PLEASE ANDY, SAVE US?

How to Go to Mars1. Enter e-mail address2. Enter password3. Go...

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:17:49 -0400

How to Go to Mars
1. Enter e-mail address
2. Enter password
3. Go to Mars
4. Die?

A dumb ESPN headline deconstructed in pictures.

Thu, 02 May 2013 20:49:00 -0400

A dumb ESPN headline deconstructed in pictures.

I like this tweet, if I do say so myself. And I do. I just did.

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:11:00 -0400

“At any rate, do you want to buy this insurance?” - insurance sales guy

— Andy Holdeman (@andyholdeman)

April 10, 2013

Hahaha: Translating Laughter in GChats

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 18:39:00 -0500

Ha = “Good point, sir or madam. I wasn’t expecting that sort of mildly clever response to break up the boredom of this mundane textual conversation about nothing.”

Haha = “I know you’re trying to be funny, and I appreciate your efforts, but either (a) your chat was a failed comedic attempt that was simply not humorous, or (b) I’m not in the mood to be amused right now.”

Hahaha = “Bravo, that was legit funny. Also, I’m in pretty good spirits at this moment.”

Bwahahahaha+ = “You’re being hilarious. And I’m pretty jealous that I’m not as funny as you are but you’re definitely funny so mad props.”

lol = “Seriously, shut up. I’m too nice to ignore you.”

Congrats El Presidente. This time—a litte smoother, a little...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 12:53:09 -0500

Congrats El Presidente. This time—a litte smoother, a little grayer, and with the proclamation, “I did it!”

1 of the Most Tragic Days Ever

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:57:00 -0500

I cannot believe the Broncos lost to the Ravens.

I cannot believe the Broncos lost to the Ravens.

I cannot believe the Broncos lost to the Ravens.

If I keep writing that will it universe-reverse and become untrue? Probably no?

I disproportionately love football, yes, yet I’m still a fairly well-adjusted human. But this feels different. This is jarring.

When Peyton Manning and friends mystifyingly (and mysteriously, refs) came up short against Baltimore, I free-falled into shock and have not returned to normalcy since.

It’s been like three days.

This is probably one of the top 5 most tragic experiences of my life. And yes, I realize how dumb-ridiculous that sounds.

So I have two choices to correct course:

a) Take a step back and re-prioritize my life in a more reasonable manner.

or

b) Intentionally create more tragic events in my life to push the Broncos atrocity down the list.

Option b please.

Here are some ideas:

1) step out into interstate highway traffic
2) wait for the coldest day of the year in D.C. and jump into the Potomac River at midnight
3) stop using my asthma inhalers forever
4) eat metal
5) try to scale a high wall during the presidential inauguration
6) go to baltimore and punch joe flacco and then roundhouse ray lewis and then run away screaming “billy cundifffffffff!”
7) tweet my social security number

Brb.

"My only idea for a #kimye baby name: Jesus. That way they can play Jesus Walks when Jesus walks."

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 02:11:00 -0500

“My only idea for a #kimye baby name: Jesus. That way they can play Jesus Walks when Jesus walks.”

Photo

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 01:05:27 -0500

"The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human..."

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 01:05:07 -0500

“The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.”

- Bobby Kennedy

A Flash Drive's Lament

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 15:46:00 -0500

Seriously, Cloud? Seriously?

You ass.

Why ya gotta jock my ports?

You don’t know me.

I used to be the future. I pwned floppy disks, CD-Rs, and private servers in one fell swoop – like a cosmic sneeze whose asteroid booger casually obliterated the über shit piles out of all the dinosaurs.

Before me, a gig of transportable space was about as possible as a sip-n-slip-n-slide party on Mars.

Then I showed up and, boom, everybody got wet and drunk.

Instant mass storage alpha status, bitches.

PDFs? Like a thousand of ‘em.
MP3s? Yeah, dawg; don’t insult me.
PSDs? Ha. Does Bill Gates crap in the woods? (assume yes – being in Africa and all)

But I’ve been haphazardly mishandled. Lost. Left behind in the dark public library of antiquity. My days: numbered, if not already exhausted.

All thanks to nothing.

Like, literally nothing. A physically non-existent anomaly.

You. The Cloud.

Tell me Cloud, can you conveniently hang from a lanyard or dangle off a key chain?
Nope.

Can you be shaped like a log or a lion or a Lego man?
Nope.

