A Slippery Slope

i was talking to a friend yesterday and i said that i thought the adrian peterson's case and the ray rice/greg hardy/ray mcdonald cases need to be handled separately.

first, let me say this: I BELIEVE HITTING A CHILD IS WRONG AT ALL TIMES.

so my reasoning was b/c peterson's intention was not to abuse his child. his intention was to teach his son, to be a good father, although he stepped WAY over the line on this. i agree that in most cases, intention does not matter. but in THIS case, i think it needs to be taken into account in order to separate the issues. having said all that, i think peterson should be punished for what he did to his son. i'm not sure what that punishment should be, but it's not banishment from the league.

but what concerns me is that the general public is trying to decide what's right and wrong when it comes to raising a child. don't get it twisted, as someone who was raised with corporal punishment, i think it's wrong and plenty of research tells me that it is wrong. but what i'm trying to say is i think it's a slippery slope if we allow others to tell us how to raise our children.

multiple people said that in the south, black parents widely use corporal punishment. that means those people in the south are not bothered by the fact that peterson hit his son, but if they are bothered at all, it's the extent of the punishment that bothered them and rightly so. once again, for that, peterson should be punished.

so i think that should be made illegal. but my biggest worry is that's not where it will stop. if we allow outside forces to tell us how to raise our children, how will we know that those forces will always have the interest of the children as their highest priority?

Silver Lining

a few days ago, a korean girl group was involved in a fatal car accident. everyone in the car was injured and one of the girls died on her way to the hospital. 2 of the girls suffered serious injuries that required surgeries and one of the girls is still in a coma.

i have never heard of this group before, but this must be me getting old, b/c i feel a certain way when people younger than me die. it just feels wrong, you know?

but this case is another example of people doing good, even in a small way.

so the fact of the matter is that this group is not popular. the main reason is that for the past 4 years or so, approximately 50 girl groups have debuted every year. that's the text book definition of an over-saturated market. but these girls had some fans.

and as a way of sending off the member who died, the fans started a movement to make one of their songs #1 on all of the on-line charts. this is the song, called, "i'm fine, thank you":

the movement caught the attention of the general public and with their help, the fans succeeded in making the song #1 on all on-line charts. it's my hope that this movement will become strong enough in the next few days to make this song #1 on a countdown show.

Recommendations

something i enjoy doing while driving is listen to podcasts. and for that reason, driving in this area has improved a little bit. for everyone who commutes in this area, i want to take this time to make some recommendations for podcasts.

1. how did this get made?

this podcast is my absolute favorite podcast at the moment. the people on this podcast watch, then talk about bad movies. at times, they can get a little nitpicky, but that's a minor thing. i've listened to every episode (except the mini episodes) and every episode has made me laugh out loud multiple times. it definitely helps if you've seen the movie that they're talking about, but that's not a necessity.

the funniest exchange is from when they were talking about that american idol movie, "from justin to kelly." i have never seen the movie, but in it, justin apparently comes to a beach somewhere with his friends (all-white, it's pointed out) from pennsylvania.  and they call themselves the pennsylvania posse.

then at one point in the movie, they start beatboxing and rapping on the beach and people gather to listen to/watch them. and while they're talking about that scene, jason mantzoukas, describing the reaction of the crowd in the movie, says, "they're like, 'oh s**t! the roots are here! the white roots are here!'" a pause, then, "they're from pennsylvania."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! if you don't think that's funny... i feel for you.

2. his & hers

michael smith and jemele hill are smart, funny people. they also speak from a perspective i'm not familiar with. finally, this is a podcast about sports.. mostly. what's not to like?

