Your pile stinks

Sup --

Wow. I almost went a whole calendar month without posting anything. Sorry. So what do I have for you today? Well, this past week at work, in conversations with friends, I was presented with a few situations where I had to choose between accepting someones - unintentional? - pile of horse poo, or standing up for what I knew to be the truth and risking becoming the jerk that thinks he knows it all.

Case number 1
Friend of mine and I were talking about Tommy "The Duke" Morrison. Hes the boxer who had tested positive for AIDS back in 1996 and was banned from ever boxing again. Hes recently come out of banishment to fight again because every test hes taken since then has come back negative and its now being said that the first test was a false positive and that hes never had HIV to begin with.
I had mentioned that to my friend who said that I was wrong and that hes still HIV positive but doesnt have AIDS and that the only reason hes boxing again is because he sued to be allowed back in the ring.
Im sure he believed that to be true, but hes on the thick minded side and after a couple tries trying to get him to see it my way I realized that it was useless, so instead of continuing to chip away at the brick wall until I "won" the argument, I decided to just say "I dont know man" and leave it at that.
However, once I got home I went to ESPN.com to check if there was a story on this and of course there was so I sent him a link to it. I feel a bit bad cuz "my" facts now get in the way of "his" good story, but I saw no other option and it beat standing there with him at work playing tug of war with the truth.

Case 2
One of the boss type people at work just found out from another boss type person that I was fairly well educated on the subject of wrestling. The sad truth is that I probably know more than both of them, even though they consider themselves to be experts.
So my boss type friend asked me if I knew about how this one wrestler died and I simply said heart attack to which he responded with, "Yeah, but do you know what he was doing when he had the heart attack?" I figured he was going to say something about him being "with" a girl at the time so I just said "How?" and he told me a tale about something much more scandalous and illegal.
So there I was, knowing full well that his story was wrong, but do I stand there and try to enlighten him, or do I smile, accept his story, and move on? I moved on. I feel bad though. Not for my friend who actually believed that obvious internet myth, but for the wrestler whos last minutes on earth are now believed, by some, to have consisted of some messed up junk.

Those were just two examples of the half dozen or so I had this week. So what would you do? How long would you continue to discuss a "fact" - not an opinion - before you just gave up and walked away? Not discussing it long enough could give the impression that youre a person who believes anything, but too long and you become Mr Know It All. Its a fine line I must continue to walk... at least until people become as smart as I am. :)

I suppose thats it for today. Perhaps Ill see yall next month.

-- DBW --