Mo Tweeting, Mo Problems

I have to be honest when I say the main reason I look at Twitter is because of Bad Boy Records CEO Sean Combs (Twitter @iamdiddy). When you look at the picture to the left, how could you not be interested in knowing what he's doing at any point of the day? It's a guarantee that whatever he's doing, it's way cooler than what you or I am doing. I would like to see a pie chart of how Diddy's days are spent, I'm guessing there aren't that many categories of things he's doing, but they're probably completely awesome. And even if what he's doing is something like you or I do (like in USWeekly's 'They're just like us!' section), he's still doing it with way cooler shit. Like if he's surfing the internet for porn, you know it's on a Diddy edition solid gold 19" Macbook Pro. You're probably saying, 'Brandon, Apple doesn't make a 19" Macbook Pro.' I know they tell the general public they don't, but I bet they build them special just for Diddy. And when he's texting hos on his cell phone, it's no doubt on a diamond encrusted Titanium Blackberry that has a Cristal application that shoots Cristal out of a special Diddy edition bluetooth headset into his mouth. Back to the Diddy pie chart...I'd say the major categories represented (with corresponding color, cause it's a pie chart and you need colors) are: riding in my Bentley/personal jet/yacht (canary blue), throwing hundred dollar bills at strippers (hunter green), throwing hundred dollar bills at strippers while in my Bentley/personal jet/yacht (burnt orange), drinking Cristal (yellow), hangin wit his peeps (red), and handling Bad Boy/Sean John bidness (gray). Actually, I'm very interested to see Diddy's pie chart now, I'm very uninterested in seeing mine. The only categories that would probably be involved are: tri training, sleeping, and thinking about what to get for lunch. Sadly, that's about it.

I only actually know 2 people on Twitter, besides that it's all celebs of varying degrees. Diddy is easily the best person to follow, his tweets are off the charts. I'm convinced he's a fucking vampire cause he only tweets at night, during the day I'm sure he's just resting his loins after a hard night of doing....stuff. Pretty much all of his tweets are incredibly positive and uplifting, his energy is unrivaled in the interweb. A basic Diddy tweet consists 3 things: 1- ALL CAPS AND LOTS OF EXCLAMTION POINTS!!! 2- trying to get people to do something he wants to do. And 3- a charge to his followers to get up and go. Here's an example: 'CMON PEOPLE!!! PTWITTY IS UP AND ON THE AIR AT 6AM!! HOW YALL FEELIN? LETS GO!' He's hilarious, he was out of the twitterverse yesterday but came back with a vengence today, here are a few of his tweets to wet your palate:

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER!!!...IM BACK!!!...LETS GO PEOPLE!!!

+++++++++++++++++++++ENERGY!!!!!! take that!+take that+TAKE THAT!!!

I NEED YALL TO LIFT UP YOUR ENERGY PEOPLE!!!!! LETS CHANGE THE WORLD!!! LETS GO!!!!!

Ptwitty question of the day: ARE YALL READY TO DANCE???!!!

As you can tell, it's hilarious. Diddy provides some great fodder for me and my 2 Twitter friends. And, UFC announcer/comedian Joe Rogan commented on Diddy's awesomeness on his feed yesterday. It's obvious the whole world is catching on.

living in harmo-knee

it's been 5 days since my last post, and i don't really have a full topic i need to touch on but I feel the need to clear my mental pipes of the stuff that's accumulated over the past few days.

- my buddy Ted Haynes (name has been changed to protect his true identity) was in town Friday night for the state high school wrestling tournament and we met at Buffalo Wild Wings for some drinks. a girl I knew from college brought a friend and met us so that was fun, they left early though cause she's a gymnastics coach and had to be ready for the individual portion of the gymnastics tournament that was also in town. Ted and I ended up staying at BW3 til they were dragging us out while our fingertips dragged across the hardwood floors. Luckily, the hotel he was staying at had a fridge in the lobby with shitty frozen pizzas and cans of Bud Select. the lady was nice enough to sell us some beers, god knows we needed them....fast forward to Ted poring out 11oz of each can later that morning. we stayed up til 330am pseudo-drinking in the parking lot and shooting the shit, good times. this represents 1 of 3 times in my life i've been to a BW3 and didn't order any food, history was made.

