Going in different directions
While I've always been a South Park fan, Trey Parker and Matt Stone never cease to amaze me. I laugh my ass off at every episode. Last night they pulled in the
PSP mania and all this Shiavo coverage into the same episode and it was a riot.
Meanwhile, though I'm two episodes behind,
Alias has been complete garbage this year. It's unbelievable how off-track and misguided the show is now. They've even got some random girl moaning during the opening credits which shows Jennifer Garner in all her various outfits, clearly dropping any semblance of plot and stamping it with the "Sex sells" bullshit that permeates current television. Don't get me wrong, she makes the show, but I don't know when the creators decided to take a right turn with the whole Rambaldi stuff and just drop it for a bunch of episodes with no continuity whatsoever. It got back in the mix with the episode 4 or 5 weeks ago, and then last night we watched the one from 3/16 in which Sydney's running from a remote-controlled helicopter that can apparently destroy the entire fucking planet. There's some fishy stuff with Jack and Sloane, but who cares? This is taking so long to play out that I'm not even fired up about watching shows on time anymore. What a HUGE disappointment. J.J. Abrams has clearly been distracted by that damn show "Lost," which I hear is great, but haven't bothered watching yet, simply because I know to expect it to go down the tubes as soon as I get interested and ole J.J. finds some other project to take up his time.
Ugh. This sort of thing is what pisses me off now.
Last day at the office
Wheeeeee! I had tequila for lunch
My homey Matt's got a great tale about coming home yesterday to witness his dog in a near-death match vs a goose. My only complaint is that he didn't get this on tape.
This is actually pretty interesting - a group of Texas lawmakers want to ban Texas teams from playing in any bowl game that is not part of a playoff system. It would expire the day before BCS bids if four other states haven't enacted it, so essentially it's a legislative vote that the BCS sucks.
I find it especially interesting because if not for the BCS, Texas would not have been in the Rose Bowl over Cal.
I hate Auburn, but I do agree with the sentiment here. The BCS is garbage. I can't believe people buy this garbage that the BCS does its job because we are guaranteed to get a 1 vs 2 matchup in the final game every year - I want ONE national champion. That should have been the goal all along. 1 vs 2 is crap, when you have a 3 which went undefeated in the damn SEC.
They actually used the phrase "turd burglar" to start off this story. Wow.
Cardio Serenity
You may notice on the link below that there is a huge Nestle Crunch ad on the page, which reminded me of
Cardio Madness behemoth. She was not there today, and I was too lazy to have gone and bought a Crunch bar on the way to the gym, but I did think of it on the way, which made me proud that I'm not ENTIRELY reliant on MS Outlook to remember all my tasks for me.
So, the normal claim is that the US sucks at soccer because all of our best athletes go into other sports, like baseball, basketball, or football.
Do you think we Indians could get away with saying that we suck at every sport because all our best athletes go into the maths?
This is old news, but I figured I'd chime in with my two cents on Plaxico signing with the G-Men. Right now, most people are onto the fact that Hines Ward is a pretty damn good football player. But aside from the minority of folks who watch Edge NFL Matchup and thus get to listen to good football commentary, it's mostly Georgia grads or those who see some random dude on the Steelers ranked pretty high up in their fantasy football wide receiver rankings.
Sure he gets respect, and it's been growing in recent years, but it's still not nearly as much as he deserves - aside from starting every game the past four years and amassing 94, 112, 95, and 80 catches in each of those seasons (and 1,000 yards in each), he's probably the best blocking WR in the game (and I say this as the biggest Joe Horn fan there is). With Ward's vastly overrated teammate Plaxico Burress signing with the Giants, I would wager the still-underrated Ward is going to get a lot of positive press this year. Coverages will be more focused on him and he'll still school the hell out of them.
Good for Plaxico for getting that contract after averaging 20 yards a catch last year - but with his emotional baggage, my guess is his contribution on the field for the Giants is cancelled out by whatever he does on the sidelines, while Ward goes on to prove how integral he really is to that Steeler offense. I wouldn't be surprised if the 6'0" Ward winds up with 1,500 yards this year. Big Ben won't miss a beat with him still around.
As most of you know, Jose Canseco used to be my favorite athlete of all time. I have about 600 baseball cards of his, and some autographs too. In fact, if you google my ass, the first entry you'll get is a bright-eyed teenage posting I made to a Jose Canseco mailing list back around the dawn of the internet in Monroe, LA. (There weren't a lot of fellow Canseco fans in Monroe, as you may have guessed.)
August 31, 1992, the day he was traded to the Texas Rangers, was the best day of my life. The Ballpark in Arlington is the closest ballpark to Monroe, so we grew up attending games out there (well, at the time they played at the old Arlington Stadium). That was our "home team" to the extent you could really call it that, since we were in fact across state lines. But no MLB team existed in Louisiana, and I didn't want to hop on the Braves wagon. And I hated the city of Houston (and boring National League Baseball, which I have since come to appreciate).
In any event, I have come to my senses in the decade since and now realize like the rest of you that the guy is a complete jackass. As a kid I ignored a lot of the negative press: So he put rocket fuel in his car, that was actually somewhat amusing. He drove a Countach, which apparently wasn't fast enough, so hell, who WOULDN'T add a little octane to that engine? So he hooked up with Madonna. Who gives a rat's ass who he screws? So he started a 1-900 number which served no purpose but to fatten his wallet. And I called it once. Who cares about his off-field ventures?
Then things became not as amusing when I find out the asshole was accused of beating his wife. And actually having a car chase with her which ended with his 911 ramming her BMW on the side of the road or something like that. Roid Rage indeed. Now you're all aware he sold out just about all of Major League Baseball - a necessary step for MLB, but real prick way of accomplishing it - the Jose Canseco Way, I guess.
