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Chris Benoit and Family Found Dead

I was unbelievably shocked just now to read that The Canadian Crippler Chris Benoit and his wife and son were found dead in their Atlanta home. WWE.com released the news today, not mentioning it at the pay per view last night.

I’ve always loved telling people my story about The Rabid Wolverine. I ran into Chris Benoit in the parking lot when I was at the gym one day when WCW was in town. I’m a huge wrestling fan, by the way. Unlike the wrestlers who were working out in the gym that day, Chris Benoit was an incredibly nice guy. The other guys would just nod when I said “hello”. Benoit, on the other hand, replied with a friendly, “Hey! How’s it going?”

He was very gracious when I asked for a photo and asked if my friend and I were going to the show. A really nice guy, and on top of that, one of my all time favorite wrestlers. I hardly ever watch a match, but I always watched his because the guy could TRULY wrestle.

Wrestling will not be the same without him. WWE is doing a special tribute to him tonight. I’ll be watching.

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Local Currencies — A Brilliant Idea

CNN has the story of a local community printing its own currency that tracks to the dollar at a rate of 1 BerkShare (the local currency) to $.90. Yes, this is legal.

Since large national chains aren’t entering into agreements to accept local bills, only the small, locally owned shops are accepting them. And based on the rate at which they track to dollars, customers receive a 10% discount for using the local currency.

For all of you people who complain about the big box stores and that the gov’ment should do something about them, apparently some LOCAL governments have, and it works well.

The market will always find a way.

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Why We Fight Wars, At Least Why I Would

I was talking to some guys at work this morning about the reasons for war. There are several answers I’ve heard throughout the years–land, money, religion, etc. One guy actually stumbled onto what I believe is the true answer when he said that animals don’t have war because all they do is eat, poop, and breed. My question was if he thinks we are really all that much different from animals. The males fight for dominance and the right to breed with the female of their choosing, right?

From what I can tell, all conflict between men is rooted in the desire to mate. The desire to get money, power, win a competition, on and on and on. It’s all rooted in the desire to get some. The guy with a bomb strapped to his chest may THINK he’s doing it for Allah, but he’s really just helping some other guy get an extra wife.

My friend correctly took the argument to the next logical stage, “Would war be eliminated if women were in charge?”

To answer simply, no. They’d just fight over shoes.

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Eaton Beavers

I was telling some guys I work with about how my blog traffic was recently affected by the Barbie Cummings story, and we started talking about funny porn names.  I was telling them about some guys I knew in college who either made up funny names or just had funny nicknames and the funny stories associated with these guys.  They thought the stuff was pretty good and worthy of posting, so here is the first installment…the story of Eaton Beavers.

I was hanging out with my buddy Burgers one night in ’98 or ’99 and was watching some TV while he was changing clothes to go out.  This was back before cell phones, and Burgers was one of those fancy boys who had to have caller I.D.  Believe it or not, this story isn’t even about Burgers (I’ve got plenty more on him), I just happened to be at his house when the phone rang.

Burgers yelled out from the other room for me to see who it was on the caller I.D.  The screen said, “Beavers, Eaton”….Eaton Beavers was calling Burgers.  Of course I started laughing and told him that Eaton Beavers was calling him.  He told me that was actually another friend of ours, Halfacre (real last name).

Halfacre had used a fake French accent when he got his phone connected and told the lady his name was Eaton Beavers.  It was even listed in the phone book that way.

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Power Blackout in Colombia

The whole country suffered a three hour power outage yesterday.

The blackout caused chaos in the main avenues of the Colombian capital and other cities of the country since traffic lights stopped working.

That’s funny.  I was there in October, and I thought all of the traffic lights were Christmas decorations because no one paid much attention to them.  It makes sense though–it’s tough to run a red light when it won’t turn red.  I can see where this would cause some confusion and chaos in Colombian traffic.

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Knoxville Eyesores

I actually got up yesterday to check the KNS online to see their article on Knoxville Eyesores.  I have to say that I’m a little disappointed, but I guess you get what you pay for.  It seems like they were addressing issues that occur everywhere else in Generica–urban sprawl, litter, strip malls, abanadoned warehouses, etc.

