Summer of Dan

The most functional dysfunctional kind of family you could dream up

It drives me crazy seeing how much press the Brady/O'Brien fight is getting. Players yell at coaches all the time and vice versa, players yell at players all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. We yell at each other on the field, on the sideline, before, during, and after practices and games. Football is a game of passion, tempers flare, guys want the best out of each other all the time. Coaches fight with each other all the time.

But at the end of the day, everything is good again. More than good. Football teams more than any other sport are family - you bleed together, you go to battle every single play, you get hurt together and you hurt people together. It's a violent, violent sport. Of course guys are going to spout off from time to time. But for every exchange they show like Brady and O'Brien there are 100 you don't see and more importantly there are 200 lovefests breaking out on the field and on the sideline you aren't aware of.

January in March

This is a touchy subject. It's been hashed and rehashed a million times. But I have to, it goes against all fiber of my being to not. My only disclaimer is I am not an elitist or anything like that, far from it. There is a right and a wrong way to do things though.

Begin rant:

I cannot stand certain types and even specific people at the gym. Yes the January crowd is always the worst. They come in with their brand new tracksuits and sneakers and take over the entire place. Need a treadmill? Sorry they are all walking 1.0 mph for 60 minutes while chatting on their phone to a friend. How about that bench? Sorry that guy is reading an entire book in between sets.

Common courtesy goes a very long way. No one truly wants to be there. Yeah, working out can be fun, but given the choice of have the body you want for free or working out, only sadists would choose working out.

These people go to great lengths to park as close to the gym as possible. They create their own spaces. They will park on giant snow banks. They will park illegally. I mean, why should they park half a mile down the road like I have to because there are 12 million new people at the gym and walk in freezing rain to workout? I mean, seriously, these people are making a concerted effort to take back their live and their health in their own hands! Why should they have to park normally like the rest of us?

And that brings me to proper dress. I'm not part of the fashion police. Not even fucking close. But there are two rules when working out in the gym as far as clothing goes: make sure it fits and make sure it's clean. If you want to workout in jeans, whatever. That's fine. Just make sure they fit and aren't around your ankles when you are squatting. Or your shirt is so tight I can count your chest hairs through it. 

Side note #1: to the guy that has worked out at my gym for the last 3 years, seriously, you do not need to wear bike shorts every day. You don't even go to spin class. No one wants to see your junk. AT ALL. It was bothersome when they were black, and no it's downright awful now that you switched it up and bought some red ones. Seriously. And you smell like egg salad that has been in the sun for a few hours. Wash that shit.

I get it, I really do. You are at the gym to lose weight, or improve in some sport or activity, or better yourself, or to just be generally healthy. So get off the phone. Don't text. Don't call people. Don't answer your phone. In fact, leave it in the fucking car. No one wants to hear how you worked late today and are at the gym working out and how your weekend is shaping up. You are wasting your time, just go home. You're also wasting my time. If I want to use your machine, why should I have to politely interrupt you to ask if I can work in? You're the douchebag, not me. 

If you are new to the gym, learn how to lift. Watch other people. Read some magazines. Get a personal trainer. Don't half ass and wing it. You're hurt yourself and look like an idiot. Like the guy the other day that attempted way too much wait on the cable crossover machine and not only almost lost an eye, but almost hit someone with it when it flew out of his hand. 

Side note #2: to the guy that brings his teenage son to the gym every day and then sits on his ass in a brightly colored sweatsuit and points at things for his son to do - get off your fat ass and workout. Dude, you qualify for Biggest Loser. If you even worked out half the time you are in that gym watching other people workout you would already be in a XXL sweatsuit instead of an XXXXXL.

When you clean off a machine when you are done with it, spray the paper towel, not the treadmill/arc trainer/stationary bike/rowing machine/elliptical. People are working out around you, there are fans everywhere. Where do you think even some of that spray is going to go? Oh yeah, in other people's faces. Think before acting like a moron.

Talking is acceptable, just be aware of who is around you. That goes for tone, subject, loudness, and especially be aware of people that are spying the machine you are 'using' while chatting to someone else. Ask them if they want to work in. Or ask them if they want to use it. Simple things go a long way.

