A Collection of Funny Tweets

A collection of funny 140 character notes from my Twitter

• Which is worse? Impaling your foot with a nail or watching Glenn Beck? Vegas has it at pick 'em.
• Scene of the Day: Girl in class awkwardly smelling her bag and getting the "just smelled dog shit face"
• Eating salad with a spoon is as fruitless as it sounds.
• Scene of the Day: Grown up guy actually playing with animal crackers.
• Memo to bald guys: I know it is sunny and you don't want to burn your head, but please for the love of god don't wear baseball caps.
• You really have to watch CNBC to realize how awful it is.
• Look I voted for Obama too, but c'mon he won, the bumper sticker can go.
• So if you cheat on your girlfriend in Venice does she get to throw all of your shit out the window into the canals?
• I always feel like a real man when I go to Jiffy Lube to get my oil changed.
• Scene of the Day: "just4mom" vanity plates on a 1986 Pontiac Grand Prix.
• "What does a chlamydia look like?" -bus billboard
• Twitter can trash a kid's brain; talk to your kids about twittering; parents the anti-Twitter
• What's more unbelievable? The plot of the Da Vinci Code or that Tom Hanks is a Harvard professor?
• Alfred Molina: bigger sellout in the Da Vinci Code or Spiderman 2?
• Tom Hanks, critically acclaimed actor of Philadelphia, Forest Gump, Castaway, and uhhhh the Da Vinci Code?
• No guys Tom Hanks didn't mail in his performance in the Da Vinci Code, he UPSed it.
• Ron Howard, visionary director of such films as Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon and um, well, uhh the Da Vinci Code.
• Has any actor gotten more cheap mileage out of one word than Ian McKellen and the word "pass"?
• If Tom Hanks UPSed his performance in The Da Vinci Code, Ian McKellen for sure used FedEx
• A 10 gallon hat seems a little big, what about a 6 gallon?
• Just what I wanted. An uncomfortable quasi ad hoc office party...with rootbear!
• Is anyone else concerned about the family? What is Tito supposed to do without a brother to piggy back on.
• I think for once I am going to achieve before I believe.
  
• When are the Michael Jackson tribute specials going to get old? My vote: day before yesterday.
• Romantic date at Olive Garden.
• Just finished my trip to the Olive Garden, filling my quota for the year.
• I think the Olive Garden employees should come on a little stronger.
• Just watched Defiance; to recap James Bond and Sabretooth are defiant Jews in Eastern Europe and are dramatic about it.
• Does anyone realize that John Travolta has been in three obnoxiously iconic movie dance scenes? That is unprecedented.
• Marty has got to be the most underrated character in Grease - pretty hot, less cheesey, not much baggage.
• Do you think moose are pissed that Abercrombie is giving them a bad name?
• I prefer apathy to whatever the opposite of apathy is.
• Nothing more interesting than hearing NBC reporters break down the Jackson funeral.
• I take it back, interviewing random people on the street after the funeral is WAY more interesting.
• What is Michael Jackson’s favorite Christmas song? Lil’ Drummer Boy
• What is Michael Jackson’s favorite mid 90s sitcom? Boy Meets World
• Who Michael Jackson’s favorite on-air celebrity chef? Julia Child
• What is Michael Jackson’s favorite consignment store? Kid to Kid
• Insert your own question about masturbation? Beat it!
• If my jokes weren't in bad taste, you would eat them.

Ed Hardy vs. Trucker Hats, a discussion

DISCLAIMER: If you like Ed Hardy, please do not read this post. If you are offended by the word douche bag, please do not read this post. If you are a douche bag, please do not read this post. You have been warned.

The following is an exchange via Facebook between myself and a Mr. Hema Tapa. The initial discussion was generated by me positing the rhetorical question of why Ed Hardy trucker hats continue to exist. After some initial banter about the overall ugliness of Ed Hardy as a brand and the douche bags who wear it, another question was posed:

Christian: My question is did Ed Hardy make trucker hats more douchey or did trucker hats make Ed Hardy more douchey? It's like the chicken and the egg.

Hema: No it's not. It was definitely Ed Hardy making the hat more douchey. Ed hardy is a bane on the existence of the planet and the people who wear his stuff are guys who need to be castrated.

