Word Play

I am probably making this up but I swear I read that one of Confucius' philosophies is to call everything what it actually is. That is when government's came be completely truthful and society is honest with itself. For instance, back in the day we had the Department of War. Now, it is called the Department of Defense. Well, this is stupid because any war has both offensive and defensive aspects. Here are a few things I have thought about changing...

Police Officers/Law Enforcement: Perhaps the new force could be, "Prevention of Law Breaking." This is due to the fact that police officers patrol and hence are looking to prevent people from breaking laws.

Organic Vegetables or Fruit/Conventional Veggies or Fruit: Why is it designated as organic? Probably so the prices are raised. In reality, organic (meaning they are not sprayed with chemically based pesticides, most are still sprayed but with natural pesticides) should be called fruit or vegetables. Conventional veggies and fruit are normally called veggies or fruit but in reality they should be callled...."Chemically Sprayed, Cancer Causing Vegetables or Fruit."

Garden State Parkway: Let's face it, we all know New Jersey is not a Garden State and the parkway is not where you park but instead drive. I have thought that maybe the name could be changed to Suburban State Driveway...or Chemical Factory State Driveway. Something to that extent.

Circumcision: This one strikes close to home, haha. OK, so maybe circumcision actually means cutting of the foreskin or something to that effect (Moerder, language help please?). I think that when a couple gives birth to a new born son and the doctor asks if they would like the son to be circumcised, instead the doctor should say, "Excuse me, would you like your son's penis to be mutilated or unmutilated?" The new societal moniker would be penis mutilation.

Health Food Stores: I must admit, I am a sucker for health food stores and love going to them. But let's be honest, 75% of the products in these places are absolute crap. I guess it is similar to every other supermarket. It seems that every grocery store sells tons of crap. Anyway, back to the health food stores. These could be called, "Stores for people with more money than you." Or maybe, "Supplement stores for people who think modern medicine is bad yet take every 'natural' supplement known to mankind." Ok, so that one is a bit long. I am not the most creative of people.

Body Zone: The new name could be, "Creepy Zone: Where middle aged men gawk openly at women."

I am not the greatest with this game but I was hoping that some people could comment and make up their own examples of poorly named things in the world. I was going to go off on government names but decided that I rip on government too often.

In other news, Ron Paul received one third the amount of question that John McCain and Mitt Romney received in the California debate.

Veggie Oil, Pedro Feliz and New Program

Kai, I have no idea how I forgot about Copper and Anton trying to maul that guy and how Copper literally jumped up and just pushed the guy into the bushes. That was so funny. Of course I get locked out with Anton and Copper, the two most annoying dogs to walk together seeing as though Anton is about 1/10th the size of Copper and they are both pain in the ass dogs to begin with. I also remember that this was another experience with sleeping in your place with Minja. I remembered waking up to her laying across the top part of the bed and how her head was resting on my chest. That crazy woman, she was stuck inside the apartment with Maisy and those two basically just sat around wondering where Copper and Anton went. At least Copper and Anton were not left inside to piss on everything.

I got a letter from Miller and Anna and it had a sweet picture with Kaj, (my nephew) and him smiling for a few pictures. It was sweet to see him and now I have a picture of him and Devin in my apartment so that made me happy. Brooks' Mercedes Benz is now officially running on veggie oil...I suppose it is called greasel. So, he will be saving a ton of money and although this is not the way to fix the world's problem, it is nice to see that people can live a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle. I am also happy for him since he has a young family and saving any money is a positive thing...especially since Brooks, Anna and Kaj are moving to a new farm in March. March 15 to be exact, the ides of March, haha. Should be good.

Well, I wanted to write about Pedro Feliz but for some reason the baseball prospectus website was not working for me. Moerder, can you assess this signing?

I hope you all enjoyed the State of the Union and hopefully the US will improve for the better of society over the next few years...or for a while for that matter. Any snide remarks toward me or anything else I have addressed are more than welcome.

Happy Birthday Devin!!

