1) Socrates
– Trademarked the historic ‘Thinker’ pose
– Invented pipes and crab soccer
– His sketches inspired multiple forms of modern transportation including the Razor Scooter and Heelys
Socrates was totally yolked in college, but became iconic for his cool thoughts as an old guy.
When Socrates was 14, he contracted Aids. He lived to be 120 years old, but eventually died of Sars. That’s why we start our article with the man who overcame all odds (except Sars) to warm our hearts, and eventually inspire Cher’s second album title, dozens of decades after dying from a mixture of Aids and Sars.
2) Seagulls
When Hurricane Katrina devastated all of America, nobody had it worse than seagulls. According to a girl who made a presentation in my poli-sci class junior year (Class of ’09 stand up!), 204 million seagulls and 199 million pelicans lost their lives in Ultrastorm Katrina. In comparable, not a single person in Ohio died from what ended up being the worst natural disaster ever by over 50 million birds.
So, before you are so quick to say, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” why don’t you consider the innocent baby birds who never even took their first flaps?
You’re probably thinking, “Okay, Katrina’s a bitch. She killed sooo many adorable birds, but what the heck? I’m reading this research article for motivation! Not for things much sadder than the Holocaust.” That’s where the good part comes in:
Since the financial collapse in 2009, caused by the criminally negligent origination of home loans to sub-prime borrowers, and the subsequent packaging of those sub-prime mortgages into complex financial instruments sold back to that same homeowner’s retirement account, multiplying the financial impact on the poor and middle class, while eliminating any risk for the banks and financial institutions who orchestrated this cataclysm in the first place (run by who else?), the American Elite), Seagull and Pelican populations have risen all the way back up to a combined 76 million!
Pelicans couldn’t, though. They were far too weak, physically and mentally, to overcome the combined effects of the storm, the BP Oil Spill, and the 2009 financial collapse. The current pelican population of Ohio is 0 pelicans; sadly, it looks like they are now Pelican’ts. Home prices have steadily risen since the collapse, but remain lower than the inflation-adjusted prices we witnessed from 1990 to 2005, suggesting this might be a buyer’s market.
6) This puppy named Henry
7) Shia LaBeouf
Commonly regarded as the finest performance in acting history, Shia LaBeouf’s portrayal of Louis Stevens on the timeless, ‘Even Stevens’, won over every single one of our little hearts. A multi-dimensional, emotional thriller, Even Stevens was the first American TV show to invoke that incredible ‘edge of your seat’, “I can’t wait for next Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00 PM“, “I’m willing to shit my pants just to not miss a fucking moment,” type of drama.
The show, which watches much more like a genuine Docu-Drama than your average American Pseudo-Drama, originally had Nicolas Cage casted to play every single character, but a last minute decision to not include him at all left an opening for the janitor’s son to take the lead role. This heart-pumping, diabolically-well written, modern masterpiece is considered by most silver screen historians to be America’s foray into quality television. When Shia LaBeouf was 14, he contracted Aids and Sars; the show could not go on.
Years later, Brian Cranston was quoted saying simply, “If it wasn’t for Louis Stevens, there would be no Heisenberg. That is a cold, hard, fact. Vince [Gilligan] and I were washing windows on an old run-down bus for fun when Louis Stevens came to us in a hallucination. I don’t remember much about it, but a week later we were on day three of filming ‘Breaking Bad‘.”
LeBeouf, now 28, still has really bad Sars and Aids. Every hospital and middle school nurse’s office in North America has offered to treat him, but he swears by the herbal remedies and Luden’s cherry cough drops he is prescribed.
His physician, Dr. Oz, believes LaBeouf will live to be 120 years old.
You can.
Strong Guys With Good Pets 