3. the tony kornheiser show

i've been reading tony kornheiser since i was in middle school. well, whenever the opportunity came up, at least. then i discovered that he had a radio show in 2003 and have been listening ever since.

i like that his show has a distinctly local flavor and i've discovered some new music through his recommendations. i also really like that he doesn't interview any athletes. tony helped me to realize that pretty much every athlete never says anything interesting. in fact, they might not even answer the question that is asked. if you like him on pti, you'll like him even more on this show. =)

4. jalen rose report

he went to michigan. 'nuff said. go blue.

just kidding. i'll say a few more things. i really like the chemistry b/t jalen and jacoby. i also like that he talks about hip hop. and he went to michigan. =)

5. dan carlin's hardcore history

i love history. not quite sure what it is i like about it or even why, but i just do. if you like history, i can't recommend this podcast more strongly. right now, i'm listening to a series about the mongols and learning about how incredibly efficient and effective the mongol military was.

listen to these podcasts. learn something.

Happiness

i'm not sure why this is... then again, i now wonder if it always has been this way and i have never been aware of it.

these days, it seems the overwhelming majority of news is s**tty. cops shooting civilians, isis, the ebola virus, conflict in gaza... what the f**k. this ain't good for the soul.

but i know the world is not as bad as the news make it out to be. in this post, i'm gonna share some videos that genuinely make me happy and i hope it will make you happy as well.

life ain't that bad.

1. welcome home

off the top, this is an ad for tmobile. i'll always have a soft spot in my heart for tmobile b/c they used to carry the coolest phone ever (the sidekick 2) and they had the friendliest service center workers.

whether you share my feelings or not for tmobile, this video is heartwarming. i can't ever remember anyone ever waiting for me when i got off a plane or any other form of transportation. it must be nice. =)

2. ode to joy

i don't even like this song, but i love this video. the people coming together to make the song fuller with each pass and to end with the addition of the choir... awesome.

3. "secret garden" episode 12, final scene

i've seen a handful of korean dramas over the past 5 years. more than 5, less than 10. so perhaps this doesn't mean as much, but this scene has the best exchange of dialogue i have ever seen in a korean drama. this is also one of the best exchanges of any tv show i have ever seen.

for my non-korean-speaking friends, a translation (the dialogue starts at approx. 0:45):

context: the guy is in love the the girl in the striped hoodie, but she wants nothing to do him b/c he's too rich for her (this is a legitimate barrier in korea). so the guy joins the stunt team that the girl is a part of and this scene happens during a team-building retreat sort of thing.

guy:

... ok. this is WAY to cheesy that i can't bring myself to type out the translation. hahaha. but i'll type the line that brings it home and it's spoken (mentally, i guess?) by the girl at 1:11.

"but still come... tomorrow... and the day after..."

don't judge me.

4. ann arbor time lapse


Ann Arbor from Seth McCubbin on Vimeo.

i'll LOVE ann arbor forever. FOREVER.

5. "that thing you do"

this movie has 2 incredible scenes.


That Thing You Do 2 by giggs11sin

this scene (from 2:57) is from the talent show where they play their song for the first time. this scene makes me think about what it would be like to discover your greatness while people watch it happening. i mean, the guys wanted to be famous musicians, but they had no idea what they had and as the song went, they slowly discovered themselves.

this scene... no words necessary.

i wish the scene from "lost" when drive shaft hears "you all everybody" on the radio for the first time was online. that scene had a similar feel.

many aspects of life is s**tty, but don't let it crush you.

Pissed Off

what granddad says at the end of this strip is one of my favorite quotes ever. it's hilariously awesome and it's a quote i've repeated on multiple occasions since i've read it. this is what i'd like to say to michael bay if i ever met the man, b/c the more i think about it, the dumber transformers is.

first, michael bay is the director. that means he didn't write the script. but i still lay the blame at his feet, b/c he's the overseer of it all. he obviously reads the scripts. he didn't think it was weird? b/c i definitely did. and ask about me, i'm not the most critical watcher of movies. i usually accept whatever is thrown on the screen in front of me. =)
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so some questions (SPOILERS AND BAD LANGUAGE AHEAD!!!):

1. what was the point of the first scene?

a space ship bombs the earth during the time of the dinosaurs and turns everything into metal. that scene then leads into the next scene where a geologist (?) is called to the antarctica to look at a find, which turns out to be a metal dinosaur. and no, it's a real dinosaur, not a dinobot. i have no idea why this scene was in there and what it was trying to tell me.

i mean, i guess from what happens later in the movie, i'm supposed to understand that the transformers came millions of years earlier to earth to transform it so that the transformers can live here but then... left? AFTER destroying every living being on earth? why?