Tomorrow the 27th is Devin's (my niece) 2nd birthday. It is crazy to think that it has been two years since she was born. I remember it fairly clearly. Andy Schell let me borrow his Jeep and I drove it down to Washington and back in a matter of about 18 hours. I also drove back and competed in a meet the very next day. I threw alright in that meet and that is when I realized that I would not want a Jeep as my main vehicle...I believe the gas mileage was somewhere around 14-16 highway miles to the gallon. I hope Devin's party went well today, (I tried calling but no one answered their phones) and I really wish I could have been there and thrown her around a little.

I am on the downswing of a program and that has been frustrating. I cannot stand when I am not throwing very well. On Monday I begin a new program, throwing the 5.5k and the 7.26k and then rotating that on opposite days with a 10k. It should be fun because the lifting is more intense again and I enjoy throwing the heavier implements. I am also fairly nervous to see my results with the 7k shot since this is the first time I will be throwing that shot since arriving in Kamloops.

This past week I found out some more promising information in regards to working and that I will be receiving a few more hours again. My good friend Ford has also passed on some helpful news about my living condition and that I will be able to move in with him and his roomie in April. Hopefully, this does not fall through. I am sick of living with a crazy woman and yappy little dogs that I would thoroughly enjoy punting.

Ford and I also made some sauerkraut on Wednesday evening and we are hoping that it will be ready by this coming Wednesday. If successful we plan on making kimchi and Latin Kraut and then starting a booming business that will ferment all of Kamloops. I hope all is well back home.

Frank Duca, you really need to stop throwing the weight. I am saying this as a friend, training partner and consultant. Throwing 53 feet is not a building block. A building block is throwing 54.70 in the hammer with piss ass technique. You need to stop lifting so heavy and worry more about specific strength and throwing the hammer 15-20 times a day, 5 days a week with different weights. Push the ball and you are bound to throw the hammer far. Forget about the weight. Seriously, along with Dylan and Kalnas I would say that you are one of the best training partners I have worked with and it is sad to see you wasting your time on this event. For what? What are you doing this for? For nothing. You have potential in the hammer, realize this and you will see big results.

Banks and Asians

Caitlin left today. It was a sad day. We had a splendid time and also watched a bunch of movies. We watched V for Vendetta, Batman Begins, Why We Fight, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Idiocracy and What the Bleep do we know? They were all very good although What the Bleep is rather annoying and could have been summed up in about 25 minutes without the lame ass drama and the psycho "Ramtha" who channels through JZ Knight. Give me a freaking break. The other problem I have is that "Ramtha" gets all this time while the two dudes who make the most sense get about 5 total minutes...figures that two out of the three directors/writers were followers of Ramtha/JZ Knight/con-artist. She can shove her botox face back into the ancient times that she claims to be channeling.

I have also noticed some weariness in the stocks. My buddy Bernard Bernanke is doing his deal to ruin the American dollar once again and today the US and European markets took a major hit. Well yesterday I guess. Now today, the Asian markets took a severe blow and it seems that in Europe and in the US we are going to see a similar pattern. I guess a good way to deal with this would be for the US government to go into deeper debt, borrowing let's say...9 trillion dollars more...and then pretend that it is ok to be in debt. Then the big central banks like IMF and World Bank and all the other bull crap institutions will come to our rescue. I cannot wait...I love when people and the government spend money we do not have. Also, Republicans are fiscally conservative right?...Oh wait, no they are not. I forgot, that went by the wayside when ole Ronnie Reagan decided to spend his ears off and that is what led to the fall of the Soviet Union...actually, no it didn't. Gorbachev is what caused the Soviet Union to fall. Alright, I will stop now.

At least Ron Paul got second in Nevada (?). I think it was Nevada, maybe New Mexico. I forgot and I am too lazy to look it up. Hopefully Rudy drops out after he blows again in Florida. I love that Ron Paul has beaten Rudy four out of the five times and yet Ron Paul was not invited to the New Hampshire debate. Oh well, enough of my coincidence theory.

