The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

As long-time readers would know, my life has been anything but an easy one on the health front. Not long after the recession started, I fell ill for most of 2009 and 2010. No doctor nor specialist could seem to fully conclude on what the problem was, so I became like a pinball, being passed around from clinic to clinic between Columbus and Cleveland. I then suffered a gallstone attack in 2011, underwent surgery a week later, and hurting financially from both the recession and health setbacks, I was unable to pay a month's worth of my insurance, and was abruptly dropped from the plan. I attempted to contact other insurance companies to receive coverage, but was rejected due to the Affordable Care Act not being fully implemented at that point and having "preexisting conditions." At the start of 2014, however, I was able to finally attain health insurance coverage again, due to the Affordable Care Act prohibiting the rejection of customers due to preexisting conditions. Stil...

Regardless of what people say, even that one time when at a pricey all-you-can-eat buffet, there is such a thing as too much. This is definitely the case with regard to publicity. Remember the first time you heard a song on the radio and you loved it? Remember the fifty-third time you heard that same song on the radio later that week and you hated it? Me too... ESPN seems to have trouble understanding this concept, however. While I thought former Denver Broncos starting quarterback Tim Tebow was a very mediocre NFL quarterback (yes, I'm being nice), I had nothing against the guy and kind of pulled for him at first. But then ESPN came a-calling, decided to seemingly devote half of its airtime to this one player, and before long, about 72.4% of die-hard football fans (including myself) couldn't stand Tebow. Our dislike for him had nothing to do with his character, or for the most part, not even how he played football (although, some of those throws were mighty painful to watch)...

I had every intention of watching both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, Tuesday through Thursday, from 7 to 11 pm EST. I followed through with that last week for the RNC, but due to Time Warner Cable deciding to leave me without cable starting at almost exactly 7 pm last night (I know - conspiracy, right? Just kidding) until 3:30 in the morning, the only portion of the DNC I could watch was on ABC from 10 to 11, where I watched both San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and First Lady Michelle Obama speak. Due to the limited time I was able to watch the convention last night, I won't be able to provide as thorough of an overview as I had the previous Tuesday through Thursday. If I have cable the next couple nights, though, I will certainly watch the DNC in its entirety as I had initially intended. Just based on what I did in fact see last night, I noticed both striking similarities and differences between the two conventions. As far as similarities go, both speakers ...

After hearing his name mentioned 133 times on Sunday NFL Countdown today, I decided to file a complaint to ESPN. The show was ridiculous in their single focus today and as a lover of NFL football, I want to see more than a single player covered for the majority of a 3-hour program which is supposed to preview the gameS (that's plural) for that day. If you feel similarly, please go to the following site and let ESPN know that their Tebow shtick is getting old. I did and I hope many others do as well. Where to write ESPN: http://espn.go.com/espn/contact Source verifying Tebow's name being mentioned 133 times on Countdown: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/rapid-reports/post/16503231