Rec Soccer: The most intense Saturdays of my life.
As an 8 year old, your responsibilities in life are pretty small. Getting homework done, watching cartoons, and playing sports were three of the primary activities that consumed a lot of my childhood. In particular, I really loved playing soccer as a kid. From my ten years of playing, I have a lot of great memories. However, I don’t think there was a more innocent time in my life than my early days of playing. Continue reading
Ravens Fan: God you suck. I’m gonna rip your head off douche. RAVENS 4 LYFE!
Steelers Fan: Hey, why don’t you kiss my ass, bitch. STEELER CURTAIN NATION!
I hate the Pittsburgh Steelers
I hate the New York Yankees
I hate the South Carolina Gamecocks
In case you haven’t guessed, I am a Ravens, Orioles, and Clemson Tigers fan. For those of you could tell just by looking at the above animosity, congratulations! You have entered the world of sports rivalries.
It’s a confusing way of thinking, no doubt about it. Just seeing certain colors (black and gold in my case), hearing certain cheers (U-S-C! Gooooo Cocks!), or just seeing an obnoxious fan in a jersey (pinstripes), can cause my blood to boil a bit. But in this ever increasing competitive climate of athletics, sports rivalries from a fan perspective have gotten completely out of control. And in particular, with the advent of social media, this nonsense has spread to more people than ever before.
For example, almost any time two rivalry teams play that my Facebook friends cheer for, I see numerous statuses and petty arguments that dissolve into pointless name calling and idiocy. Check out these little nuggets that I’ve seen over the past year. Continue reading
With a face like this, who needs enemies?
(Repost from 2012)
It’s funny to me. After years of watching my beloved Baltimore Orioles flounder with failed prospects (Hayden Penn, Adam Loewen, etc…) and overpriced free agent signings (Kevin Gregg…), we are finally having a good year. More importantly, we are playing meaningful baseball, and it’s almost August. While yes I have been a little frustrated at our starting pitcher carousel and our offensive ineptitude, the fact remains; we are a winning baseball team. And I’m glad that when they do play poorly, I actually care. Every September, as we chug along toward another losing season, we seem to bring up players that have lurked in the depths of minor league baseball. At that point, you might as well wave the white flag because Chris Waters isn’t going to win you many ballgames.
But as I read any kind of Orioles article, it’s all negativity. The run differential is one of the worst in the majors. We shouldn’t trade anybody because we’re going to wind up under .500 anyway. Hell yesterday, I read someone actually advocating trading Matt Wieters, who has struggled at the plate lately but still remains the best defensive catcher in baseball. Can’t people, who are being paid to write about the thing they love, be a little more positive? I can think of two more examples just this week of overblown scrutiny. Continue reading
Is there anything he doesn’t know?
(Repost from 2012)
“Father time waits for none of us”
One of my favorite football players of all time, Ed Reed, used these words in describing his contemplation of retirement this past off season. And he’s absolutely right. Ed realized his playing days were almost over, and while home after the NFL season, he became very enthralled with spending time with his family. So much so, that he almost hung up his cleats, and moved on to a different stage in his life.
This might be the only time that I will ever be able to compare myself to one of the greatest safeties to ever play in the NFL. But recently, I entered “The Real World” (not the reality show that spawned former WWE Champion Mike “The Miz” Mizanin). I’ve essentially moved in to the next phase in my life, and I’m loving the freedom and independence of it. On the other hand, I’m also the cliched young adult where I’m constantly asking things like, “I have to pay this much for my electric?”
So with that, I’ve decided to make a list of pros and cons of various life issues that I’ve faced since I’ve “grown up.” Continue reading
Has there ever been a story that you’ve told everyone you meet because it’s guaranteed to get a laugh?
In this particular case, my “go-to” story is something that I have not shared with a lot of people. However, my close friends and I agree that it is the stuff of legend.
