Info Overload: I’m Becoming a Information Hoard

I didn’t know it takes 1,284,922 light bulbs to illuminate Lady Gaga’s house….

So Wayne Brady really did have to choke a b**ch in real life?!?!!?

Wait Chris Tucker just filed a patent on the phrase “DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUTTA MY MOUTH?”

President Obama is only a 67.3% shooter from the free throw huh…

A long time ago I was told that knowledge is power. For over 26 years I’ve strengthen my brain as if I was competing in the World’s Strongest Man Competition. When I was in the 3rd grade being able to recite the multiplication table up to the number 12 had me feeling I was the Bane of my classroom. Fast Forward about 15 years when I learned about the 4 P’s in Marketing I was just like every other member at the gym waiting for college football walk-ons to get off the bench press. Now anytime I learned anything dealing with celebrities or random facts from Twitter, I’m simply living out this scene in real life:

There’s simply too much information this world has to offer us and technology has only made it more accessible for us. While you can still spot plenty of people who are in lust with their ignorance, many of us have gone in the complete opposite direction. But why?

 

Think of a time when you knew something most people you’re in contact with didn’t have a clue about. Pretty satisfying right? Whether we admit it or not, being the 1st to know information is powerfully addictive. What we do with this hidden knowledge is where the fun kicks it. Some will go into the proverbial teasing until people are anxious or annoyed enough to find out what the big deal is. Some will be more subtle with how they withhold or reveal their knowledge. Some will tell you right off the bat whether you asked or not. Each scenario has a different beginning but all ends with us usually feeling good in some kind of way. It’s cool to tell people things 1st so they can marvel at our intelligence, even if it’s something we just semi-read off Wikipedia. So it can be assumed that knowing a lot is a good thing right….RIGHT…?

 

Knowledge is power, but some information is nearly a paperweight. Problem is that for every person who has a data plan that’s willing to flex their muscle there’s another person with their ticket in hand to the “Gun Show” (yup….cheesiest metaphor I’ve made). What’s worse is that the quickness of releasing information often outweighs the validity behind it. I can’t think of how many times I’ve heard Bill Cosby has died because of Twitter. I have a true love/hate relationship with that site. Extremely entertaining but gives some people a huge false sense of importance.

 

Keeping everything I’ve typed in mind, it’s funny after all that I still can’t get enough of learning things at my pace. I often refer to myself as a wannabe nerd because there’s so many things about science and technology that interest me. That said I’ve always been too lazy to fully divulge into great understanding for many things. For instance, anytime I read or hear about advancements with medicine or healthcare I’m truly intrigued. But as much as I would like to read medical blogs and journal entries for greater depth into it, it’s likely not happening anytime soon. On the flip side, I’m becoming more and more of a semi tech geek. I like gadgets and like learning about new gadgets despite Sallie Mae reminding me I can’t buy most of those gadgets I read about (I truly hate Sallie Mae…it’s a recurring theme of this blog and my life). When it comes to Sports, I don’t know where to begin or end. As I’m trying to type this blog post while attempting to keep up with several games: Bulls vs Mavericks, Rockets vs Thunder, and the ACC vs Big Ten Challenge.

 

So between Tech, Sports, Music, Wrestling, Parody accounts, DIY articles that seem useful for me, YouTube, Comedy,  Blogging, Chasing Rabbits, or getting Tacos after a night out, too many things gain my attention. Hell I just turned to this SNL Christmas Special and there’s a skit where Justin Timberlake is dressed as a cup of soup completing with Santa Claus singing Hip-Hop/Christmas carols. His line of “NOW GIVE IT ON UP FOR HOMELESSNESSSSSSS!” will be stuck in my head for the foreseeable future. Am I becoming an information hoard, yes. Let’s just hope I learn more useful knowledge so when I tell you random facts it can be of some real value…at some point and time.

When Yelling “SCOREBOARD” Ain’t Enough…

Think of the last time when you’ve watched a game and the final score didn’t indicate how the game went. There’s countless games where the winning team dominated their opponents but in the closing minutes the losing team cuts the deficit. So instead of the 25 point lead from earlier, the final score which shows a 9 point is displayed on the scoreboard. People who attended or watched majority of the game knows this game wasn’t close. But those who only see the final score can potentially think this was a close game. This happens in many others aspects of life.

Fool’s Gold

(So when I typed in “Fool’s Gold” into Google Search, the top result was the movie Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson started in. I just find that hilarious for some reason even before I really started thinking about how I’d go about making this post.)

Wanting nice things is not a bad thing. What motivates us to get them and more importantly how we obtain them is where the problem lies. Money, Power, Respect are 3 of the most common things we want in our lives to some degree. That said they are also the 3 biggest reasons we look like complete a**holes when blinded by our greed for them. What’s even worse than this is when we settle for cheaper versions of these 3 and think they’re just as valuable as authentic versions.

iBlogging: Patience is No Longer My Virtue

So the past 3-4 months have been quite interesting. I won’t give a chronological timeline of what’s been going on cause that will require way more work than I’m willing to do right now. I haven’t blogged on here in over a month and felt like now is a good time to attempt to get things rolling again. My social life isn’t the only thing that has regained momentum recently. Getting my old part-time job back but with more hours has given my bank account new life after paying off with few debts. While I still have some (Damn you Sallie Mae), I was able to get a iPhone 4s since my iPhone 4 has officially entered its menopause stage. I thought to myself

Jay, you can hold off until the fall new the new iPhone 5…it’s only a couple of months.

