Lance Armstrong *UPDATED*

You will not find a bigger supporter of Lance Armstrong. I really hate to see people trying to rip him down. I see these allegations against him and it makes me sick. Since he is no longer fighting the USADA, anyone's allegation against him does not have to be cross referenced meaning that the allegations are simply that, allegations. There is no concrete proof other than words from already caught substance abusers. Lance is a man who did what no man has ever done and instead of letting him have the glory, it's the American way to tear him down. That is the society we live in. One which does not worship the legend, but finds a way to tarnish the legend. It's not the way my ancestors lived. Legends are for the record books. Legends live inside of us. Legends teach us to be better and they teach us to become legends of our own. What will our kids do when there are no legends to look up to?

*UPDATE*

I can do nothing other than eat my words. The news that has broken in the last couple days since I wrote this have absolutely broken my heart. As much as I want to convince myself, Lance never honestly won those 7 races. It's very sad to know that somebody I vested so much of my interest and support in has lied for so long and has put up a front of being this transparent, compliant, successful athlete. He was a beacon of hope for so many people and now he is nothing more than a cheater. I'll never forget waking up early every July for seven years to watch Lance make his annual quest for glory. Now I'll always remember him for the liar he was.

Phone Shots

All pictures are taken and edited on my HTC Evo 4g LTE.

Television

    If you’re like me, you like movies and television. Movies definitely rock, they are finite pieces of art that have a beginning and an end and you typically leave the theater with a sense of closure from the story. However, in the last 5 years the industry has seen a decline in theater attendance. In fact, it’s reported that attendance is at a 25 year low, this could certainly be because of television’s huge advance.
     Television has become such a wonderful medium for great story. AMC has definitely upped their game in the last 5 and FX is right behind them. Both channels deliver original, well written, and well produced shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Wilfred, and Sons of Anarchy. Channels like Showtime and HBO have been in the high quality T.V. game for awhile, turning out shows like Dexter, Weeds and Boardwalk Empire to name a few. People are soaking it up like the last bit of BBQ sauce on a summer afternoon.
     Television is tangible, it’s right there, right in the other room. All it takes is a couple of footsteps, a sitting motion, and the pressure of a finger and you are immersed in a quality story with beautiful production value that closely rivals, if not trumps a feature film. You can get a feature film without piling the family into the car, paying the premium price for tickets, buying the snacks and sitting in a cold dark room on gum stuck seats with 100+ of your most distant friends and sometimes you aren't even satisfied with the money you spent because the movie sucked. Who would do that when you can crack open a cold beer and watch Walter White make some high grade meth every Sunday?
     The industry is definitely shifting and I think it is in a good way. T.V. has learned what it takes to rival film and they are doing a great job at executing and we are benefiting. Almost every household has a television and almost every household at least has basic cable meaning that you have access to some great shows; ABC boasts a pretty excellent comedy lineup with Modern Family leading the charge. NBC still has some good material despite the decline of The Office.
     What I’m saying is that you can have everything a movie gives you, in the comfort of your own home every day of the week. Netflix has done a stellar job boosting the amount of television shows they have on their instant streaming service. You can watch an entire series of a show all instant, all at home without having to wait for the discs to arrive at your house. The age of television is upon us, celebrate, partake, discover. There is so much good out there to watch! Settle down and take it all in.

My Instagram Work

All photos were taken and edited on-phone.

71%

Oh Yeah!

Tim Tebow's Legacy

At 1-4 the Denver Broncos were all but finished in the AFC West last season. Kyle Orton looked equally as clueless as every member of the Broncos coaching staff. The fans became restless and relentless. Their voices were heard. Tim Tebow; the man who embodies everything that is right with the world leap-frogged Brady Quinn and was given a chance. It seemed more like the staff gave him a chance to fail just to show the fans how wrong they were about him but Tim didn't fail. He threw the Denver Broncos on his strapping shoulders and carried them to their first playoff win since Jake Plummer and company beat the New England Patriots in 2005. He made the franchise relevant again. He made people care, not only sports fans, but culture worldwide. Tim's name was turned into an adjective and verb almost overnight.

Tim Tebow made this world believe that no matter what people say about you, you can still go out and show them that they are wrong. Sports analysts around the country simply sat back, baffled by his weekly comebacks. They didn't know what to say because there was nothing to say. It was a spectacle that we have never seen before and probably will never see again. He made the underdog a fighter again. he put Denver on the map… again.

