Presidential platform

If I were to run for president I would do it on these platforms

- take the burden of health-care off the backs of businesses. The health of a nation should not be funded by it's business sector

- get a playoff system going in the BCS.. If the NFL, MLB, Hockey, Soccer and the NCAA basketball can manage a playoff, there is no reason why NCAA Division 1 football can't

-pull back 90% of aid to countries not pushing democracy. I'm done paying off bullies and thugs

- change the Halloween celebration to the last Friday in October. TOR has taken this on in the past, so it's not a surprise but for what is supposed to be a kid's holiday we aren't doing it any favors by keeping it tied to a date instead of a relative day. For a holiday where kid's are supposed to go out and revel in childhood innocence there seems to be a major disconnect. Why we would ever hold this holiday on a Tuesday night is beyond me, I you celebrated it on a Friday it would allow schools to have their kid's parades and with it not being a school night allowing kids to trick or treat worry free.
Plus Friday Night is a perfect bar night to gawk at hot horny chicks.
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Carrots and Sticks have to include some sticks

I’m a terrible poker player because I can’t seem to bluff anybody, when I have big money on the line my hand shakes, I have a hard time making eye contact and my gut forces me to be conservative when I should be looking to bully people out of pots. I like the game, I love the statistical part of it and if I’m not playing with my own money and felt no repercussions I probably would be able to do OK at it. My issues with the game especially on a low-stakes level is that too many people take themselves too seriously, too afraid to show their hand by even making small talk. . The biggest issue I have with Poker is that I can’t seem to get out when I’m pot committed which is the same reason I can’t seem to drop Reggie Bush in my fantasy football league. He cost me a first round pick, has shown some glimmer but keeps banging me in the ass.

This is what I feel like in Afghanistan at this point, we feel like we are pot-committed and like the jackass who shows up at some garden apartment in Brooklyn for a tournament wearing ray-bands and a headset, you feel like they aren’t playing the same game you are. Look at Pakistan we have showered them with more money in Military aid to stop the Taliban from regrouping and the only thing that has happened is that the Taliban has regrouped and are essentially setting up an Al Qaida Disney World in the tribal regions. We keep throwing money at hoping things will change, at some point you have to realize that giving your bratty kid money you are just paying him off and his behavior will not change. The way you get his attention is by withholding his allowance. Carrots and Sticks have to include some sticks.

Just like I believe it’s completely justified for Ray-Bands Head-set guy to get physically pummeled the second he walks into the guy’s house whose throwing the poker party, I think Obama is completely justified to walk away from Karzai and his group of Soprano type thugs running the show in Kabul. They steal elections, get paid off by everybody, allow a flourishing heroin market to blossom and are still at the mercy of warlords, I’m not exactly sure why we would consider these the people we want to help bring democracy with. I don’t’ want to double-down just because we are pot-committed, I think it’s time to spend some time and money rebuilding our infrastructure, school systems and health-care’s which have all been treated like Guantanamo prisoners.

Neither Pakistan or Afghanistan has shown any stomach for being a real partner in bring down the safe havens because of the corruption which runs through them like alcohol runs through me on a good Friday Night. I say we bring home the troops one brigade per week from Afghanistan and cut our financial aid $1 million dollars per day to Pakistan until we see some progress.

And if that doesn’t work send over the sunglasses-head-phones poker guy to try to negotiate peace with the Taliban.

what's next Mr. December?

I’ve often argued that although not nearly as athletic as others baseball, unlike the other major sports, is the perfect game because there is no chance to Run-out-the-Clock. You must get through 27 batters in order to win a game, no matter how many mound trips, shake-offs or throw-overs to first base that a pitcher may take. Baseball is the perfect combination because of the symmetry: every major point of the game has the aura of three (three strikes, three outs, nine innings), the strategy: righty-righty matchups, double-switches, leaving a pitcher in and the pace which sometimes painfully slow leads to so much drama because there is so much involved.


Baseball allows for the only true home-field advantage which is based on rules not stadium acoustics, baseball has real strategy and being able to confine the adrenaline and being able channel it into concentration remains the best weapon for any player. Baseball has its downfalls too, it can be boring as all hell, it is too easily influenced by bad calls but most importantly it’s a kid’s game meant to be played on fields in the afternoons and instead has become manipulated by the dollar in every way.

In the mid and late 70’s, Reggie Jackson cemented his image in the hearts and minds of the fans of the New York Yankees and Oakland A’s for his heroics in the baseball postseason and earned him the nickname ‘Mr. October’. Two and a half decades later in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Derek Jeter was dubbed ‘Mr. November’ as the Fall Classic was moved into November only after a 10 day hiatus in the regular season as the country dealt with the blow of the attacks. It was the only time that the world-series had been played in November and Jeter’s nickname seemed like it could not be overtaken for the sole reason that baseball wouldn’t purposely play the game of summer in a potential nor’easter. Well this is 2009 and we have a black president, a more stable Iraq than Pakistan and a porn industry which is bleeding money because of sites like YouPorn and XNXX and Bud Selig and his cronies decided that they can’t make enough money from April till October and now need to include another month to an already marathon season.

What disturbs me is not the fact that baseball extends for a few weeks but that playing into the middle of November is like having Hockey played in July, the feel is all wrong. Baseball of course has betrayed its fans over and over again by looking the other way as it became the ‘legitimate’ version of the WWE during the raging years in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and has spent itself into oblivion like a coked-out Wall Street executive of the mid 2000’s, so why should we expect anything different.

