Author: Brian

I Went to Saratoga this Weekend and am Starting to Set up My New Life with All the Money I Won

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As the title says, yesterday I went to Saratoga Race Course to bet on some ponies. I usually go once a year, and despite this vast well of experience, my betting history typically oscillates between bad and blind luck. Still, it’s always a good time. Horse racing tracks are really odd places in that they’re one of the few places where the socially elite can readily intermingle with the common folk. The poors sit out in the picnic area and watch the races on the big screen, while the rich people sit up in the V.I.P. stands. And though there is a clear theoretical divide in place, anyone can still go pretty much anywhere at any time, so some random dude from Ballston Spa, New York could rub elbows with, say, the founder of the popular website http://www.briansden69.com. And I actually was planning on making a video about the experience. I was going to walk around the track, film myself betting and reacting, then I would sneak into the V.I.P. area and start asking for money because I lost all of mine. Sadly, security wasn’t happy with me. They wouldn’t even let me walk on the horse path, let alone weasel my way into the Forbidden Section. It’s like they didn’t know that my Brazilian Soccer post has over 200 views. So I had to scrap the video idea pretty early, and let’s say it wasn’t good karma.

Going into my final race of the day, I hadn’t won once. In fact, I didn’t win anything last year, either. And, come to think of it, I might not have won anything the year before. I was on a massive losing streak. Considering my storied pedigree of winning, it was a nasty black mark on my record. Knowing how desperately I needed a win, I mustered all of my courage and resolve and placed my remaining money ($10, to be specific) (yes, I am a high roller. I won’t apologize for it) on a little known horse named Black Tide. He finished betting at 8-1 odds, and, surprising all in attendance, he won. I willed myself back into the winners’ circle, and left the track shortly after collecting my bountiful pay day (if you’re wondering why I didn’t just withdraw more money, well, I’m not mentally weak, that’s why). I couldn’t help but think back to my first ever trip to Saratoga, when, in a nearly identical scenario, I won over $400 on a 36-1 longshot named Poseidon’s Warrior with the leftover scraps of money I had in my pocket. The symbolism of the names is not lost on me. I’m not a Horse Racing Guy, I don’t care about stats and what have you. All I look at are the names, and now it’s clear that I need to exclusively bet on horses with water-based names from here on out. No matter how big of a stretch, any horse whose name can somehow be tied back to water gets the official Brian’s Den Seal of Approval.

Now, the obvious question is what to do with the money? If you actually look at how much money I spent throughout the day, I don’t think I really gained anything. But that’s the lame way to think. I’ve $80 free dollars burning a hole in my pocket, and my mind is spinning. I’m thinking it’s probably enough to start a new life in the Caribbean. It might be a hard life, but it would be a new life all the same. But if I rule out moving, what else is there to do? I could open a Swiss Bank Account and deposit it for safe keeping. I could invest all of it, but I wouldn’t know where to turn. I’d probably just wind up buying as much Taco Bell stock as possible, and I don’t know how lucrative that would become. Maybe I could buy a square inch of land in like, Scotland or something and become Lord Brian. I’ll probably wind up just buying something stupid at the mall. Who’s to say? Either way, I’m riding high (get it?) and feeling good.

I’d Rather be Totally Toothless than be an Adult with Braces

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I know this is going to seem like it’s coming out of nowhere, but believe me, it’s not. I’m pretty #triggered right now, and Twitter is to blame. I was just minding my own business, scrolling the timeline, when I see a video retweeted by my guy (and fellow UConn alum classmate (yeah, we had a class together, nbd) (ask him about it, I’m sure he remembers me)) Andre Drummond (by saying Drummond retweeted it, I’m clearly showing that I don’t follow TMZ. Or do I? Hmmm)

Andre, come on, man! What are you doing? How can you walk around with your mouth looking like that and expect to be taken seriously? You’re in the NBA, who cares what your teeth look like? Did you not have a booster you could have extorted into paying for these before you turned pro? Seeing this jarring image brought up all my thoughts about Adults with Braces, mainly that I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever be one. Now, this is like the king saying he’d never be caught dead working the fields. Every dentist I’ve ever had has told me how great my teeth are. I’ve never had braces, cavities, or (save for one nasty gymnastics incident) any other kind of serious dental procedure. So, I understand I might not be the ideal messenger. But still, you’d catch me looking like old Jafar before you saw me looking like our pal Andre.