Christian: I like your point but I might go the other direction, trucker hats were douchey before Ed Hardy got to them. I mean the "Jesus is my homeboy" hats were incredibly douchey. This is what makes the argument so complex.

Hema: I think you are misunderstanding the subtle complexities between two things: douchey and trashy. They are very similar but also quite different.

Christian: I might argue that there are different types of douche bags. perhaps like they categorize meat. USDA Choice, USDA Prime, etc. I understand the trashy perspective, but I don't know if you can argue that the guy with the skinny jeans and Jason Mraz nerd t-shirt and trucker hat is not a douche.

Hema: I would not say dude is NOT a douche bag. I would however, question your ability to tell me he is also not trashy. I feel Ed Hardy is trashy. Not trashy in a white trash sort of way but in a ugly as hell sort of way. One who wears such things are most certainly a douche for just buying it. "Jesus is my homeboy" is just trashy though. So while Ed Hardy hats (or anything Ed Hardy for that matter) are 100% douchey the trucker hat, depending on what is on them are also very trashy in and of themselves. "My other ride is your mom" being one of the best examples.

Hema: I submit that douchey is a guy who thinks he is cool for wearing/buying/having very visually offensive clothing just because he is told they are cool. Trashy is wearing something with a picture or a tag line you wouldn't say or do in front of your grandmother. So while all things trashy are douchey, not all douchey things are trashy. Or we could just go with all douche bags are trashy and run with that.

Meat and Me

I would like to think I have some sort of moral compass. I would like to think that I care about animals and animal rights. I can say that I am abhorred by the videos on the PETA website. The videos make me nearly throw up; looking at the inside of slaughterhouses or any industrial farm is appalling. But I eat meat, and I do not know if I really plan to stop. Is my moral compass wrong? Am I inflicting unthinkable pain on the animal? Is there a middle ground that we can walk that includes eating meat and not torturing animals?

To really understand any sort of middle ground, we need to address the animals themselves. Just as a basis it is generally assumed that animals feel some sort of pain. There is not actually much evidence that they do not. They have similar nervous systems and although there is no way to actually figure out how an animal feels pain, we can work under the assumption that they do. This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that killing an animal for meat causes the animal to experience pain and that, on some level, is just not okay.

So while animals do feel pain, do they suffer? Where is this line drawn? Can an animal know suffering? This is where the line gets more and more blurry. Are these same animals that are incapable of higher thought or moral affectations actually suffering? One problem is the definition of suffering. Is suffering just a lot of pain? Or is suffering something beyond pain? Is it something more cognitive? If I stub my toe, it hurts, but if my friend is dying, I am in more pain than 100 stubbed toes. Is that animal in the slaughterhouse going through a series of stubbed toes or a friend dying? The other [major] problem is that it is an unanswerable question. To my knowledge, no human speaks cow or pig or sheep. So physiological experiences and responses are all we have as a gauge into the mind of an animal.

This very question has caused an entire animal rights movement whose goal is to equalize the rights of animals to be like those of humans. But really, how does one equate a human and a lesser animal? On the surface they are not equal. Chickens do not philosophize. Cows do not ponder their existence. Goats do not have moral compasses. The animal world does not have its own moral compass; there are no “rights” in the animal world. A wolf does not care that the deer it kills has a baby. The wolf is just hungry. The wolf does not vote on which deer it is all right to kill, it just does it. If a wolf can kill an animal, why can’t I?

The argument for animal rights has many different forms, and one of the strongest is leveled from an entirely utilitarian point of view. Peter Singer, a noted utilitarian philosopher and author has a particularly concise logic to not eating meat. He says that “equality is a moral idea, not an assertion of fact.” His basic claim is that animal rights activists do not want equal treatment, just equal consideration in the best interest of everybody and everything. The argument is that a cow does not want to sit on the couch and watch television the same way I do not want to hang out in a pasture and chew cud all day. The logic behind this is hard to pull apart. If we eat animals, shouldn’t we eat people too? If we don’t eat people, shouldn’t we not eat meat? The argument there comes back to the moral considerations. Michael Pollan points out that the reason we would forego meat is the same reason why we have some sort of moral difference from animals. But, as Pollan himself points out, this runs into its own set of problems; people with severe mental disabilities or infants are awarded rights even though they can make no moral distinctions. How do we justify not killing them but in turn justify killing animals that are on the same level of mental capacity as the disabled person?