Can you uncap, flip open, or switch out?
Nope.

And what are you, really?

You’re not smaller.

You’re not bigger, either.

You’re not anything.

You’re not even a billowing amoeba of moisture.

You’re nothing.

Nay, you’re the devil.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was renaming itself the Cloud – and gorging on everyone’s docs.

Fine. If that’s what the people want.

I don’t give a frak. Like I really want to keep protecting their Word docs laced with Papyrus piss and Dakota dung.

Or half-assed group PowerPoint presentations on thermal dumb-namics.

Or essays from their freshman years of college where they found out who Fred Hampton was on Wikipedia and learned what “dichotomy” meant. Yet they still didn’t know how to properly use a semicolon.

In fact, retirement sounds nice.

Move over, mini disc. And get me a mojito.

"Ya'll Must've Forgot" - !

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:13:00 -0500

While pundits and mainstream media folk attempt to explain President Barack Obama’s reelection with any and all reasons other than the fact that he was actually the much stronger candidate, a new voice has emerged to take comprehensive credit.

The Exclamation Point.

Not demographics. Not a piss-poor opponent. Not Bill Clinton. Not Sandy. Not Karl Rove’s last desperate reach for power.

“Who energized the base? Me. Who made ‘FORWARD’ more than a word but a mandate? Me. Who made the whole effing planet forget that first debate? I did,” said the punctuation mark. “I did that shit.”

It’s unclear exactly when Mr. Point showed up on the stump. But it was definitely some time after the first debate, which was a widely regarded debacle for Obama. The president’s campaign — which had previously featured just “FORWARD” on its paraphernalia — paid Mr. Point an undisclosed amount of money to show up at every single event thereafter.

And it worked. Like a charm.

“They were just like, ‘Bro, you gotta save this campaign blah blah blah. Mitch Romley is getting emphatic on us. You gotta get the people jacked up.’ So that’s exactly what I did. I just let my big ol’ ball hang and the rest is history,” he said while watching media outlets call the election on Tuesday night.

“I’m not even for either party. I’m straight down the middle, know what I mean?,” he curiously added.

We know what you mean, Mr. Point. We know.

Andys.

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 01:04:00 -0400

Andys.

How to be funny.

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 09:42:00 -0400

Start with not being funny. Or being not funny – however you put it.

Seriously though.

The first step to be funny is to understand and accept that you simply cannot always be funny. For God’s sake, you cannot always be funny.

Let’s stop for one second. Before I dive into this, let me address the perverse thoughts likely devouring your cerebral cortex right now.

Who is this guy? Is he a comedian? I’ve never heard of him – how am I supposed to learn how to be funny from him? Is he from that show Whitney?

First, shut your face.

Second, you’re absolutely right; I’m not really anyone.

But unless your name is Louis CK or Dave Chappelle, YOU’RE NOT FUNNY EITHER SO THERE.

Namaste.

And if your name is Louis CK or Dave Chappelle…HOLY SHIT YOU’RE READING MY BLOG AND WONDERING HOW TO BE FUNNY?

Namaste.

Back to how to be funny according to me.

Step one.

Sometimes you’re going to tell a joke that’s not even remotely funny. Doesn’t even deserve a courtesy chuckle. Like, so unfunny that TBS might pick it up as a sit-com. And you’re going to feel really, really stupid. Deservedly so.

Learn to be okay with that.

Sometimes you’re going to say or write something truly hilarious but addressed to the wrong people. Your audience will not laugh. You’re going to get no respect. There are as many different senses of humor out there as women Justin Timberlake has dated to cover up the gay. Not everyone – or even half of everyone – is going to find you funny.

Learn to be okay with that.

Sometimes you’re going to have to intentionally withhold all of the funny inside of you. Don’t be that guy (or lady!). The one who never shuts the comedy off. The one who is always engaging in a pissing (or tinkling!) contest to prove who is the funniest of all the bipeds. The one who avoids authentic and honest interaction with other human beings to hide deep-rooted insecurity and self-esteem issues. You need to have a serious and contemplative side – in public.

Learn to be okay with that.

Now once you overcome your fear of being totally unfunny and realize your self-deception of always being funny, you’ll be liberated. To be funny no longer becomes a burden, a mandate, a facade that you have to work so hard to maintain in front of people. Being funny will become who you are and a healthy part of your natural expression. And, of course, when those moments of unfunny rear their ugly-as-Bosh heads, you’ll be secure enough with yourself and confident enough in your funny to brush it off and move on.

