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arrestyourdebt · 5 years ago

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A while back I was feeling rather bored with life because I didn’t have a hobby. I tried to pick different hobbies here and there but nothing really stuck. I quickly lost interest in everything I tried because I didn’t really have a passion for it.

Not too long ago I stumbled into something I absolutely LOVE to do. I started a blog and I find myself thinking about strategies and different ways to help people all day and night. What started as a hobby has quickly turned into an obsession. It has reenergized me to levels I didn’t think were possible. Blogging may not be right for you, but I encourage you to explore different hobbies to find something that excites you if you have found yourself stuck in a life rut.

What Hobbies Do You Currently Have?

A while back when I was in a rut, I did not have any hobbies. As I got older, I lost interest in things I previously liked to do. I no longer had time to play video games for hours on end and I found myself in a revolving daily routine. My daily routine involved the following sequence:

Get up and go to work

Work all day

Come home, eat dinner, go to bed

Repeat

Weekends were not much more exciting. They involved doing yard work and going to church on Sundays. Don’t get me wrong, I was still happy with life, but I was just bored with life in general. I wasn’t being challenged.

Signs You Need A Hobby

If you find yourself bored with life and no longer challenged, I encourage you to find an inexpensive hobby to reinvigorate your life. Just like being debt free can change your life, so can finding a hobby you are passionate about.

I can not tell you how my life has improved 10 fold now that I started blogging. I am challenged, energized, and my life has a new purpose. I help people on a daily basis and I get to use my creative side as well. Combining everything I enjoy, (reading, writing, creating, helping others) I stumbled upon blogging and it has been the perfect hobby I wish I had discovered sooner.

Enough about me – let’s focus on ways to help you get your fire and energy back!

New Hobbies To Try

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Here is a list of 28 hobbies that you can start with a minimum amount of money.

Category: Online Hobbies

Start A Blog

Ok, I had to start this post with my absolute favorite hobby. If you’re a creative person who loves helping others or telling a story, blogging may be the perfect fit for you. I seriously wish I would have discovered this years ago.

A blog can be whatever you make it. It can be a private journal for yourself or you can create elaborate articles to help people with their problems. There really is no limit to what you can do with them. I get the enjoyment out of writing all my posts as well as designing all the graphics and images for it. It hits every intellectual creative aspect I enjoy.

You can also start a blog for pretty cheap. My current blog is rather large and I utilize a bunch of plugins, email services, marketing avenues, etc that can get rather expensive. However, if you are just starting out, you can start a blog for less than $10 dollars a month.

If you are just starting out, I recommend signing up through Blue Host to keep your costs way low while exploring this as a hobby.

Click here for my link to the Blue Host Blogging Platform.

Fill Out Online Surveys

Online surveys are great time killers and many of them will actually pay you to complete them. I personally use SwagBucks when I feel like killing time and I earn points that I can exchange for money and gift cards.

Check out SwagBucks through my link here.

Create Products on Fiverr

Fiverr is an online marketplace where people create content and sell it online. People create graphics for businesses, write content for bloggers, and everything in between. I used Fiverr to find an artist to create my logo for Arrest Your Debt. If you’re creative and like designing, writing, or a myriad of other things, you may be able to sell your work on Fiverr as a hobby.

Check out Fiverr through my link here.

Find A New PodCast

I recently started listening to PodCasts on my way to work. PodCasts are a great way to learn more about a new topic, be entertained by a comedian, or a combination of both. There are many online PodCast episodes you can download or stream online and the topics are only limited to your imagination!

Play Fantasy Sports

I started playing fantasy football years ago and it was one of the best decisions I made. A good friend of mine invited me to play in their league but I was hesitant because at the time I was not a big football fan. Playing fantasy football quickly turned me into a football fan and I know more players and their stats than I ever thought possible.

If football isn’t your thing, they also have fantasy soccer, baseball, hockey, basketball – you name it. You can sign up for a team through Yahoo, ESPN, and other networks for free. For more information about Fantasy Sports, here is a quick overview:

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Category: Outdoor Hobbies

Going outdoors can have calming effects on your mind and soul. I find that I can reset my mind and de-stress by jogging outside rather than on a treadmill. Try one of these outdoor hobbies to calm your mind.

Hiking

If you live in a city, it may take you half an hour or so to find an area to hike. You don’t need to be too far outside the city to get away from the stress of city life. The hustle and bustle of the cars driving by and the overall noise can add stress to your life. Spending time in nature by hiking on a small trail or a rocky mountain can help you regain your focus and energy. The calming effects are definitely worth it!