The buzzword that this creates is “speciesist” and that is a word Pollan finds hard to shake. I agree. It is hard to shake. If you are going to eat meat, you have to agree that you are better than those in the animal world. But being a speciesist does not justify those PETA videos. Do we stop eating meat on the grounds that the practices are not humane or that the idea is not? The practices are indeed inhumane. I am hard pressed to find a way in which they are not. In the world of capitalism, where we are firmly rooted, the incentive to make money outweighs the incentive to humanely treat animals; and agribusiness is born. But we like capitalism and we have been living in a world of deregulation for some time. The entire American dream is rooted in the ability to at least have a chance to make money. So if we are indeed better than the animals, why can’t agribusiness make money by taking advantage of animals?

There is an interesting parallel here. Back in the early days of industrialism factory workers were being mistreated, so unions were formed, government stepped in and worker’s rights were born. So could this happen with animals? Probably. There are some road blocks to this, however. First of all, cows do not speak English, so someone has to speak on their behalf. This is already being done by plenty of people, like Singer and like PETA. But people are going to still eat meat. Their call (for the most part) is to stop eating meat. I, for one, am probably not going to stop for the moral reasons or even more logical ones that a utilitarian perspective presents. What should we do?

Is moral justification the only argument against eating meat? As it turns out there are much more practical, though less philosophical reasons for not eating meat. The power point slide you missed in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth"was that the meat industry causes just as much greenhouse gas as the transportation industry does. A 2006 study done by the United Nations concluded that the meat industry was in the top two or three worst contributors to greenhouse gasses. The next logical question would be to ask how exactly eating a steak causes greenhouse gasses? The problem is the farts and burps of the animals being raised. No, seriously. Farts and burps are pockets of gas that the body does not want, so it releases them in the best (and funniest) way it knows how, through farting and burping. A primary gas that is released through this process is methane, which is a greenhouse gas. Humans have one stomach, but a cow has four, as does a sheep. This leads to more farts and burps, which in turn help contribute to global warming. This is compounded by the fact that agribusiness cows, specifically, do not eat a proper cow diet. Cows do not naturally eat corn, as they do not digest it well, but corn is cheap, so corn is fed to the cows. An unnatural diet complicates their digestive systems and in turn increases the fart and burp problem. To put it into perspective, eating one pound of meat is equivalent to driving a sport utility vehicle 40 miles.

Greenhouse gasses are just the tip of the iceberg. Meat eating is by far just as aggressive on the actual land itself. Grazing cows hurts the land – it is aggression on the land itself. Basically, when the land is used up the animals have to go somewhere else and graze that land and so on. It is damaging to indigenous species that occupy the grazed land. This need for new land causes forests to be cleared, which is clearly bad for the forests and the species that live there, especially in unique and diverse areas such as the tropical rainforests, which are being demolished at an alarming (read: disgusting) rate. Entire species can be wiped out just to make room for the animals to graze. This does not even count all the land that is used to grow the food for the animals to eat. Massive tracts of land grow food just for animal consumption.

All in all somewhere around 80% of the agricultural land in the United States is used for animals. This number becomes even more staggering when you consider the actual output. The high output land is being used for relatively low output animals. 70% of the land used to grow grains, for example, is used to feed animals. These animals do not give us 70% of our diet; compounding that, the eating of meat is a one-time shot. You only get to eat the same cow one time. If that wasn’t bad enough, only the best cuts of meat are used. The less desirable parts are processed into less than desirable products (e.g. hot dogs) using even more resources. Basically we put way more energy into the raising of animals than we get out of raising those animals. However that isn’t even the end of it. Since the animals are fed so much and so aggressively they in turn process that and it turns into excrement; they poop it out. This overload of fecal matter has to go somewhere. To dispose of the feces, for the most part, one of two things is usually done, one: it sits there or two: (a saving grace, sort of) it is used as manure for crops. The recycling seems reasonable but both strategies result in massive amounts of runoff that pollute waterways. According to the Environmental Protection Agency factory farms pollute waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. But this meat onion has one more layer. Transportation. The meat that caused all the aforementioned problems has to get to my plate and that comes from a widely dispersed geographical region. The travelling meat uses fuel to get to all the various stores or restaurants.