2. what does the creator of the transformers want with optimus prime?

lockdown is a bounty hunter transformer that is sent to bring back optimus alive by those who created the transformers. ok. but... why? no one knows. or cares, apparently.

3. why is there a japanese transformer? they're aliens. why is he speaking in haikus and with a heavy japanese accent? and using 2 swords when EVERYONE ELSE is using guns?

4. why do the dinobots transform into dinosaurs? btw, in the movie, even the autobots are surprised by this. the dinobots were hunted by lockdown and imprisoned on his ship for who knows how long? it's obvious lockdown came to earth AFTER the 3rd movie, or he'd have hunted/captured optimus as he was working with the us military. so that means he had the dinobots from before he came to earth.

if the dinobots are like the other transformers and must scan the thing they transform into, am i to assume that lockdown was on earth millions of years ago for a bounty, caught these cats who were living among the dinosaurs, left earth, never claimed the bounty, then came back to earth millions of years later to hunt optimus? or, that there's another planet with dinosaurs on it?

and one more question re: the dinobots: why does that flying one turn into a 2-headed dragon? how is that possible?

5. this is my biggest problem with this movie: why is optimus such a shitty leader? there are multiple instances in this movie where i was convinced the autobots' survival was based on luck and nothing else.

first, if you've seen the trailer, when optimus is discovered by marky mark, he's heavily injured//dead from his fight with the humans who are hunting him (cia blacks ops outfit called, cemetery wind). ok. so far so good. so marky mark fixes him up and they're chased by the cemetery wind. then after he regains his strength to do his transformer thing, do you know what he transforms into? THE SAME FUCKIN' BLUE/RED TRUCK. WITH THE AUTOBOT LOGO ON THE GRILL. what the hell are you doing, optimus? do you WANT to get caught?

second, after the battle with the decepticons are over, they need to get "the seed" (the bomb we saw in the first scene) away from hong kong. i don't know why this is, b/c the decepticons are the ones who wanted it and they're all dead, except for galvatron, but... fine. i'll let that slide. so in order to do this, they decide that the best way is to drive "the seed" across "the bridge." i put quotations marks around "the bridge," b/c there's no explanation given about it. not where it goes, or why they even need to go. i mean... there's one decepticon left.

but this is the kicker: in order to drive it over the bridge, optimus tells marky mark to drive the shittiest car in their vicinity. there are multiple problems with this. first, TRANSFORMERS CAN TRANSFORM INTO CARS. second, ONE OF THEM CAN TRANSFORM INTO A HELICOPTER. WHAT THE FUCK, OPTIMUS?

third, this point connects with the previous. so after telling them to drive over the bridge, optimus faces lockdown alone. why? is this some sort of an honor thing? galvatron is nowhere to be seen, so he's not a part of this battle. btw, galvatron doesn't even attempt to take the seed back from the others.

so this means that without the humans, there are 5 autobots and the 4 dinobots. that's NINE vs. ONE. why the hell did optimus send EVERYONE away? to protect marky mark's shitty car from... who, exactly? galvatron? you needed EIGHT transformers for THAT job? hey, asshole, if you just put the seed into that helicopter/japanese transformer, the seed would have been across that bridge in like 2 minutes.

so there's that stupidity. but you know what happens? optimus almost loses. if marky mark and others didn't come back, lockdown takes optimus prime to the creators.

then when everything is over, he takes the seed and...

wait for it...

FLIES TO FUCKING CYBERTRON or wherever the creators are. like a rocket. so as soon as they had the seed, optimus could have done this. lockdown wanted optimus for a bounty so he'd have followed. since galvatron wanted the seed to turn earth into the new cybertron, he'd have followed as well. boom, problem solved.

so why didn't optimus do this earlier?