Camping

When was the last time you went camping? For many of us, we have not been camping since childhood. Camping can be a great way to explore nature and have a bit of an adventure. Depending on how rugged you are, you can camp at a local campground with provided restroom facilities, or you can rough it without any amenities!

Plant A Vegetable Garden

There’s nothing like the taste of an organic vegetable garden. If you have never experienced the taste of freshly grown produce, I suggest you give gardening a try. When I first started a garden, I didn’t know anything about how to grow vegetables. It turns out, it’s relatively simple if you watch a couple of Youtube videos and pay attention to the planting season. I quickly found out through trial and error what grows during the winter, and what doesn’t.

You can either plant a vegetable garden in the ground or you can use a raised garden bed if you are short on room. These raised garden beds from Amazon.com are a great option if you have limited space to start!

Check out these raised garden beds on Amazon.com

Plant A Flower Garden

In the past, my wife would kill everything she planted. However, with a bit of trial and error, she has now gotten the hang of it – and I love it! She now regularly plants perennial and annual flowers near our entryways and porch swing. It adds beauty to our yard and is also relaxing for her while she does it. Below are some of her plants. (Yes, there are a lot of cacti because we live in Arizona)

Running/Jogging/Walking

For me, exercising outside is much more beneficial than working out in a gym. I see similar physical results but being outside gives me the opportunity to think and relax. Working out in a noisy gym is distracting and doesn’t usually relax me the same way running outside does.

When my wife first started running, she started with an app on her phone called, “Couch To 5K.” It worked wonders for her and now she can easily run 5+ miles no problem. I, however, am still working on it….

If you need a little motivation, check out the motivational free app, C25K in your app store!

Ride A Bike

Disclaimer – Biking can be a very expensive hobby. Bicycles can range anywhere from your $100 Walmart special to a $5,000 road bike. Even after the bicycle purchase, you will still run into maintenance costs for new tires, chains, etc. This is not a cheap hobby but it can be a great way to get into shape while enjoying the outdoors!

Category: Learn A New Skill

When I was a kid, I had a list of things I always wanted to learn how to do. The top two things I wanted to learn were:

I Wanted To Learn How To Juggle

I Wanted To Learn How To Moon Walk

Now before you ask me for my autograph, I want you to know that with enough practice – you can do stupid human tricks like me too!

Seriously though, I spent hours as a kid trying to learn how to do these two things. Think back to when you were younger. What have you always wanted to learn how to do but never took the time? Learn a new skill today!

Learn A New Language

In the United States, most of us know only know English. Some of us dabbled in Spanish because our high school forced us, but for the most part, we are not very linguistic. In other countries, it is not uncommon for people to know 2-3-4 or even 5 languages! If you ever wanted to learn a new language, what are you waiting for?

Babble is a language learning program with great reviews. Right now they have a 35% off a 6-month subscription promotion through this link here.

Rosetta Stone is also one of the old time tested and proven ways to learn a new language.

Learn To Play An Instrument

Recently my sister in law started taking piano lessons in her 30s. This can be an expensive hobby if you need to purchase an instrument and pay for lessons. However, a quick search on YouTube will bring up plenty of free lessons depending on the instrument you want to learn. It’s never too late to learn how to play an instrument!

Learn To Sew/Crochet/Knit

Many people enjoy working with their hands and creating masterpieces at the same time. If you have always wanted to know how to sew, crochet, or knit, now is the perfect time to learn how. A quick search on Amazon will offer some inexpensive books to get you started.

Learn Magic Tricks

I went through a phase a few years ago where I wanted to learn how to perform card tricks. Sleight of hand intrigued me and I wanted to learn how they did it. I bought a book about card tricks for beginners and watched several videos on how to perform them.

Category: Improve Your Finances

If you are struggling with your finances, I highly recommend you take the time to learn how to control your money rather than your money controlling you.

Start A Budget

Starting a budget is the #1 way to take control of your money and to improve your finances. I have written several articles about budgeting and have created a free budget printable that you can download here!

Check out my related article: How Do I Create A Monthly Budget? to get started.

Learn About Different Investments

My first rule in investing is I will not put my money towards anything I do not understand. I encourage you to follow this same principle to avoid falling for a get rich quick scheme.