That pep talk fell on dead/deaf ears after my frustration with the 4 and a temp Cricket made me loose all patience. This blog post isn’t so much about me loosing that as the title describes. But more about how things are turning for the better for as of late. Most aspects of my life are seemingly working together to create quite a pleasant state of mind and I want to capitalize on this. So while I was lazy as it came to blogging on the laptop, maybe quickies like this will get my randomness back in full writing force. And that’s pretty much it for now.

Mondays > Death: Why I Hate Hearing People Say They Hate Mondays.

People love 2nd chances. Think of how many times we say to ourselves “I wish I could have done this rather than that” or “If I could do it all over again…” So it always baffles me how every Sunday I’m prepare to hear the exaggerated hate people have for the next day.

Look weekends are great, simple as that! Growing up Fridays are magical because not only did it mean I had 2 hours of TGIF TV to watch, it was merely a lead up to Saturday Mornings. Sundays were cool because I would see some of my friends I only saw at church and NBA on NBC, the greatest weekly sporting event of my childhood. But as 8 P.M. came around and I realize it was bedtime soon, the realization that another week of school did make me sad to a certain degree. The older I became the more I saw how many other people felt the same way but to a greater extent. And now that I’m 25 yrs old, it’s no longer funny and quite irritating to me now.

Latest Victim of the Cubs’ Legacy, Kerry Wood.

This tweet will be the defining question every Cubs fans will to have to ask themselves after it was announced today that Kerry Wood will be retiring. While disappointment and unfulfilled potential aren’t strangers to the North Side of Chicago, this latest case is probably one that will hit home more than most ones.

I still remember May 6, 1998 pretty well. I was 11 yrs old at the time and in my prime of being a Cubs fan. I say this because I’ve always said I’m both a White Sox and Cubs fan while growing up. But after the debacle that was the 2003 postseason (Bartman Incident) and back-2-back years of the Cubs failing to win a single playoff game despite winning consecutive division titles (2007-08), my patience for the Cubs is about as strong as their bullpen is right now. Being born and raised on the South Side of Chicago while having a father who is a die-heart Cubs fan led to an interesting dynamic. My father would always ask me what the Sox did. When it came to his beloved Cubs, everybody within a 20 mi radius of my father’s voice would know the surprising thrill of a Cubs win and the usual agony of a Cubs defeat. Both had their share of entertainment. A 3+ game winning streak mostly led to euphoric expectations that finally this was their year. And the imminent losing streaks led my father to his constant badgering of saying “THESE CUBS ARE PATHETIC…THEY ARE!” The irony of his lifelong allegiance to the Cubs came full circle in three consecutive years after the tragedy in 2003.

Sports Talk 5-3-12: New Orleans’ Bounty Hunters Caught, T-Suggs Gets Sacked, RIP Junior Seau, Chicago’s Crown of Thrones: Rose’s Injury

Bounty in the Bayou 

So if I worked for the NFL in their PR department in any capacity, I would be stressed out right now. Yesterday Roger Goodell announced the punishment for the players involved in the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal: Scott Fujita (now with the Cleveland Browns) and Will Brown are suspended for 4 games, Anthony Hargrove is suspended for 8 games, and Jonathan Vilma is suspended for the entire season. My only problem with any of these punishments is Vilma losing a whole season. Now it was reported he help implement the program along with defensive coordinator, Greg Williams, even putting up $10,000 of his own money for the bounty program. Look I don’t support the idea of a bounty system in football, but I would be extremely naive to act like this is the first of its kind. Defensive players are taught from Day 1 to take the quarterback out the game. How players go about it is where things become uneasy. No one should enjoy seeing a player suffer a serious injury and players know the risk they put their bodies through. But again defensive players are coached to take clean hits at QB’s when possible. I understand Roger needed to be consistent and heavy-headed with the punishment to set a standard, but in my opinion I only see this as another example of his abuse of power. He’s the closest I’ve seen a commissioner of any sport be in absolute power I’ve ever seen because he not only passes the judgement but handles the appeal of the players as well (since these were actions on the field he’s the arbitrator such the appeals I’ve heard). I think he’s set a dangerous precedent despite him trying to preserve of “honor and shield” of the NFL.

RIP to Junior Seau and the 2012 season for Terrell Suggs

Next story truly caught many people off guard as All-Pro linebacker Junior Seau was found dead in his home and the reports are that this was potentially a suicide. This is tragic on so many levels because Seau wasn’t only 1 of the greatest players in his positions, he was also 1 of the most beloved and respected athletes among his peers. I heard several stories yesterday from former teammates and fellow players just talking about how good of a person he was and how much it hurts knowing that he could have taken his life away so suddenly. There was a incident in 2010 where he drove his car off a cliff and people were speculating that this was a suicide attempt. It just pains me to think that a man who was so revered by so many people felt he couldn’t deal with his problems or he couldn’t seek the help needed to overcome whatever demons he was dealing with. Watching his mother at the press conference yesterday was horrible to witness, so I send my prayers and well wishes to his family and friends.