When I fathomed writing this, I couldn’t just use my perspective because there were multiple views of the event that contribute to the story as a whole. So I collaborated with 2 other witnesses to develop somewhat of an “Oral History” or “Dramatic Retelling” of this event. The characters are as follows (Names have been changed to protect identities): Continue reading
6 steps!?
On this blog, I typically like to write about sports-related topics, but I do occasionally dip into funny life stories. The first part of this vomit story series (which you can read here) was just something that I thought was a collection of funny happenings pertaining to vomit. Little did I know that it would be my most viewed blog post thus far! I was astonished by two things:
1. That I was starting to be picked up by major search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
2. That the top 4 searches for people who found my blog on a search engine were “vomit”, “people vomiting”, “projectile vomiting”, and “Brian Wilson”
Back on subject, when we last left off, I was leaving the land of elementary school where vomiting in public was not entirely humiliating, but not something you wanted to develop a reputation for. Unfortunately, in 8th grade, a peer of mine did just that. Continue reading
Jay Cutler’s reaction upon reading this blog
Almost three weeks in to the NFL preseason, and the injuries are starting to mount for some teams and certain players. I wanted to get this post up before the preseason started to avoid injuries affecting my choices, but alas, I waited until now to get it going. I’ll give you my 4 division winners and 2 wildcard choices from each conference. Plus, just to have fun, I’ll give you an AFC and NFC champion and a Super Bowl.
For the record, I will abide by the 6-6-6 rule for the NFL playoffs. On average, 6 new teams will get to the playoffs that weren’t in last year, 6 will drop out, and 6 will stay in. Continue reading
That’s what you get for wearing your hat sideways
Whenever an inappropriate story was brought up at the dinner table growing up, my father would disgustedly cut us off with a, “We’re eating here!” However, today, after a fellow employee was sick in the bathroom, seemingly everyone I saw soon after recanted their best puke/upchuck/vomit/hurl/throwing up stories. Quite the dichotomy in settings. I sat down and thought about it for a bit and came up with a list of the best puke stories in my life (most of which I was personally responsible for). Hope you’re not reading this over lunch… Continue reading
We’ve had some really bad shows these past couple weeks, hopefully because they will be pulling out all the stops for the 1000th episode. But Money in the Bank is usually one of the better PPVs of the year and doesn’t need as much story to build up the two ladder matches. While I don’t think it was better than last year’s (which was the best PPV since 2003), it was still a strong show where all the advertised matches delivered. Continue reading
Is it tasteless that I got this from a teenage depression site?
So you just went through years of college, had the time of your life, graduated, got a job, moved to a new area, and now what? You’re the new person in town by yourself with no friends. It’s pretty daunting being thrown into a completely new facet of your life with essentially no preparation.
Remember the 5th grade? The work got a little harder to prepare you for middle school. Then, 8th grade rolls around and we were getting the serious drug and sex talks to avoid any potential mishaps that could damage our futures. Finally, in the latter parts of high school we were taking college preparatory courses to get us a feel for what it’s like ahead.
But with college? Yeah, obviously the course work prepares you for your job environment, but does it really prepare you for looking for an apartment? Setting up utilities? Paying rent? Managing finances? Getting insurance and a vehicle registered in a new state? While some colleges offer occasional workshops to educate people about these things, on a whole, there is little education on what may be the biggest “jump” in our lives.
But the biggest change upon leaving the college world has to be your social environment. While there will definitely be people your own age in your new life, the abundance that was there in college is gone. This is why it is imperative to maintain the strong relationships you gained in high school and college.
I remember going to my senior prom and my date (who had graduated a year prior) telling me that she really only keeps up with her close friends and doesn’t associate with anyone else. I was a little skeptical of this, but she was absolutely right. At this present time, I probably only talk to or hang out with about 7 people from high school. And it’s probably about the same number for college. So it’s incredibly important to keep in contact even though we aren’t living close to each other anymore.
So that brings me to the focal point of this article. How do you stay in touch with people and live our own busy life at the same time? Here are the methods I utilize: Continue reading
A Sporting Good Life 