- luckily, i had one of the worst hangover headaches i've ever experienced on saturday morning. after cruising home to grab a quick nap and get my gear for swim practice, it was off to the pool. i felt terrible and was in no condition to properly attack the lesson in typical deagle-gusto fashion. after 200 yards the teacher asked me if i was going to yack in the pool, that's not a good sign. fortunately for me, our teacher was a big talker and we didn't necessarily spend the whole hour swimming. he was a good teacher though, he actually got in the water and swam with us. he was really no-nonsense which was nice and helpful. i had a headache all day which was ridiculous, it must have been the draft beers. i later ran 7 miles, then proceeded to slam 5/8 of an extra large Minuteman Pizza.

- sunday, i didn't do anything. literally, i did nothing. well, thats not completely true, i did some dishes and 1 (one) load of laundry. and you know what? i didn't feel the least bit bad about it. tragically, when nothing else is on tv on sundays i get roped into watching nascar, which sucks on principal, but has some really talented drivers which make it worth watching. there was an incident in the race where a gas man for one of the pit crews ran across the pit lane and damn near the track to retreive a tire that rolled away from their pit stall. this was insanely unsafe and incredibly stupid, but hey, were dealing with nascar here, stupidity shouldn't be unexpected. of course this hilljack was the talk of the race and has been all over espn the past few days being chastized for his actions. as a former fueler on pit stops, i couldn't be more embarassed. i would like to feel sorry for the guy but i can't, he must be a moron. if it wasn't for possible negative backlash from the public, the team would have fired him by now. but, with his 4 race suspension by nascar today, firing this retard would simply incite a sympathy campaign for the goof leading to people sending him hundreds of thousands of dollars to put towards his kids college fund and thus, not teaching him a valuable lesson; which is...don't be a retard.

- the weather has been nice recently and luckily this has coincided with my knee feeling better and me being able to run. hopefully, this won't be my down fall. i'd like to ease back into running more than what i have, but it's just not part of my genetic makeup. my first day of running was last wednesday and i did 3 miles (after swimming for an hour), then i ran on thursday and did 4.5 (after biking for an hour). saturday i did 7, with the plan of running on tues, thurs, and sat this week. upon getting to the gym monday night there was only one bike, which was occupied (somehow the other two were 'out of order.' my ass dickheads, it's a fucking bike. can you pedel the fucking thing? oh, yes? then it isn't out of order). so i ended up running 10 miles last night in record time (82 minutes), then did 7 tonight in 57 mins and immediately went to the gym to bike 15 miles. i hate being inside when it's nice out, the weather is supposed to go back to shit tomorrow which will be a blessing indisguise on some level.

- for some reason i've been checking out twitter a lot lately. i only actually know 2 humans on it, but for some reason its kind of fun to check out some of the peoples messages. i have no clue how to describe twitter, what its true function is, or what its purpose in the greater scheme of things is, but its almost kind of interesting. my favorite part is puff daddys tweets, hes hilarious. i sent him a tweet but he didn't tweet me back, i'm still broken up about it. the fact that he refers to himself as p twitty is spectacular. i'm still partial to facebook, but i'm sure in our present state of technological society, FB will grow to large for its own good soon and our information seeking carnivorous pack will migrate to the next best thing, leaving FB's bloody remains on the interweb prairie.

- no LOST tomorrow but i still might post a few thoughts about recent events. for the return next week I'm planning a big format change to the episode blog which I think will be most enjoyable for all!

LaFleur

If you were hoping to see a picture of Dhani Jones for the third post in a row then I hate to disappoint you but there will be no such image added to this post. But I will post this link to a picture of #55 straight pimpin. Today, I was asked by someone if I had a man-crush on Jones. The answer to that is no. While he is no doubt very interesting and probably a pretty cool guy, I only have room in my heart for one guy now, and that guy is Lance Armstrong (here's a picture of him messaging me again on Facebook. He likes to keep me updated on things when he's on the road, but enough is enough Lance, there's work to be done!). For some reason right now I'm completely and utterly fascinated with everything Lance, Livestrong, and The Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF). I haven't been able to determine if I'm presently looking for a road bike because of my infatuation with LA or if I'm presently infatuated with LA because I'm looking at road bikes. Either way I'm hooked, I think subscribing to the Twitter feed of the LAF CEO, Doug Ulman, was the final straw. Those people seem genuinely pumped up to tackle cancer and be at the forfront of the fight. Their world perspective and optimistic approach is nothing short of completely addictive. I think their grassroots movement in the fight against Cancer was, in part, inspiration for the same way Barack Obama ran his presidential campaign. I have no proof or direct parallels between the two, but I think there are definately similarities. The LAF isn't a large organization, but they energize a large group that is more than willing to do the work necessary to organize events, raise funds, educate, heighten awareness, and overcome their experiences with the deadliest disease in the history of man. I encourage everyone to checkout the website for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, there is always interesting stuff to read, watch, and aid with getting involved in the campaign against all forms of cancer.

