Quantcast
Channel: Caveman Circus
Viewing all 21705 articles
Browse latest View live

A Few Glorious Clips For Your Consideration

0
0

….and he accomplished nothing

 

He got a little too close

 

Good Guy Police Officer

 

When someone gives you a present you’ve already got.

 

V‪ikings fans are handling things about as well as can be expected…

 

This is actually a deleted scene from “Bring It On”

 

Letting the horses out in the snow

 

This kid is about to steal your girl!

 

Dude, what happened while I was passed out?

 

One year anniversary of the scream heard round the world 

 

The post A Few Glorious Clips For Your Consideration appeared first on Caveman Circus.


The Daily Man-Up

0
0

Physically, confident guys are much more calm or deliberate in their movements. There’s not tonnes of figiting etc. They just seem to be able to settle into a position and become relaxed. This also goes for walking – which comes across as more deliberate and natural. They’re also not generally concerned about how much space they occupy. Not like, randomly sprawling, but just able to keep square shoulders and longer strides. Especially as a woman, you can tell how confident they are when they’re hitting on you, based on the space they’re comfortable taking up. More confident guys tend to start closer to you (for instance when they sit down next to you at a bar), and not be so electrically aware of touching. Unconfident guys tend to get a bit jumpy, and sometimes almost glaze over when space starts to be closed.

In terms of speech, there’s rarely much wavering, no squeaking. All relatively level or appropriate. They’re not afraid to be loud, and are less apologetic if they’re too loud (although I dislike that last bit). Some guys are more measured with their Words and are comfortable saying less, some talk tonnes. But you never really get the sense that they’ve withdrawn or are critiquing themselves. They’re present and aware of what they’re saying.

In terms of eye contact, its moderate. They’re not afraid to look away from the person they’re talking to at the appropriate moment, and there’s no sense of stress or anxiety if the other person looks away either. It’s either an awareness that connection can happen without tonnes of effort (that’s the ideal type of connection) or that they are still in play, important, whatever, even if a person is a bit more withdrawn. Its also an honest eye contact. No hesitation, straight into your eyes. There’s a clear sense they’re at ease with being scrutinised.

There’s always going to be a sense of unfazedness in normal circumstances. I know I fuck up my coffee order if I’m asked suddenly, but confident people don’t seem to choke on their Words nearly as often. They’re also fine when things go minorly wrong. Getting lost isn’t an issue, they feel they can handle that (provided you have no where to be). Facing a drunk guy is just a case of going with the flow. there’s often a sense that if something more serious happens, they’re scanning the group to see just what kind of leader is needed and who’s best suited. Some fall to ego here, but some are also capable of gracefully taking a back seat and adding advice when its needed.

Smiles tend to be more forth coming, but this could also be to do with confident people being more out going. If they don’t smile often, then there’s more of a calculating sense to them. They’re comfortable being outside a group and watching reactions or just listening.

Basically, it comes down to ease. How at ease they are in and within themselves tends to translate to the ease at which they can do things. There’s less fretting on their role and more attentiveness to the situation at hand.

The post The Daily Man-Up appeared first on Caveman Circus.

A Tribute To The Majestic Beauty Of Nature

0
0

Yellow Mountain, Huangshan, China 

 

 Zion National Park

 

Havasu Falls, Arizona

 

Avatar Mountains – Zhangjiajie, China – Also known as inspiration for Pandora P.S

 

Seceda, Italy

 

Devils Tower National Monument, WY

Suðurland, Iceland

 

Telluride, Coloardo

 

Lake Sorvagsvatn, Faroe Islands

 

Mt McKinley

 

 

Isle of Skye, Scotland

 

Squamish B.C. Canada

 

Mt. St Helens

 

Sedona, Arizona

 

Southern Utah

 

Schwangau, Germany

 

Napali Coast, Kauai, Hawaii

 

Lake Moraine

 

Yosemite

 

Reflection Canyon

 

Swiss Alps

 

Haifoss, Iceland

 

Naukluft Park, Namibia


The post A Tribute To The Majestic Beauty Of Nature appeared first on Caveman Circus.

25 Handy Foreign Words That Don’t Exist In English

0
0

Have you ever found yourself struggling to find the perfect word? You have an experience that feels so…so…but no words exist. You want to insult someone but can’t find a word vicious enough. You want to speak words of tender affection to your partner but no such words exist in the English language.

Thankfully, there are other languages we can turn to in our time of need. Here are 25 amazing foreign words that don’t exist in English. Use these words when English fails you.

We’re going to start with our favorite Spanish words and then move onto other countries.

Sobremesa (Spanish)

You know that delicious moment when you’re eating dinner and all the food is gone but the conversation (and probably the wine) is still flowing? That, my friends, it sobremesa. It’s that sedated, drowsy, happy conversation that results from full stomachs, a few bottles of wine, and good friends.

Estrenar (Spanish)

You know that feeling when you wear something the first time? Maybe it fits you like a glove. Maybe it’s too scratch or tight on the shoulders. Maybe you feel so swag you can’t help but strut.

The experience of wearing something for the first time is estrenar.

Pena Ajena/Verguenza Ajena (Spanish)

It’s that feeling when someone completely bites it in front of a crowd of people. When the singer totally botches the national anthem. When your kid totally chokes at their piano recital. It’s that feeling of embarrassment on behalf of someone else.

When the waiter dumps hot soup on your boss and you’re mortified for the waiter? That’s Pena Ajena.

Antier/Anteayer (Spanish)

Can we all agree that saying, “The day before yesterday,” is a complete waste of words? So many words for such a simple concept. Those who speak Spanish have a much simpler version: “Antier”.

When did you last talk to your mom? Antier.

Desvelado (Spanish)

Insomnia. The tossing. The turning. The inability to fall asleep. That feeling of being sleep deprived is called “desvelado” in Spanish. It’s that feeling of exhaustion that comes after a terrible night’s sleep.

You need five cups of coffee. Why? Because desvelado.

Tuerto (Spanish)

What do you call a man with one eye who isn’t also a pirate? Tuerto. It seems like this word would have rather limited usage unless you work in a BB gun factory or something.

But you do have to admit, have a single word to describe someone with one eye is pretty fantastic.

Friolento/Friolero (Spanish)

You walk outside and immediately feel freezing cold even though it’s a balmy 60 degrees. You layer up Summer nights because you can’t handle the chill. You get seriously chilled just from eating a bowl of ice cream. You, my friend, are friolento, a person who is extremely sensitive to the cold.

This word could also work well as an insult if necessary.

Te quiero (Spanish)

It’s that awkward stage in a relationship when you really like a person but aren’t quite ready to tell them you love them. Or, perhaps, when that friend asks you out on a date and you don’t feel the same way about him. That awkward situation is te quiero.

Frankly, I can’t understand why we don’t have an English version of this word. It would be perfect for turning people down online as well.

Merendar (Spanish)

We have brunch for the meal between breakfast and lunch, but what about in the afternoon? You could call it, “Linner” but that just sounds stupid. Spanish speakers figured this out and came up with a word for it: merendar.

Granted, most of us don’t have the free time to hang with friends in the afternoon but it’s a good word to have in your back pocket nevertheless.

Tutear (Spanish)

This is how you greet one of your close buds. It means to greet someone informally, like you’re close to them. Perhaps an English equivalent would be something like, “Yo,” or, “What’s up?”

This is NOT how you greet your grandmother.

Iktsuarpok (Inuit)

You suddenly discover that you have a long-lost brother. After a series of feverish phone calls, he agrees to meet you at your house. You’re so excited that you’re lips are numb and your palms are sweating.

Because of your excitement, you keep going outside to see if he’s arrived. That act of going outside is iktsuarpok. It could also be used when you’re really excited for the pizza guy to arrive.

Faamiti (Samoan)

Have you ever known someone who has that weird ability to make a loud whistling noise by sucking air past their lips? They usually use it to get people’s attention or to call their dog. It ear piercing and incredibly effective.

