Posts Tagged ‘rants’
We Were Ahead Of The Curve On Lance Armstrong
Flashback time. We’ve never been fans of Lance Armstrong. Back in May of 2010 we wondered, “Are we done with Lance Armstrong now?” Remember when Floyd Landis accused Lance of doping? And all those folks who defended Lance? Now Lance is saying he lied.
He made his confession in a TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, which is very celebrity of him but probably not a great idea since he said under oath that he hadn’t used any performance enhancing drugs and that’s, like, perjury, according to published reports.
Here’s one of the reporters he lied to, ESPN’s Rick Reilly, talking about how he’s none too happy with the former cyclist.
This is the full interview if you like that kind of thing.
I don’t need to watch it. Maybe eventually I’ll look at a clip of the important part. For now it’s enough to say that we were ahead of the curve in terms of the “Lance Armstrong is a douche” story.
Video Games Suck, Part One
I like video games. I’ve been playing them for most of my life, which is also most of their lives. That is, I’ve been playing video games almost as long as video games have existed.
Games have become infinitely more complex as the years have marched on. There have always been games that flat out suck. But now they suck for different reasons. Here’s one. There are more. But we’ll start with this one.
Video Games Suck, Part One — Everything Must Be Online
What’s wrong with going online? Aren’t you blogging? You couldn’t do that offline. I mean, you could. But then nobody would read what you wrote. Hasn’t the Internet democratized everything, eliminated all strife in the world and made the planet a more wonderful place?
OK, now I’m just being obnoxious. Let’s stay with how the Internet has contributed to the suckification of gaming, especially for kids. Read more »
Why Are We Still Debating The Benefits of Bilingualism?
I’m not going to bother reading this New York Times essay titled The Benefits of Bilingualism.
Why not? First of all, I’m busy. Second, I’d rather write this post and I really am kinda busy right now. Third, and most important, I truly cannot believe that there are people in the world who don’t understand that it is a good idea to know how to speak more than one language. (And Klingon doesn’t count. Sorry.) Read more »
Wherein I Bash Parenting Blogs On A Parenting Blog
I’m not familiar with the parenting blog EarlyMama, but it sounds like the author, Michelle Horton, gets her chops busted a lot for having kids when she was in her early 20′s.
I have some thoughts to share. Generally we call these rants. It’s not really a rant, per se, but calling it a rant makes things easier. Read more »
Game Changing Gadgets That Aren’t [Opinions] – UPDATED
This list of “10 game-changing gadgets” from a panel of tech journalists (via ZDNet) is amusingly stupid. Let’s go through them one by one. (Note: this is more of an opinion piece than a rant. But I like my DaddyTips Rant graphic. And I do rant a little bit.)
UPDATED 6/27/11: see below for an update on the OnLive Game System, which can be used on an iPad and may include a controller. That could actually be a significant product if anybody notices enough to use it.
Original Tron Not Available on DVD?
How is the original Tron not available on DVD? Seriously, how is this possible?
Amazon has used copies going for over a hundred dollars. Or there’s the VHS version — for 40 bucks.
Are you kidding me?
Tron Legacy opens on December 17. Me and the boys are excited to see it. As a completist type of dad, I want them to see the original Tron before they see Tron Legacy.
So I go on Netflix. They don’t have it. It’s in my “saved queue.” Because the DVD is out of print.
Which is stupid. Because if there were ever a time you could sell a boatload of those things, it’s before the sequel hits theaters.
But noooo. No DVD. No streaming. No on-demand. Nada. Zip. Zilch.
Grrrr.
Here’s the original Tron trailer from 1982. That’ll have to do, I suppose.
Are We Done With Lance Armstrong Now? [Rants]
According to published reports, professional bike rider Floyd Landis has admitted that he was doping and claims that Lance Armstrong was doing it too. My question is: are we done with Lance Armstrong now?
I’ve never liked Lance Armstrong. There was always something about him. Maybe it’s the way he uses the fact that he had cancer as a marketing tool. Or the fact that nobody ever says what a douche the guy is. I mean, he was making out with an Olsen twin. What the hell? That’s douchey behavior.
But nobody calls him on it. Why not? Because he’s Lance Armstrong. He only has one testicle. (Note: I’m not sure how many testicles he has. Ask the Olsen twins.)
He dumped Sheryl Crow, and it could be because she had breast cancer. The rumor, if I recall correctly, was that she wanted kids and he didn’t. Then he went out and had kids. Methinks Lance just wanted to bang younger women.
But he had cancer! And made those rubber bracelets!
And he’s such a champion! He won all those bike races! No way was he aided by drugs. The French are just jealous. They’re still mad because we saved their ass in WWII. Amirite?
Now it appears that Lance Armstrong may have been lying all along. Landis is definitely lying; he’s either lying doping now, or he was lying about not doping before. Since only high school students trying to look cool lie about taking drugs, I’m going to go with the latter.
Landis is definitely an enormous jackass. In a 2007 New York Times Magazine story, Landis denied doing anything that was against cycling rules. The article talked about his “supporters”; I think some even gave him money to help with his legal fees. Legal fees to defend himself against the allegations that he had done bad things in order to win a bike race.
I’m not someone who spends a lot of time worrying about performance enhancing drugs in sports. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I do think there is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy in the sports world when it comes to this topic. Brett Favre couldn’t take the field without popping pain pills. Um, hello? If you’re going to put an asterisk next to Barry Bonds because he couldn’t have hit home runs without HGH, shouldn’t you do the same thing for Brett Favre’s consecutive game streak? Oh, but the pain pills didn’t help him play better. True. They helped him play, period. But hey, you know. He’s Brett Favre. That makes it okay.
I could give two shits about cycling. But that’s not the point. The point is the lying, the repeated lying, and the lack of anyone giving a shit about telling the truth.
If it turns out that Lance Armstrong is a lying sack of shit, what will that mean for his “legacy”? Will people burn their rubber bracelets in outrage? Will he have to give back all the money he earned from being a “hero” and a “champion”?
Nah. Because nobody cares. They believed whatever he said, reporters bought into it, and that’s it. It’s old news, right? Who cares? What’s done is done. Besides, he’s really sorry. The French made him do it.
Deadspin points out that “No proof is offered, as of yet. Just the word of a man who has nothing left to lose.” That is, no proof that Armstrong did anything, and Landis has nothing left to lose. For the record, I still think Lance Armstrong is a dick, and that he gets a pass when he does douchey stuff like making out with an Olsen twin, or dumping Sheryl Crow because she has cancer and is too old for his one-balled self, or using his cancer as a marketing tool. But it’s possible that he wasn’t lying about this.
Besides, he had CANCER. Didn’t you know? He’s such a great guy.
