit. We've now given him the title of Capt. Random.

You Will Be Remembered

I'd just like to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Bennigan's Grill and Tavern. It was a sad day today. For those of you that haven't heard, Bennigan's is closing its doors forever due to money problems.

Turkey O'Toole, we will miss you.

Is honesty really the best policy?

I don't think any of us deny the fact that political correctness is already a major problem in the US. Also, all of us have heard the policy of "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all." These are just two simple example of how honesty, one of the most highly valued virtues, is discouraged in today's society. I am a firm believer that being honest with one's self and to others is the only way to success in the US today, no matter how taboo it might seem at times. I try to be as honest as possible and let people know how I feel about things. Most people at school considered me to be pretty egotistical because I wouldn't hold back on getting in discussions about homework/projects and I insisted on doing things my way. I also was probably the most respected because even though I was "mean" if I was making a point, 95% of the time I was right.

Conceptually, being honest to people makes a ton of sense in both business and in personal relationships. Having success with honesty in business should not need much explaining or examples to prove my point. Most of the most powerful people in business are often considered to be "assholes" by today's standards. Think- Trump, Jack Welch (former CEO of GE), Lee Raymond (former CEO of ExxonMobil, Henry Ford). These people were/are some of the most successful business men of all times and they achieved this honor by being honest, even if it meant being "mean." Think of some of the people you actually like working with and consider to be good at their job. Are they honest and candid?

In terms of personal relationships: if you were honest with all of your friends and family, you could likely eliminate most of the problems/fights/etc. you have by being honest from the start. Telling people that they are getting on your nerves in what they do or how they act right after it occurs can save yourself from simply blowing up on them later.

A great example of honesty being successful that we all have experienced is playing video games with Apex on a competitive level. This might sound like a ass-kissing, but a lot of our success in our CS days and almost ALL of my success in WoW can be attributed to Apex's honesty in leadership. None of us can forget the Prime/term silence on nights where Pex seemed to be particularly critical of our actions during scrims. Pex would almost never sugar coat any directions or requests and always be firm in his theories. At the time, it seemed like he was just a dick and he never admitted to be wrong. Numerous nights of Apex and I sitting in the same dorm room, arguing over IRC and not saying anything verbal are almost priceless. I think by playing WoW with Apex I have come to realize he isn't wrong often when it comes to video games and taking his advice for what it is instead of thinking about how harshly he gives it can yield big results. If you make a mistake, he will be the first to let you know about it. The key is not to harp on the mistake, but instead learn from it and get better.

Don't think that Apex is the only one who is honest out of us, it was just a easy example. I feel that our group of friends are almost always honest with each other and this is the exact reason we get along so well. Notice how we often argue/discuss controversial issues and never back down from what we feel. All of us partake in these discussions and the only reason they occur is because we feel a certain way and we say what we mean. I would think all of you agree with me in this point to a certain extent. Establishing this point I ask my first question: if all of us were placed at the top of a company, could we make/keep it successful? For example, if we all owned equal shares of a retail store we all know, would it make more money than it does now? I tend to think so, but I would be interested in your opinion.

Now I come to my final point. Is honesty AT ALL TIMES the best policy? When asked the question: if you could read peoples minds, but had to hear all of their thoughts, would you? Many people would say no to this because they would fear to hear what people really thought of them. I can't say that I disagree or don't see logic in that argument. Do you think that people should be honest with each other all the time (i.e- you need to lose weight, you have coffee breath, I think your ass looks hot in that skirt shawtee BOOTS WIT DA FUR)? I find that a balance is best. If you are asked directly about something, try to be as honest as possible. Don't go out of your way to point out negative aspects of what people do or who people are unless it affects you or your work directly. Being honest will help you in whatever you do and will help you be happier with yourself. What is your theory?

Epic song:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=54282654

Scroll down to "We Took Pelham." Sound familiar? IMO great song to work out to/get pumped up. Possible song for a new team Initial CS movie?

Initial Update

My heart's beatin, my heart's beatin, my hands are shakin, my hands are shakin, but im still shootin and im still gettin headshots its like BOOM HEADSHOT!

A good segway I think to the post concerning Initial's first night of competitive action in years. The first match was a 2v2 on Nuke, that is still very difficult for me to think about. Me and Xep started off on T against a team that pretty much specialized on Nuke (they were like 6-0 on the map in various ladders), and got off to a rocky 11-4 1st half deficit. We fought back in the 2nd half where we were leading 8-2 at one point, but just couldn't hold it together and lost 16-14. Needless to say, the shooting is a little rusty. This team will be faced again however, with a much different outcome when it happens.