It’s also called faamiti.

Pelinti (Buli, Ghana)

Literally translated, “to move hot food around in your mouth,” this is the experience of biting into something only to discover that it’s approximately 1,000 degrees. As the skin in your mouth melts, you let out a loud scream, drop the food, and curse the day you were born.

Okay, that may be a bit extreme, but you get the point. That’s pelinti.

Greng-jai (Thai)

Have you ever asked someone to help you move? You feel bad for asking them and don’t really want them to do it because it will be pain for them. You really don’t want to ask them to help you move, especially since you have a vast weight collection.

That feeling of not wanting to ask is Greng-jai.

Kummerspeck (German)

Literally translated “grief bacon,” this word describes the extra pounds you put on from overeating. You know what we’re talking about. Stress eating, grief eating, trying to eat your feelings. You know it’s not healthy but it’s the only way you have to cope with all the rampant feelings.

It’s that pint of ice cream after work, that entire pizza you ate for breakfast, that sheet cake that you really didn’t need to eat (at least not all of it). The next time you’re in the midst of an emotional eating binge, you can simply say, “This is my kummerspeck!!!”

Shemomedjamo (Georgian)

Literally translated, “I accidentally ate the whole thing,” this is what happens to you on Thanksgiving. You’re full, really, really full, but you don’t stop eating. You go for that fourth slice of piece, that third serving of stuffing, that extra scoop of gravy.

When someone says, “Should you really have more?” you can respond with, “Leave me alone! I’m shemomedjamo!”. That will shut anyone down.

Tartle (Scots)

You know that awful feeling you have when you need to introduce someone but can’t remember their name? You mumble and bumble, then finally say something lame like, “Yes, this is my…friend.” Then you feel like a moron. That experience is tartle.

In English, we call this, “Looking like a fool.”

Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego)

Picture this: you and your significant other are sitting on the couch, watching your favorite Netflix show. You suddenly remember that tomorrow is trash day and that you haven’t put the cans by the curb. “The trash needs to go out,” you say, desperately hoping she’ll volunteer.

You lock eyes, and in that moment something passes between you that says, “I’m really comfortable, please volunteer to take out the trash.” That look, where two people want something but neither will do it, is mamihlapinatapai.

Backpfeifengesicht (German)

What do these three situations have in common?

  • A bully knocks you over on the playground and taunts you for your bad acne.
  • Your boss asks you to work over the weekend to file the TPS reports.
  • A guy cuts you off in traffic, causing you to swerve to the side and smash against the guardrail.

In each of these situations, someone needs a backpfeifengesicht – a fist to the face.

Mencolek (Indonesian)

Remember in junior high school (or now depending on your maturity level) when you would tap someone on the opposite shoulder to get them to look the wrong way? Believe it or not, that Indonesians actually have a word for that: mencolek.

It turns out that your main junior high strategy for getting girls was using the ol’ mencolek technique. No wonder you didn’t have much luck!

Gigil (Filipino)

Your grandmother did it all the time and it drove you crazy. She would grab your cheek, pinch it tightly, and tell you that you were the cutest thing to walk the face of the earth. You dreaded seeing your grandmother because you knew that the cheek torture was coming your way.

The act of wanting to pinch something irresistibly cute is called gigil. In English we call it “annoying torture that drives people insane.”

Yuputka (Ulwa)

If you’ve ever camped or walked through the woods at night, you’ve experienced yuputka. It’s the awful, terrifying phantom feeling of something crawling across your skin. It’s that feeling that makes you swat furiously at your arms and scream, “Get it off!” while dancing about like a madman.

Of course, sometimes it’s not a phantom sensation. Sometimes something really is on you. This experience is called, “Having the living daylights scared out of you.”

Zhaghzhagh (Persian)

Have you ever jumped into incredibly cold water, gotten out, and then found your teeth were chattering. Or have you ever been so angry that your jaw started trembling, causing your teeth to chatter? This rattling of the teeth from cold or rage is zhaghzhagh.

Pro tip: don’t get into situations that will cause you to zhaghzhagh. You’ll be much happier.

Vybafnout (Czech)

If you have older siblings, you’ve undoubtedly experienced vybafnout. It means to jump out at someone and say, “Boo!”. Of course, when that happens, you can’t be held responsible for your actions. You might find yourself resorting to backpfeifengesicht (a fist to the face).

Fremdschämen (German); Myötähäpeä (Finnish)

Meaning something close to “vicarious embarrassment”, this is what you feel when someone makes a complete fool of themselves in front of a large crowd. This is that kid farting loudly at the school party, that girl slipping and falling at her graduation, that best man who freezes while giving the toast at the wedding.

Lagom (Swedish)

Meaning something like “just right,” this what you feel when something is not too hot, not too cold, but just right. Or when you get a massage and it’s not too hard, not too soft, but just the right amount of pressure. It’s the experience of something being the perfect middle ground.

Pålegg (Norwegian)

If you’re a sandwich lover or sandwich artist, this word was created for you. It’s a non-specific word that describes anything you might put on a sandwich. If you’re one of those people who like loading up your sandwiches with all sorts of strange ingredients, you can simply reference this word.

“Hey! It’s not gross that I’m putting fish oil on my sandwich! It’s pålegg!”

Layogenic (Tagalog)

Have you ever seen someone who looks gorgeous at a distance but as they get closer, you realize that they’re actually quite…well, unattractive or messy? That’s close to what layogenic means. It’s the experience of seeing something that looks good far away but really bad close up.

That internal shudder you feel when you get close is because it’s layogenic. If someone asks you if they look attractive, you can simply say, “You look layogenic!”

Bakku-shan (Japanese)

This Japanese word is similar to layogenic. It means seeing a woman who looks beautiful from behind, but not from the front. Every guy has had this experience. You see someone who, from behind, looks like a supermodel. When she turns around, she looks like the poster child for an anti-smoking campaign.

Seigneur-terraces (French)

These are the coffee shop mooches who spend hours at the tables but only spend a few dollars. They monopolize the space, the wifi, and the outlets, all while only purchasing a single drink. These are the folks who watch hours of Netflix in a coffee shop or play Candy Crush for a full day.

We call these “coffee shop squatters”. We also call these people “annoying”.

Ya’arburnee (Arabic)

Literally translated, “May you bury me,” this intense word is a declaration that you wish to die before someone else because you love them so much and can’t stand to live without them. This is pretty serious stuff.

It seems that if you use this word regularly in conversation with your loved ones, you may have a bit of a problem. Also, this probably isn’t the best pickup line.

Pana Po’o (Hawaiian)

You know that old cliche of scratching your head to help you remember something? That Hawaiians call that pana po’o. But does anyone really do that? Isn’t that just something people do in cartoons? Did they really need a specific word for that?

Perhaps the Hawaiians are very forgetful people and regularly find themselves in situations where they need to pana po’o.

Slampadato (Italian)

Have you ever met someone who looks unnaturally tan and orange from spending way too much time in tanning salons? Apparently this is a regular occurrence in Italy, because the Italians have a word for it: slampadato.

Is Donald Trump slampadato? He doesn’t look tan so much as orange, so perhaps there’s another word for that.

Zeg (Georgian)

Why don’t we have an English version of this word? Meaning “day after tomorrow”, it would be useful in thousands of different conversations. Actually, we do have the word “overmorrow”, which sounds like something out of Elizabethan times. We need a new, updated word. Perhaps we should just start using Zeg?

Cafune (Brazilian Portuguese)

Translated, “Tenderly running your fingers through your lover’s hair,” this word was designed for those couples who still get butterflies when they see each other. It doesn’t sound the same to say, “Could you please tenderly run your fingers through my hair.”

If you said that, your partner would probably laugh at you and then give you a playful punch on the shoulder.

The post 25 Handy Foreign Words That Don’t Exist In English appeared first on Caveman Circus.