In any event, I now hate the bastard, largely a result of my own ineptitude in having chosen him as a favorite player and wasting so much time and effort into knowing and idolizing only the good things about the guy (rare as they were). Hell there was even a comic book about him and his brother; I still may have the thing lying around my old room back home.
All that said, I don't think I'll be able to avoid watching the Surreal Life. If he can serve to be a bigger bitch than Omarosa, then diggidy damn, maybe I can reach some - what did Rachel call it? - ahh yes, "CUHH-LOH-SURE."
This'll definitely be the newest addition to my Tivo Season Pass (currently featuring: Alias, Scrubs, South Park, Showbiz India, The O.C., Las Vegas, the soon-to-be-added Family Guy, and the soon-to-be-deleted Blue Collar TV).
This is how we roll in Louisiana, bitches.
Apparently, C feels like he can't win because the Sheriff went on TV and said he wants revenge. I'll be honest here: I'm not sure if I can have a whole helluva lot of sympathy for a guy who decided to anoint himself "C-Murder" in the first place. Let's examine the lyrics from the only song of his I've ever heard (and yeah, it's on my iPod),
Down for My N's:
Make 'em bleed is the motto that, I live by
If you fuck with me it's a must you die
Them niggas might goin run but them niggas can't hide
It's like shootin yourself, it's a - suicide
.
.
Do a drive by with my forty five cause I'm down with these niggas
Snoop Dogg and Bossalinie
.
.
Just point them niggas out and I'll leave em all on the street bleeding
Aww come on, Louisiana Court of Appeals, this guy's an
angel!
I think if the Sonics weren't so surprisingly good, this entire city of Seattle would be ready to jump off a cliff. Let's see - Husky football blows, Seahawks barely made the playoffs and got bounced early even though preseason pundits picked them to win the NFC, and Husky basketball got no further than the Sweet 16.
Although it is sunny today, so we got that going for us.
EDIT: I'm not drunk or anything, just high on life, so that explains the jumbled diction that I corrected above.
Cardio Madness II
To hell with March Madness, we gots Cardio Madness up in this mix. Newest update: Today I roll up to the ellipticals after I finished lifting, and four of the six have been on there fewer than 20 minutes. One has a book over her timer so I can't see how long she's been after it. The other is a woman of rather large stature, at least in terms of width, for she stood approximately 5'4", tipping the scales at a deuce and a half. I am prone to exagerration on occasion, so we'll adjust that to 245. I managed to peer around said lass to the timer, which showed that she'd been getting that workout on for 32 minutes and 7 seconds...and counting. She slowed to take a breath and a sip of water, and then kept going. At this point, I decided to take a cue from my boy Salil (see Blunt Instrument link on the right panel) and anoint today "Fuck This Shit Day," and approach said rules violator. I informed her of the 20 minute rule. She acted like she didn't hear and motioned for me to repeat (no words). I repeated. She looked miffed. I raised my voice a bit, she glared at me and disembarked from the elliptical so I could get my cardio in. No words returned. She proceeded to - what would the proper word be to describe a slug's motion in getting from point A to point B? I'm drawing a blank - waddle over to the treadmills out of my line of sight.
She managed to entertain herself for about thirteen minutes before coming right back to the ellipticals and getting on another one a couple down from me. She is precisely the type of assfuck rules-violater I discussed in
Cardio Madness I earlier today. Pretty much no one but yours truly knows that she's already gotten her 32 minutes in and is about to hog the machines, likely for another 28. (I should say the simple fact that she got 32 minutes in is pretty impressive, though she was probably on Level 1.)
If I haven't made it clear yet, I hate these people. Hatred is bad for my karma, but at this point, to quote
Smokey, I don't give a fuck.
I leave, knowing that I am without a doubt on her "People to Kill" list. I shall appease the behemoth with a Nestle Crunch bar tomorrow, should I see her. I will report back with results when I have them. Payce.
The irony here is delicious - the New York Yankees decide that the New York Times is biased against them, in FAVOR of their rival Red Sox, since the Times Co is a part owner of the Boston Red Sox. Let's see, liberals fiercely claim the mainstream media (MSM) isn't biased, and the NYT is a prime example of said MSM. NYC is full of liberals. NYC is also full of Yankee fans. Ergo, said liberals who dominate NYC are going to have to decide whether the piece-of-shit rag really is biased. I can't WAIT to listen to the fallout here.
Two questions
1) I used to be good at this HTML crap but I've since forgotten. How do I get one of those thingies whereby I can know the hex code or whatever for the purple and gold color scheme with which I hope to adorn this site? Me gustan los LSU Tigres. Son muy bueno. In fact, me encantan los LSU Tigres.
2) How the hell does one do a trackback? I googled it and am only more confused than when I began. It seems like it has to be much simpler than all the crap I'm reading about with the simple google search 'what is a trackback?'.
This seriously has me pumped. There is definite potential here for this to go down as a "Top 3 All Time" type of flick, right up with Hoosiers and Field of Dreams.
While I'm at it, Bull Durham is vastly overrated.
EDIT: I mean Top 3 sports flick, and yeah Varsity Blues is right up there for the time being.
When I'm bored, I like to discuss chicks and sports.
This geezer in the Seattle Times thinks that, just because Instant Replay isn't perfect, we should abolish it. He doesn't care if calls are made incorrectly, he thinks technology ruins the purity of the game. Pardon my french, but homeboy is full of shit. I'm totally down with the argument that personal fouls and other sorts of penalties should be reviewable, but the move should be made towards ACCURACY, to hell with purity. Purity should not have to come at the cost of fairness.
And hell, as a Seattle Times writer, this guy should have some sympathy for replay given the infamous
blown call in the 1998 Seahawks-Jets game that cost the Hawks a chance to make the playoffs.