I wrote an article about investing here: What Should I Do With $10,000?[Answered]

Start Couponing

I never had the time or patience to get into the extreme couponing but I know several people who do. You can definitely save a ton of money by using coupons effectively. Here are two great articles on how to coupon if you are a beginner:

Your Money Geek – Grocery Shopping With Coupons

The Practical Saver – Couponing For Beginners

Category: Sharpen Your Mind

Keep your mind active with these great hobbies.

Reading

Have you read a good book lately? I went years without reading after I finished college but a while back I started up again. It’s amazing the amount of knowledge that is in a library and how much more you can connect to a book. Some of my favorite books can be found in this article here: My Top 10 Reading List (2018)

Write A Story

Did you know that Stephenie Meyer started writing the Twilight book series in her spare time as a stay at home mom? I’m not saying we all are bound to become multi-millionaires like her, but if you enjoy writing you never know what you could create!

Put Together Jigsaw Puzzles

It has been years since I sat down and completed a jigsaw puzzle. If this is something you enjoy, you can pick up many different puzzles on Amazon for under $10 dollars!

Adult Coloring Books

I will admit, I have been tempted to pick up some of these coloring books in the past. Unfortunately, right now all my free time is used up on my blogging otherwise I would totally buy some! If you haven’t seen these adult coloring books before, check them out here on Amazon.com!

Put Together Legos

Since I have three children under the age of ten, they give me an excuse to play with legos. Putting together legos is extremely calming but I will warn you, they can be super addictive! In addition, legos can also get quite expensive so make sure you budget accordingly if this is a hobby you want to start.

Yoga

Don’t be tricked into paying an expensive membership fee to attend a yoga studio. Yoga can be practiced at home by following YouTube videos. Yoga is a great way to improve your flexibility and sharpen your mind at the same time.

Explore Your Genealogy

How far back does your family ancestry go? If you don’t have that one family member who has done the extensive background on your family, this could definitely be an interesting hobby for you. Tracking your family line back on both your mother and father’s side is extremely time-consuming. You can either do this through public records, marriage and death certificates on your own or you can use a company like Ancestry.com.

Learn To Meditate

Some of the most intelligent people on this planet meditate on a daily basis. I started to meditate a while back by using the free app, “Headspace.” If you want to try meditating to clear your mind and improve your focus, check out Headspace here!

There you have it. 28 of the most reasonable hobbies you can start with a minimal amount of money – with a few exceptions thrown into the mix. I avoided some of the more obscure hobbies such as stamp collecting (no offense if that’s your hobby) to bring you the most comprehensive list that I have seen.

What other great hobbies did I miss? I’m sure there are a ton, comment below – I’d love to hear what hobbies you currently have that could help my readers!

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Need A Hobby? Try One Of These 28 Ideas! [2019] A while back I was feeling rather bored with life because I didn't have a hobby. I tried to pick different hobbies here and there but nothing really

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nickyschneiderus · 6 years ago

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No more politicians on late-night comedy

It has become a trend in late-night comedy to apologize for enabling President Donald Trump.

The latest mea culpa came from Jimmy Fallon, who apologized last week for his infamous hair-tousling interview of the commander-in-chief back when he was a general election candidate in September 2016. He told the Hollywood Reporter, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to make anyone angry—I never do and I never will. It’s all in the fun of the show. I made a mistake. I’m sorry if I made anyone mad. And, looking back, I would do it differently.”

Fallon isn’t the first late-night star to apologize for hosting Trump. Several Saturday Night Live cast members have expressed regret for allowing Trump to star on the show almost exactly one year before the 2016 general election. Shorty after Trump was elected, Kate McKinnon came onstage dressed as Hillary and played Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” in an attempt to make up for the show’s collective enabling of Trump. The gesture was meant as one of defiance, but to many observers, it came off as far too little, too late.

While some reflection about the media’s collective normalizing of Trump is certainly in order, this particular problem has been with us far longer than the Donald’s political career. Politicians shouldn’t go on late-night shows at all. Politicians have been using comedy to normalize their views and rehabilitate their image for decades. It’s time we stopped letting them.

Imagine this. Two months before a presidential election, a candidate who would go on to win the country’s highest office, only to become mired in scandal and divide the nation, cracks the audience up as a guest of one of America’s most-watched comedy shows. Of course, I’m talking about the time Richard Nixon appeared on Laugh-In and said “Sock it to me?” in 1968.

One key difference with Laugh-In is that the writers were under no delusions that they were being subversive or challenging the status quo. Head writer Paul W. Keyes was such a diehard Nixon supporter that he had even written jokes for his speeches. Keyes wanted Nixon to take a little bit of the sour note off of his image, which many on the right blamed for his 1960 loss to John F. Kennedy.