Seeing how yesterday was a tough day for linebackers hearing the news early this morning that Terrell Suggs torn his ACL and will likely miss the upcoming season didn’t help at all! T-Sizzle had an exceptional season last year leading the Baltimore Ravens to the AFC Championship game where a missed field goal ended their hopes of an appearance in the Super Bowl. The past 2 days have certainty shown how no player can take for granted not only their time in the NFL, but in life general. I would hate to be a worker for the NFL in their PR department because it’s 1 sad/scandalous story after another. I am very curious and anxious to see how the NFL will handle the death of Seau now in light of the Saints bounty scandal. Why? Because they claim to be taking a new, stronger stance in the safety of its players. I’ve always been critical of this because I feel they have the right idea for the wrong motives. Not saying they aren’t genuinely concerned about this issue, but I feel many in the front office of the NFL won’t admit some of the real reasons they want to make the game safer. 1 of these reasons are the many lawsuits former players have been filing against the NFL for health insurance and other medical reasons. Seeing how many lawsuits they’re currently in, it makes logical sense to avoid having these problems but I feel they’re going about it the wrong way at times, which is a whole other story to talk/blog about.

Rose Has a Thorn In His ACL 

Finally I get to my beloved Chicago Bulls. Saturday seemed to be a good day in Chicago as the top seed Bulls were beating the Philadelphia 76ers in the 4th quarter when EVERYTHING went wrong. The reigning MVP, Derrick Rose, missed 29 games in lockout-shortened season with a slew of injuries. No injury though it more painful to watch as Rose planted his left leg and awkwardly jumped and landed afterwards. A tear of his ACL equaled in tears for us Chicagoans  as we felt our title shot has misfired. For hours many of us were pretty much in denial about his injury thinking it was probably just a bad sprain while strangling any optimism we had left. After initial pessimism for some, fake reports from Twitter and other media outlets we learned that indeed Rose will be out for the playoffs. I immediately began to blame the condensed season as the main culprit for such injury seeing how players couldn’t have a full training camp with their team doctors and had little time to rest their bodies during the blitz of a regular season. The greed of NBA owners and David Stern also became a source of my fanatic anger, agreeing with others who mentioned how the season was so cramped packed with so owners can try to make some some of the money they lost during the lockout. Truth is that injury could have happened anywhere and at any other time, but the timing of it sucks so bad and only in my mind validates all the reasons I mentioned earlier. While seemingly watching a game every other night from the Bulls was a great thing from a viewing standpoint, the shortened season only proved to be more negative with injuries to other star players such as Chauncey Billups, Dwight Howard, and Ricky Rubio to name a few. It hurt the product since players didn’t have adequate healing or practice time and the quality of the games suffered from it.

I really hope the next time I decide to do another one of these I pick some happier stories to blog about!

“Humble” Pies for “Competitive” Prices – Learning How To Be a Winner

All I do is win win win no matter what
Got money on my mind, I can never get enough
And every time I step up in the building
Everybody hands go UP
And they stay there, and they stay there
And they stay there - up down up down up down
Cause all I do is WIN, WIN, WIN
And if you goin in put yo’ hands in the air, make ‘em stay there!

Competition is one of the most addicting things that can influence people’s actions and lifestyles. It goes way beyond just a record of wins and losses too. It’s the reason Kobe Bryant will continue to lie through his teeth that he’s not trying to better than Michael Jordan while everyone in the room knows better. It’s the reason that 50 Cent challenged the one rapper who has a bigger ego than him, Kanye West, in a battle to see whose album would outsell the other (Graduation is my favorite Kanye CD too). It’s the reason why my cousins would ridicule and belittle me at the tender age of 6 for losing to them in NBA Jam by a 30+ margin while I was happy to just play the damn game. It was also the reason why I take great pride and exaggerated joy when they lose to me in video games now. Competition is a part of everyone’s fabric of a human being, it depends on each person how they decide to wear it for themselves.

“You’ve Already Won!!!” – Still Waiting On My Lucky Broom To Win a Sweepstakes

On March 30 of this year 3 people became something I nearly daydream about every day of my life to some extent, winners of the lottery. But not just any lottery, it happened to be the largest lottery jackpot ever! Did I play a ticket, nope. But do I still feel the pain of not winning, yup. And do I feel happy for the people who’ve won something I think about everyday, of course I do.

Loving to Hate…

I remember a time where people didn’t give their “haters” so much attention. Sure some would have their spaz out moments addressing doubters and people who they generally don’t like but it wasn’t a daily occurrence. And while there were plenty of songs that were anthems people could use to address such haters (Hate Me Now is still a favorite for me) you didn’t see artists have a “hater song” out merely to join the trend. For some reason we as a society have allow casual hating to not only be acceptable but stylish as well.