That being said...onto thoughts on LOST. According to the LOST Twitter feed (I have no clue if it's officially associated with the show or ABC), but they had an interesting tweet today about the name of the episode titled '316' from two weeks ago. The flight number that the episode was named for is based on the Bible (apparently the B in Bible is supposed to be capitalized, I looked it up, the interweb wouldn't lie) story described in John Chapter 3, verse 16. This verse reads: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' This goes directly to my belief that Locke is Jesus, because as Christian Shephard told him before he left the island, his death would be a sacrifice. It also speaks to what Locke wrote in his suicide note to Jack, 'I wish you would have believed me,' because at the time of writing that letter, he and Jack were natural rivals. At that time Locke thought Jack would never go back, and Jack's lack of belief in the 'man of faith' would ruin the whole plan of getting the Oceanic 6 back to the island, and in turn save the universe. It wasn't until after Locke mentioned Jack's dead father, and Jack's subsequent tailspin involving booze and painkillers, that he realized that Locke was possibly right and that they needed to go back. I'm not religious by any means, but there is some cool shit with some serious religious meanings happening lately. The scene from that same '316' episode with Ben describing the story of St. Thomas the Apostle to Jack was absolutely amazing (which also dealt with the theory of belief, ending with Ben saying 'We all end up believing sooner or later Jack'). Here are the major talking points from this weeks episode 'LaFleur.'

- They finally showed the whole statue that belongs to the partial foot that they've shown before. BUT...BUT...BUT...they didn't show the front of it! They merely showed it from the rear! Whose face is on it? Locke? Jack? I can't wait to see that.

- Michelle Dessler from 24 shows up as the wife of the leader of the Dharma Initiative. They always find interesting ways to work in new characters.

- They finally account for the 3 year time gap between when Locke leaves the island to the time flight 316 crashes there and brings everyone back. At the end of '316' they showed Jin in a Dharma jumpsuit but we had no clue how he ended up being a member over the previous 3 years. The story of how they became accepted by the DI was good and became clear in the mega awesome scene in which...

- While chillaxin in the DI compound, Faraday sees a pre-pubecent Charlotte running around. She had merely died a few hours before and he's been whacked out since. I'm interested to see the scene where he tells her she can never come back to the island once she leaves, as well as learning how they're related.

- Richard Alpert shows up on the Dharma Initiative compound looking pissed and ready to fuck tons of shit up. Earlier in the show, Sawyer and Juliette had killed 2 hostiles, Alpert's people, as they attempted to kidnap Dessler (no clue what her character's name on LOST is, I didn't really pay attention to that). Alpert came to talk to Horace, the Dharma leader, to seek retribution for the breaking of their 'truce.' Sawyer steps up to talk to Alpert and take responsibility for what happened and completely mindfucks ageless Richard in the process. You see, Sawyer knows all kinds of stuff about Richard, but Richard has no clue who Sawyer is. For the first time ever, Alpert is not in a power position and ends up being Sawyer's bitch. He tucks tail and leaves, only partially getting what he wants, while Sawyer is vindicated for Horace earlier saying 'you aren't Dharma material.' Sawyer's actions to preventing war between the DI and the Hostiles earns Sawyer et al. two more weeks in the DI camp while they look for the rest of the people from their 'ship.'

- While Sawyer, Jin, Faraday, and Miles are going to stay for the two weeks, Juliette says she plans to leave on the sub the following day. Sawyer uses his wiley charms to get her to stay and proceeds to bone the hell out of her and get involved in a serious relationship. What bad can come of this? It's not like Kate is coming back to the island...oh...wait...

- Sawyer gets an urgent phone call and leaves Juliette in bed. He meets Jin who has picked up Jack, Hurley, and Kate fucking Austen. Our man James Ford is now in quite the little nugget dilemma isn't he. Good luck with that one champ.

- One of the kids from the Coors Light NFL coaches ads was in a Buffalo Wild Wings ad. I recognized him right away, I have no clue what his name is, nor do I feel like wasting the key strokes necessary to describe which guy in the commercials he is, but he's one of those guys. Good to see he's branched out and hasn't been stereotyped as a 'beer ad only' guy.