Last night I watched the first game of the World Series which started at 8pm which ensured that virtually no child under 14 saw the 5th inning. Which drips of irony as you still hear players refer to it as a ‘kid’s game’ while they are getting paid like those Wall Street execs who themselves have been accused of confusing their profession with a game.

taking it up the (hybrid) five hole

There aren’t many times when I feel like I’ve been ass-banged as hard as badly as when I recently left the place I bought the Hybrid Mobile. I’m not referring to the fact that the entire theory behind a hybrid to save gas kind of goes out the window when the first time I put a buddy in the car the hybrid engine never kicked in and it ran on gas the entire time but the fact that even the most seemingly honest car-dealers are still complete shysters when it comes down to it.
The good news is that in Park Slope where it takes 30 minutes of circling the block to find a parking spot I'm running on that free battery gas.


Now I feel like I got a good deal on the car (which hopefully includes that $1500 tax credit for buying a Hybrid), got a good warranty and was very happy with the delivery of the car when I picked it up a few weeks ago. What I wasn’t thrilled with was the fact that I show up and the last person you deal with is the finance manager who takes all the good feelings you have and shove it down the toilet.

First of all during the entire negotiation I discussed a car-loan rate of about 4.9% with the salesman who made that APR very realistic but when I got to the closing the finance manager started talking about 5.9% but guaranteed that they have done all the research and that bar-none the best rate would be offered through CHASE and that if my credit was good he would do his absolute best to get me the best rate.

I show up two days later to hand the $10,000 and pick up the car and as I’m signing the contract I noticed that the CHASE loan is at 6.37% but the finance manager told me that I was in good shape because if I would be willing to open a checking account at CHASE that they would drop my rate by 0.5%. Not knowing shit from shit, I was a bit annoyed with the last minute switch but as with the excitement of the first new car I’ve ever owned I signed away because the finance manager assured me that it was a great rate.

Fast forward a week when I’m telling the story to a buddy who says surprisingly that he got 4.5% for a used car and that he was shocked at the rate. I call Bank of America and they offer me 4.4% on the spot and after running a credit-report they say high 3’s is a possibility, even the CHASE website offers 4.5% all over the place.
I will obviously refinance but the cost is $300 which is like taking alcohol to my groin after getting stabbed there with an ice-pick.

So these criminals over at Manhattan Ford never shopped my loan to get my best rate but instead funneled it to their bank who probably gives them a healthy kick-back. They wait until the last possible second to introduce their special rate for their customers.  next time you are going to ass-rape me, at least buy me dinner



MLIA

179

It's been almost 20 years but finally after years of working out 5 to 6 days a week, after having avoided carbs, after 2 marathons and many weeks of 40 miles on the streets of NY City have I finally come below 180 pounds.
What is surprising is that I have finally hit this goal not through diet and exercise so I am a bit perplexed. How does a guy who six weeks ago ran 40 miles in a week on the hard NY pavement who hasn't ran 40 miles combined since actually manage to lose weight.
I can't give Þhge credit to my diet which is as bad as it's ever been and with the baby on board I can't say I've been sleeping particularly well and I spend most nights crashed on the couch not out getting shit-faced at bars since the baby was born.

So the way I see it, I've eliminated about 25 beers per week from my diet at 150 calories per bottle -> 3750 less calories per week..

I guess this was all it took.
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Why Steve Why??

Steve Philip the ESPN analyst and former NY Mets general manager pulled a Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky and got caught tagging some 22 year old subordinate.


Like Clinton, Steve Phillips has a history of extra-marital affairs when he accused of sexual misconduct while working for the Mets about 10 years ago and admitted to consensual sex with a Mets employee. Having dinner with a bunch of buddies last night the question came up to why a guy like Steve Philips would break his marital vows by banging the kind of chick who looks like a total hose-bag.

Then you look at the filthy slob that Letterman cheated with, another chick who looks like she’s been smoking cigars, playing poker and getting n gang-banged by Rickey Henderson, Roberto Alomar and Bobby Bonilla.    Look Bill Clinton- on his way to the most powerful Man in the world- tagged Paula Jones who looks like Bobby Jones and Paul La Duca

What is the craziest thing about it is that Phillip’s wife is a much hotter piece of ass than this slob and honestly why would you risk everything for that. The only excuse you can think of for Phillips sticking his baseball-bat in this bat would be that she’s 22 and she’s got that “I love giving BJ’s” look in her eyes but at the end of the day you know that this is all about the power a guy like this feels when tagging a subordinate.

Steve Phillips has that ‘Roger Sterling with a goatee” look to him, and if the fact he’s got lipstick on every one of his shirt-collars you got to know that a dude with a silver goatee is cheating on his wife.

Humidifier

So with a sniffling 5 week old, I was advised to buy a humidifier which I happily did and unwrapped as soon as I got home and now my entire house feels like a swamp. I am convinced that these things to minimize the effects of the flu but instead help to spread the flu. A room at 85 degrees and completely humid sounds like the ideal place for viruses and bacteria to thrive. This is what my jock area feels like after a long run and I know there is crap growing there.
This is like walking into a NYSC sauna and being convinced that if you bend over you'll be OK.. Use a little common sense and you"ll realize that the dudes aren't smuggling hot sausages into the locker rooms...
At the same time Obama declares a state of emergency around the VH1N1 and I'm sure the crowded hospitals will now start to look like those public buses in India with people pouring out of every corner.. Maybe he's trying to stir up support to overhaul the healthcare system by showing it's failure to handle a crisis...
Why is it that our healthcare system acts like a funnel when it comes to the uninsured but what I don't get about the argument against a public option is that people will say there is already an option for the poor which is emergency rooms... Who pays for these visits geniuses? Go ahead and send a guy who makes $6 an hour at a Bodega a bill for $20,00 and see how much of it he'll pay..
You have a better chance not getting your pipes cleaned in that NYSC sauna.
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There are some people who will match their sweater to their socks or their hat to their sneakers but as I am not exactly a slave to fashion these are not things that concern me.

