A Man's Guide To "The Nutcracker"

Since I am a man of great substance and culture, I went to the ballet over the weekend. Now many out there may call me a Nancy Boy for this action, but, um...shit, I was really hoping to have a comeback for that. Anyway, going to the ballet is a good way to impress a lady, so it's maybe, kind of, somewhat justifiable. 

I sat there intently as I actually learned many things from "The Nutcracker." It would be a disservice to the world if I kept these things to myself, so today, I would like to share my thoughts so that other men will know what they are in store for when going to "The Nutcracker." 

My only experience with ballet up to this point was the Saved By The Bell where the guys filled in at the last second so they wouldn't have to cancel things. Obviously, like all things SBTB, hilarity ensued. Screech dressed up like a giant bird, but everybody else was in leotards. Because of this, I assumed everyone would be in identical leotards throughout every ballet. Looking back, I realize this was not my most sophisticated thought, but this is what happens when your only point of reference is SBTB. I also can't stop time by saying "Timeout" which is another thing I found out the hard way. So although there are some leotards, there's a lot more variety than that.

Now onto the actual ballet. The first thing that will piss you off at the ballet (at least this performance) was that the ballerinas were mouthing words but not saying anything. If you are going to mouth things, you might as well just say it, because we have the technology for people to be heard. Either do a better job of acting, or just say that you want to punch your sister in the throat. 

The plot starts with a party where all these greedy kids want presents. They don't get presents for a while, until a magician comes along. The reason I believe he is a magician is that he wore a cape with lining on the inside that looked like a quilt. He didn't do any magic, but he did give presents from a giant treasure chest. Not only did his presents suck (half of them were just giant candy canes), but he only gave presents to like 40% of the kids. What an asshole.

Finally, he gives this girl a Nutcracker. Yep, that is another shitty present, but she's excited, so maybe she has some form of mental retardation. Immediately, two other kids break the thing. It gets fixed really poorly by The Magician, and then without explanation, it shows up again, and it's back to normal. 

The girl then dances around rat children for a while for no apparent reason. Then she puts her nutcracker in a magic shed, and he turns into a human-sized nutcracker, which is goddamned terrifying. Seriously, imagine this thing as a human coming at you:

Fuck that. There is no toy in the world that looks more like a rapist than this one. So I'm thinking this thing needs to be killed, and luckily there is a Rat King out there who is pulling this girl in because I think he wants to eat her for strength. I'm still rooting for the Rat King, because he kind of reminds me of Master Splinter, and I will cheer for anything that will kill this life-sized Nutcracker. Rat King and Nuts (my nickname for Nutcracker) get in a sword fight and Rat King basically owns him. Nuts plays dead like a total bitch, and when Rat King turns his back, he stabs him in the back. So now the rat children who I assume to be a lot like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have nobody to teach them ways to kill Nuts, so they mourn and disappear forever.

Afterwards, Nuts turns into a regular human, and they dance around a lot until intermission.

A lot of things happened before intermission, which is good, because very little, and I mean practically nothing happens plot-wise in the second half of this. It's really just a bunch of dancing in the second half. I couldn't even make up a coherent plotline from the dancing, because it looked like someone with ADD decided to have a dance party, but no theme for the dance party, so people just take turns showing off their moves.

The highlight of the second half was this dude who kept almost hitting wrestling moves on his lady dance partner. He nearly nailed her with a piledriver, but chose not to. Then he had her up for the torture rack, but decided against it. Finally, as he went off stage, he had her up for a Razor's Edge, so I'll just assume that he put her through a table with that one, but it was too gruesome for the children in the audience to watch.

And then anywhere from one to eight people take turns dancing, and the crowd applauds everything. It's absolutely outrageous. If this were a basketball game, they would applaud every time someone dribbled without turning the ball over. Ballet crowds are extremely easy to please. 

And really, that's all that happened in the second half. Lots of dancing. Eventually, our nightmare ends when Nuts turns back into his original nutcracking form, and the ballerinas proceed to bow for a good five minutes. 

Although I would not recommend "The Nutcracker" to other men, I will say that the ballet and I have two things in common. We can be completely ridiculous, and chicks dig us. 

Now please stop calling me a Nancy Boy.

-Joe

P.S. To masculine up this post, here is a picture from @Si_Vault of Hulk Hogan and Mr. T:

I'm not sure what's most ridiculous: The weight belts? Hulk's socks? Mr. T's shoes? I'd probably go with the weight belts. That look definitely needs to come back.

