JourneytotheMiddle

How did Joe Johnson become such a lightning rod of criticism?

edemire — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:31:06 +0000

I’m sure all of you have heard about Joe’s ungodly lucrative contract by now.
What interests me is that the Yahoo story that broke it generated over 1700 comments in a couple of days. It now has nearly 1900 comments!

I never imagined someone as low-key as Joe would generate such a reaction despite occasional fireworks such as this.
So many of the comments focus on what a ridiculous contract this is for someone who kind of choked in the second round of the playoffs last season, and is really good, but not at the Wade-Bryant-James level.
That’s a fair criticism, though Joe is also one of the few players who can claim to have led his team to more wins in each of five consecutive seasons while never getting into trouble off the court… I think that kind of consistency leading into this season’s playoffs built up a reserve a goodwill with the Atlanta franchise that 5 or 6 bad subpar games weren’t enough to erode.

But there’s another stream of vitriol running through the comments: the absurdity of professional athletes being paid tens of millions per season for playing games. I think the recession has only stirred the cauldron for those who see seemingly more dollars and media attention going to “pampered” athletes while the middle-class wages relative to cost-of-living have dwindled through the last few decades.

With the increasing chatter about this free-agent class in the preceding weeks, I believe a reserve of animosity was welling up in some of the general (internet-using) public, and news of Joe’s megadeal broke the dam. Unfortunately, Arkansas’ finest was the first to face the torrent.

Amid all the talk about the insane money being thrown around, the Boston Globe ran an interesting piece about a former NBA champion who’s now living out of his car. This player, Ray Williams, says he believes that players such as Joe Johnson should be sharing their new-found wealth with him since he helped blaze the golden trail upon which their Air Jordans tread.
Based on the majority of the 200+ comments, though, I’m not sure if Williams will get any help.

Chinese Censorship of ‘Tibet’ and ‘Falun Gong?’

Joel — Sat, 22 May 2010 02:58:35 +0000

So, I’m here in China with our own MM. we’re having a really great time, and I’ll post more on the experience, along with some pictures once I get back. This post, however, is just a little test. He and I were discussing our lack of knowledge regarding how much the web really is censored here. For instance, now that google china is no more, we are just redirected to the Hong Kong site, which would seem, if anything, to be a step toward less control. Then I saw something in the lonely planet (written in 06) that said certain words like tibet, falun gong, etc. would warrant automatic blockage. The test, then, is to see if a) I can post those words from China, and b) if I can view the post from here.

Slick Page for Tracking the Oil “Spill”

zlindsey — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:20:48 +0000

A friend posted a link to this Google Crisis Response page regarding the Deepwater Horizon well breech.

I don’t really know if this incident qualifies as a “spill” as much a geyser spewing oil from the earth, but it still conveys the message: They be oorrl all over the Guf, y’all.

You can’t even make fun of not being able to depict the prophet.

Joel — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:39:21 +0000

I’m burned out on southpark because every episode has to be over the top. Still, I usually agree with Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The new episode is still over the top, but this time they are making fun of Islam in a pretty subtle way. It does a good job of showing that Islam, at this point in history, really is behind the other major religions in it’s ability to allow criticism and independent thought.

And as if to better illustrate their point, the threats have started:

The commentary at the end of the piece is worth the wait.

RSVP RIP, Drunk History, And Japan!

bwb — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:43:52 +0000

First, the era of RSVPing for events is dead so sayeth the New York Times, read the article here. I found it quite interesting.

Second, I strongly recommend watching Drunk History at YouTube, this has been around for a while but they finally have some new stuff. Go and educate thyself.

Also, I took a vacation to Japan a few weeks ago, if you guys want to see some pictures they are here or on the glorious FB.

For Zach

Joel — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:10:35 +0000

Nordwand

Joel — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:44:44 +0000

Last Night I went to go see Nordwand at the Mayan. Holy shit, this movie is ridiculously intense. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it exactly and it was probably about 30 minutes too long, but it had 4 great things going for it:

The most intense 45 minutes of movie-watching I’ve ever experienced (this is not an exageration)
Really accurate depiction of the gear and techniques used by alpinists in the 30s
Amazing cinematography
A good depiction of a real, tragic event as tragic in the literary sense

If you’re into mountaineering, it’s definitely worth seeing.

yo guys, picture this

bwb — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:08:38 +0000

I want you to picture this… you are driving down a street in like Seattle, just chilling, and something catches the corner of your eyes… You move your eyes out the side window and for a snapshot you see 4 fucking hipsters playing dice in an alley… that shit is funny right?

think about it

Snow Leopard Users, You Will Want This

Joel — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:57:06 +0000

Just discovered a great app: Better Touch Tool. You can assign pretty much any action to any multi touch gesture. Now i can four finger swipe in different directions to move between spaces. works with the new magic mouse too, so now I might even get one…

NBA in OKC

zlindsey — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:48:55 +0000

I am going to an OKC Thunder v. Dallas Mavericks game tomorrow night.

Does anyone know who, other than Kevin Durant, I should be watching and/or rooting for? This is my first NBA experience, other than when I went to an NBADL game two years ago (ouch!).

I hope that Dallas-OKC becomes a good rivalry. The match up shows promise since they are both in the same conference and people from both states don’t like each other, even though we are basically the same.

I’ll let you know how it goes…and how many times this classic Garth Brooks song plays over the loudspeakers.