What I do try to match is my beer to the season. As the weather moves from the almost non existent summer to the cool fall air I resist the Summer Ales and move to the Octoberfest which seems like such an obvious choice. Now I am sure that 90% of this is marketing but having a Corona at a ski lodge doesn't feel right nor does an IPA feel right sitting on a beach.
Now there were a couple of beers which can span the seasons (Rheingold RIP) and a few which just aren't seasonal (Coors Lite, Heineken) but aren't usually not your first choice at a bar. I'm sure somebody will mention Guinness but I am not convinced that works in Cancun.
Now obviously the beer companies are all doing spring and summer ales as well as Octoberfests and winter lagers but I am talking about the straight run-of-the-mill beer and I cannot think of one which is great paired with every season.
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So let me get this right

I know this was covered on Seinfeld but when I show up at the doctor there is a sign which reads that if you are more than 15 minutes late your appointment will be cancelled but apparently when you show up on time the can let you sit there for ever. The irony of this is often lost on the receptionists who look insulted if you even bring it up. This is where companies have it so wrong. Why do they refuse to pay for competence especially for a person who deals with your customers.

Just this week I called to dispute a bill I got for TV use in the postpartum room. They first charge you almost $2000 for the room. Then they charge me $10 for a bagel and then a week later I get a bill for $7 for having turned the TV on.. I know the health care system is run by a bunch of greedy crooks but this is absurd .

I call to complain but can't seem to make my point to the person answering the phone that the concept of charging an additional $7 for TV is ludicrous especially because I wasn't aware that there would be and charge.
But what is the most frustrating is when you call and get connected with a chick who sounds like she's right out of West Side Story as she chomps on gum but can give you no information on: why there was a charge, who authorized it or how we can complain about it.

Her response. "You gotta pay cause we sent the bill"

Thanks
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the most effective class..

I’ve always made the point that the most valuable class I’ve ever taken in high-school was typing as it’s the one that every person would eventually use. Typing was so important in our high-school that you couldn’t graduate unless you passed the class and the only way to get around it was if you could convince the administration that you chopped your hand up falling down the stairs carrying a glass or something equally ludicrous. Well the more I think about it, the other class which left the most impact on me was HEALTH.


Now I’m not talking about the part where they told you to not eat too much cake but the part where they scared the living shit out of you about having any kinds of sex. I’m sure this was the goal but by the time I got out of that class I was so frightened to knock up some 15 year old or worse get the High Five from one of them that I’d shit my pants if I was ever asked to take them off. First of all this class which was meant to give you a sexual education was ironically taught by the lesbian in khakis who had less heterosexual experience than anybody in the room. Maybe it was her man-hating persona but she was VERY effective at what she did..

So either I was a total loser (most probable) or my high-school health class was particularly efficient because I just read some headline that said

“115 pregnant girls in one high-school”

Now for a dude who got hardly any chicks in HS and slightly less of them in college, I am a bit flabbergasted. For one, who is having this much of the sex in High School? I remember that not only was I not having sex because I was a dork but also because I had a fear of being laughed at for because I not only carry a small winkie but it looks even smaller when framed by my gigantic sack but more importantly being scared to death by the FLHS health department.

But the more I think about it there were a bunch of total fabrications they would ‘teach’ to scare kids from having sex.


1- You can knock up a chick because there is sperm in pre-cum. This is a total load of shit in most cases. The sperm comes from the testes, it doesn’t hang out in the front of your unit unless you beat-off a few minutes before you tagged some chick.. I think they told you this because they know guys (young and old) have a hard time not spewing without warning and are afraid that you have guys plugging chicks and accidently two-pumping and KABOOOM

2- The Hi FIVE.. Remember I went to HS in the early 90’s when the AIDS scare was at top-peak. Magic Johnson had just gotten it and the guy on the Real-World just announced he had it and it was a horrible scary time. Well I have a buddy who to this day claims that getting HIV is much more difficult to get than most people think. People in high risk groups (intravenous drug users, gay men, dudes who sleep with prostitutes unprotected) have a very good chance but the amount of HS kids getting AIDS he says has always been very very low.. His theory was that they knew that the national media was all over the AIDS epidemic and the HS health-departments used this vehicle to try to discourage teenage sex not to prevent AIDS specifically but to prevent teenage pregnancy.

URL Loving

I’ve put some serious thought to getting a new URL name for TOR which although has managed to stick well enough to get almost 9000 hits in the last year probably isn’t catchy enough to get the random internet stalker. I’ve kicked around a number of ideas but most of the URL’s I can come up are either already being used by a legitimate business (see www.DutchOven.com), some other lame blog about being a vegetarian with one entry (www.ILovetoFU.com/), some XXX feature http://www.biggyballs.com/ or are for sale for some ridiculous amount of money (http://www.mlia.com/).


My thought was to get something that may describe the theme to TOR which is basically an outlet for me to complain and bitch about a thousand different items.

So I decided to expand the MLIA.com and go for the entire MyLifeIsAwful.com which is available but while I was looking I came across http://www.mylifeisaverage.com/ which is basically TOR done better by a bunch of high-school kids. It seems like a PG version of the wildly popular http://www.fml.com/ which I would be more than happy with.

I submitted my own MLIA to this Average website.

Today I was searching for a new URL which I was hoping to call MyLifeIsAwful when I came across yours which is done better than anything I could ever come up with myself MLIA

So I’m taking suggestions to a new (additional) suggestion for the TOR blog URL.

So far I’ve come up with

http://www.mylifeisawful.com/

http://www.sillyputtysack.com/

http://www.toplessweddingdancer.com/



So obviously I need a LOT of help

I wonder if you call for a reservation they make you wait until 1:05pm

So I’m standing in line today to have a $10 midtown lunch at Ted’s Montana Grill and was told it would be a 10 minute wait. Of course 15 minutes pass and there is still not table in sight when Ted Turner walks in, bypasses the entire line and gets a prime table for his party. Granted it’s his restaurant but what Commie workout chick do I have to finger-bang to get this kind of celebrity treatment?