The Ultimate Fighter Finale Preview

I really haven't written anything about Mixed Martial Arts in quite a while, but I was inspired by the recent season of The Ultimate Fighter, so I figured I would share my thoughts with the world. Let's go over the Ultimate Fighter finals as well as the coaches fight.

Bantamweight Final: John Dodson vs. T.J. Dillashaw
Not gonna lie, I'm horribly biased in my prediction for this fight. Dodson was one of my main coaches when I trained at Jackson's, and not only is he an awesome coach to have, he's also just a really good guy. Although the conditioning we did on Thursdays sometimes bordered on cruel and unusual punishment, it definitely helped me get in, by far, the best shape of my life.

As for real analysis of the fight, Dodson has most of the advantages. I don't think Dillashaw wants to stand with him for very long periods of time, so he is going to try to take the fight to the ground. From what I have seen, and because of his size advantage, Dillashaw is probably the better wrestler, but Dodson is incredibly hard to take down, and as people have seen on The Ultimate Fighter, he is even tougher to keep down.

I think the fight is going to end up a lot like the Johnny Bedford fight in the final episode. I think Dillashaw will get a takedown; I think Dodson will get up, and I think Dodson will TKO him in the second round.

Dodson by TKO - Second Round

Featherweight Final: Diego Brando vs. Dennis Bermudez
I am less biased in this one, but admittedly, still biased. Diego also trains at Jackson's, and if you saw the show, it's a pretty accurate portrayal of him. He's a real nice guy for the most part, but if you get on his bad side, he will destroy you. I only had a few interactions with him, and luckily, always remained on his good side.

In the fight, I really have trouble seeing Bermudez win this in any way. His only hope is to take Diego down and pull a lay and pray for three rounds. Not only is it going to be difficult to do, but Brandao has really good jiu-jitsu, so even on the ground, he could finish the fight. I don't think Bermudez gets it there, and this fight ends like all of Diego's other fights, first round knockout.

Brandao by KO - First Round

Michael Bisping vs. Jason "Mayhem" Miller
No bias in this fight. Miller has always been solid, but he has never shown any elite skills. Bisping also isn't a guy with a lot of "wow" factor in his game, but he's really good everywhere. Although I dislike Bisping, I think he probably wins this fight, although I will definitely be rooting for Mayhem, because I'm American.

Bisping by Decision

-Joe

P.S. The Post Script has slowly turned into an advertisement for the Twitter handle of @si_vault, but when they post awesome things like a picture of Michael Jackson and Bo Jackson throwing a football together, it's really tough to not share it with the world.

That's just...perfect.

Jose Canseco Is Celebrity Boxing Again

As the totally unofficial blog of Jose Canseco, I feel like I need to address the fact that Jose Canseco is getting back in the boxing ring for the first time since his switcheroo boxing controversy, and this time it's going to include MORE Jose Canseco (since last time it included zero Jose Canseco). 

Now, honestly, Jose Canseco's celebrity boxing doesn't interest me all that much. I have known about it for weeks (although he did get a new opponent a few days ago), but it didn't really seem noteworthy to me. But the major sports blogs have been covering it, so I figured I should add a little bit to the conversation.

In his past fighting efforts, Jose has has mixed results, and that mixture has been mostly losses and draws, so I don't think he's quite ready to challenge a Klitschko. But this time, he's got a fight against noneother than Lenny Dykstra. Fomer MLB player, turned financial genius, turned financial idiot, turned awful Dad who wasted his son's signing bonus, turned criminal. As Stone Cold Steve Austin would say, "OH, HELL YEAH!"

Honestly, this match probably won't be entertaining on the face of it, but it does still have entertainment potential. If Jose can obliterate Dykstra, expect hilariously arrogant tweets about it. At the same time, a loss could produce much more hilarious sad tweets from Jose. Jose's sad tweets are comedy gold.

So even though I love Jose Canseco, I'm not so much rooting for him as much as I'm rooting for one of these guys to get their asses kicked. Jose's tweets have been yawn-inducing lately as the best thing he has posted has been a picture of dogs together.

So come on Jose. Stop censoring yourself, and have an impactful fight this weekend. Twitter needs you.

-Joe

P.S. And here is a slideshow during the time that Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau lived together.

The Only Problem With Natural Light

I have always known that nobody is perfect, but now it seems that nothing in this world is perfect. The closest thing to perfection, without a doubt, is Natrual Light. It goes down like water, it's cheap, it screams party, and it is always reliable to get you drunk, but never wasted.