The next match saw us facing off on a 3v3 on mill. Term was called home from the H-Town bars to join what proved to be an epic match. We lost the first half 7-8 (as T's), and rallied back in the 2nd to win the 2nd half (8-7). This led to a 8 rd overtime, which we were able to win 6-2. I think all 3 of us can agree the game isn't quite near its peak, but the clutch play still proved to be there.

So to add a little humor to my first post on boski's blog, I just had a customer come to our recreation office window (i very rarely have to deal with the front desk, and of course when I do I get nutjobs). Long story short, this guy asks me if we can offer a class in the fall for teaching how to construct wells. I assumed he had to mean something other than a literal WATER WELL but to my astonishment, this is what he meant. I said well sir we dont necessarily have an area to teach this class, to which he gave me some ridiculous explanation. I said well I don't think this class would fill up and besides, our fall schedule has already been submitted (not really but this proposal wasn't worth our time). He took offensive to this apparently and proceeded to tell me all of the benefits that having a well can provide to the community and to the environment. He asked me what programs I was in charge of to which I named him all of my sports programs, and he said....I'm pretty sure this is an exact quote, "Those kids would be much better served in their rise to adulthood if they knew the benefits of wells and saving drain water". He pretty much left after this, and I have spent the rest of my day telling everyone in the office about this guy. This really is just a taste of the various nutjobs up here in Maryland tho, so I probably will have more stories to come

"Finding God"

When I first started working for this company I had a supervisor who was one of the nicest guys I've ever met. Upon several conversations I guess he had some run-ins with the law and almost got some serious time. He said after that he started reading the bible and actually had a copy of his arrest warrant from that night in it to remind him of where he was and how long he had come. Thats all fine and dandy but then, years later this guy shot someone at work in the back. The other guy was walking away from him. Found God huh? And did god tell you to shoot him? I bring this up because we at work recently got a letter from another ex employee. She was a "work friend" of mine..pretty much because she was my age and we could talk about stuff that well the older people around here just wouldn't get. She was from what I understood a bit wild outside of work. Well she walked out on the job a while ago but she still had an account with us for some merchandise she purchased. Well she had missed like the last 4 payments so our collections dept. started calling her. Her mother told us she was in jail and was awaiting her sentencing. We looked her up in the city court website her is her list of charges: Possession of Marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession of heroin with intent to distribute, and possession of a firearm. All I got to say to that is WOW. At this time she was with this married guy who she was "in love with". So we get a letter from her, she got 35 years, with 30 suspended, so shes only got to serve 5 years barring she doesn't fuck up in prison. In her letter she stated that she found god and that now she is devoting her life to him. Shes still with her love although she did not say how much time he got as he was involved as well. She said she is going to get her G.E.D. in prison and really turn her life around. Again this was gods way as she might have ended up dead. Now without me going of on a tangent of my beliefs as I'm sorry to say you're not going to find god. But why the fuck does everyone go and look for him when they get in trouble with the law??? You think god is going to change your sentencing? You think god is going to protect your ass from Nasty Nate in the pen? No hes not, and odds are when you come out you are going to be just as fucked up as you are now.

Boski on the 6+5 rule and random fact on Cocktail

So more and more debate is going forward on the 6+5 rule. For those of you unfamiliar with the rule being proposed it is that a professional soccer team must start 6 players eligible for that country's national team at the beginning of the game and start a max of 5 foreign based players. Now subs are completely open. What that means is that if Ajax was playing, 6 of their starting 11 must be Dutch. If Man Utd. was playing 6 of their players must be English. What does Boski say...this is Bullshit. Certain teams are in favor of it (those who have a high number of domestic players in it) and obviously teams like Arsenal who only have one English player on the roster are against it. Many Italian teams are for it because their players tend to play in their Domestic league...probably because they couldn't cut it in any other major league. If your club is big enough and good enough to attract the best talent around the world then why wouldn't they. It doesn't hold back National team progression....hell if all the US players stayed in the MLS the National team would be shit. Think of McBride, Reyna, Harkes, almost all of our Goalies...if they stayed in the MLS would they have developed into the players they are and were? NO! Boski votes NO on the 6+5 rule. On a side note I was watching Cocktail the other day and noticed something strange, they work at fucking T.G.I. Fridays.....I never knew Fridays was such a cool hangout place to go for drinks! I really wonder how much they payed for product placement there.