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I’d say Adults with Braces are probably embarrassed every time they open their mouths, but judging by how often they flash their metallic teeth, I don’t think they have the same time of healthy shame the non-Peter Pan members of society have. Seriously, if you don’t have you braces put in before your junior year of high school, don’t even bother anymore. It’s just not worth it. No matter what, you’ll probably get teased by your classmates because kids and teenagers are horrible people. Don’t add to your misery by having to deal with being the Braces Guy at college or, God forbid, in the workforce. You’ll forever be viewed as lesser. You’ll be a modern day leper. Cursed to be labeled as the weird guy who never grew up. If, for some reason, all of my teeth started shifting position at my advanced age and the dentist said you need braces, I’d just tell him to take them all out so I can go dentures. I solemnly swear that I will never, even if someone has a gun to my head, even if someone has a gun to the head of everyone I’ve ever cared about, even if someone had the launch codes for every nuclear weapon on earth and said he’d fire them all unless I got braces, I’d resist. I will never be an Adult with Braces.

Seeing Drummond also made me more steadfast in my belief that, when (not if) I become an MLB/NBA/NFL GM, I will have a hard rule against athletes with braces. I will not have a team orthodontist, and I will do everything in my power to run all the orthodontists in my city out of town. I don’t even want my fans to look stupid, let alone my players. Who was the last Athlete with Braces who ever won anything? Brett Favre? Look at some of the more recent examples and tell me how you want all of these guys on your team:

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Has there ever been a less surprising thing in the history of America that Dwight Howard wore braces?

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Hey, remember when Nelson Cruz came through in the World Series and then didn’t get busted for steroids? Oh, wait, the opposite happened.

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Sure Willie Cauley-Stein is lifelong friends with Drake, but his braces look bad and the Kings stink.

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Leonard Fournette proves that even the most intimidating people look foolish with braces. And he got drafted by the Jaguars.

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I know he technically won a title while wearing braces, but you can’t tell me Pau Gasol isn’t the most “Braces Guy” guy of all time.

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Larry Donnell suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckssssss.

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You probably think Cristiano Ronaldo is the biggest case against #teamnobraces, and you’d be right. But, you know what they say. The exception proves the rule.

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Giants punter Brad Wing. Yes, the punter has braces. You can’t get any more stereotypical. Makes me wonder if the Giants actually have a scouting department.

The defense rests. Keep the athletes with braces off my team, please.

Scientists Create “True Blue” Chrysanthemums via Genetic Engineering, Open Door for Limitless Possibilities

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source– Roses are red, but science could someday turn them blue. That’s one of the possible future applications of a technique researchers have used to genetically engineer blue chrysanthemums for the first time.

Chyrsanthemums come in an array of colours, including pink, yellow and red. But all it took to engineer the truly blue hue — and not a violet or bluish colour — was tinkering with two genes, scientists report in a study published on 26 July in Science Advances. The team says that the approach could be applied to other commercially important flowers, including carnations and lilies.

“Consumers love novelty,” says Nick Albert, a plant biologist at the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research in Palmerston North, New Zealand. And “people actively seek out plants with blue flowers to fill their gardens”.

Plenty of flowers are bluish, but it’s rare to find true blue in nature, says Naonobu Noda, a plant researcher at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization near Tsukuba, Japan, and lead study author. Scientists, including Noda, have tried to artificially produce blue blooms for years: efforts that have often produced violet or bluish hues in flowers such as roses and carnations. Part of the problem is that naturally blue blossoming plants aren’t closely related enough to commercially important flowers for traditional methods — including selective breeding — to work.

Most truly blue blossoms overexpress genes that trigger the production of pigments called delphinidin-based anthocyanins. The trick to getting blue flowers in species that aren’t naturally that colour is inserting the right combination of genes into their genomes. Noda came close in a 2013 study when he and his colleagues found that adding a gene from a naturally blue Canterbury bells flower (Campanula medium) into the DNA of chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum morifolium) produced a violet-hued bloom.