Unfortunately, that first point is actually a flaw. Before all you beer snobs think that a beer with little taste is a bad thing, it's not, so you can shove your fancy beers up your ass and hope your bidet can clean things out for you. With that being said, Natural Light may be a little too close to water.

See, I'm a man in my mid-late twenties (I refuse to classify 27 as late 20s, although 28 means it's probably time for a nursing home...until I turn 28, and then 28 will be young again), so when I drink all day and all night, it leads to hangovers. The best thing for a hangover is chocolate milk, trust me on that, but if I'm not in the mood for that, I like to replenish myself with the classic cure of water.

Alcohol, which Natural Light contains, is a poison, and my body recognizes that. My body has a short-term memory, so it never tries to tell me to stop while I am poisoning it, but if I try to repoison it, my body tries to reject that. So, what I have learned is that water is extremely hard to drink after a Natty Light hangover due to the fact that my body thinks I am repoisoning it. I am trying to help my body, but my body makes water, which has no flavor, taste bad to my mind. My body can literally not tell the difference between water and Natural Light. This is not fun, because the rehydration process is not easy without water, so my hangovers last much longer than they did in my youthful days. As an advocate for Natural Light, it was depressing to discover its incorrectable flaw.

So, that leads us to this very difficult question. Am I done drinking Natural Light?

The answer...

Fuck no. I'm just done drinking water when I'm hungover. A person can die without water, but a person has no reason to live without Natural Light.

-Joe

P.S. I'm not sure what the most shocking thing is in this article about Hawkeyes Cornerback B.J. Lowery. That his name is Fernando, or that B.J. stands for Boots Junior. Although, I would like to now think that every B.J. is referring to Boots Junior. I remember Hawkeye and Chicago Bulls legend, Boots Junior Armstrong, and you see that chick over there in the corner, I wouldn't mind if she gave me a Boots Junior.

Al Davis Was More Inspirational Than Steve Jobs

I learned something very interesting this past week. It seems like half the people I know had some sort of personal relationship with Steve Jobs. This was amazing, because I wouldn't think that a billionaire would have that many friends in common with me, but apparently I was wrong. All over Twitter, Facebook, and even Black Planet, people mourned the loss of Steve Jobs. I, unlike most of the people I know, did not have a personal relationship with Steve Jobs. I'm pretty sure that he started Apple, but I have never felt the urge to thank him for that. I thanked him with my money when I bought my one Apple product, an iPod Nano. I am happy with this purchase as we have spent nearly two years ago, and it works almost all the time despite me repeatedly dropping it over these past two years. It's obviously bad that he died, and especially since he died at a younger age than the average American, but outside of the two minutes I have spent writing this paragraph, it has had no real effect on my life.

On the other hand, I was saddened to see a true legend die when Oakland Raiders Owner, Al Davis, passed away. I had no personal relationship with Al Davis, but this man should be an inspiration to everyone. Was Al Davis a good person? Honestly, no, and I don't think that Al Davis would ever consider himself a "good" person, but that doesn't mean he wasn't an amazing person.

Al Davis was a snake, and he'd be the first person to tell you that. He would do anything to win, and that is why he was so successful. This weekend, people were listing his accomplishments of being a coach, commissioner, owner, and a whole lot of other things, but I don't think most people took the time to realize what that actually meant. Al Davis was not a self-made man, he was a self-made icon, and there is zero chance of anybody pulling off what he was able to do in professional football.

He started off in coaching, and quickly worked his way up to head coach of the Raiders. Then he became a general manager, and he became so successful that he worked his way into having an ownership stake in the team. He then tricked one of the other owners into giving him the option to buy them out behind the other owner's back, and eventually strong-armed his way into the controlling owner of the team. The other owner tried to sue him, but it was too late, Al Davis was too smart and diabolical to be stopped from owning the Raiders.

I'm obviously giving a very brief description of what happened, but the above paragraph is absolutely baffling to me. Bill Belichick is probably the most powerful coach in the NFL today, and in your wildest imagination, could you imagine him taking the ownership away from Robert Kraft? There is no god damn way that could EVER happen. But Al Davis seriously pulled that off.

I would have loved to have been friends with Al Davis, but I would have shit my pants had I been his enemy. Al Davis was seen as a punchline late in his life as his personnel moves had not been working like they had been in the past, but he created successful teams in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 00s. And it's a shame he passed away when he did, because it looks like the Raiders are back on the road to respectability again.

