Something that bothers me are many of the people that protest corporations and claim to vehemently support anti-globalization ideas when in fact they either don't know what they are talking about or are blatantly hypocritical in their ideas.  The first example is people that protest sweatshops and the ways in which most major companies manufacture their products in Asia and Africa, yet they wear Nike shoes and shop at Walmart, and regularly buy name brand products.  Hey guess what, you know all those things you are wearing were made in sweatshops right, and if they weren't they would cost about double what they do now.  So next time before you go out and preach your anti-globalization beliefs, think about what the repercussions would be and the fact that this isn't a new thing, wealthy countries and corporations have been exploiting poorer countries since the beginning of civilization.  Another example is the people who fighting over oil and the "No Blood for Oil" people.  Do you have any idea how expensive oil would be if we just let countries that don't like us take over the control of oil in the Middle East.  Like exploitation of poor countries, fighting wars over resources has been going on since the beginning of time, it's just the way the world is.

I can't stand it when people, and usually the same people always do this, cry, and whine, and complaining when the smallest little thing goes wrong in their life.  This is the person that just has a total meltdown when they get a little sick, when they're "so stressed in school", and other similar trivial things.  A friend of mine told me a few weeks ago about how her roommate was crying, and whining because she had a sore throat and was losing her voice and had an exam coming up.  Well guess what sweetheart, life is way harder than that and if you have a tough time coping with something as inconsequential as a little cold, you are gonna have a tough time in the real world.  Another friend of mine lost both his parents in a car accident and has had to work everyday of his life since he was 16 to put himself through college, and yet I don't think I have ever seen him without an optimistic smile on his face, and he has every reason to complain.  So people that lose it, over a tiny little hardship, just think about other people who have it way harder than you, suck it up, and stop being so annoying.

Something that tends to bother me whenever I see it is sports fans that are always trying to accuse other fans of being bandwagon jumpers.  It seems like all the time I see people getting their panties in a bunch over someone they think is a bandwagon jumper.  Who the hell cares what team someone else likes, if they want to start following a team just because they are playing well, good for them.  I think that people who are all of a sudden fans of a team when they play well are annoying too and probably not real fans of the team, but I'm not gonna go out of my way to point it out or get in some sort of meaningless argument over it.  I always see this particularly around playoff times in sports, especially when Philly teams are playing, me and most off my friends being from Philly.  There are always a few people who, come playoff time, are talking about "where were all the Phillies/Flyers/Sixers fans during the regular season?"  Who cares if more people come support your team during the playoffs, you should be happy about that not angry.  Instead of getting all uppity as the "real fan" why don't you just shut up and enjoy the sport and be happy your team has fans at all (you could be one of 10 Jacksonville Jaguars fans).

ESPN vs. Sports Pickle

ESPN: ESPN is a professionalism, serious, sports news site that runs stories about almost every topic in every sport.  ESPN is also a multi-million dollar company that runs several TV channels in addition to the news site.  Content on ESPN ranges from short news blurbs, to videos, to statistic sheets, all the way to long, full, opinionated articles about divisive topics in the sports world.

Sports Pickle:  This website is a bit different from ESPN in many ways.  The most significant difference is that Sports Pickle is not actually a serious sports news site. It does not cover games or teams, and does not have many long articles.  This website is purely a comedy website that makes fun of humorous things in the sports world, often inventing ridiculous stories to make the real news funnier.

Fallacies

1) Faulty Causality: "Our company has been in business for 50 years, so that makes us the best."

2) Guilt by Association: "Hitler liked dogs. Therefore dogs are bad."