That brings me to my biggest gripe with the NFL's replay rule: why the hell is pass interference non-reviewable? I'm annoyed with the concept of a trailing team launching a ball sixty yards downfield as the clock ticks down more in hope of drawing a PI call rather than an actual catch. Calls like that change games. It happens, and it fucks teams. A call that huge should be a no-brainer decision on using replay.
I sympathize with purists in some respects - the purity of watching a baseball game at Wrigley or Fenway versus watching it at ad-laden SafeCo or Edison Field - but their adherence to abolishing replay is absurd.
From the "Great moments in headline writing" files (yes, I think I stole that from
Best of the Web).
I have to say, Priyanka Chopra is by far the most under-discussed Miss Universe winner India has produced. The fact that she can't act for shit doesn't really mean anything in Bollywood. That weird lip thing she has going on aside, she is still pretty hot. In fact, I highly recommend you pony up the $3 to rent the movie "Andaaz," also featuring Lara Dutta and Akshay Kumar, just to fast forward to the scene in which Pri and Lara are dancing around half naked in the desert while Akshay (aka AK (sorry, just wanted to type that)) performs a dance routine which in my humble opinion can most accurately be described as an epileptic fit. Seriously, the sheer ineptitude this man displays while dancing is mind-numbing. Twenty years from now - nay, fifty - I assure you history will have borne out my claim that he has no equal on the scale of dance-shittiness. Even I could dance far better than he - and I could do it SOBER.
Then again, he makes a lot more money than I do, and he gets to hook up with Priyanka. He wins.
Ok, going by the face shots, which of these contestants would you have picked to represent India in the Miss Universe pageant? Yeah, Amrita would have been my second-to-last choice (Lakshmi takes the prize there), yet she won anyway. WTF, pageants are not supposed to be about anything BUT looks.
Sindhura was first runner up. She would have gotten my vote for "Most likely to appear in the first A-grade Indian porn." I say this assuming there are no A-grade Indian porns out there, but I don't know. Not that I'm all innocent and shit (though on a relative basis, I think my amigos would tell you that I am), I've just never looked.
Shivani gets my vote for "Most likely to beat the shit out of Queen Latifah in a mud wrestling match." A+ on the hairdo, girrrrrl.
Now that I pretty much have jack shit to do, I'm busy finding new tee-shirts to add to my collection of mostly LSU apparel. Browse this site for some funny ass tees. Click on "Worse Than Hell" up top for some really awful shirts. The type of shirts that I think only the goths at your local hippie hotspot wear. Wait, do goths convene with hippies? I have no damn clue. I lump them all together in the "fucktard" branch of humanity's tree.
I love this. $20. Whenever I am driving, I find myself wishing for THIS EXACT THING. A road rage flipbook that conveys every possible phrase you could consider screaming at the dumbfuck in front of, next to, or behind you. In fact, they even have reversible type on opposing pages in case you need them to be able to read it through their rear view mirror.
My only complaint is that there's nothing about Asian women drivers in this. They suck. It's unbelievable. I spent a full year living downtown in the apartment complex above Uwajimaya, the premier Asian grocery store in Seattle. That year only helped reinforce the already-strong opinion I held on this subject going into that year.
I don't know what it is about Asians, the ladies just can't drive for shit. And pretty much everyone I know, no matter how liberal (e.g. anti-stereotype) they are, agree that this is one stereotype that fits the bill dead-on. And now I'm officially on the record with this vent in type.
Gee, didn't see that coming.
Thank God for
CMC.
Cardio madness
I am really naive. My faith in the altruism of my fellow human beings has hit a new low. I had to rail on some fitness instructors yesterday because of lackluster enforcement of cardio rules. I hate this shit. It's not like the speed limit when you can go five or ten over and the cops don't care, because your extra 10 minutes of cardio means I have to wait an extra few minutes just standing my ass around to get on a damn machine. If I'm driving 70 in a 60, in a non-reckless manner of course, you and I both get where we need to be a bit faster than we otherwise would. Cardio is different. Your breaking the rules only adds inconvenience to me.
I work out at 24 hour fitness. Generally, it's recommended that you do 30 minutes of cardio because that's how long it takes to get your body to really start burning calories. In fact, even 24's own trainers recommend that you do 30 minutes of cardio - no less than that - at least 3x a week. For whatever reason, 24 has a policy of 20 minutes max on cardio machines during peak hours, which is M-F 4-9pm. Everyone in there knows this. I could do interval training but because of a partial bulging disc in my lower back, I will not run on a treadmill, and because of a recent knee issue that arose when adding the bike to my cardio routine, I can't comfortably bike at this time. So elliptical is my only option.
I'm waiting behind the elliptical machines yesterday when one gentleman saw me and was kind enough to get off his machine, citing the 20 minute limit. I got on, did my 20 minutes, and by the time I got done, only ONE out of the five others in that particular row of machines had finished. I'm not kidding when I say that EVERYONE in there knows the rule at this point. They announce it at least once daily - though the trainers follow up the announcement with absolutely zero enforcement of the damn rule. Everyone's trying to appear nice so they can get their fucking PT sessions sold. Anyway, most of those faces on the ellipticals were familiar. And they all pull the same smug shit like looking around and pretending that they don't realize they've gone over 20 minutes, or they've got their goddamn US WEEKLY magazine sitting right on top of the monitor so you can't see how much time they've taken up, or they've got the timer changed to "Time remaining in segment" so you can't tell how long they've been on there. Or they just think they're either so hot that they should get away with it (b/c everyone's staring at their implants anyway), or they're so damn overweight that they deserve to blatantly violate the rules since they need to lose the most weight. Bunch a bitches.
Seriously - What. The. Fuck?
On the main page, you can send "HATE MAIL" (actual words) to the skipper of the Indian cricket team. You have got to be f'in kidding me.