As everyone’s favorite Flower Expert, I knew I had to weigh in here. To be honest, I’m kind of conflicted. True blue flowers are rare. In fact, they hardly exist naturally. They’re all either mostly purple or really light blue, nothing purely blue. If you manage to get ahold of some truly blue blossoms you’ll be the cock of the walk in your neighborhood and be the source of some serious garden-envy. So creating them artificially completely saps the exclusivity. If they just started giving Ferraris away, what’s the point of driving one anymore? Just because Mrs. Smith down the street is jealous of the beautiful, azure paradise I’ve created in my backyard doesn’t mean she should be able to throw a tantrum and get some for herself. Not only that, but why waste this technology on chrysanthemums? I mean they’re alright, but they’re kind of amateur hour. If I see someone with genetically modified blue chrysanthemums, I’m probably gonna lose a lot of respect for that person. Have some pride in your ornamental plants. If you want some blue flowers, be a man and breed them yourself. People forget that carrots were originally purple. Now look at them. These darn Millennials don’t know the value of hard work and patience anymore.

On the other hand, I’m generally a fan of genetically modified things. They usually taste better, last longer, look better, etc. I like the arrogance it takes to say “you know what, I know that this plant/animal has been the same for hundreds of years after a millennia of evolution and survival, but I don’t like it this way. I’m going to undo all of that with one experiment.” This brings us one step closer to real life blue raspberries, too. I wouldn’t want to eat any because blue raspberry doesn’t taste anything like actual raspberries, but I would like knowing that they finally exist. It kind of opens the door to a lot of cool color combinations. Again, leave the flowers out of it, but how about something like a green lemon. Can’t imagine how that would look. Or some white broccoli, that’d be wild. Or, just spitballing here, an orange with some red inside. I don’t really know if the science is that advanced yet, but I’m kind of just making a wishlist, here.

6’4″, 286lb “8th Grader” Gets Football Scholarship Offers from Alabama, Ole Miss, Has Yet to Produce Birth Certificate

source– Some college football programs will make offers to middle school prospects to gain attention on a national level.

It appears to be much more than that in the case of 6-foot-4, 286-pound Jaheim Oatis.

According to a tweet posted Friday by Oatis, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Alabama have made scholarship offers to the soon-to-be eighth-grader from Columbia, Mississippi.

Alright, I think we can drop the charade, here. We’re in a Safe Space for Free Thinking, so we don’t really have to play along with this. This kid isn’t in 8th grade. He just isn’t. He might technically be in 8th grade, but this kid isn’t 14:

No matter what forged birth certificate or altered class photos or anything they trot out, I’m not going to be fooled. You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to get an age scandal past me, and sorry folks, but this one didn’t work. Not 14.

Now that we’ve gotten past the obvious, I have to commend Alabama here. This is why they’ll always stay on top. Having 28-year-old grown men as freshmen gives them that extra advantage they need to dominate the SEC. Giving someone who should be in the prime of his NFL career another four years of eligibility is an ingenious move. Don’t know why everyone doesn’t just do this. Instead of filling the locker room with scrawny 19-year-olds, just put together a whole team of Danny Almontes. Seems like a foolproof strategy. Just find all the best prospects in the country, bring them down to backwoods Alabama, feed them steroids some good Southern cooking, and have them train at some “middle school”/football lab and bam, you’ve magically discovered the newest “8th grade” phenom who’s ready to play for you when he turns 25. I don’t see any flaws there. As long as all the food and facilities are paid for by an “independent” third party, it’s surely 100% legal, too. And only Alabama has the stones to pull it off. Makes me sad for the state of college football. Now you’ve got to start asking if Alabama Football is bad for the game.

Kyrie Irving Asks for a Trade

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So what do we call it when Windhorst breaks a story? #Windbomb? #GustofWind? Either way, huge, huuuuuuge news out of The Land. Kyrie says he wants out. LeBron, of course, is blindsided by this, just like he was somehow blindsided by David Griffin getting fired. So, he’s the most powerful and influential player in the NBA and no self-respecting front office would ever dream of making any personnel move without consulting him, but he’s always caught off guard whenever anything happens to his team? Huh?