Not two minutes later, Toni Braxton walk in and her party gets sat right away also, as I’m standing there with my three friends like Joe, Jack and Muhammad Schmo. I realize that getting ass-banged is part of living in a celebrity-gawking society but getting cut in line by Ted Turner and Toni Braxton? He’s a pompous A-hole and this chick hasn’t had a hit single since I was a freshman in college; The combination is like getting cut by ColdPlay and the guy from the Gin Blossoms.

But we are a society which gets glued to the TV to see average idiots become reality TV stars you know that our priorities are all wrong.. So we stand in line and the 10 minute wait-time they promise has come and gone which in most cases wouldn’t be the end of the world expect it’s a lunch-hour not a lunch hour and five minutes. This apparently doesn’t resonate with a guy who pushed back the start to my reruns of the Brady Bunch to 3:05pm when I was a kid.

This celebrity gawking is ridiculous and I’m always proud that NYC is not the hell-hole that LA is but the front pages of AM New York and CNN.com still blast headlines about the dude from Jon and Kate plus Eight making eyes at the octuplet chick which will probably spawn the next reality television show version of the Brady Bunch.

We're dumb enough as a society to watch it and probably bang that show past Celebrity Dancing. Look at our society as we are all glued to CNN when some kid goes up in a helium balloon and they find out that the story was full of hot air and apparently just a publicity stunt. I’m not sure who was happier about it, the crazy professor who invented the balloon or CNN who got great ratings to cover it.

I have a publicity stunt that we can do, we should charge the parents every last penny it cost law-enforcement to chase this hot-air balloon. If they don’t have the money, I would have them clean the roads with their entire family wearing sandwich boards that read “we cost tax-payers $50,000” and if that doesn’t stick than I say you send the father up in the hot-air balloon with Ted Turner, the dude from Coldplay and the Jon plus Kate guy.

a sense of urgency

I often question why people are so inherently lazy, why they don’t ever seem to be rushing to do anything while I always feel like I’m up to my ears in stuff. I’m not a person who relaxes much, I consider my level of energy as one of my greatest characteristics; I never slow down and have more stamina than most everybody I meet. This is both a blessing and a curse as I expect other’s to hold themselves to a similar standard when it especially when it comes to a level of urgency. I’m not saying you have to be running through life in a constant state of hyper-panic but what I can’t stand is the dilly-dallying that I see all the time as people go through their normal lives. What I don’t understand how I’m always busy and so many people have endless amounts of time.

Just yesterday leaving the supermarket it amazed me how slow people walk through the aisles, move to the registers and walk to their cars. It’s Sunday night at 8pm, there is a ton of good stuff on TV and it’s about 40 degrees outside, why would you casually stroll to your car with 10 bags of groceries in your cart? It’s like being stuck on a one-lane highway behind a blue-haired Sunday driver as these people move through the aisles and down the ramp. It’s not as if they are distracted, they are just slow. I live in NYC and move on a NYC timeframe and I think this is where the rest of the USA is falling behind; we are a lazy country of people who feel no sense of urgency for anything. I just don’t understand this concept in doing anything in life why let you life pass you by. It is an absolute chore for me to walk as slowly as these people do; I have to work harder to move at this pace than I do when I run 5 miles

are you playing baseball or robbing a deli?

What is it about baseball where they take such a pure game and ruin it by playing it in the winter. I had a nice chuckle as I saw a number of the latin players dressed as if they were in Aspen during last night's Yankee-Angel game. It's not that I don't understand that it's cold, especially if you are playing the one 'sport' which involves you standing around for 3 hours and actually playing for about 4 1/2 minutes. I can see that swinging a bat when you can't feel your hands can be troubling so I wonder why MLB doesn't do right by their fans and try to find a way to avoid playing into November (which will happened this year)


How about some scheduled Sunday double-headers? How about a schedule which features more warm weather (and domed) cities early in the season? How about you stop letting Fox stick it in your five-hole when they draw up your playoff schedule!!!!

But to be fair: as we saw Robinson Cano in a ski-mask it looked like it was minus 40 in the Bronx but then the camera pulled back to show Joe Saunders in a short-sleeve shirt and the tableau was comical.

Cano is a very good player but maybe it's time for him to take off the skirt.

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Just cause we are white people doesn't mean we want to go to white plains!!!!

I'm all for parties, I am all for destinations and I'm totally game when it comes to celebrating the birthday's of my friends to celebrate but I am NOT into a combination of the three.

Let me explain. I was invited for a party by a TOR reader -who will remain nameless to protect her identity- the other day to celebrate the birthday of a friend of ours and under normal circumstances make every effort to make it out for her birthday and have a couple of drinks. Now to be fair these are not normal circumstances as the three member TOR team is not making it to any parties at this point but if we were still a two member TOR team this celebration would have been one we would have attended.

Well maybe not... It sounded like a blast until I found out from the EVITE that this thing is being thrown in White Plains, which for all intents and purposes may as well be Siberia.
Why somebody who lives in Connecticut would have her party in White Plains so that her NYC friends can make it out is like believing the Iranians when they said they stopped enriching uranium in 2004.
The party thrower isn't doing anybody any favors when it takes a ticket on the Metro North to get to a party, I have less interest in White Plains than I would in spending a weekend in Delaware and if they get even one New Yorker to make the trek I'd be surprised.

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Somebody finally took on Righetti..

I’ve been having a proxy argument based on the TOR post  from September 16th about why Lesbians move quicker than heterosexuals when it comes to relationships.