After about the most ridiculous weekend of basketball I think any of us can remember, I'm happy to announce that I'm in the midst of a tight battle for our office pool title. I'm in 4th right now. If Illinois wins it all, I win.
Fingers crossed, bitches.
Now that I've officially posted that on the internet, wonder how long it takes till I'm on the Red State's watch list. Yes, I love to believe that I'm far more important than I really am. But who the hell doesn't?
This particular article reminds me of the occasion on which our in-house China expert said to a group of us upon returning from a recent China visit, "India treats its people like crap." This was not just on an absolute level but even RELATIVE to said assfuck Chinese government mentioned in this discussion. Same kid who had to deal with a
double cheeseburger upside the head in Vegas recently. The guy's got a tremendous intellect, but has these bizarre fits of mental retardation with staggering frequency.
Four more days of work. I think I can make it to the finish line.
Tax fun with liberals
From: T*****
To: Lots of people, myself included
Date: Friday March 11, 2005 12:09 PM
Subject: FW: Taxes
Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The nineth $18
The tenth man (the wealthiest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
"Since you are all such good customers," he said , "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
(Equivalent/analogy to a tax reduction)
So, now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, with the poorest paying little to nothing and the wealthiest, the most.
So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the 20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.
But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being 'PAID' to eat their meal. So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man (the "wealthy"
one) "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right, "exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too! It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
(sound familiar?)
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison.
"We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
(sound familiar?).
So the nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
There are lots of good restaurants in Europe and Asia.
--------------------------
From: D***
To: Errbody who was on the original email
Date: Friday 3/25/2005 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: taxes
Both the analogy and the math are completely bogus. (This is assuming that the original dinner bill is really split the way taxes are, which I doubt—I don’t believe that 40% of the U.S. population pays no taxes. But put that aside.)
The major fault with this analogy is that it assumes that spending is going down—i.e., that the U.S. budget shrinks by 20% (like the meal is suddenly $80 instead of $100). As we all know, that ain’t the case—the U.S. budget is not going down.
To refer back to the analogy, the meal still costs $100. Bush’s tax cuts did not decrease the overall cost of the meal, they just redistributed how the meal would be paid for. Instead of the existing split (zero to $59) to pay for a $100 meal, the author of this bogus analogy proposes that the same folks kick in a total of only $80 (with the rich paying less than they did before). Okay, but where does the extra $20 come from? In the real world, the money is borrowed—i.e., the deficit increases by that much. And who pays for the deficit? Everybody does—in the same proportion as the new (revised, to the advantage of the rich) percentages—except that if the deficit is pushed out far enough "everybody" includes not just the current diners but their children and grandchildren as well.
Here’s the real analogy: After paying for a bunch of $100 meals, the richest guy (who has been paying $59 of the tab) convinces the restaurant owner to take $80 in cash for the next meal and bill them for the balance. Instead of $59, the rich guy only pays $49 of the $80. When it’s time for the next meal, the bill is $100 plus the $20 still owed for the first one (plus interest). At some point, the restaurant owner will start to get nervous about the rising debt he is owed.
Bush’s tax reductions are not, as this analogy suggests, a way to pass savings back to those who are paying for the meal. They are a means to redistribute the cost of paying for the same priced meal. One can argue whether the current (graduated) tax scheme is fair, but it is dirty pool to argue for tax cuts to the rich by means of a bogus analogy.
---------------------------
From: Me
To: D*** and errbody else on the list
Date: Friday 3/25/2005, 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: Taxes
First of all, it is not an analogy particular to the Bush tax cuts in the U.S., as this analogy has floated around for quite some time. The point of the analogy is to illustrate the simple fact that the highest income-earners in the country pay the lion's share of taxes, so when they get a cut that in dollar terms is higher than what lower earners receive, it should be put into some perspective. However, if you want to debate how much tax is paid by the different income classes, I would direct you to the following table:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincometable.html
In it, you'll see that the Top 10% of all income earners in the United States paid 65.73% of taxes in 2002. Surprise! The analogy below IS in fact wrong - the highest payer at the table should be paying $66 instead of $59. And what's more - the Bottom 50% of taxpayers in the United States paid 3.5% of all income taxes in 2002. Not sure what the Bottom 40% pay, but for the purposes of the analogy below, I think we can safely say the Bottom 40% rounds closer to zero than whatever number you have in mind.
The data is taken directly from the IRS, which you are free to call bogus if you'd like. I, however, think you'd just discredit yourself.
Secondly, I am confused regarding your conclusion - is it that, failing spending cuts, the tax revenues which inevitably would have to be increased several years down the line would be done in a proportion different than the current breakdown? If not, the taxes that rich people save now only get recouped by taxing other rich people 10 or 20 years from now. I see no reason in your argument to believe these revenues will be recouped in a manner any different than the way in which it is being done today.
Something I got in an email today reminded me about this speech, so I looked it back up to reread it. I love this speech, as does just about everyone else besides hippies and the French. I don't know if I'd classify it as "Best. Speech. Ever." but it's pretty damn close.
Admits to using roids in the NFL. I can't say this comes as a huge surprise either. One can only wonder what sorts of substances are being used in the NFL that the tests just aren't picking up. (See Tagliabue's comments).
Apparently it is possible for a human to run 262 miles without stopping. Good God. I have trouble driving 262 miles without stopping.
In case you didn't get your daily dose of Instapundit today, you may have missed this.
This is HIGH comedy. My buddy Raj pointed out the link to me...good God this is great. Click on the video section to see some funny shit from Season 2 as well.
I can't tell you how much this makes me laugh:
Coolin in my Escalade
Man I'm paid, I got it made...
Take me to your special place
Close your eyes, show me your face...
.
.
I'm gonna piss on it!