Side note #3: to the woman I see every Friday night who sings so loudly I can hear her upstairs over the piped in music and my iPod music that's maxed out: seriously just shut the fuck up. You are awful. You are worse than awful. You surely are completely tone deaf, if not just deaf. I can't put into words what you sound like, just that you have to stop.

Is this a completely unnecessary rant? Maybe. Is it long winded? Of course. But is it true? All of it. 100%. Absolutely. 

The way I figure it - if someone reads this and it changes what they do, even one little thing, that makes life better for those of us that work out, it was well worth it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I can't wait to see bike short guy, Whitney Houston's crackhead tone deaf sister, and the Koolaid Man.

Think about it

About 3 minutes ago, Nissan debuted probably the saddest commercial I have ever seen next to those ASPCA commercials.

I think what is so depressing to me is that things as basic as not buying bottled water, bringing your own cloth bags to the supermarket, carpooling, recycling, and a million other things that can reduce our carbon footprint never comes to mind to the majority of people. It's depressing because something as beautiful as the Polar Bear might be extinct in almost no time at all. 

And people are the only reason, we are the ones to blame.

I'm not saying everyone should run out and by a hybrid or a 100% electric car, but I think if people thought about how their actions impacted the world and it's inhabitants other than themselves and did something about it I think the world would be able to heal itself.

We probably will never know.

Waking up is the hardest part

Summer is winding down. At this point I always ask myself if I've been to the beach enough, stayed outside long enough, enjoyed the outdoors as much as I should. The answer is invariably no. Interesting.

• When I hear anything by Creedence Clearwater Revival I always think of my dad. And I get sad. I am lucky enough to have him in my life still. I see him fairly frequently and keep in touch all the time. We do lunch at least every few weeks when our schedules matchup but anything by CCR brings me back to when I was a kid. Growing up my dad always listened to it, as well as Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Allman Brothers, James Taylor. He was always around because of his epilepsy. I have very vivid memories of our first house with him listening to music and writing or reading, and having a shitload of world maps up on the walls and him doing his thing. It's one of my happiest memories I have. So I do get sad. I get sad because I know one day he won't be around anymore and when I hear CCR on the radio I'll get a lump in my throat and need to pull over. He just turned 54 and I've been around for 30 of those 54 years. I am thankful for that.
• Friends don't just help friends out when they need it. Good friends are proactive about helping you. I'm learning a lot thanks to Mark. Great information.
  
  
  
  
• A funny thing happened a few weeks ago - the only pair of glasses I had started getting a bit wobbly on the bridge. They were about 15 months old so I called Lenscrafters to see what they can do. While I was on the phone, they fell apart in my hands. Literally.
  
  
  
  I was pretty shocked that they fell apart like that. They said they were out of warranty by a whopping almost 4 months. I told them I would come in and see them. I saw the manager, explained I've never dropped them and it seems odd they would break there because they are made of titanium. She proceeded to tell me that titanium is a very soft and lightweight metal. I told her I knew how strong it was, my facemask is made up of it, but they shouldn't break. And then she seriously asked me, "Oh, so you wear these when you play football?".
  
  Wait, what? Did you just ask me that? I laughed at her, I told her if facemasks can handle high speed collisions that my glasses shouldn't have fallen apart in my hand. She didn't care. She said she could give me a deal maybe on the frames. I told her I had no interest in spending anything on glasses that were defective. They cost me over $400 and lasted me 15 months. I asked her if she knew a brand new car would die after 15 months would she buy it? Or a computer? Or a brand new TV? She said of course not, but did nothing. I told her I would buy my glasses online and left.
  