While all of these are definitely eyesores, they aren’t specific to Knoxville.  I decided I’d come up with my own incomplete list of eyesores that are specific to K-Town.  Of course, these are my personal opinions. Continue reading “Knoxville Eyesores”

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Free Market at Work in the Blogosphere

There is quite a soap opera going on at Just Another Pretty Farce regarding Mrs. Coble’s issues with JL Kirk & Associates.

Here’s a quick synopsis:

  • Mr. and Mrs. Coble felt ripped off by an employment agency, and she blogged about it.
  • JL Kirk & Associates got mad about that, and one of their employees posted some comments on to her post on Mrs. Coble’s site (that was stupid). These comments were rather nasty, especially coming from a company trying to defend itself publicly.
  • Mrs. C. has now received a letter threatening a lawsuit if she does not remove her post(s) about JL Kirk & Associates as well as all associated comments. I suspect this has little to do with their desire to eliminate her original post, and more to do with the venemous comment one of their own employees left there.
  • Countless people will now read the account of what happened, most of whom probably would not have read the account had she not been sent a threatening letter and had it picked up by the blogosphere.
  • Many more people will view JL Kirk & Associates as scam artist jerks than ever would have before. Whether they are scam artists and/or jerks is beside the point. They’ve gone a long way through their comments on Mrs. C.’s blog and by sending a letter to give that impression.

Their own actions will hurt them significantly more than Mrs. Coble’s ever could have. You have to love the free market.

Here are some highlights of the comments left by a JL Kirk & Associates employee in her original post:

And by the way, in Mrs. Cobles’ [sic] case, we would recommend (free of charge) to further her writing “career” she learn to spell “wizardry” and polish her grammar and punctuation skills.

Well, couldn’t we all use a little help there now and then? But free of charge? That’s going above and beyond helpful!

…Mr. Coble has had difficulty with sustained upward mobility.

Is the writer trying to stoke some sort of class warfare fire?

That comment is simply stupid.

This could be broadly applied to most comments on most blogs, but usually isn’t what one says when trying to win over an audience. I seriously doubt you’ll hear that in a presidential debate, although it wouldn’t be untrue.

Mrs. Coble’s spiteful meanness precluded her from asking me about it.

Mean and spiteful? I like Mrs. Coble!

Do a Google search on Katherine Coble! She is an angry, opinionated basher of many things

I don’t need to do a Google search. This statement sold me. From this day forward, I vow to be a reader of Katherine Coble’s blog and to never do business with JL Kirk & Associates out of fear that they will send certified junk mail to my house and an unprecedented amount of traffic to my blog.

On second thought…

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More Important Legislation in Tennessee

This one will require mandatory HIV testing of PIMPs (Prostitution Industry Management Professionals).

This has taken things too far.  It’s about time someone stand up and push for deregulation of PIMPing.  It has gotten to the point that PIMPs are so busy filling out gov’ment paperwork and making sure they are abiding by all of the codes that they hardly have time time to concentrate on their core business–smackin’ ‘ho’s and foldin’ bank.

Free market enthusiasts unite!  If the state continues to create more and  more bureaucracy for sex industry management professionals Continue reading “More Important Legislation in Tennessee”

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Gingrich and Kerry to Debate

Not presidential though, it’s climate.  What once was touted as a concern for humanity has now officially been polarized by the Republicrats as a way to sell books and get some “look at me” time.  Jeremy Jacobs has the full story.

I couldn’t help but be amused by this:

“As a father, when someone tells me that within the next decade, if we don’t deal with global warming, our children and grandchildren may deal with global catastrophe, that tells me I damn well better do whatever I can to help make Washington deal with this responsibly,” Kerry added.

Really?  When someone tells me that we’re headed towards a global catastrophe, it tells me that I damn well better figure out if this guy is full of shit before I work myself into a panic unnecessarily.

I tried to find something in there to make fun of Newt as well, just to be fair, but couldn’t.  Continue reading “Gingrich and Kerry to Debate”