I'll be walking through Nordstrom and hear the original song over the speakers and just bust out laughing. I can't think of anything else that does that to me. DC is a genius...
P.S. - PRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
My buddy Chirag linked to this on his site and I have to agree wholeheartedly - the Wichita State defenders need to be running suicides for the next six months straight. Wow.
Meanwhile, question to the world: since rowdy drunken football fans tear down the goalposts after a victory, why don't rowdy drunken basketball fans tear down the goals after a victory? It seems like it'd be much easier to pull that one off, I've seen Shaq tear one down by himself.
Chicago
Got notified I'm getting called back out there for another interview. Shazam! This time, I'm definitely hitting up Gino's East...
Yippee-kay-yay, motherfucker!
Gosh, in the past it was "buy our shoes and you can dunk and shit." Now it's "buy our shoes and you can get shot 9 times in the face, live to rap about it, and sell multi-platinum albums so you can get a slot on MTV's Cribs."
Vegas Recap
Spent the first four days of the NCAA tourney in Vegas. To wit:
Made money? $200
Made money on the games? (-$10) on about 25-30 bets
Got one night's room comped because Luxor rooms apparently aren't equipped to handle rainfall? Check
Got lit? Check
Multiple times? Check
Enough to the point I dropped at least one drink every day but Sunday? Check
Felt up by metrosexual male co-worker who passes himself off as hetero so he can cop feels on all of us guys and hope we're too drunk to notice, or hope that he's too drunk for us to pay attention? Check
Beat the shit out of said co-worker? Actually no, but he deserved it. Luckily, he escaped only with a double cheeseburger to the side of the head while he was fast asleep. I didn't do that, of course.
Going back? Soon. Anyone who's down, holla.
Back from Vegas and getting caught up on missed reading over the past four days:
Our first promo for the CBS original movie "Spring Break Shark Attack," starring some horribly CGI'ed sharks and "The OC's Shannon Lucio." Couldn't they have just called her, "The girl who played Caleb's bastard daughter from 'The OC'"?
The Sports Guy rules.
Mailbox thievery bullshit
Word of advice: figure out what time of month your credit card bills come in, and make sure you check your mailbox every damn day around that time of the month. Between the 10th and 12th of this month, I was in Chicago and Arie had some friends in town so he wasn't checking our mailbox. It's down on the street along with about six other boxes for homes on our street. Well some assfuck stole my mail, which I think had 4 credit card bills (one which I use on a regular basis, the others are things like Best Buy, Good Guys, Circuit City), and a package delivered from the post office on Saturday which did not require a signature. Luckily the package only had thirty bucks worth of goods - a headset and car charger for my cellphone - but if it'd been something like, say, an ACTUAL cellphone, I'd be pretty fucking livid. As it is, I'm just plain normal livid.
So now I'm pretty souped up worried about identity theft. Changed a couple of those cards, and confirmed with my main card company that I'm not liable for unauthorized charges, so I *think* I'm good to go. Knock heaviliy on wood.
But this is a fucking nuisance. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a nightmare.
Lesson learned: those Citibank commercials and ads that tell you to be worried about identity theft are NOT FUCKING KIDDING.
Oh, I think I'd pay a tidy sum to go watch a live reading by the Family Guy folks...
Want to discuss a long-term short?
[Edited]
First time in 20 years this has happened. I'm going to guess it's largely because there are fewer R-rated movies these days. Many of the action flicks drop all the f-bombs and nudity, and the violence you're allowed to get away with for a PG-13 rating still allows for good fun (and hell, apparently you are allowed one f-bomb per PG-13 movie these days, and some nudity as long as Leo DiCaprio is painting those boobies).
I'm not going to claim that I can do it, but in order to make money in the tournament, you have to have a good idea of what the market is thinking. ESPN has a "national bracket" up that tabulates all the voters' brackets, which I think has to be the closest thing to a market you're going to get with the tourney. Turns out the voters believe every 1,2,3, and 4 seed will advance to the Sweet 16. I guarantee you that will not happen. Now up to you to figure out who won't make it, and bet the moneylines there. Good luck!
My Sweet 16? (edit: I mean Elite 8)
Illinois (1) vs OSU (2)
Georgia Tech (5) vs Wake (2)
UNC (1) vs Kansas (3)
Duke (1) vs Utah (6)
I'll be thinking long and hard about that Georgia Tech pick. Apparently it's chic to pick against the Washington Huskies now that they've gotten the 1 seed. A coworker and UW alum mentioned to me today that had the Huskies gotten a 3 or 4 seed, they'd be the chic pick to make the Final Four. Oh how the seedings play with people's minds!
UPDATE: I am consensus on the Final Four: NC over Duke, Illinois over Wake, Illinois over UNC in the final. Ugh.
I'm the last one on the gizoogle bandwagon, but translating the interview that Riffer and I did with CMC mag a few years back has got me on da flo, fa sho.
Ok, for the last time, I don't CARE if NYC gets more rain than Seattle. Aside from this winter - clearly an anomaly - it ain't the volume that matters, it's the frequency, and it rains ALL THE DAMN TIME here.
No, Tara would NEVER intentionally do anything sexually lewd or immoral.
And you should NOT consider her a party girl what with her naming her dog Stoli.
This is what you get with cheap labor. Pay your taxes, bitches!
In Chicago
Had my interview this morning, fingers crossed.
Ok, this is absolutely hilarious. Shown at The South Asian Students Association annual party-bash-hanky-panky thingie.
Thanks to the kind brownies over at
Sepia Mutiny for the heads up here.
Mike Tice is coming under fire now for potentially arranging for Vikings players and assistant coaches to scalp Super Bowl tickets. One former Vikes assistant noted:
"A lot of teams do it," the assistant told SI.com. "Everybody can do it. Every team has a guy who takes care of moving the tickets. I'd hate to see it end because coaches have always used that as extra money. Coaches do count on that as a little extra deal. [Team] owners will probably stop doing it now, because they don't have to give us those tickets.