But this isn’t about LeBron, this is about Kyrie. Do I actually think he’ll be traded? Not really. His contract won’t be a problem. All things considered, he’s a huge bargain. But I can’t imagine they’ll be able to get a deal that gives them equal value in return, unless they get a ton of young guys and draft picks, which would mean they’ve accepted that LeBron is moving on after this season. They could do some complex three team deals to try and get Carmelo, but I think I’d rather have Kyrie than #me7o. It’s really put the Cavs in a tough spot, and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what Kyrie wanted. Maybe he got sick of LeBron’s LeBron Act. Maybe his feelings got hurt after Steph spent the Finals torching him and people stopped saying he was better than the two-time MVP. Maybe he just wanted a little more recognition from the Cavs, instead of just taking all the blame when they lose and get shoved into the background when they win, regardless of his performance. No matter what the reasoning is, if he’s serious about this demand, he’ll force the Cavs to show their hand. If they trade him and get anything besides Carmelo in return, then they’re just focusing on the future, and we all know LeBron isn’t sticking around for a rebuild. If they keep him and maybe sign him to a new deal, then all of a sudden they’re saying Kyrie is the most important player on the team and he can do whatever he wants, which will pretty much be an invitation for LeBron to leave town. Everyone knew he was leaving anyway, but now it’s official. Kyrie’s being traded. LeBron’s leaving in 2018. Celtics 2018-19 NBA Champions.

Why Do People Still Care About O.J. Simpson?

O.J. Simpson Sentenced In Kidnapping, Robbery Trial

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I really can’t. Here we are, July 20th, 2017, and O.J. Simpson is the top story. What’s the reason? Did he finally die? No, just his parole hearing. His parole hearing is being broadcast on ESPN. No, really, it is.

There’s a parole hearing on ESPN. And it’s not like they’re the only ones covering it, either. It’s on every news station. On every website. Go on Twitter and it’s all anyone can talk about. And I just can’t wrap my mind around it. He’s an NFL legend, sure, but he played in the 70s. He killed his wife and her brother (allegedly) and was the centerpiece of the most fervently covered trial of all time. That was over twenty years ago. When O.J. was put on trial for murder, the Patriots had been to one Super Bowl in their history. Think about that. That’s how long ago O.J. did anything relevant. But he’s still on my TV screen. Every year there’s a new O.J. documentary. Every year someone comes out with a new book claiming to have a new angle on the cultural importance of the trial, but it’s always the same thing. Seemingly every three months we have to talk about O.J. goddamn Simpson and what it all means. This is all going to happen again when he get out in a few months. People still care about O.J. and I just don’t get it. Why? Why the hell does he still matter? Why can’t he just go away?

He’s not the only person to ever kill anybody, you know. Aaron Hernandez killed a billion people and his trial came and went in an instant. Randall Woodfield played in the 70s, but unless you’ve got a very in-depth knowledge on serial killers, you’ve probably never heard the name before. There have been countless CSI/Criminal Minds-type serial killers who never had the media heyday as the Juice, and most of them killed dozens more people than O.J. did. Sure O.J. was more famous and more charismatic and all that, but what he did wasn’t so remarkably heinous or viscous or depraved that it needs to be talked about almost 25 years later. I don’t need Bob Ley and Jeremy Schaap to pop up on Sportcenter every few weeks to talk about O.J. for hours on end. I really don’t. It’s all so boring to me. Make it go away.