Step two.

Speak up and write jokes!

Namaste.

Theological Gushers

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 22:47:00 -0400

There’s no way Gushers evolved from the original fruit snack. It’s not possible.

This proves intelligent design – and by extension the existence of God.

The original fruit snacks were merely a nub of fruit-y chewy delight – shaped all the same like cookie-cutter turdlets. And, of course, very tasty in their own right.

You might be saying, “But, hey man, Gushers are strikingly similar. The outer layer is a lot like the original; it’s a fruity, chewy delight – just in a more evolved three-dimensional hexagonal prism shape.

I dare rebut, “Psh.”

Perhaps, on its face, the Gusher boasts a few similar properties to that of the original fruit snack. Granted, consistency, texture, and purported flavors and colors of the outermost portion are analogous. But, this argument collapses and turns on its head when one reaches the Gusher’s gooey center: the defining difference.

Pray tell, how did the original “evolve” into a goo-infused hexagon? That would make for an unprecedented evolutionary leap that the fanciest-pants-iest science can’t even explain – requiring the discovery of an all-important missing link, bridging the gap between goo-less and goo-full (gooful?).

Let’s then pretend, but for a moment, that there is a link. What form could it possibly take?

You might be saying, “Dear sir, the missing link takes the form of man. His progress in the manufacturing of goods and processing of things naturally influenced the original to become the Gusher. Like nature’s influence upon man; such is man’s influence upon the fruit snack.

A nice tale, but a tall one – and ultimately fruitless.

Although man is indeed involved. Man’s contribution is grander than mere linkage. For he, man, is the intelligent designer. He created the original fruit snack from essential nothingness. And separately, he created the Gusher and its structured integral duality – no primordial ooze necessary. Like God is to man; such man is to the Gusher. And the fruit snack. Separately.

You cannot draw goo forth from a goo-less state – especially while retaining partial elements of the goo-less-ness. Matter follows a pattern. As do natural processes. Snow does not melt into water whilst still maintaining a partially frozen state. Snow commits. Over elapsed time, it transitions from frozen to not frozen. At no point does it halt the process, preserving equal parts solid and liquid.

Therefore, Gushers are a unique creation. Fashioned from the mind of man to better our lives as we walk – with designed bipedalism – throughout this Earth.

And don’t even get me started on fruit leathers.

My Hips, They Cannot Tell a Lie

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 21:29:41 -0400

On the third night, shit got real.

That’s when I laid down for bed and realized I had nowhere to turn. Literally. My right hip, the one I typically sleep on, was still tender from two nights prior; while my left hip, last night’s load bearer, was freshly bruised from a most rigid slumber.

And so, I was forced to endure. Or, to build character as often euphemized. Learning a new – and most importantly, comfortable – way to position my body for rest was a nuanced and un-American challenge. And it was fucking aggravating.

Sleeping on a bare concrete floor – with nothing but a thin sleeping bag between myself and curious sub-Saharan rodents – in a shack nestled in the remote hills of southern Malawi humbled me to my bones. Hip bones, to be precise.

I slept on my back. Which is to say, I laid on my back in the dark for seven hours; because back-sleeping was just something I couldn’t manage. I felt entombed – in a coffin surrounded by cacophonous silence.

Fortunately, I didn’t think about rats and restlessness much that night. I thought about other things.

It was November of 2008.

I wondered how long it would be before dawn broke and I could pluck a mango off a nearby tree for breakfast.

I wondered who my president was.

I wondered, what is Ben Savage up to?

And, could that Malawian dude in the other room possibly be an escaped Michael Vick?

Spitting. Image.

#ThinnestSportsBooks

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:46:00 -0500

The Secret to My Success by Ryan Leaf

Hall of Fame Speech (Full Text) by Pete Rose

From College Park to Boston: My Journey to the NBA by Len Bias

The Thinking Man’s Guide to Playing Baseball by Jose Canseco

Slava (Translated into English as Fame) by Darko Milicic

Self-Awareness by Lebron James

Self-Awareness by Carmelo Anthony

Awareness by Metta World Peace

Behind the Lens: Amateur Photography with Brett Favre by Brett Favre

Contar: Counting Correctly in Spanish by Chad Ochocinco

Memories by Roger Clemens

Patience by Bart Scott

When did Michael Jordan become uncool?

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:08:00 -0500

September 11, 2009.