Later, we learn that Mike Tice, though one of the NFL's lowest-paid coaches, still makes $1mm a year. So let me get this straight: leaving aside the CLEAR ethical issues of blatantly violating NFL rules - regardless of "everyone else" doing it - these guys are all doing this to augment their income by, what, max 10% a year? I'm pretty sure Tice himself isn't banking a $5k profit on each of 20 tickets (=$100k), so it's far less than 10% for him. Maybe he somehow gets 5 or 10 tickets. What the hell is wrong with these people? I really don't give a rat's ass that the refrain about professional athletes making too much money has become cliched, or that we're dealing with coaches here, this guy is an idiot (and don't even get me started on his incompetence on draft day).
Ok, I just saw this article on Drudge about a guy getting ticketed for taking his daughter to sell Girl Scout Cookies in their old neighborhood after they'd recently moved to a new home. I'm sure they'll sort it out, but that brings me to my point here: I had a gal come by and sell me girl scout cookies about six weeks ago, and I still haven't gotten them. What the hell is up with that? When will I get my cookies? Did I just flush $12 down the toilet to make some little shit's day, only to be fleeced in the end?
I want my Samoas, dammit.
****UPDATE**** - GS cookies have appeared on various desks at my office today, indicating that they have arrived. I will keep you posted on whether or not my cookies arrive at my home. I have been told that prepaying for my cookies was a tremendous mistake. Shit.
Finally the BMI is getting roundly panned. I've been complaining for awhile that the BMI is useless on its own as the most physically fit NFL athletes would be considered obese. I'm 6'1 and 205, about 11-12% body fat, 34 waist, and apparently I'm very overweight according to the BMI. Gimme a break.
Meanwhile, the article goes on to state that:
Experts are studying how appropriate the standard cutoffs are for non-Caucasians; research suggests that members of many Asian populations may need to keep their weight lower to fend off health risks.
Wait, even though I guess you have to be from East of India to be considered Asian these days, I am technically Asian. Seeing as India's part of the damn continent. SON OF A....
And yet somehow, they only lost by two. More of this and I take back the good things I said about them yesterday. Ugh.
Tigers have won 6 in a row and 13 of 16 going into the SEC Tournament this weekend. I'm not expecting them to win it (see Kentucky), but at least getting to the final would keep the momentum going heading into the NCAAs. While I don't expect them to get that far in the dance, a trip to the Sweet 16 would be pretty nice. Especially since I'll be getting lit in Vegas watching their first (and hopefully second, if they win) round game. (In Vegas 3/17-3/20...Madness, St Patty's Day, good times to be had by all.)
Meanwhile, the Louisiana-Lafayette
Ragin Cajuns just qualified for the tourney as well. Giddyup!
Linked to on the front page of ESPN.com today. On the heels of last year's long SI article describing the rivalry as the biggest one on the planet. Not bad, not bad at all. Now India, if you will please begin to not SUCK, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
And the AP is there to cover it. "Most significant emission in months." Eeewww.
I would. Maybe if I stick a quarter in a time capsule instead of a dime, my great-great grandkids could get 2.5x that amount! Or how about a Benjamin, but just make sure that canister really, really is airtight. I mean like incredibly airtight. That'd be like, 1000x, and stuff!
Wow, mathing is hard.
If this happens, and I manage to get the job in Chicago, you can bet I'll spend a couple days some February out hunting cats in Fond du Lac.
...That Reggie Evans is the best rebounder in the NBA. This NBA stat guy on ESPN is pretty good. Fortson is among the top handful as well. When those guys are on the floor it's just amazing to watch the number of boards the Sonics get. If you don't have ESPN Insider and can't read the article linked to above,
read this one instead. As long as those two stay healthy, I can actually believe the team will make it relatively far in the playoffs. I still worry that they won't be able to run with the Suns, I think, but they will definitely be in the mix. (Although I should note that the Sonics did beat them down in Phoenix 113-105, and only lost by 2 at home in the first meeting before the recent 110-99 loss at the Key.)
Those of you in the market for an LCD or plasma TV may want to wait until the summer to buy. Samsung thinks prices are going to fall for Q1 and then stabilize in Q2 and Q3. I'd wait until about a month before college football season starts, otherwise you risk getting to the stores right when demand starts to pick up.
Oh, and word of advice: if you're going to buy a Samsung DLP (the HLP series) and you play video games, I'd
think twice about it. I have one, and the thing is so damn high tech it plays around with the video feed coming in before it gets to the screen in attempt to clear it up. This causes a delay - with movies it's no problem because the audio is delayed too. With video games, it's a pain in the ass and renders kicking field goals in Madden damn near impossible. You COULD teach yourself to get used to it, but then just get reamed by your friends when you go over to their house to play. I'm absolutely floored that a $75 billion company (that is supposedly the best in the world at everything it does) fucked this one up so nicely. I'd still buy the stock, it's cheap as hell, but damn...
Check out this article from the Times of India to understand how big the Sania phenomenon has become in India. They're essentially calling her the Tiger Woods of India right now.
Everything is image in India now. I suppose this was inevitable, but the speed at which it's taken place (i.e. this past August when I went compared to my last trip in 1997) has been mind-boggling. There's possibly more skin on Indian TV now than there is here in the States. Not that Sania's going to be exposing her belly in Bollywood or anything, but the size of her endorsement deals indicates that the market for the Indian consumer has rocketed up in recent years at a stunning pace.