Steve Jobs passing was seen as a much bigger deal, and that's not surprising at all. Apple is a far bigger brand than the Oakland Raiders, and Steve Jobs had far more money than Al Davis. Steve Jobs went into computers and rose to the top, but Al Davis chose the football business while also reaching the top. But know one thing, had Al Davis chosen the computer business, you would still know the name Al Davis, but you would have no clue who Steve Jobs was. Al Davis was committed to excellence, and he lived his life with one simple motto, "Just win, baby."

Now that's an inspiration.

-Joe

P.S. Mexico may be ahead of the US in progressive ideas towards marriage. A two-year marriage license, cut it down to two months, and I might lose my fear of commitment.

Women Law Violation

So my buddy pointed me in the direction of the hashtag Women Law Violation on Twitter like a month ago. I found some amusing tweets, copied them, but couldn't think of anything entertaining at the time to say about the tweets, so they've just been sitting there, ready to be blogged. Well, today is the day that this blog becomes a reality. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you #WomenLawViolation.

drzarbaugh Dean R. Zarbaugh II 
Leaving the kitchen. #womenlawviolation

This is one I used to agree with, but now I vehemently disagree. Have I learned to become a feminist as I have matured? Oh, God no. But I would like to be a kept man, so I need my lady to be out there making that scrilla. Let's face it: I'm far too pretty to work.

inPHamICE Mr. Marcus 

wearing animal print clothes and youre bigger than the animal youre wearing #womenlawviolation

Oh, snap. Mr. Marcus is putting it down on large ladies wearing animal print. About a thousand people wrote this same thing, but I have to disagree again. In fact, if my financials were in order, I might hire a large lady in animal print to stand outside my house so I no longer had to worry about cougar attacks (the animals and the ladies).

stillaCOLEworld you follow, I lead. 

#womenlawviolation refusing to go down, but expecting to receive it.

Wait a sec...guys can do that to girls? Who knew? Must be something desperate guys do.

TheArabPrincess Your Royal Highness 

#WOMENLAWVIOLATION walking around the club barefoot

It may be a women law violation, but it could lead to hilarious results when used in West Coast Dance. Wait a second, this is actually still a very bad idea. My buddies like to break glass more than they like breaking serve. If you see West Coast Dancers at the club, please, keep your shoes on, or you might get lockjaw.

tripstah chris joyner 

@RickeySmiley Not greasing up under the titties #WOMENLAWVIOLATION

I don't even know what this one means, but I promise to never take a girl home until she can assure me that she is greased up under the titties.

bossy_chelle Marchelle Love

#womenlawviolation wearing colored draws with white pants

This is why I don't wear white pants, because I only own exotic underwear. Ladies, if you ever see me in white pants, you may want to throw water on me, because your eyes will get the thrill of a lifetime.

BobbyJComedy Bobby J. 
#WomenLawViolation Telling a Man you got that Wet-Wet but need KY Jelly to get you a jump start!

If I had a dollar for every time a girl told me that she got that wet-wet, I would have zero dollars as I have never heard that phrase before Bobby J's edgy comedy brought it to my attention. It is something that I am going to start asking girls anytime I dance with them at the clubs. I know my dance moves are quite amazing, so I'll be shocked if they don't got that wet-wet, hopefully to the point where they won't even need that KY-Jelly to give them a jumpstart.

-Joe

P.S. Zack Ryder has still got the spot, but Dolph Ziggler is making a hard charge to be the most entertaining wrestler in the WWE. I recommend everyone reads this interview, especially question five where he lets the world know that he's a Natural Light drinker. Natty is like the nWo...it's taking over.

Every Animal Will Kill You

I just finished an excellent book called Deadly Kingdom by Gordon Grice. It's excellent in that it's a really good read that is both entertaining and educational. It's also the scariest book that I will ever read in my life, because I now know that every single animal that has ever existed is trying to kill me in its own unique way. I mean, I knew a lion or a polar bear would probably be favored in a fight with me, but there is no animal out there that couldn't kill me. Check out some of these random facts.

Hyenas have the strongest pound-for-pound jaws of any animal, you know what that means? It will crush your skull when it tries to and successfully kills you.

Think you're safe in the water? Ha, you stupid fool. The orca is the most dangerous animal in the world. I'm not sure if the Titanic ran into an iceberg; I'm pretty sure that an orca ran into it, and crushed the thing. Those people didn't die in the water, they died in an orca's stomach.

