As a resident of Austin, TX, I don’t like to throw shade at hipsters. I think hipsters are great. Without hipsters we wouldn’t have so many niche coffee shops, high-end thrift stores, festivals with taco cannons or vegan food trucks. I think “hipster” gets thrown around too liberally, and is a catch-all for squares. Don’t like how somebody looks? Are they different from you? HIPSTER. GET HIM.

That said, I have prepared a dark world of shade to throw at CAT BIKE GUY, the Philadelphia resident with a GoPro camera and a desire to be a living, breathing ‘Portlandia’ joke. Here’s the quick checklist:

1. Ironic mustache
2. Pabst Blue Ribbon sticker on his helmet (no, seriously)
3. rides his bike everywhere
4. makes his housecat sit on his shoulders while he rides his bike everywhere so he can be the Cat Bike Guy
5. quirky soundtrack accompanying him at all times

All he needs is a really tall bike and some clunky glasses without lenses and he’s hipstered as hard as he can. That poor cat. When Cat Bike Guy stops, the cat should just leap for it and bail.

[via Reddit]

Ed. note - Jessica ‘Lobster Mobster’ Hudnall’s read-through of Tank Abbott’s Befor There Were Rules, A Trilogy By #1 MMA Cagefighting Legend David “Tank” Abbott, Book One, Bar Brawler, A Novel continues today, and if you haven’t caught up with her SparkNotes yet, now’s the time to do it.

Part 1 – Foreword, Prologue, Chapter 1

Part 2 – Chapters 2-4

Today: Chapters 5-7. Not a lot of fighting, but a ton of introspection, and at least a few racist epithets! Enjoy.

Read the rest of this entry »

LeBron Iver

People send and Tweet a lot of links to me each week and the results range from tame and general to bizarre and borderline terrifying, but every now and then somebody shows me something that just makes me giggle with delight, and that’s good for everyone. That happened the other day when a friend passed along the Tumblr site Indie Basketball, which, as the name implies, combines popular indie bands with NBA stars. Simple and sweet.

But more than anything, I’m a sucker for puns, so that more than makes up for my shameful lack of knowledge when it comes to who some of these bands are. For example, Bat for Lashes? No clue. But Bat for Nashes? That’s a giggle-maker right there. So let’s get the pun machine rolling with some of our own names (that aren’t exactly indie bands, I know):

Earl the Pearl Jam
Houston Rocket from the Crypt
Kids in Glass Eddie Houses
King Charles Barkley
Franz Vasquez Ferdinand
P.J. Donnell Harvey
Heypenny Hardaway

Damn, that’s some fine punning right there. I’ve included some of my favorite Indie Basketball efforts after the jump, but don’t let that stop you slick hipsters from suggesting your own with your favorite Bright Eyes and Wolf Parade jams playing in the background.

*picks Frisbee off of lawn, keeps it*

Read the rest of this entry »

Relevant.

Earlier this week, I scoured the Internet to put together my official 2012 Summer Olympics Team USA viewing gear so I could properly cheer on my nation’s best athletes from the comfort of my favorite bars. While I won’t yet reveal what I will be wearing almost every day for the next month – good hygiene be damned – I did think that it was important to help other people scrounge the webs for some last second items to help them also appreciate the best part of the Olympics – dressing like an asshole. This will especially be important for our bevy of Olympics live discussions.

Of course there’s no better place than my favorite time-wasting website, Etsy, to find such championship-caliber gear on short notice. Some people might argue eBay, and with overpriced, poorly produced crap, and lazy shipping policies, I’d agree that eBay is probably more indicative of America. But screw eBay, because Etsy rules. And to prove that point, I’ve dug up 10 awesome American clothing items that you can purchase to wear while the U.S. of A brings home every single medal* on Earth.

Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Yankees bounced back from their humiliating 4-game sweep at the hands of the Oakland Athletics over the weekend by not only beating the Seattle Mariners 4-1 on the field, but also by crushing the spirit of the entire city. In what can only be described as one of those baseball trades that “had to be done for the sake of the aging star”, the Mariners traded their franchise superstar Ichiro Suzuki to the Yankees for a pair of prospects and hopefully a can of Pringles, because they’re delicious.

What made this trade so remarkable wasn’t that it even happened in the first place, but that it went down before the Yankees came to Safeco Field and played the Mariners. That’s like the Patriots trading Tom Brady to the Jets on a Sunday morning or the Lakers trading Kobe Bryant to the Celtics on Christmas Day. But this is ultimately about the star who gave all and received very little from his team in return. As Ichiro said:

“I am going from a team with the most losses (in the American League) to a team with the most wins,” he said. “It’s hard to contain my excitement for that reason.”

Ichiro was greeted with a standing ovation and probably enough misty eyes to fill a second Puget Sound, as he belted a single up the middle for his first at-bat as a Yankee. And there goes another one, a Mariners legend, like Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez before him, gone without fulfilling an Emerald City dream of winning a World Series.

Death Cab for Cutie front man Ben Gibbard knows how Mariners fans must feel right now, as he has finally released a song that he wrote about Ichiro a few years ago, called “Ichiro’s Theme”. Like to hear it? Here it goes.

Read the rest of this entry »

For as much as we tend to bag on hipsters – despite probably qualifying for entry-level hipster status – I have a great deal of respect for those valiant promoters of vintage, because they produce some events that are just delightfully random. For instance, people have been gathering every year since 2005 to honor the era of the gentleman competitor with the Chap Olympiad, which was held this past weekend in London’s Bedford Square Gardens.

What exactly is the Chaps Olympiad? Well, good sir, allow the Telegraph to educate your unenlightened scoundrelesque mind before you further sully your reputation.

Chaps consider themselves a dying breed who wear horn-rimmed spectacles, listen to music on the wireless, wear smoking jackets, cravats, bow ties and give each other tips on moustache growing and getting a proper shine on leather shoes.

The concept of their games is to pay tribute to a time gone by and make a stand against vulgarity, to celebrate the “gentleman” and the “dandy” and take part in some rather eccentric games.

Sure, I saw the word “dandy”, rolled my eyes, and groaned, because I prefer my sports to be the opposite of foppish, but it appears that these Chaps events are right on course with the gentleman drinker’s ultimate challenges.

Read the rest of this entry »