What’s It Like To Serve Time In Solitary Confinement

0
0

solitary confinement

Prisoners call it The Box. Prison authorities have euphemistically dubbed it the Special Housing Unit, or SHU (pronounced “shoe”) for short. In society it is known as solitary confinement. It is 23-hour a day lockdown in a cell smaller than some closets I’ve seen, with one hour allotted to “recreation” consisting of placement in a concrete enclosed yard by oneself or, in some prisons, a cage made of steel bars. There is nothing in a SHU yard but air: no TV, no balls to bounce, no games to play, no other inmates, nothing. There is very little allowed in a SHU cell, also. Three sets of plain white underwear, one pair of green pants, one green short-sleeved button-up shirt, one green sweatshirt, ten books or magazines total, twenty pictures of the people you love, writing supplies, a bar of soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, one deodorant stick but no shampoo, and that’s about it. No clothes of your own, only prison-made. No food from commissary or packages, only three unappetizing meals a day handed to you through a narrow slot in your cell door. No phone calls, no TV, no luxury items at all. You get a set of cheap headphones to use, and you can pick between the two or three (depending on which prison you’re in) jacks in the cell wall to plug into. You can listen to a TV station in one jack, and use your imagination while trying to figure out what is going on when the music indicates drama but the dialogue doesn’t suffice to tell you anything. Or you can listen to some music, but you’re out of luck if you’re a rock-n-roll fan and find only rap is playing.

Your options in what to do to occupy your time in SHU are scant, but there will be boredom aplenty. You probably think that you understand boredom, know its feel, but really you don’t. What you call boredom would seem a whirlwind of activity to me, choices so many that I’d likely be befuddled in trying to pick one over all the others. You could turn on a TV and watch a movie or some other show; I haven’t seen a TV since the 1980s. You could go for a walk in the neighborhood; I can’t walk more than a few feet in any direction before I run into a concrete wall or steel bars. You could pick up your phone and call a friend; I don’t know if I’d be able to remember how to make a collect call or even if the process is still the same, so many years it’s been since I’ve used a telephone. Play with your dog or cat and experience their love, or watch your fish in their aquarium; the only creatures I see daily are the mice and cockroaches that infest the unit, and they’re not very lovable and nothing much to look at. There is a pretty good list of options available to you, if you think about it, many things that you could do even when you believe you are so bored. You take them for granted because they are there all the time, but if it were all taken away you’d find yourself missing even the things that right now seem so small and insignificant. Even the smallest stuff can become as large as life when you have had nearly nothing for far too long.

I haven’t been outside in one of the SHU yards in this prison for about four years now. I haven’t seen a tree or blade of grass in all that time, and wouldn’t see these things were I to go to the yard. In Elmira Correctional Facility, where I am presently imprisoned, the SHU yards are about three or four times as big as my cell. There are twelve SHU yards total, each surrounded by concrete walls, one or two of the walls lined with windows. If you look in the windows you’ll see the same SHU company that you live on, and maybe you’ll get a look at a guy who was locked next to you for months that you’ve talked to every day but had never before gotten a look at. If you look up you’ll find bars and a screen covering the yard, and if you’re lucky maybe you can see a bit of blue sky through the mesh, otherwise it’ll be hard to believe that you’re even outside. If it’s a good day you can walk around the SHU yard in small circles staring ahead with your mind on nothingness, like the nothing you’ve got in that lacuna with you. If it’s a bad day, though, maybe your mind will be filled with remembrances of all you used to have that you haven’t seen now for many years, and you’ll be missing it, feeling the loss, feeling it bad.

Life in the box is about an austere sameness that makes it difficult to tell one day from a thousand others. Nothing much and nothing new ever happen to tell you if it’s a Monday or a Friday, March or September, 1987 or 2012. The world turns, technology advances, and things in the streets change and keep changing all the time. Not so in a solitary confinement unit, however. I’ve never seen a cell phone except in pictures in magazines. I’ve never touched a computer in my life, never been on the Internet and wouldn’t know how to get there if you sat me in front of a computer, turned it on for me, and gave me directions. SHU is a timeless place, and I can honestly say that there is not a single thing I’d see looking around right now that is different from what I saw in Shawangunk Correctional Facility’s box when I first arrived there from Syracuse’s county jail in 1987. Indeed, there is probably nothing different in SHU now than in SHU a hundred years ago, save the headphones. Then and now there were a few books, a few prison-made clothing articles, walls and bars and human beings locked in cages… and misery.

There is always the misery. If you manage to escape it yourself for a time, there will ever be plenty around in others for you to sense; and though you’ll be unable to look into their eyes and see it, you might hear it in the nighttime when tough guys cry not-so-tough tears that are forced out of them by the unrelenting stress and strain that life in SHU is an exercise in.

I’ve read of the studies done regarding the effects of long-term isolation in solitary confinement on inmates, seen how researchers say it can ruin a man’s mind, and I’ve watched with my own eyes the slow descent of sane men into madness—sometimes not so slow. What I’ve never seen the experts write about, though, is what year after year of abject isolation can do to that immaterial part in our middle where hopes survive or die and the spirit resides. So please allow me to speak to you of what I’ve seen and felt during some of the harder times of my twenty-five-year SHU odyssey.

I’ve experienced times so difficult and felt boredom and loneliness to such a degree that it seemed to be a physical thing inside so thick it felt like it was choking me, trying to squeeze the sanity from my mind, the spirit from my soul, and the life from my body. I’ve seen and felt hope becoming like a foggy ephemeral thing, hard to get ahold of, even harder to keep ahold of as the years and then decades disappeared while I stayed trapped in the emptiness of the SHU world. I’ve seen minds slipping down the slope of sanity, descending into insanity, and I’ve been terrified that I would end up like the guys around me that have cracked and become nuts. It’s a sad thing to watch a human being go insane before your eyes because he can’t handle the pressure that the box exerts on the mind, but it is sadder still to see the spirit shaken from a soul. And it is more disastrous. Sometimes the prison guards find them hanging and blue; sometimes their necks get broken when they jump from their bed, the sheet tied around the neck that’s also wrapped around the grate covering the light in the ceiling snapping taut with a pop. I’ve seen the spirit leaving men in SHU and have witnessed the results.

The box is a place like no other place on planet Earth. It’s a place where men full of rage can stand at their cell gates fulminating on their neighbor or neighbors, yelling and screaming and speaking some of the filthiest words that could ever come from a human mouth, do it for hours on end, and despite it all never suffer the loss of a single tooth, never get his head knocked clean off his shoulders. You will never hear words more despicable or see mouth wars more insane than what occurs all the time in SHU, not anywhere else in the world, because there would be serious violence before any person could speak so much foulness for so long. In the box the heavy steel bars allow mouths to run with impunity when they could not otherwise do so, while the ambient is one that is sorely conducive to an exceedingly hot sort of anger that seems to press the lips on to ridiculous extremes. Day and night I have been awakened to the sound of the rage being loosed loudly on SHU gates, and I’d be a liar if I said I haven’t at times been one of the madmen doing the yelling.

I have lived for months where the first thing I became aware of upon waking in the morning is the malodorous funk of human feces, tinged with the acrid stench of days-old urine, where I eat my breakfast, lunch, and dinner with that same stink assaulting my senses, and where the last thought I had before falling into unconscious sleep was: “Damn, it smells like shit in here.” I have felt like I was on an island surrounded by vicious sharks, flanked on both sides by mentally ill inmates who would splash their excrement all over their cells, all over the company outside their cells, and even all over themselves. I have went days into weeks that seemed like they’d never end without being able to sleep more than short snatches before I was shocked out of my dreams, and thrown back into a living nightmare, by the screams of sick men who have lost all ability to control themselves, or by the banging of cell bars and walls of these same madmen. I have been so tired when sleep inside was impossible that I went outside into a snowstorm to get some sleep.