My point in that TOR post was that many lesbian friends I have seem to fall very quickly for new partners and take steps which in heterosexual relationships would be called ‘quick’ or ‘meaningful’. It’s not uncommon for my Lesbian friends to meet the parents of their partner within the first two weeks of the relationship, I have one friend who although not officially out to her parents has paraded five different girls in front of them in the last few years. I don’t think I’ve brought five girls home to meet my parents in my entire life (maybe that has more to do with the fact I never got a lot of chicks but we digress).

Another lesbian friend defending the quick nature of lesbian relationships send the following message to me via an intermediary

men don’t like to move quickly and that is the bottleneck in heterosexual relationships. all woman want to move quickly....lesbians are lucky because they have partners that want to move as fast as them....

Although there is some truth to women wanting to settle down more quickly than men, there is something in our genetic code which says when you get two women together it puts the relationship on HGH moving 1000 times faster than any other ones. You see Lesbians moving in together within six weeks of meeting one-another all the time

I stick by my theory that the reason this happens is because there is no breathing room in a lesbian relationship. Two girls have no natural break in their relationship. See a girl in a heterosexual relationship might find solace in going to drinks with her friends to vent or gush about their new mate while in a lesbian relationship there are almost no opportunities when one girl can go out with her friends without the other tagging along. She can’t ever just “go out with the girls” because that in itself would involve her partner, the partner now also gets force-fed into the girl’s circle of friends going along with her friends to the spa, the bar and the ladies room during a double=date.

The last one is crucial here. The girl now won’t ever leave the dinner table during a double date with the other chick at the table to go to the bathroom together leaving the two dates to fend for themselves. This is a time honored part of the double-date, the time when the two female friends leave the two schleps to fend for themselves as they giggle off to the bathroom. This keeps the partner’s on their toes but when the partner comes and sits in the third stall then three’s a crowd. It also sucks for the remaining guy who now has to sit at the dinner table himself surfing http://www.footballguys.net/ on his BlackBerry

So you wind up alienating your friends and over-compensating with your girlfriend. Now there is nothing wrong with it and you know we at TOR love Lesbians but something to take note of

Even a card carrying member of the Republican party can become a hippie

As you recall TOR reviewed our ride in the Prius Golf-Cart a few months ago and found that although we were able to get about 50000 miles per gallon the fact that the thing wasn’t able to get over 35mph really didn’t make it a very appealing option for a young stud like myself.

But you also know the TOR mentality of getting off foreign oil and the need to get global warming under control so I finally did it and put my money where my mouth is, I went green.

I already consider myself an expert recycler being that I often carry empty water bottles with me back home so I can recycle them instead of throwing them into one of the NYC trash receptacles. See I love the great green earth and having spent time in China and chewed through smog like most Western people chew through a well-done steak I know how important it is that we start getting in line and discuss this inconvenient truth. But discussions between parties usually leads to name-calling and name-calling usually leads to hard-feelings and nobody wants to go home crying. I went out and bought the Ford Hybrid Escape which gets a roaring 34mpg compared to its 20mpg gas powdered Escape brother. Now it can’t make any financial sense to buy a Hybrid as I will never drive enough miles where the gas-savings will offset the extra cost of the hybrid.

I’ve done the math and it comes out to something like this

Gas Escape 20mpg city and 28mpg HWY

Hybrid Escape 34mpg city and 31 mpg HWY



Although I have no idea, my guess is that my city and highway driving will be about 40/60 split but who the hell knows. I also expect to drive about 10,000 miles per year. Assuming this split I get the following numbers

Gas Escape:

4000 city miles at 20mpg = 200 gallons

6000 highway miles at 28mpg = 214 gallons



Hybrid Escape

4000 city miles at 34 mpg = 118 gallons

6000 highway miles at 31mpg = 194 gallons



So if my math is correct I would have been using 414 gallons with the gas-escape while only using 312 gallons with the Hybrid. The difference of 102 gallons at $3 a gallon is ‘only’ a savings of $300 per year.

I believe I do get a $1500 federal tax-credit for buying a hybrid so the total additional cost is about $2000 more than the gas-powered 4 cylinder one and thus it will take me about six and a half years at $3 gas to make up the difference

So I’m obviously rooting for $6 gas this summer for you people who hate the plant

Wildcat

This TOR might not be for everybody so please proceed with caution

When I hear "wildcat" and "football" in the same sentence I think of Goldie Hawn sticking her hand down some big fat guy's pants to fish out $100 but recently these two terms have again collided in the NFL as the latest offensive innovation.
The Miami dolphins using two thirds of Bel Biv DeVoe (Ronnie and Ricky) have perfected this offensive set which has to be keeping the wild defensive geniuses from sleeping at night.   I have spoken with a number of fellow NFL fans and nobody can quite figure out why this is such an unstoppable offensive set.

It's run out of a standard spread offense with the only caveat being that the QB spot is occupied by a running-back but from this seemingly normal set the running back running a basic draw seems to be able to take 10 yards at will. The NFL which is the ultimate copy-cat league will soon have 15 variations of it and it will eventually be figured out but the average fan is perplexed why it cannot be figured out. It's a basic running play without a handoff, it seems very similar to the offense we ran in Junior High.
Wasn't this exactly the kind of offense the NFL ran in the 40's when QB's would run for 100 yards and throw for 60 in a game?

I can't understand with all the technology, specializations and all these great athletes can't stop an offense which was basically drawn up in the sand. . The only thing I can think is that with a standard running play the QB doesn't block and is essentially out of the play as soon as he hands off.. So maybe it comes down to pure #'s.
One runner and 10 blockers vs 11 defenders while a standard running play pins one runner and nine blockers against the same 11 defenders.