You don't need to compare him to John Elway or comment on his statistical performance because lets face it, he's quite awful when you look at it. But watch the footage; he found ways to win. He took the ball from under center and rumbled through anybody that got in his way. He didn't slide or run out of bounds, he lowered his shoulder and made you pay a price for even thinking about getting in his way. Tim is a competitor and he made the Denver Broncos organization believe that they could do something with a little bit of effort. As he packs his bags for his next stop, he leaves Denver with some of the greatest football memories that they will ever have. 30 years from now men sitting in Denver area bars won't be talking about Kyle Orton or Jake Plummer, they might not even be talking about John Elway anymore; they'll be asking each other "Remember 2011? Wasn't Tebow something?"

The Walking Dead Mid-season Finale

Every once in a while, a piece of cinema or television comes along that hits that emotional string inside every one of us. It could be from two completely different movies; the closing scene of Saving Private Ryan, or Toy Story 3 for example. A successful film is able to hit this string buried deep inside of our soul, and when it's hit, it hurts.

Rick Grimes did that with his gun last night on the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead.

Last night, we were treated to one of the best hours of cinema in the last 5 years, and yes, it was on cable television.

"Guys, the barn's full of walkers". 6 words was all it took for Glenn to light the fuse that would inevitably lead us to the best fireworks display that television has seen in years. Granted, the 20 minutes or so after that were just transport to the more interesting bit, but they all served a purpose. To develop these characters more, as if this season hasn't done enough of that already. Shane and Rick are really starting to become deep characters in this show, we are starting to see what side this world brings out of them. They may have been partners and best friends before the world turned, but once the world changed so did they, they became two opposite people. This constant thirst for character development can only mean one thing. People are going to start to die, and its going to get violent.

I digress

Some would say that Shane melted down last night, I disagree. Shane made a decision last night, he wants to lead these people, and he wants to keep them safe. He isn't going to discuss killing the walkers in the barn, he is going to kill the walkers in the barn, and he's going to give a gun to every son of a bitch that agrees that in this world there is no safe haven unless you fight to make it so. He may have a brash way of making a point (shooting a walker repeatedly while Herschel holds onto it with a Steve Irwin stick) but he makes it nonetheless. He walks to the barn door with a pick axe and chops those locks off with deliberate force. And he stands back and lets hell rain down on every mother, father, sister, brother, son and yes even daughter that walks out of that barn, and as the dust settled, Shane and the rest of the group looked up to see Sophia walk out into the world on the opposite side. And instead of Shane walking up and putting one more exclamation point on his tirade, it's our quiet leader, with Sophia's mother crying for her daughter in the background, who makes the biggest statement of all. We are willing to fight for our own safety, even if that means doing what is hard, killing one of our own.

If Shane would have pulled that trigger it would have meant nothing. Rick proved himself with that bullet, he said to Herschel that these things aren't people anymore and we're not afraid to put down the ones we love when they are no longer the ones we loved. He then said to his group that after all of the searching and all of the persuading, I can still make decisions that need to be made. Maybe not as rough and off the cuff as Shane, but when it matters, I can pull that trigger.

This is where the writers showed their brilliance. Sophia wasn't valuable, she meant nothing to the group, her character was the least relevant in the whole show, she acted simply as a MacGuffin. A thumpin' good one at that. She made us sink our teeth into this story and wait and wait, hoping for a positive outcome. Her running off was the best thing that ever happened to The Walking Dead, she drove this entire story without being on screen for more than 5 minutes and she will continue to drive the story for the rest of the season. She influenced every decision made by the group. She helped make us fall in love with Darryl, and start to hate Shane. Hell, she got Glenn laid and Maggie in trouble. She killed Otis, she got Carl shot, and she broke Herschel as a man. If it wasn't for Sophia; little, insignificant, Sophia, the group would not be at that farm, and they might all be dead. Sophia became the best thing that ever happened to The Walking Dead and she didn't do a damn thing. That my friends is brilliant screenwriting.

Cheers to the writing staff for their show of brilliant emotional writing, they knew where to punch and they hit their mark. Right in the gut.

Cheers to the second half of the season, I'll see you all there!

-Tod