The wind blew hard and snowflakes swirled around and around in the small SHU yard at Shawangunk, and I had but one cheap prison-produced coat on and a single set of state clothes beneath. To escape the biting cold I dug into the seven- or eight-foot high mountain of snow that was piled in the center of the yard, the accumulation from inmates shoveling a narrow path to walk along the perimeter. With bare hands gone numb, I dug out a small room in that pile of snow, making myself a sort of igloo. When it was done I crawled inside, rolled onto my back on the snow-covered concrete ground, and almost instantly fell asleep, my bare head pillowed in the snow. I didn’t even have a hat to wear.

An hour or so later I was awakened by the guards come to take me back to the stink and insanity inside: “Blake, rec’s over…” I had gotten an hour’s straight sleep, minus the few minutes it had taken me to dig my igloo. That was more than I had gotten in weeks without being shocked awake by the CA-RACK! of a sneaker being slapped into a plexiglass shield covering the cell of an inmate who had thrown things nasty; or the THUD-THUD-THUD! of an inmate pounding his cell wall, or bars being banged, gates being kicked and rattled, or men screaming like they’re dying and maybe wishing that they were; or to the tirade of an inmate letting loose his pent-up rage on a guard or fellow inmate, sounding every bit the lunatic that too long a time in the mind-breaking confines of the box had caused him to be.

I have been so exhausted physically, mental strength being tested to limits that can cause strong folks to snap, that I have begged God, tough guy I fancy myself, “Please, Lord, make them stop. Please let me get some peace.” As the prayers went ungranted and the insanity around me persisted, I felt my own rage rising above the exhaustion and misery, no longer in a begging mood: “Lord, kill those motherfuckers, why don’t you!” I yelled at the Almighty, my own sanity so close to being gone that it seemed as if I were walking along a precipice and could see down to where I’d be falling, seeing myself shot, sanity a dead thing killed by the fall. I’d be afraid later on, terrified, when I reflected back on how close I had seemed to come to losing my mind, but at that moment all I could do was feel anger of a fiery kind: anger at the maniacs creating the noise and the stink and the madness; anger at my keepers and the real creators of this hell; anger at society for turning a blind eye to the torment and torture going on here that its tax dollars are financing; and perhaps most of all, anger at myself for doing all that I did that never should have been done that put me into the clutches of this beastly prison system to begin with. I would be angry at the world; enraged, actually, so burning hot was what I would be feeling.

I had wet toilet paper stuffed hard into both ears, socks folded up and pressed into my ears, a pillow wrapped around the sides and back of my head covering my ears, and a blanket tied around all that to hold everything in place, lying in bed praying for sleep. But still the noise was incredible, a thunderous cacophony of insanity, sleep impossible. Inmates lost in the throes of lavalike rage firing philippics at one another for even reasons they didn’t know, threatening to kill one another’s mommas, daddies, even the children, too. Nothing is sacred in SHU. It is an environment that is so grossly abnormal, so antithetical to normal human interactions, that it twists the innerds of men all around who for too long dwell there. Their minds, their morals, and their mannerisms get bent badly, ending far off-center. Right becomes whatever and wrong no longer exists. Restraint becomes a burden and is unnecessary with concrete and steel separating everyone, so inmates let it go. Day after day, perhaps year after year, the anger grows, fueled by the pain caused by the conditions till rage is born and burning so hot that it too hurts.

Trying to put into words what is so unlike anything else I know or have ever experienced seems an impossible endeavor, because there is nothing even remotely like it any place else to compare it to, and nothing that will do to you on the inside what so many years in SHU has done to me. All that I am able to articulate about the world of Special Housing Unit and what it is and what it does may seem terrible to you indeed, but the reality of living in this place for a full quarter of a century is yet even more terrible, still. You would have to live it, experience it in all its aspects with the fullness of its days and struggles added up, to really appreciate and understand just how truly terrible this plight of mine has been, and how truly ugly life in the box can be at times, even for just a single day. I spent nine years in Shawangunk’s box, six years in Sullivan’s, six years in Great Meadow’s, and I’ve been here in Elmira’s SHU for four years now, and through all of this time I have never spent a single day in a Mental Health Unit cell because I attempted or threatened suicide, or for any other reason. I have thought about suicide in times past when the days had become exceedingly difficult to handle, but I’m still here. I’ve had some of my SHU neighbors succumb to the suicidal thoughts, though, choosing death over another day of life in the box. I have never bugged out myself, but I’ve known times that I had come too close. I’ve had neighbors who came to SHU normal men, and I’ve seen them leave broken and not anything resembling normal anymore. I’ve seen guys give up on their dreams and lose all hope in the box, but my own hopes and dreams are still alive and well inside me. The insidious workings of the SHU program have yet to get me stuck on that meandering path to internal destruction that I have seen so many of my neighbors end up on, and perhaps this is a miracle; I’d rather be dead than to lose control of my mind.

Had I known in 1987 that I would spend the next quarter-century in solitary confinement, I would have certainly killed myself. If I took a month to die and spent every minute of it in severe pain, it seems to me that on a balance that fate would still be far easier to endure than the last twenty-five years have been. If I try to imagine what kind of death, even a slow one, would be worse than twenty-five years in the box—and I have tried to imagine it—I can come up with nothing. Set me afire, pummel and bludgeon me, cut me to bits, stab me, shoot me, do what you will in the worst of ways, but none of it could come close to making me feel things as cumulatively horrifying as what I’ve experienced through my years in solitary. Dying couldn’t take but a short time if you or the State were to kill me; in SHU I have died a thousand internal deaths. The sum of my quarter-century’s worth of suffering has been that bad.

To some judges sitting on high who’ve never done a day in the box, maybe twenty-five years of this isn’t cruel and unusual. To folks who have an insatiable appetite for vengeance against prisoners who have committed terrible crimes, perhaps it doesn’t even matter how cruel or unusual my plight is or isn’t. For people who cannot let go of hate and know not how to forgive, no amount of remorse would matter, no level of contrition would be quite enough, only endless retribution would be right in their eyes. Like Judge Milroy, only an eternity in hell would satisfy them. Given even that in retribution, though, the unforgiving haters wouldn’t be satisfied that hell was hot enough; they’d want the heat turned up. Thankfully these folks are the few, that in the minds of the many, at a point, enough is enough.

No matter what the world would think about things that they cannot imagine in even their worst nightmares, I know that twenty-five years in solitary confinement is utterly and certainly cruel, moreso than death in or by an electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, bullet in the head, or even immolation could possibly be. The sum of the suffering caused by any of these quick deaths would be a small thing next to the sum of the suffering that this quarter-century in SHU has brought to bear on me. Solitary confinement for the length of time that I have endured it, even apart from the inhuman conditions that I have too often been made to endure it in, is torture of a terrible kind; and anyone who doesn’t think so surely knows not what to think.

I have served a sentence worse than death.

– William Blake

The post What’s It Like To Serve Time In Solitary Confinement appeared first on Caveman Circus.

The Dumping Grounds

0
0

Prison Intake by a Tough Guard

 

From spy to president: The rise of Vladimir Putin

 

I Can’t Stop Pulling My Hair Out

 

Father beats teen he caught allegedly molesting son

 

Roni Size tries to make a dope beat in under 10 minutes

 

Girl reads literature while being pleasured under the table

 

The post The Dumping Grounds appeared first on Caveman Circus.