But it still begs the question why this kind of offense has been put on ice for the last 60 years..
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Shoot me up

So everywhere you turn you see quacks standing on soap-boxes saying that the flue shot is dangerous. Now I don't know for sure but I do know that every-year I get the shot I don't get the flu which is pretty good. Now you know how we at TOR feel about the H1N1 hysteria so I am not going to be one that runs to the emergency-room with a sore throat but we do believe that we should be practicing preventative medicine including flu shots.
See this country is too reactionary; the yentas and house-wives get too fanatical about the common cold but these are the same bon-bon eating slobs who feed their kids excess sugar and fried food. You can't have it both ways; you have to see health as a life-goal not something that comes up only when you have a runny nose.

Then again the only thing this "preventive" step has done for me is prevented me from getting lunch since I have been sitting here for almost an hour and when my pervert doctor does eventually see me, he'll be all too happy to fondle my sack.
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I wish homelessness upon you

Have you noticed how often people use Facebook status to pat themselves on the back? There is some bald-prick who I knew from a former life who will often have status updates about him giving away an umbrella or going to a soup-kitchen and literally one day had an update about how he pulled a guy from a burning car. I commend this bald-prick for his good-deeds but feel sick to my stomach when I read these self-serving posts.


Well here we go again another Monday and another self-serving Metropolitan Diary entry. I’m all for being kind to strangers or homeless people but what I’m NOT in favor of is people who use this forum to pat themselves on their backs.

Dear Diary:

Some years ago, my wife and I would regularly take my parents to dinner at a restaurant they particularly liked on Madison Avenue in the upper 80s.

We usually came in from Connecticut by car. Most often, as I fed coins into the parking meter out front, a particular panhandler would ask me for a donation. He was a regular and I would often give him something. Once he even gave me a quarter when I was out of change.

One day around noon, I was walking along Madison in the 70s when I spotted my panhandler across the street. I shouted to him: “What are you doing way down here?”

His reply: “Oh, hey, man, this is my day job.”
 Keir Dullea

Thanks Keir for your wonderful story about some homeless dude who probably reeks of urine and bothers people on the subway it’s wonderful that you were able to remember him from the 100’s of other homeless people roaming the streets. I’m sure you made his day when you recognized him and his funny response shows that life hasn’t beat him down completely. But my TOR BITCH is not about your boring little story but about your self-serving line about how you 'often give him something'..  So in other words you give this dude two dimes once a month and now you are taking bows like you're Bono.

Hey Keir have you ever hear of charity being done anonymously? Next time you want to do a good deed, buy him a sandwich and then DON"T write about it in the NY Times or post it as your Facebook status. You obviously haven't as you decided to use the New York Times as your platform to pat yourself on your big fat back hope you didn’t hurt yourself and I can only hope that the next time this homeless person pees on somebody’s leg…it’s yours.

how could this be??

In discussing bathrooms with an expert the other day after my blog about washing your hands BEFORE you take a leak I was told that somehow a women's bathroom is actually more disgusting than a men's room which I find hard to believe but she swears by it.


I've have planted my ass in MANY bathrooms which resemble the one from Trainspotting so I feel like I have seen them all and I know from everything else that dudes are already the more disgusting sex.  Just think about the male body, hairy and smelly while the female body is sleek, curvy and hairless but still I have now been told that these beautiful creatures can somehow foul a public restroom up to look like a Thai Whore House.  I'm told that these public WC's have remnants of pee, poo and menstrual filth.  Having lived with a bunch of dudes with a shared bathroom in my college dorm, it always confused me why these slobs would pee on the seat when they knew that they themselves would have to at some point plant their asses on the same exact seat.   I guess I can understand it more when you do it at a Starbucks but nobody would do it at their own house, so why would you do it in your college dorm?   This tells you how disgusting dudes are and I can't ever imagine a chick's can looking worse.  So I challenge you to send me camera phone pictures you have taken of the worst of the worst so we can post them on TOR and shame these establishments into getting a fumigation crew to clean them up.

Two dudes one couch

I have been trying to explain this to my wife but she thinks I'm full of crap.

She thinks that when I watch TV while friends are over I'm being antisocial, I argue that I'm being completely social and this is what dudes do.

See when two dudes are hanging out they do best when there is a third element of stimulation to make sure there is no drag on the conversation. I have perfected the ability to discuss the important points of life between pitches in small twitter-like bursts of info because I don't honestly want to know much more.

Years ago I heard that every conversation has a pause every 7 minutes. This pause or uncomfortable silence is death to dudes because dudes cannot handle this level of discomfort and there is nothing in this great world fear more than those 30 seconds. The perfect distraction is sports which is the reason that no dude will ever complain when another guy turns on ESPN. We know this uncomfortable 30 seconds is going to come, it's just a matter of 7 minutes so why not be proactive and prepared when it does.

I would prefer this void be filled with football or playoff baseball I'd take hockey or basketball and even those wacko sports like rugby and handball and might even settle for (gasp) tennis.



So when two dudes sit watching TV and speak between pitches or downs this is called "hanging out" not anti-social.

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There must be something in the air!!!!

A good buddy of mine (and former blogger for www.SomeOneMadeMe.blogspot.com) got engaged last night and frankly we were floored then again Obama won the Noble Peace Prize and he’s been in office only slightly longer than my buddy had been dating his chick.

I’m all for Obama getting it right but I wonder why we heap praises on him which aren’t warranted. Although as both an American citizen and a citizen of the world I hope he does so far he hasn’t accomplished enough yet to be bestowed that honor. If he wins a Noble Peace Prize for sending more troops to Afghanistan than what will he get for allowing congress to screw up Health-Care reform? Although I was encouraged to see that the new program by spending a trillion dollars may actually decrease the long term federal debt by cutting the fat in Medicare spending. The issue is that although Medicare does a lot of things right it also costs a fortune and with more people getting old, it’s only going to get more expensive. I guess I don’t understand the argument people make against universal health-care who are the same people who happily take Medicare, come on the people who go to these ridiculous town-halls are all old people. This is like a bunch of fat people bitching about a bunch of people at the gym getting a coupon for a hazelnut smoothie.