I noticed that when Caitlin was here she definitely kept my craziness in check and questioned my odd ways of deductive reasoning. Now that she is gone it seems that I may be back to my ranting. I think I said this before but I highly suggest watching "Why We Fight," it seemed to be a very well researched documentary and has some very interesting perspectives that are not overly radical.

UFC, NFL and Caitlin Browne

So, this week Caitlin has come to spend time in the Loops. She has been exposed to everything that is my life, haha. The first two days I literally farted about 100-150 times and at one point even woke myself up while we were sleeping. She made it through those tough days and hopefully will not break up with me for smelling so bad. It has been very nice to have someone to spend time with in Kamloops. She also made some really good mexican food tonight and her being here has provided me with a good excuse to go out to eat fairly often...Indian food two times in 3 days, baby!! She leaves on Monday afternoon and I will not have any visitors until the rents come in March. We have also watched some decent movies, including "Why We Fight" which I believe is a must see for anyone from the US of A. Very interesting perspectives and it shows both sides and is not a radical conspiracy movie like most of the crazy stuff I watch, hahaha.

As for this coming weekend, we have UFC 80, Trinidad vs. Jones, Jr. and Pats vs Chargers, Giants vs Packers. Along with those events, Dylan has his opener in Edmonton and Kalnas is throwing at PSU this weekend...should make for some big throws. Also, congrats to Codi White (a wrestler I trained this summer) for getting 3rd at the Berks County Championship. On a side note, Canadians do not wrestle folk style in middle school or high school. Instead, they wrestle freestyle in middle school and high school, something my dad and I have talked about the US switching over to freestyle at these levels. We would definitely own the Olympics in wrestling if that was the case.

Onto the predictions. Football first: Pats over the Chargers (I have to stick with my team) and the Pack over the Giants. Eli has been killing my predictions but I cannot go against Favre. Dylan goes 19.87 at Edmonton and Kalnas hits 19.12 at PSU. Duca hits 52'7 in the weight throw at PSU and loses to Thieleman again. UFC 80: I hope to god that Bj Penn whoops Joe Stevenson and will take him as the victor. Gabe Gonzaga avenges his first loss to Fabricio Werdum and wins in a stunning fight. Marcus Paul Davis will beat Jess Liaudin in the second. Wilson Gouveia (Carmelo's last loss) will get cut up by Jason Lambert...a possible KO victory for Lambert. Kendall Grove will show some more of his lackluster promise with a mediocre victory over Jorge Rivera. I will not lie, I would love to see Grove get wrecked by Rivera. In the undercard, I would like to see Sam Stout come out victorious and Antoni Hardonk to get beaten by Colin Robinson. Hopefully, my prediction percentage is a bit better than last week. Oh....last but not least. I have Jones Jr. beating up on the washed up Tito Trinidad. Jones has been fighting as of late and he looks decent...meanwhile Tito has been out of fighting for 2 years and after his lashing by my boy Winky Wright, he has not looked very good. Jones, Jr. in 9.

25%, here I come.

Ben Heins, Suck an Egg

So, I am clearly not good at predicting football games this year. I still make great predictions in regards to individual players (we will see Braylon Edwards when I slice his quad in half). I did indeed go 25% in regards to football but I thought about predicting the Giants to win. Eli kills me. I was also wrong about Duca, he shit the bed and threw 4 feet less than I had already predicted...53'10 is a terrible throw to begin with and he goes 50'2. Then the PSU wrestling team decides to crush me even further. A terrible week of predictions. I need some fights to predict again. Heins, you got me with your comment but I will continue to destroy you with Tabata intervals and other secrets to training/conditioning. Walborn, why don't you stop being fat and stop smoking and start working out...your new name shall be...John Daly (the Walrus). Rowe, Hoffman is at PSU and I did make a prediction and he did not throw as far I said either, haha.

Oh well, so I suck. At least Caitlin is coming here tomorrow. That will give my mind some ease.
Also, Tom Brady gave me a good showing. He played a perfect game with perfect reads. He had 26 completions out of 28 attempts and his two incomplete passes were both drops. Probably the best playoff performance ever by a QB. I am sick of all this Manning hoopla. If Manning had the mediocre talent that Brady had back when they won 3 Super Bowls, Manning would not have done crap. Look at Deion Branch now...what has he done for me lately?!?!!? NOTHING!! Tom Brady is the greatest QB ever and Billy B is the greatest coach ever. As my good friend Adam Moerder once said, "All hail Brady."