Linkage

0
0

The Biggest Wastes Of Time We Regret When We Get Older – Life Hacker

9 Rules of Crypto Trading That Helped One Trader Go from $1k to $46k in Less Than a Year – Hackernoon

Slow internet? The Wifi Adapter plugs right into your USB port to strengthen your signal and speed up your connection. It even comes with a feature that lets you create a mobile hotspot for your devices, so you can work on your laptop wherever you are – ANEWISH

Vermont Becomes The 9th U.S. State To Legalize Marijuana – USA Today

2 Killed And 17 Others Injured In Kentucky High School Shooting – NPR

Curvy Ashley Graham Reveals Latest Lingerie Collection With Sultry Behind-the-Scenes Pics – Maxim

4 Signs Your Martial Arts School Sucks – Return Of Kings

Quite possibly the hottest girl you will see today – Imgur

Couples who are doing it right! – Leenks

Cardiologist Finds Natural Energy “Fix”? – Energy At Any Age

Here’s How Your Favorite Canceled TV Shows Were Really Supposed To End – Ranker

Iskra Lawrence Big Girl Booty of the Day – Drunken Stepfather

Saddam Hussein wrote a romantic novel you can actually buy on – Amazon

WWE has released Enzo Amore amid sexual assault allegations – Fan Buzz

Hot Instagram Pictures Of Alyssa Barbara – Lurk And Perv

Inside the group chats where people pump and dump cryptocurrency – The Outline

In-N-Out is paying its store managers $160,000 a year – Medium

After Denver hired homeless people to shovel mulch and perform other day labor, more than 100 landed regular jobs – Denver Post

Emilia Clarke, Selena Gomez and Other Random Women – G-Celeb

Never Ever Agree To Let Someone Make Payments When They Buy Your Car – Jalopnik

Chinese Factory Gives Workers 34 Tons Of Bricks Instead of Just Paying Them – The Blemish

5 Steps To Get Laid Using Tinder – Thought Catalog

Victoria Secret Model Jasmine Tookes’ Booty Is Awesome – Hollywood Tuna

Classical Painting Placed In The Real World – Sad And Useless

All the Times It’s Good to Be an Ugly Man – Mel Magazine

The post Linkage appeared first on Caveman Circus.

Hot Instagram Girl Of The Day: Maleah Quan


Welcome To Caveman’s Fight Club!

0
0

Ringside view of Stipe dodging and weaving Francis’ punches

 

Every Francis Ngannou punch that Stipe Miocic dodged/blocked

 

Daniel Cormier decides to trade with Anthony Johnson and quickly gets overwhelmed 

 

Daniel Cormier throwing men

 

Big Nog getting Piledrived by Bob Sapp after a stuffed takedown

 

Conor McGregor Study – Takedown Defense

 

Marco Antonio Barrera lands possibly the best three punch combination ever on Erik Morales

 

When Boxers Get Taken to School 

 

Oldie but goodie: Julz The Jackal vs Ben Nguyen

 

The post Welcome To Caveman’s Fight Club! appeared first on Caveman Circus.

The Daily Man-Up

0
0

We all compare ourselves to others. And if you say you don’t, you’re a liar.

Why do we do this? Why do we constantly pit ourselves against other people who aren’t us?

According to the social comparison theory, we determine our personal self-worth based on how we compare to others around us.

When we add social media into the mix with the social comparison theory, we ultimately set ourselves up for failure.

We have become so dependent on social media for our entertainment and as a doorway into others’ lives that we ignore the impact it actually has on our own lives.

Being Millennials and growing up in the Internet age, social media is as natural to us as breathing or drinking water. Often, our bodies and brains just can’t function without it.

They say ignorance is bliss, but is it really?

We have become so focused and so obsessed with creating the perfect digital versions of ourselves that we forget to nurture ourselves in the real, three-dimensional world.

So, what happens to our neglected selves?

Smiling depression means we appear to be happy, smiling and positive, but in reality, we’re miserable.

We try so hard to be seen as idealized versions of ourselves, and the pressure eats us alive.

With social media, people are able to focus on key aspects of their lives, highlighting the positive and putting a curtain over anything and everything they want to hide.

We’re so busy continuously scrolling — curious about what we’re missing out on and what everyone else is doing or looking like — that we neglect ourselves.

What does this have to do with the social comparison theory? Steve Furtick explains:

“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”

We don’t stand a chance. Who stands a chance against someone who is almost perfect? And isn’t that what everyone is basically doing online? Creating the perfect versions of themselves?

If it weren’t, Instagram would have never given us 20 different filters to choose from. Don’t believe me?

Negative Results Of Social Media

Science Direct conducted an experiment using women and Facebook as its control.

Female participants spent 10 minutes browsing their Facebook accounts, a magazine website and an appearance-neutral control website before they reported the measures of their moods, body dissatisfaction and appearance discrepancies.

More plainly, the scientists measured women’s moods after browsing social media sites to see how happy or unhappy they were about themselves.

The results?

The scientists found Facebook usage can put women in a more negative mood where they make more appearance comparisons, giving them a greater desire to change their faces, hair and skin.

How can we escape this rollercoaster of self-loathing?

First, we need to remember the age-old saying my mother loves to tell me whenever I complain about people in my life: “They’re not you.”

No one is you, and no one will ever be you. You are you, and you will never be anyone else.

The more you compare yourself to others, especially via social media, the more negative headspace you create for yourself.

And while we won’t log off our several social media sites forever, there are healthier ways to go about using them.

Instead of comparing ourselves via competition, we should try to learn from others and their accomplishments.

If we’re going to use social media sites, why not use them in a positive way rather than in a negative way?

Psychotherapist Daniela Tempesta states, “The art of what makes life awesome and interesting is learning from the talents of others. Instead of trying to be as good as or better than others, focus your energy on being the very best version of yourself.”

So, instead of logging off our accounts, the best way to counteract this epidemic is to change the way we approach it.

If it is impossible for us to avoid the social comparison theory, it’s time we focus on being the best versions of ourselves rather than the best version of someone else.

The post The Daily Man-Up appeared first on Caveman Circus.

What Does It Feel Like To Go From Being Wealthy To Being Poor?

0
0

What does it feel like to go from being wealthy to being poor?

The global financial crisis destroyed me in 2008. The years immediately after were some of the worst years of my life. I lost everything; or at least I thought I did.

As it turns out, I didn’t lose much at all (assuming you don’t count approximately $3 million in real estate equity and a couple of hundred thousand dollars in cash, as “much”).

I was in Vegas when Lehman Brothers folded… It was my birthday … and it was the first time I’d ever lost big there. I should have known something wicked was coming, but I didn’t. So when my consulting contract didn’t get renewed, I didn’t panic. I kept doing business as usual. When my tenants defaulted on rent, I kept paying mortgages. A year later, I still had $50,000 plus in the bank … enough of a cushion.

I suppose at this time I should make you aware that I was not exactly a low-profile person. I was (and am) in luxury goods and hospitality, and I consulted with companies catering to high-net worth individuals. I helped them design sales and business strategies to keep their clients happy in the short and long term. Needless to say, the luxury sector was massacred, and is still clawing its way out of the muck and mire, at least in the United States.

So, with enough money to float for six to ten months, I kept looking for work in my field.

And looking, and looking … nothing.

Any kind of business consulting … nothing (six more months go by).

Any kind of sales … nothing (six more months … this was where it got scary).

Waiting tables, bar-tending, limo driving, grocery bagging … ANYTHING!

Nope.

Bear in mind that up until this point, I had never even gone a month without a job since I was 12 years old.

My confidence was shot – I mean decimated. I was a shell of the man I had been only two years previously.

I had the stink of failure all over me.

A friend of mine owned a couple of car-washes. He offered me a job. It was outside work, taking orders when people drove in to the wash. “Would you like the undercarriage done?”

It was winter in Colorado

I declined.

I was sharing a huge house at the time with my best buddy and his new girlfriend, who became his fiancé, and we were ALL broke. It was brutal. I don’t think I would have made it without them. I was depressed and miserable. I’m lucky they didn’t bury me in a snow bank and leave me there. I’m sure there were times they wanted to.

“Cocky” doesn’t do failure well.

My buddy with the car-wash called again a few weeks later. I said no again. Not just because of the embarrassment. Not just because of the cold weather and the elements, or standing on my feet for 10 hours a day on concrete without Wi-Fi.

It was because of my father.

Almost every good father has a catch phrase that he uses to motivate his sons to do better than he did. Typically, it’s the threat of being stuck doing any minimum-wage job that no teenager from the Gekko era would ever aspire to. For some reason, the example that my father chose was “car wash”. We’d go through Towne Auto Wash after Little League and he’d always point to that guy who asks, “Do you want a regular wash, or deluxe?” and then hands you that little piece of paper.