B/C HE'S A SHITTY LEADER.
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i think i read that michael bay is signed on to do 2 more transformer movies. really?

and after watching this clusterfuck of a movie, do i really want to see TMNT?

The Worst Song Ever, But Also the Best Song Ever

i've been listening to music for the majority of my life. now that i'm 33, it's harder to like new artists and newer genres of music, like dubstep or whatever they call that techno-esque stuff. are we limited in liking music so that in order to like new music, we have to dump the older music we like? maybe we are.

anyway, i first heard this song back in... late 2003, early 2004. it is the worst song i have ever heard in my life and i'm not sure if any song can top it. but i LOVE this song, b/c it makes me laugh every time i hear it. the lyrics, the voice of the girl... everything about it is AWESOMELY hilarious. then when i consider the context of how i first heard this song... it's game over, son. i doubt there's ANY song out there that is this bad, yet i love this much.  without further ado, here's the song:

this is awesome, right? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

so it's been over 10 years since i first heard this song. the reason this came up was b/c i was reading buzzfeed this morning and there was an article titled, "11 Problems People Had In the '00s." in it, problem #7 was, "They had to find a song that perfectly captured their feelings so it could autoplay when people went to their profile." that immediately made me think of this song.

in my entire life, i knew/knew of 2 people who did this. 1st person doesn't matter, b/c it's not funny. but the 2nd person is who unintentionally introduced me to this song. i only knew of him, b/c i found his blog site randomly through a mutual friend's site.

at the time, i was doing a temp data entry job and so i sat in front of my computer for like 8 hours a day. to pass the time, i'd sometimes read people's blogs, even people i didn't know. that's what happened here. and i will admit, that blog was the funniest blog i have ever read in my life.

i guess he had a broken heart, b/c he'd write things like, "i sometimes lay in bed at night thinking about what i could have done differently... and i cry." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

"wherever you are, i hope you're happy and loved."

"i miss you so much that my heart hurts."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! if you say that's not funny, you're a liar.

you know what made it funnier, though? in b/t those types of posts, he'd write things like, "i went to denny's with my friends and i ordered a moons over my hammy. it was delicious." or, "i got an oil change today after work. 3000 more miles!"

and the whole time, that song played. WOW.

i feel a little bad that i laughed at someone's pain like that, but... ok, i actually don't. what i do feel a little bad about is i'd sit with my friends and read these entries out loud to them and we'd laugh together. but in my defense, that blog was so funny that i had to share it with my friends and i never let them actually see the blog.

it's been a long time. wherever he is, i hope he's happy and loved. for reals.

The Song of the Summer

initially, i was going to write about a summer playlist. there was going to be numerous songs.

"fancy," by iggy azalea was coming on strong, as was "problem," by ariana grande. but 2 nights ago, i was looking through buzzfeed and came across an article titled, "17 jams you need for your playlist." i clicked through the links in the article and found some songs that i liked.

then...

i came to the last one. the introduction simply said, "17. the 'j.lo and ricky martin are ageless icons' summer jam".

i clicked on the song, watched for a little bit and well... not to get all dramatic, but it was a game-changer.

the game is over. song of the summer is called "adrenalina," by a dude named wisin, featuring j. lo and ricky martin.

check out the video:

i mean... damn, son. that song is HOT.

this is another video of the song, labeled as the "spanglish version."

one question: ricky martin is gay, right? or am i misremembering this? i only ask b/c the way he's interacting in the video with j. lo, i guess i'm supposed to believe they're attracted to one another in a physical manner. but if he's gay, is ricky martin ACTING in the video? if he is, i find it funny that he's acting in a mv that has no story. if he's not gay, i guess this whole paragraph is moot.

ultimately, it matters not even a little bit. since late thursday night, i've listened to this song 100+ times. i don't think this is gonna stop anytime soon, if i may honest.

don't let the fact that the song is in spanish trip you up. feel the song with your soul, you racist. =)