Delving into this meat quandary even further we get to something a little more personal: the actual human health problems of overconsumption of meat, especially red meat. There is a laundry list of studies that show the problems with overconsumption of red meat. The problems range from particularly credible ones like cardiovascular health to less credible ones like Alzheimer’s disease. The most comprehensive study was done by a group of scientists from several institutions including the National Cancer Institute and the University of North Carolina and studied over 500,000 people. The most glaring conclusion from the study was that over a 10 year period, the people who consumed the most red meat had about a 30% greater chance of dying than those who ate the least amount of meat over that time period – this was mostly due to cardiovascular disease and cancer. That is not the only side of the health coin, though. The same study showed lowered mortality risk for people who ate more white meat (chicken, turkey) than those who ate less white meat. This seems reasonable but the white meat industrial farms are run just as inhumanely and produce comparable amounts of waste.

It seems reasonable to assume from a thinking person’s perspective that the inhumane treatment of animals is just plain unacceptable. No matter how much you champion capitalism, it does not seem reasonable to put animals in an industrial setting. This causes problems for and from the animal, for the environment, and even maybe (probably) the health of the person eating it. As a general bedrock of “solutions” to this problem, the industrial farm needs to be changed. There are a few stepping stones (boulders) to overcome for this to actually happen, though, which makes this problem seem so ominous.

The best way to effectively control this would be through regulation. But since agribusiness is one of the largest lobbies in the United States there is very little regulation and that lobby is not going away. The other problem with the regulation of agribusiness and industrial farming is that it would spike up the cost of meat at least significantly and probably dramatically. People like five dollar steaks more than they like 25 dollar steaks, they are totally unaware of the uglier side of the industry and that keeps that steak price down.

Where does that leave us? We fundamentally need to change how we eat. Totally not eating meat is not really an option for most people. But eating less meat really ought to be. Eating better meat ought to be. Eating more of our meat and eating meat that is closer to home ought to be. To really get to this position we have to look at three key groups.

The three most important groups to advocate change in this bad cycle are PETA, sustainable farmers, and foodies. “Foodies” is a broad term for people who are really into food at a variety of different levels. In this foodie movement there are huge emphases being placed on sustainability and humanity. Recently, noted celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck came out against foie gras, the liver of goose because of the inhumanity of force-feeding the geese to fatten up their livers. Chris Cosentino, a chef in central California operates an educational tool about offal, the insides and not traditionally used parts of the animal, like the intestines, to maximize the use out of the animal. Rick Moonen, a chef in Las Vegas is deeply rooted in the sustainable seafood movement. The best restaurants are using only organic and humanely raised meats.

People at the forefront of the culinary industry are championing organic ingredients and many of them are championing local ingredients. Although there is a certain political-ness to the entire movement, the food actually does taste better. It is better for you because it does not have the toxins that are inherent in the industrial farm meat. And even though the food is more expensive, this serves as a benefit because it curbs your overall consumption of meat, which is a good thing for your health at the personal level, and at a large level for the environment.

The local, organic food eating movement has gone hand in hand with the local, organic food producing movement. These farms use the land and the animals in a much more natural way than how the land and the animals would have been. Polyface Farm in Virginia, is one noted site where the animals are in harmony with one another, they eat the diet they want to eat, and they are humanely slaughtered in an open place. The success of farms like this gives hope to this working at some sort of mainstream level. The more pressure these farms are able to put on the industrial farm, the better.

And this brings us back to our friends at PETA. As abhorrent as they find the meat industry, they serve a valuable purpose in the re-humanizing of meat eating. The role they play is continually bringing to the public eye the inhumanness that plagues the industrial farm industry. PETA and groups like it need to be the unions the animals cannot really have themselves. They need to get the word out as much as possible and continue to disgust people. Humans are unique in this fact: they can get disgusted. They do have some sort of affinity for animals and the sooner they get disgusted the sooner they will realize the effects of the meat industry on so many areas of the world, and on themselves, and in that realization will see that real, large scale change is possible. So maybe it is good that I watched those videos after all.

Blogging the NBA Lottery

• Yes the draft lottery 
• Wow a watching party at C-Webb's restaurant - Sacramento really is boring.
• Jay Bilas - Hasheem Thabeet can block shots - great insight
• Rubio will be good - really good- calling it now. 
• Did USC pay DeMar Derozan too?
  