“Mickey” He’d say. “You have to save some money/get better grades/quit chasing girls/do your homework. You don’t want to end up like that guy, working in a car-wash, do you?” The last time I heard the speech was around 1996. The words, however, hung in the air for years to come.

So, you can see my quandary. To me, working in a car-wash was the ultimate admission of failure. Not losing all my assets. Not selling my watches and cars. Not letting go of a few rugs and some art.

I was living with friends, driving a 17-year-old car, had less than $200 in the bank with no idea where the next $200 was coming from, and I was worried about being seen as a failure.

A little deluded?

Perhaps, but reality kicked in when I didn’t have money for a niece’s birthday present.

So I called my friend back and asked if I could still have the job at the car-wash. My utter failure as a human being was complete, my humiliation final -or so I thought.

On my third day of dragging myself in to work, the raven-haired stunner that I’d hired as my assistant five years previous pulled in – driving a brand new Lexus.

NOW my humiliation was complete.

There was nowhere to run, no place to hide.

And yet … just as I was about to die from shame, something happened that literally changed my life. She smiled, jumped out of her car, pointed her Louboutins right at me, ran over and gave me a hug. We chatted for about 10 minutes while her car was getting done. She said she was happy to see me, that I’d been a great boss, and that she was glad I was working. “Sooooo many” of her friends(able-bodied twenty-somethings) were unemployed, and at least I wasn’t trapped behind a desk.

I realized that I’d been beating myself up needlessly, and saw how lucky I truly was.

In that instant, I decided that instead of just showing up until I could find something better, I would use all my skills to increase my friend’s business, and I did. Over the next few months, something amazing happened to me. Something I never saw coming, and something that impacted my life and made me a better man.

I saw hundreds of people every day and none of them thought I was a failure, and it energized me. I smiled. They smiled back. I was happy and engaging, and I sold about a gazillion deluxe washes. But also, my worst fear morphed into something I started to look forward to. I got my confidence back, and it was obvious. I saw DOZENS of people I knew – clients, old customers, friends I’d lost touch with, and every single one of them said something positive.

They respected me.

They held me in higher esteem for seeing me in the cold, wearing a red nylon jacket with a car wash logo on it. Nobody made fun of me or called me names. Nobody laughed.

There was even an article in a local lifestyle magazine about me.

They respected me for doing what had to be done (I’m sure a few were secretly happy that I’d been taken down a few pegs … but hey, we’re all human, right?)

The truth of my situation was laid bare for the world to see … there’s no way to spin a story when you are asking people if they want the basic or deluxe wash. There’s no amount of charm of polish or bullshit that can hide the truth.

I was working in a car wash – and nobody thought I was a failure. Not even my father.

Then, about 6 months later, one of my old clients called. He needed some help setting up a new luxury club. We put a deal together and when I resigned from the car-wash, my friend was genuinely sad, saying I was the best employee he’d ever had.

I approached that new consulting contract with a vigor and zest for life I hadn’t felt for years! A few months after that, another contract took me to Asia, and I’ve been consulting over here ever since.

So, my worst fear turned out to be my salvation.

It gave me confidence, paid my bills for a while and put me in a position to move my company to Asia and have access to an abundance of new cultures and growing markets.

Sure, I’m not quite back to where I was that day 9 years ago in Vegas, but I have a red nylon jacket with a car wash logo on it that reminds me that for my version of success, I don’t have to be.

– Michael Aumock

The post What Does It Feel Like To Go From Being Wealthy To Being Poor? appeared first on Caveman Circus.

The Incredible Life Of Peter Freuchen…A Man Who Once Formed A Chisel Out Of His Own Frozen Feces To Free Himself From An Avalanche

0
0

The Age of Arctic Exploration remains largely excluded from the history books because, quite frankly, there’s nothing sexy about exploring uninhabited blocks of ice. Arctic explorers never received the glory they deserved, and never became household names or the subjects of movies and tv shows.

It’s a shame because after reading into it, I realized that these courageous, bearded men were often quite fascinating, especially one in particular. If anyone deserves a movie made about them, it’s Peter Freuchen.

The 6’ 6” Danish native originally fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a sailor, but later decided he’d rather use his skills to sail to the unexplored arctic than fish or transport cargo.

In 1910 he left Denmark, embarking on his first expedition of Greenland. He eventually founded and established the settlement of Thule in Northern Greenland, which is now a large U.S. Naval base. He remained at Thule and governed the new Danish colony until 1920.

During this time he lead several expeditions of the rest of Greenland. His most famous, the First Thule Expedition (1912), tested Robert Peary’s claim that a channel divided Peary Land and Greenland. Freuchen proved Peary incorrect with a dangerous and historic 620 mile dogsled trip across the inland ice.

Freuchen continued exploring, facing may near-death experiences. In one particular instance, our heroic explorer found himself trapped under a layer of solid ice, and claimed to have saved his life by chiseling his way out with a piece of his own frozen feces.

After he retired from exploring, he took up work in the film industry as a consultant and writer for Artic-related scripts. In 1933 he co-starred in MGM’s Oscar winning Eskimo, playing the ship captain.

As if it couldn’t get any better, Freuchen volunteered to work alongside the Danish Resistance during Word War II after his homeland was conquered and occupied by Nazi Germany. He was eventually captured and sentenced to death, but managed to escape a German prison camp by climbing over a barbed-wire fence, and fled to Sweden. Oh yea, and he did it with a peg leg, as he was forced to amputate his own left leg in 1926 due to frostbite.

After the war, Fruechen retired from dangerous things and moved to America, eventually rising to public fame. The Dane became a top selling author, writing dozens of fictional and nonfictional novel about his experiences in the arctic. His most famous work, Peter Freuchens Famous Book of the Eskimoshowed the modern world the ways of Eskimo culture, which was published after his death in 1965. Freuchen spent years living along side Inuit natives in Greenland and even married an Inuit woman, Navarana Mequpaluk, his first of three wives.

In 1956 the 70 year old ex-explorer was invited to be a contestant on the popular quiz show The $64,000 Question for the topic “The Seven Seas”, walking away with the $64,000 grand prize.

(Freuchen comes in around the 5:00 mark)

 

You’ll be shocked me to see that the man who so much resembled a polar bear was actually quite soft spoken, humbly admitting to have harpooned 20-30 whales in his day. After seeing the real man you’ll have no doubt that his famed but disputed “sh*t knife” story is indeed true.

He lived out the rest of his days in relative quiet (for him) and eventually passed away at the age of 71 in 1957, three days after completing his final book Book of the Seven Seas.

His ashes were scattered over Thule, Greenland, where his life as an adventurer began.

The post The Incredible Life Of Peter Freuchen…A Man Who Once Formed A Chisel Out Of His Own Frozen Feces To Free Himself From An Avalanche appeared first on Caveman Circus.

A Few Answers To Questions You Always Wondered About

0
0

Why don’t other countries have military bases on U.S. soil, whereas we have many U.S. bases on foreign soil?

Because a foreign country having a base in the US wouldn’t serve any purpose. The US military is sufficiently powerful that it doesn’t need other countries to have bases there to provide security and deterrence in the same way US military bases provide these things to other countries (or the US itself).

I’m British, but I think it’s funny how people see the US military very unrealistically, especially here in Britain. We don’t care to admit how much we depend on the Yanks. There are dozens of countries whose security is directly or indirectly dependent on the US military. In fact, there are countries that exist today that wouldn’t exist were it not for the US military. Kuwait, South Korea etc..