All hail my predictions. In other news, Dr. B showed us his Olympic Champion picture of him on the podium in Munich. I asked him if Brezhnev told them not to smile. He has the classic Soviet drone look on his face.

Lameo

Ok, nothing has really happened since Monday. Training has been going well all week and I am really ripping into the 12 pound shot. Actually, a few things have happened. I got my food pick up from the co-op and the food is great. I got some lamb loins which were amazing and some pork chops that should hit the spot as well. Their eggs are awesome, similar to Miller's eggs. Good sizes and very colorful. Sunshine yellow is how I would describe them. On Wednesday I played Yahtzee with a bunch of the other throwers and represented PA very well. The entire night I was calling it the PA roll and telling them that I am so good at Yahtzee simply because I am from PA. This was not overbearing at all. Anyway, it was fun. And Stamm, I went to A and W and got Papa Burgers instead of the infamous Teen Burger.

Apparently I can claim to be a professional athlete now. Haha. There is a meet in Saskatoon on February 8th and they invited Dylan to come throw at the meet. Dylan wanted to come and ended up telling the meet director that he would only come if they would invite Jesse and I. The meet is for the Knights of Columbus and Dylan says it is a decent meet and afterwards there is a huge banquet with a bunch of food and drinks. So, on February 7th they are paying for me, Jesse and Dylan to fly to Saskatoon, paying for our hotels and then flying us back home on the 9th. It should be a fun time, Saskatoon is an awesome city and I might even meet up with the family that I stayed with back in June of 2006.

I have some more lame predictions for the weekend football games. I am actually going to pick Seattle to upset Green Bay. Seattle is looking good and it is going to be an interesting game. Of course I can definitely see Favre ripping it up. I still take Seattle. The second game I am staying with my team, the Patriots to beat the Jags. This will be a tough game but the Pats have had two weeks and I am hoping they come out blazing. The Jags do indeed frighten me because they have looked very good and all the analysts said the Jags would beat the Pats in the playoffs. I am looking for a Pats victory. Sunday's games are also very good match ups. I have the Cowboys romping the Giants. I cannot see Eli playing this well for this long. Romo has been in the playoffs before and as much as I do not like him, I can see them coming to smack the Giants around on Sunday. Tough call but I have the Boys in a close one, winning by 3-4 points. Indy is going to beat the Chargers. Peyton is amazing and although they are with some ailing players and missing Dwight Freeney, I see them beating the Chargers. However, I would enjoy a Chargers victory.

In this weekends track meet at Penn State, I have Frank Duca throwing the weight 53'10 and losing to Adam Thieleman again by a foot. Hoffman goes 19.65 in the weight. For the national duels, I have the number one ranked PSU wrestling team taking down the team title. It will be a brutal tourney but they will come out on top under the guidance of the great Phil Davis. Should be a fun weekend.

Ozymandias

At times I consider myself similar to Ozymandias. When he ate a ball of hashish and decided to protect the world based off of his journey and experience throughout a particular region of the world (middle east I believe), it makes me think about how stupid I can be when coming to certain conclusions. Maybe I like to think I am similar to Ozymandias because I want to think I am saving the world or can save the world or will make significant difference at some point.

The thing that sucks about being up here is that I read all of this shit and I am studying tons of crap but I rarely have anyone to bounce my ideas off of and clue me in. This can be a problem and today I noticed it during a conversation with Brooks. I have a lot of ideas, many are sane and logical but at times I think of things that family members or friends would tell me they are stupid and clue me in. I have decided that I need to stop reading as much as I am, especially on the internet. I need to start doing more things. Writing things down helps me out and clues me in...I also am going to start training my friend Ford. He stopped throwing because his torn pectoral muscle was not healing so now I will train him as a weightlifter/strongman. This will help out my brain.