Les Carpenter of the Seattle Times writes an interesting piece in his last column for ST, discussing Seattle sports fans' historical tendency to accept mediocrity. Recent signs indicate that may be changing, but this is something we'uns down in Louzeeannah wrestle with all the time. Do Saints fans accept mediocrity? It's easy for me to say that we do, but I should admit that I have very little frame of reference. Other than Louisiana, I've only spent time in Los Angeles and Seattle.
Certainly I know Louisiana the best from having spent the first 20 years of my life there, and I know Los Angeles fairly well from having spent my four years of college there (while I never made it to a Lakers game, I did see the Clips, Angels, Dodgers, Mighty Ducks, Kings, USC and UCLA football, UCLA basketball, and I even trekked down to San Diego for a couple Chargers games). Four years of Los Angeles was enough to confirm my lifelong-held suspicion that it is indeed the biggest bandwagon city on the planet. Not a whole lot of Lakers jerseys when I first got there in 1997, but by the time I'd graduated and Kobe and Shaq were winning championships - those jerseys were all over the place. (Contrast that with, say, Boston, where Sox hats were abundant before last year's WS win, or even Cleveland, where Indians and Browns merchandise rarely has trouble selling.) Even L.A. fans don't argue with the joke that they all get to Dodger games in the 3rd inning and leave in the 7th. They just don't really care about sports that much. Don't get me wrong - there are die-hards, just like anywhere else. It's just that the deep-rooted allegiance to its teams doesn't exist there. It's why the nation's second-largest metropolitan area couldn't support even ONE NFL team, let alone the Raiders AND the Rams. Perhaps they could take some tips from the city of
Green Bay, Wisconsin, population 102,000 (they really love their Packers).
I've now been in Seattle for 4 years, during which time I've attended about 40-50 Sonics games, 20 Mariners games, 3 or 4 Seahawks games, 5 or 6 Husky football games, and 2 Husky basketball games. Hell I've even attended a minor league hockey game out here. While that's by no means comprehensive, I will say that it seems like Hawks fans and Saints fans have a common thread, which is an underlying feeling during most games that our team is just going to find a way to blow it. From reading the Sports Guy's columns or talking to a couple friends of mine who are Boston born and bred, they always had the same issues, whereas Yankee fans always seem to squeeze every last drop of optimism out of every game. They never stop hoping. Now, after three Super Bowls in four years and their first World Series since 1918, it seems like the Boston fans have gotten over it. So are we to believe that, around three years ago, Boston fans finally stopped accepting mediocrity?
Perhaps I'm messing up cause-effect relationships here, but it does appear that "accepting mediocrity" might just be a headline-grabber in cities which have been starved of championships for decades. An easy excuse to say that the fans should be more charged up, more critical. I've listened to talk radio in Seattle and New Orleans, and there's no shortage of criticism. Bold fans making signs critical of management and hanging them proudly at games? Possibly. Maybe Philly's just a helluva lot tougher than any other city. Eagles fans would certainly be the last in the NFL I'd want to piss off. At least one could hope to outwit a roid-raging Oakland Raiders fan if it ever came to that.
And on the topic of Eagles fans, Les, I should note that Philly is still without a championship in any major sport for two decades. Who cares if their team made it to the Super Bowl if they didn't win it? I don't think Eagles fans are taking much solace in that.
I'd be interested to know if the fans in Cleveland believe that their problem is acceptance of mediocrity. It's been awhile since any of their teams has won anything. I just don't think it's possible for a team's fans to rise up in an organized fashion and demand change in such a way that their actions will somehow result in a championship. Maybe an extended period of futility will keep fans away from the games, but it didn't work in Boston for eight decades, and Philly fans still seem to pack their stadiums despite the lack of titles (and then we get on the topic of "promise," and how long that can sell tickets, which is a whole new discussion I suppose, but related).
I need to do more research here. Maybe an examination of championship teams in different sports over the last few years, and how they evolved into a title team. To be continued...
The good folks over at GoldenPalace.com won the Tawny Peaks breast implant auction on eBay, for about $17,000. They add this to the $28,000 they spent to acquire the
Virgin Mary grilled cheese that made headlines a couple months ago.
Kudos to these guys: the grilled cheese alone may not have been worth $28,000 of marketing, but they've now spent $45,000 in total and are going to have a zillion articles written about their penchant for bidding on these quirky items. You and I wouldn't have remembered their name after the first auction, but now that they're back at it, they have achieved more exposure than they could have ever hoped to have for that amount of money. (Compare vs $2.5mm or so for a 30-second spot at the Super Bowl - how many of you remember the name of the company with the monkeys in business suits?)
And if I recall correctly, this is the same company which paid a man to streak during a college football bowl game or maybe even the Super Bowl, with the company's logo plastered on his back. Whether or not they're the same company which paid to advertise on the bottom of a crappy boxer's shoes (i.e. so the cameras show it when he is lying on his back) is beyond me, but I'm guessing we'll find out through subsequent articles on this subject.
Boston-area hospitals reported a 78-percent increase in stroke-related complaints from men between the ages of 20 and 49 in the two days after Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi's Feb. 16 hospitalization. "It seems to be the effect of information that the public got on strokes and a very public person having those symptoms," said Dr. Anita Barry of the Boston Public Health Commission. "It's very unusual to see strokes in young men."
I am reminded of a conversation I once had with a proctologist: he noted that, despite Tom Green's having managed to lower society's collective IQ by about 10% over the course of his 15 minutes, the guy had made huge inroads for the medical community in raising awareness of testicular cancer because he incorporated the treatment process in his TV show. Apparently hordes of young men nationwide were flocking to their docs because they were worried they had it. (Yes, I went to the proctologist b/c I was worried I had nut cancer.)
(Oh, and no I didn't go to the doc because I'd seen that Tom Green show.)
(Oh, and no I didn't have nut cancer.)
Our newest free agent signing pulled a
B-B gun on a couple fellas in a drive through line at your local Mickey D's. Prime candidate for NFL stardom.