Even relatively powerful countries often need the US to pick up the slack and provide capabilities that they don’t have. I remember reading that the entire European Union combined only has 1/10th of the military capabilities the US has. It’s funny how we criticise Americans for their militarism when it’s the US military’s power that allows us to be less militaristic. The US has had morally ambiguous military actions, but the fact remains that without the US the western world would much less secure. The US protects all of our interests and acts as the guarantee of western policies. When Britain talked tough against Serbia in the Balkans conflicts, it was actually the US that did all the work. If the US didn’t have bases in Europe, the genocide in Kosovo would either have been completed successfully or would still be happening now. Europe, despite its supposed strengths, couldn’t have hoped to stop the genocide without American support. The US basically did 99% of the work while European countries only provided a token gesture of participation even though the genocide was occurring in our own backyard.

– CorrodedToTheBone 

 

 

Basketball – not rules, but the positions, strategies, what to look for when watching?

Here are the 5 positions and descriptions in the NBA. Point Guard: Team’s best ball handler, passer, decision maker. This player must be able to effectively dribble up the court and initiate an offense when under extreme defensive ball pressure. As such, PG’s are usually the shortest players (there are plenty of exceptions, 6’9 Magic Johnson). They are quick and they must be able to see the entire floor while dribbling. They must be quick and agile and equally skilled at dribbling with either hand. Some PGs like Steve Nash (lakers) are pass-first point guards. They can get the ball to their teammates in optimal scoring positions without committing turnovers. Other PGs are score-first point guards, like Russel Westbrook (thunder). They use extreme agility and athleticism to penetrate opposing defenses and either finish at the rim or dish off to a teammate once the defense collapses on them.

Shooting Guard: Athletic, great at perimeter shooting or slashing. Think Kobe Bryant (lakers). 6’7, can dunk, can slash, can hit 3’s, explosive scorer.

Small Forward: Like a shooting guard, but slightly taller, slower, and stronger. Think Rudy Gay (raptors). I would say Lebron or Durant here, but they are physical freaks of nature. But let’s look at Durant. 6’10, can hit 3s like crazy, can post up and use size, can block shots, can get rebounds. Small forwards are usually 6’7 to 6’9 and are versatile/balanced.

Power Forward: Usually 6’8-6’11. Solid rebounder and defender. Can score from 0-18 feet from the basket. Think Chris Bosh (heat).

Center: Usually 6’10-7’7 (7’7 is max ever). Tallest player, usually worst ball handler and perimeter shooter. Asked to rebound and protect the rim from opposing guards. Offensively, they score on putbacks, post ups, and short shots.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Teams play different styles, especially in college. Some teams run and gun, that is, they grab your missed shot and push the ball up the court with a frenzy and try to get a quick shot before you can set up your defense. Other teams prefer a slower and more methodical pace where they can gradually grind you down and beat you in a war of attrition. Every possession is an intricate set of cuts, screens, and passes designed to eventually punish a defensive mistake.

The most popular offense in the NBA is a pick-n-roll. It is used nearly twice a minute in an nba game. Often, a team will run some other offense (you only have 24 seconds from the time your team gains control to attempt a shot, which must go in or touch the rim), but the defense will stop it. So with 8-10 seconds left on the clock, they will run a pick-n-roll. Their best slasher/scorer handles the ball, a big man sets a screen on his defender, and the slasher attacks. The defense must now decide very quickly how to handle it. Despite hours of practice, it is still very difficult to defend because often the two defenders (of the slasher and the big) end up switched, which causes two mismatches (a big slow guy guarding a skilled slasher and a small guard guarding a big tall guy rolling to the hoop).

Many teams isolate. That is, they clear out one side of the court, throw it to a talented 1-on-1 player and let him play a possession isolated against an inferior defender. NBA players are so good that some can score at will in this situation (Kobe, Melo, Bron, KD, CP3 on the dribble, Howard, Jefferson, Rose, etc). So to counter, the defense will send a second defender at the star (double team). So now, an offensive guy is open. So if the star is unselfish, he will swing the ball around to his teammates while the defense scrambles back into position. Sometimes they get a wide open shot, sometimes they get a blowby (defender runs at the shooter, shooter drives right by him), and sometimes the defense recovers. Then it becomes a numbers game. If the supporting cast cant score, they’re in trouble. If they’re hitting shots, then the defense really has a problem because it can’t guard the isolation and the others are hitting shots. It’s very interesting.

Some teams have no reliable bigs. Yes, they may have two 6’11 guys, but neither of them may have good post moves. Then, that team becomes a perimeter team: they shoot many 3’s. This is streaky. While some nights they may hit 15 3’s and just blow you out, other nights, those same shots don’t fall and they just die. Reliable post players are rare and valuable because they cause so many problems for the other team. Great shooters love playing with dominant big men (like Shaq) because the defense collapses on the Big and the Big can kick the ball out to the open shooters.

– zebraman7 

 

 

Do Police Officers Struggle With Becoming Bitter Toward the Public?

Yes. This is particularly a problem when the officer is dealing with a group who he perceives is always making work for him.

The city where I worked was a tourist destination with lots of money and liquor in the mix. It drew a disproportionate share of people who are now called “homeless” (we usually referred to them as “vagrants” or “drunks”) who would panhandle, buy, or otherwise acquire alcohol, and get drunk in parks and other public places. They had very low standards of hygiene, occasionally fought (not very effectively) with officers, and committed many petty offenses that took a great deal of time and resources to deal with.

It was very easy to depersonalize these people and essentially forget they were human. When I worked there, management didn’t make much of an effort to discourage this. The only time anyone would get into trouble over a drunk was when something truly over-the-top happened. For example, a two-officer team working the drunk wagon were loading up the drunks and then racing out of town 20 or 30 miles to the boonies, then dumping them at the side of the freeway. They got fired, but several attempts at trying them were all frustrated by witnesses who were either too drunk to testify or who just couldn’t be found when they were needed.

That same agency now has a homeless outreach program that is the model for other agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere. The sort of behavior that was common in my day is not tolerated now.

I think this is a low-intensity version of the dynamic that takes place with combat troops in war time, especially if the enemy is a different race or ethnicity than the troops. In past wars, enemies of the U.S. have been referred to as all kinds of slurs. It’s a lot easier to dehumanize someone if he or she doesn’t look or act like you do. Depersonalizing the opposition makes it easier to kill them without as much emotional baggage. You’re not shooting a person; you’re shooting a [insert ethnic slander here].

The problem can be further aggravated until the adversary becomes anyone who isn’t a cop. There is an old tongue-in-cheek summary of the stages of a police officer’s career:

  • Stage one: People are all the same. There are good people and bad people, and my job is to keep the bad people from hurting the good people.
  • Stage two: There are two kinds of people: cops, and everybody else. I trust only the cops.
  • Stage three: A lot of the cops are assholes. The only one I can trust is my partner.
  • Stage four: I’m not so sure about my partner.

The organizational culture of the law enforcement agency largely dictates how pervasive this sort of attitude is allowed to be. It’s not tolerated in some outfits, and it’s status quo in others.

– Tim Dees, retired cop and criminal justice professor, Reno Police Department:

 

 

What’s it like to get laid out in the NFL?

 It was like being in a car accident. Everything was fast, then it was suddenly slow motion. I was running down on punt coverage against Dallas last season, like I’ve done a thousands times before. I pushed off on my blocker. I turned to my left. I saw a white jersey.

Car crash.

I hit the ground, and I heard the sound you never want to hear. When you have a brush with death, people always say you see a light. Well, I didn’t see a light. I heard a noise. You know the noise I’m talking about — like when you were a little kid, bored at a family party, and you ran your finger around the top of your auntie’s wine glass. It’s that weird, far-off ringing sound. 

It was terrifying. I couldn’t hear the crowd. I couldn’t hear my teammates. That’s when I knew it was bad.

I was thinking, O.K., get up. Just get up.

But I couldn’t get up. My whole body was numb. I couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t move my head. I couldn’t talk.

All I could do was move my eyes. I was thinking:

Am I deaf?

Am I paralyzed?

What is going on?

Am I about to die?

Please, somebody come help me.

In that moment, I was completely helpless. You know what it felt like? Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? Imagine you wake up from a dream early in the morning, and you can hear everybody in your house making breakfast and talking and laughing, but you can’t move. No matter how hard you try, you can’t actually get up. You’re stuck in between being asleep and being awake.