Also, with my portable dvd player I have started watching Star Trek again. This can be positive or negative. Star Trek really makes me think about the world today and it makes me question myself and what I am doing...so that is good. But again, at times I may become too unrealistic because of the scientific happiness that exists within the Federation.

You know what else pisses me off...Why is it that we live in a Christian nation yet our own government and people who claim to be Christian do not act as Christians should (or any logical being for that matter). It annoys me that Jesus Christ himself says to turn the other cheek in Matthew but for some reason Christians throw that verse out the window in favor of a verse from Romans...written by Paul who never actually met Jesus. Not that I follow this stuff but it can be used as a guideline. One of the churches up here had a sign on it that said, Jesus would not seek revenge so why do we? That is a good question, why do we? At times perhaps it is legit but as a nation, we need to question this. Everyone loved when the Amish people forgave the dude who committed the Nickel Mines Massacre...yet we as a country to not behave this way. This shit pisses me off. GOSH!!! Haha, I am pissed though.

More predicts

OK, I know these are lame but I enjoy making stupid predictions, haha. I am actually going to go with the Bucs defeating the Giants. I do not like the Bucs at all or Jon Gruden, but I struggle to see Eli playing out of his mind in back to back weeks. With San Diego and Tennessee I will take San Diego. Tenn looked good against Indy in the first half but Young is not that great and he may not even start. San Diego wins it.

Work was nice tonight. Things are fairly calm now because the head doorman has made a conscious effort to control emotions and be nicer to patrons. Hopefully all the business picks up and we get super busy like before. These next two weeks are going to be interesting in regards to money. Caitlin is coming up in either ten or twelve days. That will also be a very nice treat, I am excited for this. The first non-Stamm to see the Loops.

Predictions

My quick predictions for todays football games are Seattle over Washington and Pittsburgh over Jax in the slop at Heinz Field. The Seattle running game has been steadily improving and really looks like they may step it up this weekend. Todd Collins is 3-0 and I am not sure how well the rest of the team will perform. Seattle loves the home field advantage as well.

The second game is a tough decision. Could go either way and with the god awful turf at Heinz it will really effect the Jags since they are used to the pretty field and ideal conditions in Jacksonville. Also, Roethlisberger has been decent all year and has good playoff experience and a decent backup. If David Garrad goes down, his team is screwed. I can see Fred Taylor really pouting about the field and letting it bother him...he will most likely get injured. I have Pittsburgh by 10. I will have tomorrows predictions sometime tonight or early tomorrow morning.

Back in Canadia

So, I am back in Canada and about 7-8 pounds heavier than when I left. This is ok since I had been a little light, hopefully I can turn it into muscle as I amp up the training over the next few months. My trip back was ok. My Dad and I had a decent drive to JFK that did not take as long as I had expected. This ended up with me trying to entertain myself in the airport for about four hours. My flight was delayed by 20 minutes, we boarded and then sat on the runway for another 45 minutes. That was fun, especially sitting in tight quarters and having a d-bag in front of me recline his chair all the way back.

The flight was ok. It was really smooth for about 4 hours and then the last hour and half was rough. This was ok though since I had a new portable dvd player to ease my high blood pressure and extreme palm sweating. I hate having this dvd player but I will definitely use it. I did not get into Vancouver until 3 and then my friends dad picked me up and I slept at their house until 10 this morning. I drove back and arrived in Kamloops at about 3 this afternoon PST. I was thoroughly amused to come across an Indian fast food restaurant, I ate there for lunch but their naan blew ass.

Now I am back in Kamloops. I cannot wait to start training again and throw all the time. I am a little worried because I came back to some shitty working news. The bar will no longer be open Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so now the only chance I have to work is on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So, hopefully I get these three days each week and that pays the bills. Otherwise I am screwed. It may be a blessing in disguise. We shall see.

I know I will get made fun of for this but I am going to start writing my own training book. The book will not be about research and scientific understanding but more about training methods for different sports backed by my own studying and experience. Basically, it is just a book I want to throw together to help me in my future endeavors.