This is kind of an old subject but I was thinking about it today so I figured I'd write a post about it.  So know that the whole Occupy Wall Street craze has died down I was considering about some of the aspects of that movement that bother me.  I have no problem with the act of protesting, that is why America is great, you can protest whatever you want to your heart's content.  However I do have a problem with some of the protesters views on economic equality and the whole "99%" thing.  Maybe instead of protesting that you aren't as wealthy as these Wall Street bankers, and brokers, you should go out and try to get a job or an education that will earn you money.  It isn't like all these wealthy Wall Street guys were just handed their jobs and handed loads of money because they were born to rich families.  My cousin started to work on Wall Street a few years ago and it isn't easy to become a wealthy broker.  He went to a good college, got good grades, and went to a great business school.  He got hired by a trading firm and now he spends close to 14 hours a day at his office, and often has to spend the night there to get all his work done.  Sure he makes a good salary but he works his ass off for it.  Another thing that irks me about some of these protesters is the people that complaining and whine about being a college graduate and not being able to find a job because of the greedy corporate companies and the terrible economy, but then you ask them what their major was and they say something like Art History.  Now there is nothing wrong with being an art history major, if you passion is art history or theology, then go ahead and major in that, that's fine.  But don't complain when you can't get a job because you majored in something that has a minuscule number of career options that provide almost no service and serve very little purpose in the larger scale of things.  I bet if you surveyed the Occupy protesters about their college majors you would find very few, if any, engineering, or chemistry, or business majors.  So even though I totally agree with the right to protest whatever, whenever, I think that most of the people associated with Occupy Wall Street need to stop wasting their time complaining and blaming everyone else for their problems and start taking matters into their own hands.

I've been an avid outdoor activities enthusiast since I was a little boy.  Growing up my dad was always taking our family on camping trips to Yellowstone National Park, canoeing in the Adirondacks of New York.  He always was showing us how beautiful and natural, the untouched, remote places in the world are.  Last summer I went climbing for a week in the Grand Teton mountain range in Wyoming and during this trip I experienced things that truly showed me the power, and beauty of nature and why conserving the natural habitats and natural wonders of the world is so important.  On the last day of my groups climbing trip a massive storm rolled in to the mountain we were on.  Unfortunately this made staying at the summit for more than a minute impossible.  We just barely made it down to the base camp when sleet and snow began pouring down and lightning blasted the top of the mountain.  It was terrifying knowing we had been up there not two hours ago.  The storm lasted all day, but we still managed to get down the mountain.  The next day while waiting to go to the airport to head home, I decided to go for a morning bike ride.  After riding a few miles out I glanced back at the mountains and the view of the mountains, shrouded in the thickest fog I have ever seen, was enough to make my jaw drop.  Reflecting back on this astounding scene it makes me consider the importance of preserving the natural wonders of the world so that generations of outdoor enthusiasts after us, can enjoy these spectacular views and experiences. 

Welcome to my blog.  Throughout the semester I'm going to be blogging about things I notice in everyday life that tend to annoy or irk me.  If anyone has ever seen the Family Guy episode where Peter does the "Grinds My Gears" segment, then you sort of know what this is going to be like.  Maybe some of you agree with me on things, and if I offend you, I assure it isn't on purpose and it sure isn't personal.  Hopefully I don't come off sounding like an a-hole.  Anyway here goes nothing.  This first thing is one of my favorites cause you don't see it as often as other things I'll rant about but when I do it is the most annoying thing in the world.  I'm talking about when people use text or email terms in speech.  When someone uses lol, brb, lmfao, or other such things in normal speech it makes me want to hit them in the face with a dictionary.  These abbreviations are fine in a text message or email because the whole point is speed and efficiency, and lets be honest, who really wants to type out be right back; I didn't even want to type that out right then.  However if you use lol outside of internet or text speech, you are basically just giving a big middle finger to the English language.  Clearly if you just said lol you are not really laughing out loud, in fact your not even laughing at all.  Why do people feel the need to turn every little expression into an acronym?  Just say it out, is the difference between one second and three in a conversation really that important? I can't even check Facebook in three seconds and that's probably the most meaningful thing I do on the internet everyday.  Bottom line, if you use lol in face to face conversation, you've instantly just made everyone around you less intelligent.  Smell ya later.
-Dave