Panhandling

I've notice a growing problem in my area, this may not affect some of the loyal readers of this blog (whom live elsewhere) but I thought it was worth a post. Now I'm not referring to homeless people asking for money, I understand that certain readers who live in bigger citys have these problems, but in my area there is something stranger...and dare I say more problematic. This is regarding people who sit on street corners, busy intersections, etc. and ask for "donations". This goes from Firemen asking money for "Jerry's Kids" to kids basketball teams and churchs asking for donations. What happened to actually working to raise money? If your church wants to go on a trip, if you want to raise money for you basketball team's jersey then fucking go out there and do a car wash, sell candy bars, fucking something. This bullshit of just sitting out on the corner and asking for money....wtf. It gets worse when they actually come and basically harass you for your money. I had a little girl come up to my window (keep in mind it was closed and I was not making eye contact) and start knocking on it. OK I could hear you a mile away, you are weaving in and out of traffic, if I don't roll my window down and acknowledge you leave me the fuck alone, no I do not want to donate to whatever it is you are doing...probably not even raising money for any "charity". The city kicks homeless people out of public areas for doing this same act...why aren't they removing these people? Again I have no problem with people doing a carwash, they are at lease offering a service, they are WORKING for the money. The problem is the people of this country are getting lazy, and the fact that they are now just asking for money it bullshit...what is this teaching our youth?

Poll Question 1: Best American Soccer Player

So as things have been going slow lately for the Boski I thought I would pose a question that would open up some debate. Who is the best American soccer player? Now the criteria to consider is obviously playing ability, attitude, and really what they have done to help progress American soccer. I'll list a few and feel free to inject your opinion or anyone else who I might have left out. A few that come to mind:

John Harkes
Alexi Lalas
Eric Wynalda
Eddie Pope
Freddie Adu
Mia Hamm
Briana Scurry
Cobi Jones
Tab Ramos
Brian McBride
Kasey Keller
Brad Friedel
etc.

To me it is a tough Choice, I would say Brian McBride as he has done the best in showing the world that Americans can play. He has done so for Country and in the English Premiere league. All of our goalkeepers are incredible and I would have to say the US produces some of the very best. Off the fields would that be Alexi? He certainly was not a good player, but his appearance made him a star and he has done things good after he has retired (including bringing Becks to us as he is now the GM of the Galaxy). So I ask you bloggers...what say ye?

*note* Boski will be posting the OGL results on this page...could this lead to the resurgence of Team Initial?? Stay tuned boys and girls.

E - Whoring

So as mentioned in an earlier post my supervisor is doing some form of online meeting of guys in the area. This story has turned into a saga and it must be told, basically because it is fucking nuts. So as for mentioned she went on my space and just searched for some single guys in the area. While I don't think the Internet is the best place to find someone, I may just be behind the times, I hoped she found someone for her sake she is a nice person. So she finds this guy and they begin to chat through IM and email. Basically he says he is a widower and his wife died 5 or 6 years ago. He said she was killed in a car crash, which seems sad at first but after this I question whether it was set up by him, or even if that is true. He talked through IM with a weird accent and said he was something like middle European. I read some of the transcripts and he calls her "baby". I mean every other line was like ok baby, yes baby, don't say that baby. He then said they (him and his wife) had two kids together and they are both in school at Oxford....yes thats right, OXFORD, both of them. Right about now I'm calling B.S. He said he was a civil engineer. OK, maybe hes got money and the kids are prodigies....He then went on to say his wife was from Liberia and that was his favorite country and that he lived there for some 6 years from 2000 to 2006. I said to my supervisor um Liberia is like a war torn 3rd world country who had a civil war in the early 2000s. I said they also were a major exporter of conflict diamonds. She was like what? I said um did you ever see Blood Diamond. She said no. I said before you continue talking to this guy watch that movie. I said this guy is probably exporting diamonds right now and turning kids into soldiers while cutting off their parent's hands. She didn't get anything that I was saying. So then he goes on to tell her that he is missing around $450,000 out of his account. OK first off this guy is fucking with you. And second he seemed like it was not that big of a deal...your bank must be deep if you don't care about $450k....shit if $4.50 is out of my account I want someones ass. He tells her everything will be ok because he is going to Denmark to lock down a $31 million dollar job. I said ok hes going to sell some more blood rocks. So he calls her from "Denmark" she said it came up with a weird number on her phone but he also said he was calling through the computer. I said oh he was using Skype or something like that. Can anyone confirm that if you use Skype from the states it still comes up with a weird number? I'm not to familiar with it so any readers input would be appreciative. So I told her, he is going to ask for money...she said I don't think he is going to try a scam. I said watch. So while over in "Denmark" he said it is going to cost $32k in legal fees to get the deal done....ok maybe the fees would be that much for a large deal like this. He tells her he only has $26k but is working on getting the rest. A few days later what does he do...asks her if she has any extra cash. She said um no I have a family to take care of and have no extra cash. I'm glad she stayed strong, the guy said ok I understand but can you do me a favor. And she asked well what is the favor. He asked her if she would go and cash a check at a bank for a "client" of his. She terminated the conversation there. This shit is fucking nuts...she said she was not going to talk to him anymore but I've seen her IMing him so more updates on this story as it progressive. Lesson: find people the old fashion way, by going out!