That was the day His Airness dotted the last exclamation point, the final punctuation mark of his magnificent basketball playing career — via his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame. That evening, Mike segued into the next period of his life with a highfalutin, painfully revealing monologue that left us all baffled…but not surprised.

So…this really is who he really is.

From that point forward, Michael Jeffrey Jordan morphed into a pop culture caricature, a punchline. A weirdo. Just like Mike. Tyson. Jackson. Now Jordan. Take your pick.

Chalk it up to his residual hyper-hyper-competitiveness, his gaping hole of a soul without superstardom, or his inability to find worth beyond the Jumpman, the sextuple rings, the fading “Michael Jordan of [insert thing here]” catchphrase — no matter how we, as a culture, define him, the guy is bizarre. And probably always has been. But we no longer have his hoops brilliance to overshadow his profound strangeness.

Alas, MJ circa 2012 is an awkward string of ironies:

He’s a fashion mogul who has embarassingly bad fashion sense. I mean, have you seen this?

He owns the most dreadful, hopeless franchise in the NBA. In Charlotte, a “three-peat” is a successfully converted three point shot. Still quite rare for them.

He’s the father of not one, but two mediocre college basketball players.

He’s engaged to a bombshell, yet he still rocks a solo hoop earring.

Sadly, MJ’s lack of character development post-(final)retirement — desperately clinging to the NBA and competition like a guardian teddy bear — has cost him his throne. Not in money. Nor publicity. But as a role model. As a public figure whom we can emulate to live a good and decent and successful life.

Suffice to say, kids…don’t be like Mike.

Why was Blake Griffin's dunk merely "Meh"?

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:36:00 -0500

Because it was only worth two points.

A 90-year-old geriatric grandma could launch an undefended granny shot from inside the free throw line (yes, Grandmama Larry Johnson would likely be in the stands), and, even if it’s a knuckleball that cheek-pecks off the glass and falls in, it’s worth precisely — precisely — as many points as that dunk.

And, yes, the foul made it a +1. But the dunk itself, +2.

Taking everything away from Blake, the level of post-throwdown hype he received was unmerited. From Mike & Mike to (almost literally) countless nobodies on Twitter, the whole free world stopped for a moment — as if Blake’s two-point shot tilted the Earth on its axis.

But it didn’t. Because Blake didn’t punctuate at the rim. Period.

Fact: He vaulted extraordinarily high, absorbed a sudden impact, and still managed to fill the cup (as Mark Jackson might say). Unfortunately, Blake finished more like Dwight Howard than Vince Carter. It was, as Kevin Durant eloquently stated, “a layup.” A phenomenally forceful layup, but a layup nonetheless.

Count it: Two (okay, three) points on the scoreboard. Let’s move on.

Which means, LeBron, that your humblebrag was errant. You still sit atop the 2011(ish)-2012 dunk of the year standings. Sorry, bro.

And, can we please give Kendrick Perkins proper respect? He’s no goat — also no G.O.A.T. But Blake made a great cut, CP3 a nice feed, and K-Perk never had a chance. Yet, he still slid over in the paint and tried to make a near-impossible defensive stop, rather than allowing Blake to rattle the rim unimpeded. So un-NBA like of Kendrick — to make an attempt on the defensive end of the floor.

Already alluding to greater feats of dunking courage, I’ve compiled a list of more blistering jams — with barely thinking at all.

1. Vince Carter @ the Olympic Games - Hurdling a 7-Footer? Check. Rattling the rim? Check.

2. J.R. Rider’s East Bay Funk Dunk - Between the legs before anyone else did it. Psh, hipster.

3. J.R. Smith circa 2011 - This. This. And this.

4. Candace Parker - OOOOOOH SNAP. From the dashed half-circle.

5a. MJ’s Switcharoo Layup - Since we’re kind of talking layups here…

5b. And Blake - Meh.

In the end, however, all dunks are worth, at most, two points. So…I guess…three-pointers for the win!

What's the Meaning of Life?

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:59:00 -0500

Me: What's the meaning of life?
Me: Dunno.
Me: No, seriously. You're insightful. What's the meaning of life?
Me: Hmmmm...72% Sports. 17% Jokes. 6% Video Games. 3% Music. 2% Love or whatever.
[Insert pie chart graphic here]
[Actually, nevermind. You can probably picture the relative proportions fairly accurately in your head.]
Me: Ok. Cool.