I don’t really have a point to this post, other than I’d like to issue a formal thank-you to Entertainment Weekly for the eye candy on the cover.

I already understood that there are two kinds of cars you should fear most on the road, but I get periodic reminders. The first is a giant truck, because they’ll run you off the road just for the fun of it. You have to get out of the way because you’ll suffer immense damage if you don’t. The second kind of car you should fear is a 1993 Ford Taurus with rusty wheel wells, at least one panel painted with primer, and an bouquet of dongles swaying below the rear view mirror. This person has no insurance, no money, and nothing to lose if they hit you.

If reincarnation is possible, I want to come back as a dog with an affectionate owner who takes me for rides on the freeway and lets me stick my head out of the window.

Unhappy people tailgate, weave, and suck down their Starbucks with all the unfulfilling bitterness of a boozehound drinking bad whiskey alone in a dive bar on a Wednesday night.

Hybrid drivers are, I am now convinced, the greatest producers of Smug in the state.

I think the reason that I never developed a taste for baseball is that baseball fans are exactly like Dungeons and Dragons players, and I could never get into that. RPGs that don’t involve software with killer graphics and lots of explosive weaponry lose my attention pretty quick. A friend of mine tried to get me to play Werewolf: The Apocalypse once and my brain actually crawled out of my mouth and started smacking me around. I like doing math, but not when I’m playing games. Munchkin is the only geeky card game I enjoy, because it doesn’t take itself too seriously and you only have to count on a number line between 1 and 10.

Baseball and RPGs appeal to exactly the same sort of personality; the person who likes being an under appreciated connoisseur, constantly muttering about how the slope-browed masses can’t appreciate the subtle and nuanced game play, the delight of meticulously tracking statistics, and snobbishly one-upping each other with obscure factoids. Baseball and D&D geeks won’t shut up about how all the mouth-breathers out there can’t appreciate the craftsmanship of the game. Blah, blah, blah. None of that compares to TOUCHDOWN!!!

What I really don’t understand is boxing. It doesn’t even qualify as a sport to me. Real sports like football are ritualized warfare, replicating the ancient battlefields when each side sent out its chosen champion rather than engage in mass slaughter. When people pile into a stadium, proudly wearing team colors, it’s no different from the fateful day that Achilles and Hector met outside the walls of Troy and the Greek and Trojan armies looked on.

I’ve sometimes been called a hypocrite for hating boxing because I really love Rocky movies, especially Rocky IV and Rocky Balboa. But I’ll counter with the point that they are in fact fictional movies. I don’t like killing people either but that didn’t mean that 300 wasn’t the awesomest movie ever. Rocky stands as an allegory of good versus evil, the rewards of pursuing goals wholeheartedly, and beating the crap out of commies who killed Apollo Creed. That I can get behind. Two grown men just standing in a ring beating each other up for no good reason just seems stupid to me. At least get a ball and some other guys involved to make it a little more interesting.