  I got my prescription from the eye doctor and my PD from Lenscrafters (Pupilary Distance is how far from the side your pupils are, usually your eyeglass maker has this measurement. They take it when the draw a dot on the lenses to see where the center of your eye is). I went to Zennioptical.com. I filled out all the information and bought 3 different pairs of glasses, all prescription, with shipping including, for under $40. They all fit beautifully, I can change them as desired, and I saved a shitload of money. Best thing I ever did.
• Tomorrow night I get together with the boys for some good old fashioned fantasy drafting. Kraig will most likely have the most questionable moves, Mark will most likely have the most elaborate rating system for his players, Flack will unquestionably sit way too close to me so he can stare longingly into my eyes between picks, and Steve will absolutely try his best not to drink too much, lest he have a bad draft like he did last year.
• We are over halfway through my football season and we are sitting at 5-0. We had our first big test last weekend and passed. We have two more games before THE MOST BITTER RIVARLY IN NEFL HISTORY:
  
  
  
  It's always a good game. Let's just hope we can settle on the spelling of 'rivalry'.
• Just as the weather seemed to be changing into fall like temperatures it spikes back up with this summer-ish humidity always-sweaty-as-hell crap. I want 50s please. Stat.
• Speaking of summer/fall, I've amounted a wee bit of progress towards my conquering all the 4000 footers in New Hampshire. The Niff and I trekked up Mount Major (all 1786 feet of it) to get a little pre-4000 footer work in.
  
  
  
  The wind up top must have been close to 40 mph but felt like 100. Awesome view as always.
  
  The second little part of my insane adventure was I bought a map:
  
  
  
  According to Steve aka Mr. Map this is THE map to have. This doesn't guarantee I won't get lost a few hundred times like in Blair Witch but as long as I don't kick it into a stream I think it will be helpful.
• Samsung is keeping the Tab hush hush, but this time next week we will know more about whether the iPad has some serious competition or not. Running Android 2.2 and supporting Flash, the Tab has a chance to pull some attention and dollars away from the iPad, which in turn could drive down costs for the iPad. I swear to God, if the smallest iPad was $199, every single person would be walking down the street with one.
  
  

I really need to make a special trip to Minado. Stat. All you can eat sushi buffet for the win.

Think before you drink

Via: Term Life Insurance

Big Cats Initiative

via animals.nationalgeographic.com

If you asked me to name 10 endangered or soon to be endangered animals I think the last animal I would have mentioned would have been the lion. What are we doing to our world? Why are we doing it? For selfish profit and greed?

Look at these nuts

After working out this morning at the gym, I'm pretty sure if I ever forgot my iPod at home I will have no problems driving back to get it.

Aside from SportsCenter, the only thing that was on TV were infomercials.

BAD ONES.

I don't hate on infomericials because without them I wouldn't know who Billy Mays was, what product is linked to "Set it and FORGET IT!!!", and how awesome your nuts are when you use the Slapchop. 

But holy shit. Informercials that are selling books on the secrets to fat loss, a total full body 3 minute workout, or how to keep your dick hard for a month and a half just don't appeal to me, especially when I'm trying to workout.

Won't waste a minute

I love TV as much as I love food. Kinda. What I don't like is shitty TV. I've talked about this before but it's time again. 

I'm not talking about trashy TV (ie: Springer, Jersey Shore, the Kardashians, etc.). I'm talking about honest to goodness shitty TV that shouldn't be on because it sucks so bad.

Two and a Half Men is awful. There are 13 million people out there that disagree, but it's stupid. Any show with a snarky kid gets old really fucking fast. To each his or her own, but there isn't any sitcom on TV save The Office that I find funny. Blame my cynicism on Seinfeld if you want, but most shows on TV suck ass.

Networks nowadays don't know when they have a great show and a solid story when it bites them in the ass.

Jericho was a fantastic show and CBS canceled it. They did the same with The Unit. Morons. Whoever the execs are at these networks should be let go without a Christmas bonus.

By far the one that hurt the most was The Black Donnellys. Amazing show. One season, NBC let it go because they kept putting it in a shitty timeslot and night and kept changing the day of the week. It couldn't get a fanbase and they shitcanned it. Olive Wilde went on to House and the rest is history.

When The Sopranos ended, there was this clamor from people wanting another mafia/mob type show. The Black Donnellys could have been that show. It just sucks that execs can't see that you need to give shows a chance - good time slot, good day of the week, ample advertising, time to grow some word of mouth and following. 

