Things That Annoy Me, But Shouldn't

okay.

 

People stating something kind of dumb but also relatively correct, like "all words are made up."

My coworker said he doesn't read books because "They're all just someone's opinion anyway." I mean, he's right for the most part.

 

I think with Joe Burrow at QB the Bengals will be pretty successful in the next few years.

But a rookie QB and other youth are going to lead to growing pains this season. Hoping for 6 to 7 wins.

 

Well, the Lions have NFL championships. And they have a nice color combination.

But I've been a Bengals fan for 40 years and I ain't stopping now that things are exciting again.

 

Hmm, sports. Just took a random look and it seems that Hakuho may be retiring from sumo this year.

Who?

Well, let me just copy his list of records from Wikipedia for you.

The sport won't be the same without him.

 

Are there many Mongolians in Sumo?

 

That's quite an amazing career.

The one thing I know about sumo is it was where John Tenta earned his first fame. Tenta went on to become a successful pro wrestler. His story with Hulk Hogan drew a lot of money in 1990.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tenta

 

Yes, actually. Mongolia has a form of wrestling similar to sumo. Hakuho's father is a retired grand champion in that sport and something like (don't quote me, I don't remember for sure) five out of the last six yokozuna have been Mongolian. The life of a sumo wrestler is pretty hard and there aren't many Japanese kids who are willing to put up with it anymore.

 

Interesting. Do they do sumo wrestling in high school or college? It seems like that would be the way to get kids into the sport.

 

I know there are HS and college teams, but I don't know how common they are. The thing is, the "professional" wrestlers live in common dorms, have to do all the cooking, cleaning, housework, and what amounts to personal servitude for their seniors for the grand sum of about $18,000 a year in the lower divisions. They aren't allowed to wear anything except kimono or yukata (lightweight summer kimono, to put it very simply) ever in public. The training is brutal and the lifestyle results in an average loss of ten years of lifespan. There's no baller life like we associate with Western athletes, and even the superstars live pretty modest lifestyles. Except for food, of course. Restaurants love to get these guys destroying a buffet, great advertising.

 

Everybody is the same. When Takanohana won his first championship, he was under 20 and not legally allowed to take the celebratory toast. Takanoyama, from the Czech Republic, was a good wrestler but never able to bulk up beyond 100kg/220 lbs and so ended up retiring because he just couldn't win on skill alone (kind of like a short basketball player).

Skip to about 3:40 to see what happens when a relatively unskilled 198kg sumo wrestler faces down a pretty talented lightweight. Both gaijin, but that's just the way the fight card ran that tournament.

 

Are they? Non-fiction maybe, but I wouldn’t say fiction was because it usually contains multiple characters all with their own opinions. Maybe you could argue the opinions of the MC are the underlying opinions of the author, but I don’t think that’s always the case either.

 

Fair counter point.

If I really had a boat in the race, I would argue that the nature and cohesion of the themes of fictive works come down to the authors' opinions in the end. Edit to add an example: Atlas Shrugged has many different characters of opposing/varying opinions, but Ms. Rand definitely had an overall message there.

But I don't have a boat in the race. Frankly I want to forget what my coworker said sooner rather than later, because it leads me to the unproductive circle-jerk.

 

First of all it's a fascinating sport. I remember many years ago Channel 4 covered it for a few seasons and it became somewhat of a cult - probably as a novelty for most. But your comment confuses me. Who are you referring to when you say 'lightweight'? I naturally assumed the 'skinny' guy, but he loses which doesn't quite make sense with what you said.

And I have to wonder; who the hell sits in the front row of this sport, knowing the idea is to force your opponent out of the ring?

 

Auto-tuning.

It was actually spun off from oil-finding technology, some sort of sonar within the rocks that could help prospectors locate pockets of oil.

Then Cher used it as a cool voice effect. Whether or not you're a fan of her music, you gotta admit that she has a strong voice and good control of it as well.

Then incompetent "singers" started using it as a sort of audio Wite-Out to cover up their mistakes.

But now, at least according to the stuff they play at my gym, it's become the default for almost all energetic music.

Why shouldn't this annoy me?

Because I grew up in the 80s.



Shit's been going on forever.

 

You would think an NFL kicker could make a 31-yard field goal.

 

You'd think an NFL team could hold on to a 23-6 third quarter lead.

 

The sound engineers are the real martyrs.

 

The thtufthed eggplantths revenge came in a dith therved thteamy hot... By me... My tongue is theverly burnt. I can't complain though. I got impathient. Theems that I'll be annoyed for the nexth three dayth but I had it comin'.

 

You type with your tongue?

 

You don't?

 

Typing realithm.