No LOST for two weeks, it will be a hard time, but we'll make it. Together, we will make it.

LOST Two-for-Tuesday...errr...Wednesday-

Before I get to the past 2 episodes of LOST, there's something I need to add to yesterday's post regarding Dhani Jones (here's another picture of him in a bowtie) being considered a renaissance man. Oddly enough, I blog about him yesterday and all of a sudden he's mentioned on Sports Illustrated's website on their pop culture hot list, check that out here. Thanks to SI.com for not citing me at all as the reason for including him on their list. Also, this tag of 'Renaissance Man' for Jones seems to have followed him around since the beginning of time. It's almost like he's a former president or something. Much in the same way that Bill Clinton will always be referred to as 'President Bill Clinton,' it seems that Jones will go through the rest of his natural life as 'Renaissance Man Dhani Jones.' (I stricktly used that example to piss off any possible Republicans that might read this cause they despise Clinton with such a visceral hatred. I could have picked any president but I went with Slick Willy. When Republican parents find out their children are having underage sex, they don't care that the kids are engaging in sex acts, they care about the possibility of the kids ending up like Bill Clinton. No doubt it would suck to raise one of the best presidents in the history of the USA that helped create the biggest budget surplus known to this union. It's probably better off living your life as a repressed gay person who has to have intimate encounters with congressional pages and to raise your kids in the image of a winner like George W. Bu......oh nevermind). And, since he will always have the moniker 'RM' like a president, shouldn't he get a library named after him somewhere? That would truly be fitting of a RM.

Last week's episode of LOST was shockingly tame and didn't end up being nearly as great as what I was hoping for. It was better than the previous weeks episode, but it still lacked any profound glimpses into Locke's greatness. There wasn't really enough going on to make an entertaining running diary out of so here are some of the main points:

- This guy Cesar, who talked to Jack in the airport line while waiting to board the plane to Guam, is destined to become a huge character. His second scene in the show and he's already found an office and is rifling through papers clearly looking for something specific. He obviously works for someone, but who?

- After flight 316 crashes on the island, Locke comes back from the dead. In the exact same manner that Dr. Jack's father is now alive, this is what Elouise Hawking was referring to last week when she said Jack needs a proxy on the flight. As we see later in the episode, it's obvious why Locke loves the island, when on it he regained the ability to walk...as well as the ability to breathe. When off the island, he always seems stricken to a wheel chair for one reason or another.

- After Locke had his leg set and was in the first aid tent, Widmore shows up and they have an awesome interaction in which Widmore explains how they've met before, only 4 days previous on Locke's timeline. C-Dub then tells Locke, "There's a war coming John, and if you're not back on the island, the wrong side is going to win." Good stuff, the war is going to be the epicenter of the story starting in the next few weeks and from here on in. It will be interesting to see how sides are chosen.

- Matthew Abaddon, the black ageless man and Widmore's employee, tell's Locke that he is his driver and that he 'gets people where they want to go.' I found this interesting because he was clearly pushing an agenda while driving Locke around and was a 'driver' in a sense that he drove people to do what he, or more like Widmore, wanted them to do. He implied he was a 'driver' in the literal 'driving you around in a car' sense but it's more of a 'drive you crazy' sense that he can in some way impose his will onto your future actions. This reminded me of a great character on the X-Files (when it was good) called The Pusher, who was able to make people do all kinds of bad shit (namely kill themselves) simply based on his will. That guy was awesomely demonic, he kind of had a modern day Star Wars Force thing going for him.

- Sayid, Kate, and Jack all felt the need to point out to Locke in some way shape or form that he is an old, single, loser who only wants to go back to the island because he has nothing to live for in the real world. Nice people those Oceanic 6.

- In another example of LOST being racist, Matthew Abaddon is shot and possibly killed. I say possibly because he is ageless, so I would find it hard to believe that he's actually dead. Why does he get killed while white ageless man, Richard Alpert, ascends to power on the island as the leader of the hostiles? I think it's fairly obvious whats going on here.