An ostrich kick can tear you from your pelvis to your sternum.

Even the animals that I could easily kill in combat will still find a way to kill me.

Sure a frog can't kill me, unless I eat it.

Maybe I could eat a random exotic Japanese fish, but that fish is poisonous and it will probably kill me.

In fact, pretty much any animal that I thought was not dangerous has some sort of venom in it that will kill me.

There are things in the water that will swim in your urethra and you'll have to have surgery to get it out.

At least small bugs like grasshoppers aren't dangerous, right? Wrong again. They will eat every crop around by having swarms in the billions and the fact that they can eat their body weight in a single day.

You can't crush a flea with your fingers.

At least with big animals, people will respect you for going out like a man. It's the small ones that scare the shit out of me. Go swimming in a river, and a worm will crawl into your eye. When it gets done making you blind, it will probably crawl back to your brain and kill you. Flies seem pretty harmless, except they can attack you in such a swarm to suffocate you. Well, at least ants aren't scary as you can just step on them. Oh yeah, one time a lady had surgery and while she was recovering from the anesthesia, ants ate out her eyeball and killed her.

So yeah, I highly recommend reading the book, because it's awesome, but I am now terrified of every living creature out there. So that's healthy.

-Joe

P.S. Here's a guy on fire, because people on fire are far more interesting than people not on fire.

I Can't Believe Benchwarmer Is a Real Company

So I was watching The Millionaire Matchmaker last week. I know that may shock some people due to my badass exterior, but I find it to be an incredibly entertaining show. But I'm not here to talk about that so much, as one of the millionaires really bothered me. He estimated his net worth to be around $5 million. That didn't really bother me either. What did bother me is how this clown made that money.

Most people on the show are involved in finances, hedge funds, or something of that nature. Basically, they steal money from hard working people until they're a millionaire. For some reason, those people don't bother me; I'm numb to their diabolical ways. But this guy was different. He created a company called Benchwarmer, and this pisses me off far more than any Wall Street jagon ever could. It is a company that makes baseball cards, but instead of athletes on the cards, it puts hot chicks on them.

I have decided to break down their About Us section to show you why this company angers me so much:

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS IN 1992, Bench Warmer started as a simple idea: to putbeautiful women on baseball cards. 

Fuck you. I wish I could reach through my screen and strangle the person who wrote this. If I ever write, "From humble beginnings," please beat the shit out of me. Get a baseball bat if necessary. I'll deserve it. My only question about this idea is did they get the idea from Vegas who put hookers on cheap versions of baseball cards or did Vegas steal the idea from them? I'm guessing the former, because Vegas is the leader in everything. But here's the thing: Vegas did it better. Sure, the girls on Benchwarmer's trading cards are probably more attractive, but I can have sex with the girls on Vegas's hooker cards. And those cards are free. Is this a business surviving solely on horny men who are unable to make it to Vegas? How does that equate to a five million dollar business? Alright, maybe the next section won't bother me as much.

It was a nostalgic throwback to the Golden Era ofbaseball cards that most American boys collected – except with hot girls on them instead of sports heroes.

Every sentence just oozes arrogant douchebaggery. Let's move on before I punch something. There is no way I can make it through this whole thing.

But the owner says this business has made him worth around five million dollars. I can't imagine being a bank manager and getting asked for a business loan for that business. I would have laughed him right out of my bank. Mac, Charlie, and Dennis's plan to buy gas and then sell it in a year was a far better business plan than this guy has.

But as stupid as this business is, there is a lesson to be learned here. There are way more perverts out there than I could possibly imagine. No well-adjusted adult is buying baseball cards with hot chicks on them. I mean, if I want to check out hot chicks, I go on the internet to bars and hit on them. Ah, who am I kidding? I go on the internet too; that's what it's there for. Yet the people who buy these are not only nasty; they're apparently computer illiterate. They make rash decisions, and keep America's economy afloat. How do stupid perverts get money? That is a topic for another day, and one I actually hope to avoid altogether.

Anyway, I admit that I'm angry that this business is successful as it is so mind numbingly stupid that it should have no chance of success. But this guy has a business that is based on only hiring and hanging out with hot chicks. That's kind of commendable. When I really think about it, one question comes to mind...

Are they hiring?

-Joe

P.S. I take it we're all in agreement that this is the one show that could surpass Franklin & Bash as the best show on television. An 80's wrestling drama is brilliant, and I know I can count on The Rock to produce absolute greatness.