Since its origins, SNL has allowed politicians of both parties on its air. In 1976, President Gerald Ford made a cameo after Chevy Chase popularized a caricature of the president as clumsy and aloof. Presidential hopefuls have appeared on the show regularly ever since: Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, John McCain, and many other politicians have made appearances.

Why do politicians agree to go on a show that is ostensibly built to mock them? Just like Nixon, other politicians know the appearance will humanize them. Ford only agreed to go on SNL because of the popularity of Chase’s sympathetic impression. It is delusional to think that every politician since hasn’t made the same calculation.

Saturday Night Live/YouTube

It is ludicrous to think that you can have a politician on your show and satire them effectively. Being backstage or in the writers’ room means you are literally in on the joke. Just look back at Tina Fey’s incredibly sympathetic Sarah Palin impression which culminated with a cameo by the former Alaska governor. You have to wonder if the hockey mom harbinger of the Tea Party would have faded from our collective consciousness long ago if it wasn’t for Fey’s impression. SNL clearly seems to think Fey and Palin’s legacies are connected: The show had Fey reprise her role as the would-be vice president this year.

You might argue that more traditional late-night shows, as opposed to sketch shows, have a long history of political guests. This is true. Johnny Carson helped rehabilitate Nixon for a national audience as well. But, Carson didn’t consider himself a political comedian, and if anything he sought to defend the status quo. Carson having political guests is a great argument for why today’s more politically minded hosts shouldn’t. Carson knew something that today’s comedians don’t: Politicians can be your friends or your targets. They can’t be both.

This problem has become more pronounced in recent years, as the line between journalism and comedy has blurred. While Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were always careful to insist they weren’t in the journalism business, the shows that have followed in their footsteps have had an explicitly journalistic feel. Many of them have journalists on staff.

Meanwhile, late-night hosts like Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel have taken on a more earnest and thoughtful pose under Trump. It seems that every network late-night host is more concerned trying to be the next Walter Cronkite than joke writing. The desire for reasoned voices in the age of Trump and the legacy of Stewart—who always carefully made sure to dress and talk like a newsman, but never be a newsman—has led to this blurring between journalism and comedy.

By hiring journalists and looking like journalists, these satirists fall into the trap of needing to “represent both sides” and “maintain objectivity” like actual journalists. This isn’t the goal of satire. You don’t hear from the Archbishop of Canterbury in The Life of Brian. Jonathan Swift didn’t reserve column space for the British prime minister in A Modest Proposal. Hitler doesn’t make a winking cameo at the end of The Great Dictator.

Satire and journalism are very different things.

As American comedy has adopted this more earnest, journalistic tone, the idea that comedy should be attacking politicians has faded further from view. Kimmel recently played a friendly game of basketball with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Trevor Noah’s debate with Tomi Lahren was lauded as respectful by all the “serious pundits.” (I would characterize the interview as “flirtatious,” and neither is a good look.)

It is clear that having a politician on a late-night comedy show for a cameo doesn’t make the bit funnier. It doesn’t make the satire sharper. Generally, it benefits the politician while offering the show nothing beyond a potential ratings boost. (The ratings of Trump’s SNL episode were the highest in years, good for them.)

At best, a politician’s appearance on a late-night show will be viewed as harmless. At worst, as was the case with Trump’s SNL appearance, it can cause the audience to lose faith in a show’s comedic abilities. It can make you look like a sellout, cozying up like a house cat.

blacktreetv/YouTube

It doesn’t even help the writers. Comedy writer and Struggle Session podcast co-host Jack Allison would know. Allison is a veteran of a major network late-night show, and as someone who has seen behind the curtain, he feels much the same way.

“I say no more politicians on late night shows, or any non-news television, really. Our art and entertainment is at its best when it speaks truth to power, and it’s pretty hard to do that when you’re walking on eggshells because you hope to get a viral video with the people who hold that power. When politicians go on comedy shows especially, they’re getting the free benefit of a highly paid staff of people working together to make them seem not only funny but more human. We should be using our platforms to hold these peoples’ feet to the fire, not for building them up and helping them look cute. I don’t care if it’s Obama getting coffee in cars with comedians, Joe Biden visiting Leslie Knopf, or Trump hosting an entire episode of SNL to promote his presidential run—keep these people off TV, and don’t force your writing staff to write their propaganda,” Allison told the Daily Dot.