- Technically, Locke didn't commit suicide. Ben strangled him after being told Jin was alive and that Locke knew of Mrs. Hawking. Ben looked somewhat shocked and irked to hear Jin was alive, but upon hearing Locke knew about Hawking he went all Linus on him and strangled his crippled ass. I consider it a moot point though as Locke was on the verge of hanging himself anyway, and the only reason he didn't was cause Ben talked him out of it. And since he ended up being choked in the same room by the exact same electrical chord he was going to hang himself with, I don't feel the need to blame Ben too much for this. I'm working under the pool principal of 'same ball, same pocket' in terms of calling your shot.

This ended up being a little longer that what I expected so I'll write the summary of tonight's episode tomorrow.

Along Came Poly(-math)

There's a story out there, I'm not sure if you've heard it but it has many ruminations, about a carpenter who gets drunk one night and at some point ends up giving a male friend a blow job. As the story goes, the man goes into work the next day to find out that all of his co-workers have found out about this odd incident and one guy calls him a cocksucker. To this the guy replies, "I've been a woodworker for 20 years and no one has ever called me a carpenter, but I blow 1 guy and all of a sudden I'm a cocksucker." While I could go off on 50,000 different tangents about that hypothetical story, I'm more interested in how people, or in this case, 1 specific person, get their nicknames. The subject for today's post: Cincinnati Bengals linebacker, and former Michigan Wolverine, Dhani Jones.

Me and some friends have had a connection with Jones since his days at Michigan, not because he was particularly the best player, but because of his profile picture on ABC (after considerable internet research I couldn't find the picture :(, and by considerable I mean about 18 seconds worth). In his pic he had kind of a jacked up afro that went straight up and he had this 'I just took a massive bong hit, and liked it' look on his face. It's easily the best profile pic in the history of college football broadcasting. It was this period when Jones was first deemed a 'Renaissance Man' by uber-douche announcer Brent Musburger. At the time I felt it was hard for anyone in college to be considered a Renaissance man (from here on referred to as RM), what does that mean for someone in college? Does it mean you shower frequently and don't eat ramen noodles/generic mac&cheese 4 days a week? Do you have to own your own bow tie company? And how would Musburger be able to figure this out?...like I said, he's an uber-douche! Anyway, the story could have died there...BUT...to this day, Dhani Jones is still considered to be a RM. The question posed to Third & Forever today, how does one become a true RM if so inclined? Good question, lets explore...

First, we should define what a renaissance man is. Besides being a shitty Danny DeVito movie, a RM, or polymath, is simply a person who has achieved mastery of multiple fields or disciplines and who has a very wide base of knowledge. The term RM refers to the Renaissance period in Europe that took place around the year 1450. The main doppleganger associated with this time period is master artist, engineer, and anatomist, Leonardo Da Vinci, whose main popularity comes from the book 'The Da Vinci Code,' which was later turned into a shitty movie, what a tribute. Some famous fictional polymaths listed on Wikipedia's entry on the subject include: Will Hunting, Batman, James Bond, Fox Mulder (from X-Files), and Sam Beckett (from Quantum Leap). Oddly enough, under 'Sporting Polymaths,' Jones is not listed.

Now that we know what a RM is, how do we achieve that label? Step one is picking out a few (I'd say bare minimum 3, but probably more like 4) subjects that you think you can master. Obviously, we aren't spring chickens anymore, and this task would be best suited to partake in starting at a young age, so you should pick subjects you already know (or think you know) a decent bit about. In my case I guess I'd choose boozing, hot wings, 90's video games, and auto racing. Step two, put your junk in that box. Just kidding, that's from the SNL skit 'Dick in a Box,' which is absolutely hilarious. Another great skit by Andy Samberg et al. is 'I'm on a Boat,' which you can check out here. Unfortunately step 2 actually takes a lot of time and requires a lot of learning, which I was hoping I didn't need to do any more of after graduating college with my prestigious degrees in psychology and sociology (click that link and go to the bottom, priceless). I'm not really sure what step 3 is because I don't think a person can deem themselves a Renaissance Man, you need other people to start calling you that. So, I guess you just go around talking to a bunch of people about the things you have a mastery of and hope they take notice? Maybe? Tragically, it's also possible that step 3 involves you having to die. Like most true genious, it probably won't go noticed in this lifetime.

So there you go, that's the gameplan. Sounds like a lot of work. It's possible I'll stick to the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none." Regardless, check out Dhani Jones show starting on the Travel Channel in 2 weeks, it looks pretty cool. Or, if you're into boobs and stuff, check out this show by one of the retarded chicks from E!'s 'Girls Next Door.' That could be interesting as well...if her top falls off...and she doesn't talk.