But hey, he returned two picks for TDs in a Super Bowl, and the consensus was that he's one of the top two safeties available in free agency. So who cares if he has a penchant for low grade weaponry? He's great in a cover-2.
Oye, first round loss in the Davis Cup to the Croats. At home.
I didn't realize we haven't won the Cup since 1995. I'm not holding out hope for Roddick to get a leg up on Federer any time soon, either.
(...patiently awaits "the next big thing" to rise from the ranks of the juniors...)
How could this possibly be? Bush is an idiot, right? All he wants is money for his oil buddies in Texas, right? There's no
possible way he could have been right about the Middle East! Oh, the humanity!
Ha-ha. Silly liberals.
I heart Dubya.
(Link from Instapundit.) I'm seeing a lot more of these lately. Yay.
Funny how these things work. We add the most jobs in months, so the stock market flies. We see unemployment tick up to 5.4%, and inflation is tame, so the bond market flies. This market really likes to selectively consider its data.
I voted for Bush and am pretty hard core conservative, but I get annoyed as hell when the administration and conservative economists try to play up the job market as if it's been spectacular over the past year. We're still far below where we've been in any other recovery in history, and the only reason unemployment is low is that so many individuals have simply dropped out of the labor force, making the rate lower than it really should be (i.e. assume there are 100 people in the economy's labor force and 10 are unemployed. Unemployment is 10%. Now assume 1 of those unemployed people drops out of the labor force as his job search has been so unfruitful that he now has thrown in the towel and is no longer looking. The calculation is now 9 unemployed people out of a 99 person labor force, for an unemployment rate of 9.1%. See how that works?). The US job market isn't awful - just ask Germany - but it's not fantastic. The broader economy is humming along relatively well, no doubt, but my point is jobs.
Anyway, given the market's schizo reaction to today's news (stocks up, bonds up) if you're heavily weighted in US assets, right now would be a pretty good time to dump some of those stocks and pile into a Pac Rim or European Value fund.
The Chinese say we have a problem in America with incarcerating far too many black people. They don't understand that
Chris Rock has the solution. For instance:
1. Obey the Law
2. Use Common Sense
3. Stop Immediately
4. Turn that shit off
5. Be polite
6. Shut the fuck up
I can't believe it wasn't even an Asian woman driver who did this.
Note to self
Rent
Rushmore. Discover what all the fuss is about.
Random question posed to the world
I have IE 6.0. Often when I reload my blog I see a few lines missing so I have to select the text with my mouse to have it appear. Is that a problem with my template code or my browser or just random internet stupidity?
Quote from the article:
"Terrible chapters of history ought never be repeated," said Tom Gavin, spokesman for Byrd. "All one needs to do is to look at history to see how dangerous it is to curb the rights of the minority."
In other news, when's the Klan reunion, boss?
SWEET! I anxiously await word on whether Oz asked her "Why you gotta be so insensitive?" when she dumped him. If you haven't seen it yet, rent
First Daughter just to see Katie look ravishing in both a bikini and a prom dress. Light years better than the overrated Kate Hudson-in-a-yellow-dress scene from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. (I saw it because I was in Claremont, needed to kill three hours before a dinner meeting, and figured I'd relive old times by going to the phat AMC theater at Ontario Mills. So shut it.)
Antonio Pierce gets $26mm for 4 years. I was a bit out of touch with the NFL in general this year, but that's a helluva lot of money for someone who is "an emerging player with lots of upside." I was under the impression that the NFL hasn't *quite* gotten to NBA-style overpayment yet. Who remembers
Jim McIlvaine?
He's got this shweet quote randomizer that I'd put up on this site if he hadn't thought of it first. View the source file and the code is towards the bottom if you want it. Damn.
Tawny Peaks has put one of her breast implants - the famous pair that so soundly struck a random perv that it gave him whiplash - up for bid on ebay. See title link for the auction. The news article can be found
here. Perhaps the situation was too
heteronormative for him?
[Edit]Someone tell me if this stock is a short
[Edited]
Soros
George Soros
is getting sued for an inability to control his doggies. Now whom can we recruit to sue him for his inability to control his
fucking idiot mouth? (Currency bets aside, of course.)
Mardi Gras in Cairo, circa 2000 BC?
This mummy's chest was covered with beads. Homeboy must have been overwhelmed by the blissful "SHOW US YER TITS!" chants. Not a bad way to go, I suppose.
Jonah
I figure most folks who'll ever read this site know well before I do whenever the newest Jonah article is posted. But
this one is timely, seeing as I'se just started my own blog and shit. I like that word he uses, bloggerati.
Stinky Iranians
What really gets me about
this article, besides the smelly dude, is the Iranian divorce process which apparently allows an Iranian woman to openly discuss her sex life in a Muslim court. Wouldn't she get her tongue chopped off just for saying "sex" in front of a bunch of mullahs? Or are mullahs not the judges? Whatever. I'd just like to see proof of what constitutes "sexual frustration" from a woman's point of view in that area of the world. I'm guessing all a guy would need to do is prove he's not getting anal as much as he wants, and voila! - the divorce is granted. Someone please investigate this for me while I find new things to write about.
Some funny Indian gals
A
comical look at the way most of us American-born Indians feel about the whole marriage process in our community.
Victory is mine!
Blog: vehicle to fulfill my narcissistic urges. Always wanted to see my shit in print. I'm interesting enough to hold a conversation. Given the attention span of your average American worker, I just might be interesting enough to hold a page view. To be discussed: sports, liberal weenieism, sports, The Family Guy, sports, occasional snippets from the world of investing, and lastly, sports.
My website has pink on it
Ugh. Need to learn how to pix it. Thumbody help me.
Email test
Email test, hup-two, hup-two-three