So you just lay there, trapped inside your own body while the world goes on around you. That’s exactly what it felt like, except I wasn’t in bed. I was at the 50-yard-line of Cowboys Stadium, surrounded by 90,000 fans.

(via)

 

The post A Few Answers To Questions You Always Wondered About appeared first on Caveman Circus.

The Dumping Grounds

0
0

The 32-year-old prince who’s shaking up Saudi Arabia

 

Julian Lennon, John’s firstborn son, would like to punch anyone gushing to him about his father to this day, because he has “no respect for him as a father and a person” due to his near-complete abandonment

 

The Heartbreak Of Not Having A Vagina

 

Dumbass takes selfie next to train

 

Don’t call her

 

How to flush 10K in 5 seconds

 

The post The Dumping Grounds appeared first on Caveman Circus.

Linkage

0
0

The Mr. Fix-Its Who Save Broken Sex Dolls…Manufacturers don’t want to get their hands dirty, so these Real Doll artisans come to the rescue – Mel Magazine

Letter to My Younger Self By Ronaldinho – Players Tribune

NFL Rejects ‘Please Stand’ Ad from Veterans Group….Here’s a novel ideal, take that money you were about to spend on commericals and spend it on mental health care and help for our homeless veterans – Maxim

Blockbuster films ignore the real harbinger of the apocalypse: ignorance of science – The Verge

Amazing Product! The LifeStraw water filter lets you safely sip straight from the stream or lake without any pumping, squeezing or filling. Great for Hiking, Camping, Travel, and Emergency PreparednessAmazon

Quite Possibly The Hottest Girl You Will See Today – Imgur

Foods You Eat Every Day Surgeons Have Now Confirmed Are “Death Foods” – Five Fatal Foods

Raised To Hate: Here’s What North Korean Schoolkids Are Taught About America – Ranker

Bewbs And Awesomeness Picdump – Leenks

China Has Banned Hip-Hop Culture and Tattoos From TV Shows – TIME

A Fine, Young, Heavenly Hottie Named Amberr Daviss – Yes Bitch

Meet the Hardest Working Man in Porn – GQ

Here’s exactly how many days you should book your flight in advance to save the most on airfare – Business Insider

The Guy Who Played Barney The Dinosaur Now Runs A Tantric Sex Business – VICE

Super plus sized model Tess Holiday got naked and yuck! – Drunken Stepfather

More Than 750 American Communities Have Built Their Own Internet Networks – Motherboard

Jeff Bezos Gains $2.8 Billion After Amazon Go’s Debut, Reaches Highest Net Worth Ever – Forbes

Kelly Brook Is The New Ashley Graham – Hollywood Tuna

Macaulay Culkin Reveals Truth About Relationship With Michael Jackson As A Kid – Unilad

Hump Day is a Happy Day! (38 Photos) – Radass

Mexico’s drug cartels, now hooked on fuel, cripple nation’s refineries – Reuters

Meet Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rumored Ex Alyce Crawford – G-Celeb

Why a Criticism Is Better Than a Compliment – Life Hack

The post Linkage appeared first on Caveman Circus.


Hot Instagram Girl Of The Day: Adelia

Reaction GIFs Beeyotch!

0
0

When I ask my friend with Parkinson’s how big the fish he caught was

 

When I’m in line at a busy Subway and the guy in front of me orders 8 subs, all toasted

 

When my wife and I come home from a date night and discover our babysitter has also cleaned the entire house 

 

When Amazon delivers some kind of weird vase instead of the XBox controller card I ordered 

 

Whenever Fox News uses the term “mainstream media” as if it somehow doesn’t apply to them

 

When Pornhub asks if I want to share the video I just watched on social media

 

When I Show Up To A Family Function After Getting A Better Job Than My Siblings

 

When the vet says my dog is going to be OK, but they want to hold him overnight for observation

 

When your Ancestry results come in and show you’re .00097 ‘Other’

 

When your dog see another dog walk by the house

 

The post Reaction GIFs Beeyotch! appeared first on Caveman Circus.

There Are Some Things You Just Can’t Argue With

One Of The Worst Pain A Human Can Experience: Cluster Headaches

0
0

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and feeling a drill in your eye. This is not a metaphor. Imagine feeling like somebody has pierced a hot metal rod through your neck and rammed it up into your brain. Again, this is not a metaphor. This is what a  ​cluster headache feels like. 

Cluster headaches are also known as “suicide disease”, as sufferers have been known to take their own lives when they can’t bear the pain any longer. The condition affects 0.1 percent of the world’s population and I’m in that exclusive club 

My cluster headache is chronic. I had 4–8 attacks per day for 11 years, and 1–4 attacks per day for the last year. For a few years, I used sumatriptan and oxygen to relieve the pain for a long time. Currently, I use oxygen exclusively. I am treated by a team of doctors, including a neurologist who specializes in disorders like CH. I have yet to find any effective preventative medication, and I have tried everything except the implant. Oxygen is the only treatment that has been effective. It works almost every time.

The pain is the easiest part of CH. It hurts- a lot. It starts in my teeth and feels like I’ve broken them. Early on in my experience with CH, I actually pulled out a tooth during an attack. Obviously, it didn’t help. From my upper teeth, the pain increases and moves to the part of my head above my ear (my left side for the past few years, but was my right side previously). At the same time, it occurs at the base of my skull and behind my eye, on the same side. This pain comes from the inside of my head. When it happens, I envision the hand of an angry person with a blunt object, like the handle of a hammer, frantically jamming the tool against the inside of my skull, holding it in a fist and rubbing it between my temporal area and eye, angrily, like a child messily uses crayons on paper. In order to keep my head in the right place, this angry, hammer wielding torturer I have coconcted uses a piece if iron rebar, jammed through the base of my skull. This is what I envision during an attack. It might technically be a hallucination. Generally, I will be moaning, rocking, or pacing in circles and holding my head and face with both arms/hands. I always use the same hand/arm position, I think. My face gets red and puffy. My eye and nose runs. I get deeply confused.

Back to the pain not being the worst part. The truth is, the pain is an epic nightmare that words do not sufficiently describe.

But the worst part is the panic and fear that accompanies it. I do not have words to describe the secondary effects of physical pain that is so intense. A cluster headache is more than just extremely intense physical pain. Cluster headaches can wake people out of anesthesia. That kind of pain changes people. Imagine going to sleep knowing that you will wake up an hour later in this type of pain, every night, every nap, no matter what. I’m not talking about anxiety over future attacks, though. What I mean is that there is very little known about CH, and it is my own belief that the mechanisms behind/related to CH also trigger a unique type of mental anguish during attacks. It’s like a focused mix of sadness, rage, and terror. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s a unique feeling, and I only experience it during an attack.

Hot baths give me attacks, so does warm weather, cold air, bright light, single sources of light, white light, many smells, loud noises, certain high pitched noises, exercise. Chewing my food triggers an attack oftentimes. I’ve had CH on trains, in public, at work, at school, on the freeway, in restaurants, meetings. I don’t know life without cluster headaches anymore.

I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me, just to explain my experience. CH has opened my perception of things. On one hand, I wrestle with agoraphobia due to the attacks, and always have an oxygen tank with me. In the other hand, I know that my experiences with exceptional pain places me in a cadre of individuals who endure something that the vast majority of people can’t comprehend. I don’t go around telling people what I go through with my headaches. I’m sure they would think I’m exaggerating or pining for attention. I’ve told a few people, and they don’t understand. Cluster headaches are so rare. Most people hear “headache” and try to relate their experiences with migraine. It offends me, but I know they are just trying relate.

 

 

The post One Of The Worst Pain A Human Can Experience: Cluster Headaches appeared first on Caveman Circus.

The Daily Man-Up

0
0

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion… Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

― Muhammad Ali

The post The Daily Man-Up appeared first on Caveman Circus.

Viewing all 21705 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images