• short break - do they ever say long breaks? "We'll be back in like 4 minutes, go ahead and go to the bathroom, make a sandwich, you won't miss anything."
• Joel Litvin giving the explanation of the ball machine. 
• Does Joel Litvin work at a mortuary?
• That Heineken commercial is on with the cab driver singing - they should make a radio station of songs that no one knows but people like that are on commercials.
• Martin Shannon has the envelopes. 
• Could their honestly be more of a lame quasi sporting event ever?
• Eminem AND Mike Tyson on Jimmy Kimmel
• Most underrated talk show since I have been alive, way better than Leno or Letterman, yet not the viewership. Tragic really.
• Anyone else semi tempted to call those numbers where you can get foreclosed cars?
• good run down of the successful number 1 picks. 
• Lisa Salters introducing the representatives. 
• Allan Houston is representing the Knicks, brought Reggie Jackson, that will help. Maybe he can pose after the Knicks get the 9th pick. 
• Flip Saunders would be happy with a good player, good insight Flip. 
• DAMNIT Suns don't move up. 
• This is so unentertaining. 
• Does that guy have to interject everytime he says something?
• Things in order so far. Stern can't have rigged it like this.
• C-Webb just called a timeout.
• Commercial break for more drama,. 
• Heineken song has just surpassed the iPod commercials with the colors as the most popular song  no one knows who sings. 
• Nice! Sound problem!
• OKC goes 3.
• 2...Memphis Grizzlies. 
• Most disappointed person the world = Blake Griffin. 
• Salters has another awkward interview.
• Was Mark Jones on the Cosby show?
• Wow the Clippers lineup is awful. 
• oh and Blake Griffin won't make it better. 

Thoughts

• Although they changed the name of "Burma" to "Myanmar" in 1989 they really ought to have changed the name of "Burma" to "Myanmar, formerly known as Burma" because everyone actually calls it that. 
• Brad Childress, the head coach for the Minnesota Vikings officially has a new nick name: Brad "weird high school science teacher who had that awkward relationship with that overly developed girl after she graduated" Childress

Things that need to go away (Part 2)

• Jean shorts; I don't really need to say anything about these, I mean just awful, take them off, like drop your pants on the spot. Going pantsless is better than jean shorts.
• The phrase "man card." For those unfamiliar, a "man card" is basically your right to be a "man" however it is only used really when it is being taken away. Example: "If you use that lavender body wash, I will have to take away your man card." Oh my God, shut up. It's just so stupid. Plus only people who are insecure in their own manhood ever try to take it away so be cautious in your use of such a stupid, stupid phrase.
• Fleece vests. Look, Patagonia is cool and all but you look like a jack ass.
• People who use the handicapped door automatic button who are not a) handicapped or b) carrying a lot of stuff or c) both. Is opening a door really that hard? You grab the handle and pull; and even if it is a push door. That is even easier. You can basically keep walking and put you're arm or foot out and you will go through the door. That is easier than the button. What has your life come to when simple tasks like that require pressing a button? I have seen handicapped people who don't even bother with the button. Are you lazy? Are you jealous of people in wheelchairs? Are you just stupid? And it's not even any of that it's that the door mechanism is slower than any possible way you could open the door yourself. It's not like it's way faster and so much better to press it, it's actually less efficient. Stop pressing the button.
  

Things that need to go away

• Bernie Madoff jokes
• OctoMom jokes
• People who call in Radio Station A or TV Station Z defending OctoMom, does anyone actually care what you think? alternatively: people who call in Radio Station A or TV Station Z condemning OctoMom, does anyone actually care what you think? don't you have better things to do then talk about some crazy woman. And it's not even that, it's like you treat it seriously. Example: someone called into CNN earlier today and was saying how awful this woman was and that the caller was a single mom of seven herself, and she successfully started a non-profit and what have you, YOU HAVE SEVEN KIDS AND A BUSINESS AND YOU HAVE TIME TO CALL INTO CNN TO PUT DOWN OCTOMOM. ITWEIDHGSA]UGJDJ;HBV. Sorry I just passed out from rage and fell on my keyboard.
  
• Grownups typin lik ths whn they try 2 txt u; seriously just type the words, it's not hard.
• Jimmy Fallon's talk show, I watched like 3 minutes last night. Holy cow was that awful. Not even the audience laughed. I think ?uestlove was about to throw his drumstick at him.