If Allison understands this and the writers of Laugh-In understood this in 1968, it’s obvious that today’s late-night hosts are either willfully ignorant or blinded by their pursuit of ratings.

There is no comedic value to having a politician on a late-night show. There is, however, huge potential to damage the show’s credibility. The only positive that could come out of having a politician on as a guest is that the host and their staff could gain more access and goodwill from these elected officials, and be commended for their commitment to civil discourse.

Access, goodwill, and civility are no recipe for good satire.

from Ricky Schneiderus Curation https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/no-more-politicians-on-late-night/

#Ricky Schneiderus Curation

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flauntpage · 8 years ago

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The NFL Isn't Swinging Back to Superstar RBs Anytime Soon

Welcome to the NFL Underground Mailbag. Ask Chris your question about the NFL, general sports, or cultural minutiae at [email protected]. Follow him @HarrisFootball.

Sam P.: Do you think offenses like the Cowboys—where one workhorse running back is featured—are remnants of the past, or will the NFL eventually swing back to workhorses?

Everything goes in cycles. First we aren't wearing shower caps as part of our outfits, then we are, then we aren't again. What makes strategic NFL sense in 2017 will look like the Wildcat in 2027, by which time our robot overlords will control flesh-and-blood quarterbacks via joysticks and rectal implants.

Right now it's hard for you to imagine a pro-football-viewing public that doesn't prefer the five-wide, spread-out offenses of today, but that's only because you don't realize that we're just a couple years away from letting defenders carry homemade implements to snip the Achilles' tendons of opposing receivers. That oncoming trend will simultaneously slow down passing games and indulge in our collective bloodlust. Win-win.

Just gotta break through. Photo by Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

For as long as the NFL remains incredibly pass-happy, though, NFL teams aren't incentivized to build around a single expensive running back. Better to employ a team of interchangeable parts, none of whom carry the full burden of surviving 20-plus car crashes per week.

Frankly, you don't need to be excellent to play running back in the league right now. There are great rushers, but perhaps only…five of them? If that? Most teams have a bunch of meh in their backfields and shuffle them around both to keep them healthy and to lessen the impact when one of them decides he's worth a mint.

As recently as 2012, five running backs eclipsed 300 carries in a single season; six RBs have done so over the four combined seasons since. Ten years ago we used to talk about the Curse of 400! Zeke Elliott was excellent as a rookie—and the only rusher to top 300 totes last year—but he has two possible career paths: one where he's a bell-cow for a few years, gets hurt and/or expensive, and flames out early, and one where the Cowboys prolong his career while also giving sportsball morons an excuse to gripe about the old days.

I guess I do believe that everything old is new again, and eventually NFL offenses will realize they can kill dime defenses with great power rushing like Dallas did last year. When that happens, RBs will be superstars once more—but we're not there yet, and we're probably not close. Wake me when the Achilles' snipping starts.

Taylor C.: I'm curious about John Ross with the Bengals. Do you see him having a similar effect as Tyreek Hill did with the Chiefs last year, or is their only similarity that they can each outrun a train?

On my podcast, one of the most annoyingly incoherent things I regularly say—among many!—is "We can't legislate usage." Especially when it comes to one of the NFL's daffiest franchises, it's impossible to definitively state how John Ross's rookie season will go. A.J. Green gets fed first in Cincinnati, but I just got through talking about how insanely pass-happy the NFL is. Even if Green stays healthy and tops 180 targets, there'll be 400 more available for everyone else.

John Ross with the Bengals. Photo by Sam Greene/Cincinnati Enquirer via USA TODAY NETWORK

Ross is probably faster and quicker than Hill. His one year of collegiate dominance featured dozens of highlights showing off ridiculous acceleration and change-of-direction that remind me of Antonio Brown. What's interesting about the Hill/Ross comparison is that each guy had a tough time finding a position: Hill was a too-small running back who gradually shifted to a utility role, while Ross was a corner in his freshman year. As such, neither guy is a finished product, but each is a total game-wrecker with the ball.

The questions about Hill are whether he can become polished enough getting off the line as an outside receiver to become an Odell Beckham–type superstar, and whether the conservative Chiefs will give him the chance; in '16, 27 of his 83 targets were thrown behind the line, making him the screen-heaviest WR in the NFL by percentage.