Why are you always sick?

We all have those friends who no matter what time of the year, what outside temperature or what personal affliction will be sneezing and coughing at the sight of a stiff breeze. I have friends who literally get the flu 3 or 4 times per year and I have always seen their commitment to health as a losing proposition. These people will carry around a dirty tissue from October through April and complain of aches, runny noses, watery eyes etc at any given point.

Now there are hypochondriacs like a friend of mine who is convinced he's got whatever the disease de jour is.. One week he thinks he has the swine-flu and the next week he thinks he has a brain tumor

But I'm not referring to hypochondriacs (they deserve a TOR all their own) but the people who are always just sick. Man up and take off the skirt and start acting like a grownup you sissy.

Sometimes you're glad the bitch and moan cause if they didn't you might realize they were dead.
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Pretty in Pink

I’ve been a father for exactly 19 days and even with the fact that I’m not sleeping enough; it’s been a great experience. I love how having a baby puts everything into perspective, I haven’t surfed for porn in weeks, haven’t gotten hammered in forever, haven’t been at work till the sun is down and haven’t woken up with a frown on my face yet.

But I do have a frown when I look over and realize my entire house looks like a pepto-bismol commercial. We all know the US consumer is a complete mindless drone and it’s on full display when you realize that 90% of the outfits you get are either hot-pink or baby-blue. Now it’s not that I have anything against pink (except when a dude wears one with a popped collar) but I hope my daughter will be able to make her own decisions and not be force-fed into pink castles and dresses.

In the big picture I guess I don’t understand why a little girl should wear only one color anyway. All your pictures will look the same and nothing will ever stand out but when corporate America decides that this is what happens and we as consumers all fall in line. It’s not much different than Hallmark holiday’s like Valentine’s Day, Secretary’s day and Father’s day. What should be a day to thank somebody for being great has turned into yet another day when a $20 dozen roses retails for $100.

So is David Letterman is having a good or bad week??

I haven't kept close tabs on the situation but it seems that he boinked a few staffers who then blackmailed him. The bad thing is that his chick isn't talking to him, the good thing is that his ratings are through the roof.. Only in America do your transgressions so easily translate into hard-cold cash.



Just look at the Righetti review of the Late Night landscape.

please be aware that I haven't watched late-night TV in years so this isn't based on any real facts or experience..



Letterman- not that funny; it seems that most of the people who claim to be his fans don't actually watch the show, instead tuning into Colbert or something. Every person who claims to watch Letterman also cannot remember the last time they turned him on



Leno- because like reading the Daily News people like to not be challenged.
I haven't ever really gotten Leno, not because he isn't funny but because he's as edgy as a Coldplay. I guess this 10PM thing will work and he'll be making loot especially because he's only competing against the WPIX newscast with Kaity Tong and the white dude and thus his ratings will be soli.


Conan- I haven't seen a single episode of him hosting the Tonight Show but my guess is that he's probably doing Conan on the Tonight show which means he's doing In the Year 2000 skits still. Not bad but not exactly Johnny Carson.



The Scottish Guy- very funny.. he might be Irish actually



Jimmy Kimmel- About as unfunny a human as there is, although I hear that his show is actually pretty good



Jimmy Fallon—literally the least funny person on earth.. I have yet to catch an episode of his dreadful show but I have to imagine it can't be worst than my expectations…

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Wash up

Having recently brought (or witnessed the event) a little baby girl into this crazy world, things have really slowed down for me which I’m totally fine with; I’m even getting used to having to wash my hands every time I walk into the house.


But it does bring an interesting thought to my mind which I may have TOR’d about in the past. I can understand washing your hands before you handle an infant as there are all types of germs that you can pick up as you deal with the undesirables riding the subway. I’m not even remotely germophobic for myself, I don’t wash my hands before I eat dinner and have no issue sharing a sandwich or a soda with somebody else but fatherhood puts things into perspective I guess. But even to somebody who will share his back-wash beer there is one thing in this US Society which makes no sense at all.

People will wash their hands after taking a leak because I guess people are afraid that they’ve pissed on their hands or because they don’t want to expose their neighbors to a Junk Handshake.   It is a presumed courtesy that your hands are washed before you shake somebody elses but even knowing that they will often take the extra precaution and wash up a few times a day because nobody trusts anybody else and you don’t know where the other guy's hands may have been.

One thing that doesn’t make sense is why we don’t wash our hands BEFORE we take a leak, see I know where my hands have been and I really don’t want that stuff touching my junk. There are public address announcement about

- covering your unit with latex before sticking it in a nasty chick but why not take a similar precaution to not get Hepatitis B on your sack after moving a copy of AM NewYork off the subway seat and then taking a leak.

-Washing your hands so you don't give yourself H1N1 after being in contact with some sneezing, coughing slob

but nothing about covering your junk before you grab it with your disease covered hands.

People will say that if you don’t wash your hands before you eat, it’s the equivalent of rubbing your tongue on the floor of a men’s room; I’m not game for that but I’m also not that happy about rubbing my unit on said men’s room floor.

So I think it’s time to take a stand, wash your hands before you touch your junk.

Car Shopping

I'm not one who cares about cars, don't care about performance, engines or 0-60 times. I actually haven't owned a car in almost 10 years and I'm quite fine with it because honestly living in NYC means that having a car means you'll be circling the block hours on end to try to find a spot. Well everything changed a few weeks ago and now it's time that I once again become a car owner. Not knowing anything about cars, I go to the dealer yesterday expecting to be able to test-drive a couple of cars and then deciding based on a few options.

I should have known I was in trouble when the dealer I went to is the one that sponsors the NFL picks in the Daily News every Friday. Whenever you are buying a car, don't buy one from a place who shares ad space with strip-clubs and massage parlors.