I was two years old when O.J. (allegedly) murdered his wife. I’m not sure my dad even knew what the phrase “a glimmer in his father’s eye” even meant when O.J. was in the NFL. I literally have no emotional connection to him whatsoever. I get that the people that were actually alive during O.J. mania still hold on to memories of his playing days, his movies, or the trial. But, please, let it go. Let him fade into oblivion. I can’t take yet another documentary. I shudder at the thought of more mind-numbingly boring discussions about how O.J. is just a mirror for our society at large. New flash everyone, he’s not. He’s just a guy that killed his wife then stole some memorabilia. He’s a piece of shit. Deal with it. This isn’t the 1950s, pro athletes aren’t all straight-laced, All-American role models living the Hulk Hogan “say your prayers, take your vitamins” lifestyle. Grow up. I think part of the reason the trail blew up so much was that all the old sportswriters had to deal with the fact that one of their favorite athletes, a guy they looked up to, turned out to be not that great of a guy. The vast, VAST, majority of pro athletes should not be role models. They don’t care about you, they don’t care about how much your stupid kid loves them, they don’t care about your fantasy team, none of it. All the people who were so shocked at O.J.’s actions grew up in a time where being a pro baseball player pretty much meant you were everyone’s dad. You were supposed to set an example for all the little kids out there so their actual parents didn’t have to do any of the work. It doesn’t work like that. No pro athlete (with the possible exception of True Yankees) wants anything to do with being a role model. The fact that Charles Barkley even needed to make his famous “I am not a role model” commercial really says it all. Just because they make a lot of money and are on TV all the time doesn’t make them a good person. Know when I learned that? When I saw Roger Clemens throw Mike Piazza’s broken bat back at him in a fit of roid rage. When I saw Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson jump into the stands and start taking fans out left and right. When my favorite baseball player ever (hilariously) took an angry, charging old man by his head and threw him to the ground. When Ugueth Urbina attacked five guys with a machete and poured gasoline on them. When a version of me unused to rigorously parsing through rulebooks and legal documents had to deal with the fact that my Patriots had been accused of filming their opponents. When Ray Lewis obstructed justice (wink wink). When Colt Brennan, the God of Quarterbacking and the Chief Idol of the Brian’s Den, was arrested for DUI. The entire Steroid Era. When my then-favorite player Carmelo Anthony sucker punched Mardy Collins in the heat of a brawl and immediately retreated. When Aaron Hernandez was my favorite football player. I learned pretty quickly to separate the on-field player from the off-the-field person, and I’m better off for it. O.J. represents this big loss of innocence (among other things) for the older generation, but he didn’t have to be. Don’t treat athletes like anything but exactly what they are: athletes. They aren’t role models. They aren’t your brother or father. They’re just people, and if you get seriously disappointed or crushed by their actions, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Small Ohio Town Embroiled in Intense Debate over Zoning Law’s Ruling on Owning Chickens

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 source-COLUMBIANA, Ohio (WKBN) – Columbiana City Council debated a long-standing rule Tuesday night that’s been the topic of a lot of controversy.

Columbiana law set in the 1970s addresses what residents can and cannot keep on their own property. The law has largely been ignored until now, creating months and months of back and forth between council and residents.

But Mayor Bryan Blakeman said the law is very straightforward and that residents are not understanding it.

The dispute started when a Columbiana man said he wanted to raise white tailed deer on his property. Under Columbiana city law, that is illegal.

The problem was, once council said “no” to the white tailed deer, they also had to say “no” to other animals on that prohibited list — including chickens.

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This one is for the few, those happy few, that have been with me from the start. I’m not sure if there’s actually anyone out there who read my Mission Statement, but in it I promised to cover small town zoning politics, a promise that had, to date, gone unfulfilled. Well, the proverbial chickens have finally come home to roost (get it?). I’ve finally found a zoning board story worthy of coverage. A heated debate that threatens to fracture a small Ohio town: are you allowed to have chickens and gardens on your property?

Now, the easy answer seems to be yes. The actual mayor of the town says that things like pets and gardens are allowed under deeper, more arcane pieces of this law. No offense to the surely nice people of Columbiana, Ohio, but I doubt any of them are really all that well versed in the intricacies of their town’s zoning laws. I can totally see where some of them are coming from. If my neighbor randomly started raising chickens, I’d be upset, too. Chickens are loud. They stink. They’re stupid and are liable to wander into my yard and start causing trouble. Now I’ve got to build a fence and re-sod my grass. Thanks, Gary! It’d be a real shame if something untoward happened to your new farm! I’d probably go to my local government, too. I don’t care if this law is real or not, you better start enforcing it. It goes without saying that if you have a problem with your neighbor’s garden you have a gigantic dump in your pants, but the point remains. You shouldn’t be able to just buy a bunch of chickens. I don’t want any new chicken coops anywhere near where I live. Chicken coops just exist in perpetuity, they don’t pop up out of nowhere. Especially not in a residential area. You keep that stuff in the middle of nowhere, where only the poor souls cursed to be farmers have to deal with them. So, yeah, assuming this was the townsfolk’s main complaint, I’m totally with them here. No new chicken coops in my town, and no altering any small town law made before 1980. We have to protect the things that make America America, and absurdly outdated small town politics is the number one thing we have going.