I have more faith that the Bengals will give Ross more clear-out duties, and that he'll make big plays down the field (whereas last year Hill had only 11 targets that traveled 20 or more air yards). Of course, I can't know whether the Bengals will bomb it to Ross as a rookie any more than the Chiefs did for Hill last year, because—say it with me now—we can't legislate usage.

Mike M.: What's the best concert you've ever been to?

In researching my big music novel, War On Sound, I saw hundreds of shows and talked to dozens of bands. Many of the stories I experienced myself or heard about wound up in the book. Who am I kidding: most of them did. I'm not that creative.

I wish these stories made me look cool (Milla Jovovich once stepped on my foot at a Toad The Wet Sprocket show—hi, I'm old!), but that's not my lot in life.

My standard response to this question has always been: Cracker. This was the mid 90s in Austin, at the long-gone Liberty Lunch. Counting Crows opened, and nobody had ever heard of them, and we thought they were pretty good. (As it turned out, we were probably wrong.) Then Cracker came on.

They rocked, but as the show wore on, it became obvious they couldn't hear themselves very well. David Lowery launched into "Eurotrash Girl," a deep cut hidden on their "Kerosene Hat" record that made me feel cool for knowing it. But the band stopped partway through, and Lowery shouted into the microphone, "These monitors are for shit!" Then he picked up one of the monitors (speakers that face the musicians so they can hear what they're playing or singing) and passed it into the crowd, where we surfed it out over our heads into the middle of the club.

The Liberty Lunch bouncers were not amused. They tore into the audience, shoving kids aside, punching one dude who was unlucky enough to be holding the monitor over his head, and wrenching away the speaker. Someone reinstalled it back on the stage, and Cracker somehow wasn't kicked out of the club, and resumed their set.

It was great. They said thank you. They did an encore. They said thank you. They did another encore. The Liberty Lunch lights came up, everybody yelled and turned away from the stage, the crew relaxed as we beat our retreat…and then the band came out again. Lowery said, "We never finished this song," and proceeded to play "Eurotrash Girl" from the beginning, an eight-minute number, as one final fuck-you to the L.L.

Being a drunk idiot who fancied himself an anti-establishmentarian, but who was actually a wet-behind-the-ears school newspaper editor, I shouted along gleefully and went home happy. And with some of my hearing intact!

Tore B.: How well do you think you'd do as a real-life NFL GM?

I'm sure I'd suck.

My NFL analysis often amounts to: stop retrofitting reasons for things. Usually good players play well and bad players play poorly, and good teams play well and bad teams play poorly, and usually the reasons those things happen don't involve where the game was played or who had extra motivation or which players can't stand each other or any other of the million clichés with which sports fans are bombarded because the media is basically a bunch of lazy assholes who don't think you can tell when they're picking stuff out of their asses.

Don't get me wrong. The interpersonal stuff does matter. It matters bigly! My point is just that we never get the real truth. As fans, we're privy to lies and political answers and little else.

A leader of men. Photo by Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

The hardest thing to do is to get the members of any complex organization to pull in the same direction, let alone a complex organization filled with violent alpha males with the collective IQ of a loaf of raisin bread. You have to do stuff like bury footballs and chop off your punter's foot in the name of motivation.

It takes a one-in-a-million leader to be able to spout that garbage or just flat-out scare players into fucking up less than their opponents. I think I have a pretty decent handle on the talent evaluation side of the NFL, but managing to keep 53 knuckleheads out of prison is almost certainly beyond me.

Michael R.: How in the world are the NBA playoffs more popular than the NHL playoffs? Has the world suffered a collective massive head wound?

The NBA playoffs blow. They are terrible. Super-teams often make for exciting finals but everything before those finals are a joke. Nice of the Rockets to show up Thursday night, huh? Nice of the Bulls to look like they gave a crap, too. Home teams on the verge of elimination are now 0-10 this year. The average margin of victory in those ten games is 16.2 points. Overall, 17 games have been decided by at least 20 points. Warriors–Cavs III has been foreordained since last June, and the media have been trying to distract us with MVP talk for months.

By contrast, the NHL playoffs are awesome. The games are close. Road teams sometimes win. Underdogs sometimes win. For a fan of the two teams, a hockey Game 7 is the closest humankind has yet come to collectively shitting out its own heart. If you like the NBA playoffs more than the NHL playoffs, you're (a) a hopeless idiot; (b) Charles Barkley; or (c) both.

Tom M.: You planning on coming back to Austin in 2017?

It's already over 90 degrees there, with three months of 100-plus looming. Cracker better be doing a fantastic version of "Eurotrash Girl."

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