I walk in and immediately get picked up by the piranha salesguy from Staten Island named Vinny Goomba or something and I could've saved myself a major headache if I had just walked out right then and there because

and the conversation goes something like this

Righetti: so i'm looking at one of those Santa Fe's, I called and they said you had one available for $17,500.
Would like to take it for a test drive

Staten Island Sales Guy:
Great, let me show you around the car.. this is the engine, these are the seats and this is the IPOD dock

Righetti: looks good, so lets take it for a spin

SI Sales Guy:
No problem, just need to get some information together

Righetti:
OK (as I hand over my license and give him some other info)

SI SG: so this car has an MSRP for $22,000, i can do it for $20,000

Righetti: Oh, I was quoted 17.5

SI SG well that was an internet quote

Righetti: it was over the phone

SI SG: well that car is stick and it has rebates

Righetti: I can take the stick

SI SG well that car isn't here

Righetti: i called this morning

SI SG: it doesn't come in stick

Righetti: :confused:

SI SG: listen you want a deal?

RIghetti: i want a car

SI SG: I want to make the deal and I won't tell you any lies, what can you give me so I can tell my bosses you are serious

Righetti: not sure but I was thinking of $17,500.. I came in here only because I got that quote

SI SG: what can you give me so I can go to my bosses to negotiate?

Righetti :confused: I'd like to take it for a test drive before we start this

SI SG: I got you but what number are you thinking about realistically?

Righetti: 17.5 but really lets go for a spin first

SI SG: listen a lot of people want to go for a drive and then leave and waste everybody's time, so what can you put down so I can go to my bosses?

Righetti: you mean what percentage cash could I put down if i bought the car?

SI SG: no what can you give me now, maybe a check or a cash to show you are serious

Righetti: I am interested but not ready to sign something now or leave a deposit: I've never even driven this car

SI SI: I understand, but my bosses are the enemy right now, it's us vs them so I need something to go at them with.. If you want me to get you a deal

Righetti: I'd like to take it for a test drive first

SI SG: if you are not interested in buying a car today we can set up a test drive later this week

Righetti: but I'm here now and would like to take a test drive now

SI SG: we don't have any cars to test drive today, it's very busy

Righetti: I am the only customer here

SI SG: we can set something up when you are serious

Righetti: I am serious

SI SG: so lets talk a deal, i can do $18,999

Righetti: i just want to test drive the car

SI SG: if i can do 18.5 do we have a deal?

Righetti: so you want me to give you a check for a car I've never even driven?

SI SG: it's like going to a club in the city, you need to show you are interested.

Righetti: I'm buying a car, not listening to shitty techno

SI SG: my bosses are my enemy, I'm trying to get you the deal

Righetti: not sure i'm interested in "the deal" more interested in a test drive

SI SG: if you aren't going to be looking for something today and no test drive today, there are no cars here

Righetti: if i told you i'd buy a car today could we go for a test drive

SI SG: yes

Righetti: I thought you said there weren't any cars

SI SG: give me a check and we'll sign a contract and then go for a test drive, of course the contract is dependent on the test-drive

Righetti: I don't want to sign anything, I wanted to get some information about a car

SI SG: listen my bosses are my enemy right now..

Righetti: i know you've said that

SI SG: so can we make a deal

Righetti: I need to put some money in the meter..

Funny slogans

There aren't many jobs I think I could do right away without much practice or training. Most of the time I see a job and think that either I'm overqualified, underqualified or just not something that would be interesting for me. There are two of three gigs I think I would be able to transition into almost completely seamlessly including: Sportstalk host, male stripper or funny T-Shirt slogan guy. Although as I write that I can't help but hum "real men of genius" in my head.

The sportstalk thing is probably something I would be able to fall into, I am just as wrong in my opinions as any of those blowhards and nobody likes the sound of his own voice like I do.
I probably would be a pretty poor male stripper cause I know the chick strippers with the concave chests usually don't do all that well either.

I could make TShirts for a living because people apparently buy anything these days... I'm sitting on the subway last night just counting the silly logo TShirts and was able to count twelve shirts from 42Nd street to Brooklyn with witty lines like "the silver fox", "flip-cup champion" and "Game-Over with a picture of a groom and bride"

I've figured that I'm as clever as any of those copy writers and honestly it wouldn't take much to throw a couple of slogans on some plain black TShirts and make a fortune.

So far I've come up with

"Part Man, Part Process"
"Forget Pissing in the wind, I'm shitting in a tornado"
"MLIA"
"World of Wrong Opinions"

And my personal favorite

"I Love To FU"

Now these may suck but at least they are my own crappy ideas"
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smokers beware.. Righetti on the prowl

A few years ago Mike Bloomberg outlawed cigarette smoking in the workplace which included bars and restaurants. This was probably the single-most pleasant thing that ever happened to the NYC bar-scene as I would come home after a night of boozing and choosing and stinking like a god-damned ashtray.

It also included outdoor stadiums and other public places which is also very pleasant as I don’t want to be choking on your second-hand smoke with chowing down on a $7.50 Foot-Long Hot-dog and a $8 Cold Budweiser at the Yankee game.

Bloomberg is talking about including public parks etc which I’m all for.. Not that I’m for taking away personal rights but I do feel like the non-smokers’ rights should also be protected and I’m willing to take it one step further, making these schleps huddle outside in the cold infront of bar isn't enough anymore..

I don’t’ want the guy walking down the street in front of me smoking his second-hand smoke into the air and my 10 day old kid inhaling your filthy habit. If you want to smoke you should be forced to walk with one of thes ridiculous umbrellas probably invented by the Japanese, you know the type that look like Lord Helmet’s Helmet but instead of it cutting off by your shoulders it would have to zipper to your jacket so that no smoke can seep out (or air seep in by the way)..

Cause honestly this invasion of my human rights is ridiculous

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