But they don't. They try to see if it will be a cash cow and they leave us stuck with shitty TV.

Welcome to Shit Talker USA

I have thought about writing this specific post for over a year now but never had the push to really write it out until just recently. The events surrounding the Patriots loss this past sunday to the Colts were just the final straw.

People are different. People like different music, sports teams, foods, movie genres, books, even different seasons. There are a million things that make us who we are. Sports is one of those truly defining nuggets of life that for many of us owe a chunk of their identity to.

I'm going to start by saying I'm a diehard Red Sox fan. If you're a Yankees fan, that's fine, I love rooting against you and your team whenever I can, because it's a rivalry that was created forever ago. It's a historical rivalry.

I'm a Boston sports fan - not just because I live in the general vicinity, not just because I grew up 10 minutes south of Boston, and not because I'm a New England person. But because these are the teams I grew up watching and loving and grew attached to. If you grew up living in Boston and loved the Dodgers, that's awesome. I'm totally cool with people pledging their undying fanhood to teams they never had a real connection with. I'm a huge college football fan that loves watching Michigan, Florida State, Notre Dame, Boston College, Texas, and Florida. I didn't go to any of these schools but something about them struck me. I'll always hate the U, I'll always smile when USC loses, I'll always be happy to see Pitt have a terrible season.

And I get fans that are all about their team. I run fantasy leagues that are made up primarily of Sox fans but we always invite some of our buddies that are Yankees fans to join in. It makes for interesting trash talk and a fun season.

Back to the Pats/Colts game - I'm fine with Colts fans laughing it up that the Pats had the balls to do what most wouldn't and try to end the game by converting on 4th and 2 on their own 28. I'm fine with the analysts jumping all over them about "throwing the game away".

What I'm not fine with is all the other people that relish in it - everyone knows these people: the ones that are fans of some team that isn't playing your team but when your team loses people make a point to throw it in your face. People that "aren't Yankees fans or Sox fans" but when they play and the Sox lose they make a point to bring it up 100 times. The people that "don't really watch sports, but they hate Boston teams". 

When the Astros play the Rockies and they lose, I don't find the nearest Astros fan to throw it in his face.

When the Giants lose to the Jets, I don't seek out my buddies that are Giants fans and shit all over them.

When the Pacers are down by 2 with 5 seconds left and go for the win with a 3 that rims in and out and lose to the Spurs, I don't call up my buddy and tell him how much of a loser his team is and how bad they suck. 

Why? Because I'm not an attention whore. It's as simple as that. I don't give a fuck what your team is doing unless it's playing mine (Sox/Yanks is a different story, everyone knows that). I hate the term "haters" because you hear it too often but it's true. The people that act like that are spewing verbal diarrhea that isn't worth listening to. It's sad but I see more and more of this as New England teams keep winning: Celtics won their 17th championship two seasons ago, the Patriots are a dynasty and won 3 out of 4 in the last decade, and the Sox swept both World Series they won in 2004 and 2007. Winning breeds jealousy and hatred but that's a pretty weak excuse to act like a shithead.

Look, trash talk will always have a time and place in sports. But that's not trash talking, it's straight up shit talking. Trash talking is when your favorite team matches up against mine and we talk shit. When either team involved is a team that you like you are a shit talker. No one likes a shit talker. People need to remember that.

 

 

Think happy thoughts

I don't understand why/how people that are with each other for such a long period of time can hurt each other so deeply. I don't know why they do it. I mean, I guess I know the how, I don't understand the why. I don't think I ever will. For all the selfless acts of a relationship or friendship, you'd think people would do everything they could to prevent that sort of thing. When you are with someone to the point where you know what they are thinking before they open their mouth or can guess what they want to do that Saturday without any hint you've reached a level with them where you need to fully understand that the little things matter, both good and bad, and that the big things matter just as much. I've seen too many cases where someone does all the little things for someone and when it comes to the big decisions/things they only think of themselves. And you know what I have to say to those people?

Fuck you.

Nothing else. That sums it up.