I’ve Never Been as Sure of Anything as I am that the Sonic Guys Hate Each Other in Real Life

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Think of the greatest entertainment duos to ever grace the Earth: Abbott and Costello. Penn and Teller. Mike and the Mad Dog. All of them changed the show business game, and all of them absolutely despised each other. The same can undoubtedly be said about the Sonic Guys.

I don’t know why I thought of this the other night, but I did. Yet another Sonic commercial came on, and one of my friends asked if I thought they liked each other in real life. At first, I didn’t really have an answer. After all, how should I know if they like each other? I don’t know them, I don’t know their lives. But then it never left my mind. Like a bit of popcorn stuck in your teeth, the thought got lodged in my brain and started to fester. I went deep into Sonic Guy lore. I learned the complex cannon inside and out. And the more I watched, the more it became clear: these two would murder each other if they could get away with it. I mean, watch some of these:

I don’t know how you could film these and remain civil. If I had to do a million takes of one of these commercials once I don’t think I would ever speak to my co-star ever again. And these guys have been doing this for YEARS. Wikipedia says they’ve been together since 2004. 13 years of doing commercials together. Just the two of them every time. Every 30 second spot is a two-man play. How the dark-haired straight man hasn’t snapped and called out the other guy for all his stupid antics and bullshit is beyond me. How the lighter-haired one hasn’t tried to forcefully remove the stick out of the other guy’s ass is incomprehensible. If the next ad doesn’t have them coming to blows I might think about boycotting Sonic (not really). I’ve never seen a pair with more built up tension. They need some release. They need to brawl. They need to kiss. They need to do whatever it takes to relieve some of this stress they have built up. I’m actually worried about their mental health. Sonic is torturing these guys by continuing to force them to work together. Sure, they probably have gotten millions of dollars out of it, but at what cost? How much of themselves have they thrown away in pursuit of fame? Sonic has been there every step of the way, whispering sweet nothings in their ears and enabling this self-destructive behavior. They’ve turned two star-crazed men into angry, sexually frustrated zombies, all to sell a few more delicious burgers and tater tots. For shame, Sonic, for shame.

Game of Thrones is Officially Back Tonight

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Winter is here, bitch!!!! Feels like it’s been 8 years since the last episode aired. I can barely even remember what happened anymore. Oh, yeah, 60% of the relevant characters died. Gonna be tough to top that.

As someone who’s been on the GOT Express since season 1, I’ve experienced every off-season, and, as is natural for what is now the most popular show in the world, the hype surrounding this season is at an all-time high. Literally everyone in the world is talking about it. From the fantasy geeks cool people like me to the trendiest socialites. It’s pretty much the only show left with such a massive following. It’s probably the most culturally-important thing on TV right now, and, naturally, people are excited for its return. And this season is going to be awesome. It has to be. There’ll be dragons and White Walkers and Sam reading books and lots of death. What else could you want? But, deep down in places I only talk about in my Safe Space (www.briansden69.com), I’m a little disappointed. For a show that prided itself on re-writing all the classic fantasy tropes and blurring the lines of morality more than Robin Thicke, I can’t really see a scenario where the series doesn’t end with a pretty standard “good vs. evil” final battle. It’s already taking shape: Jon Snow will inevitably join Daenerys when she arrives in Westeros, which will mean literally every good guy will be on the Targaryan side while every bad guy is either with the Lannisters or a White Walker. Doesn’t that feel kind of cheap? In the earlier seasons there were no good guys or bad guys (outside comic book villain Joffrey), just people whose unique circumstances surrounding them shaped their actions and outlook on the world. The whole point was that you had no control over your life and viewing morality as just “good” or “bad” was pointless because anyone could become the hero or villain. Now it’s going to end with all the good guys teaming up to fight the bad guys? I mean, it’ll still be awesome and I’m going to love it, but I can’t help but feel a little cheated. I don’t even know how I’d end it. Maybe George R.R. doesn’t either, and that’s why it’s taking him so long to finish the books. Either way, I wish the show writers hadn’t just taken the easy way out. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, though. This is Game of Thrones, after all. And as the old saying goes, anything can happen on Game of Thrones.