Take on the Activists........and cat lovers

A few weeks ago on some over-zealous Brooklyn Parents online newsgroup, one entry was labeled "looking to rent a cat".    Of course it kind of caught your eye and when I read through it, the context was pretty obvious since the desperate parent was looking to get a festering mouse problem under control and had asked about renting the feline tongue-in-cheek.   But people are stupid and as you can imagine the request became a 20 reply sensation within hours with people scolding the woman for her lack of sensitivity for the feelings of the cat and exclaiming how this is akin to animal cruelty.   Before you knew it there was an all out war with everybody flexing their internet muscles

This is where the hippy Brooklyn activist mentality really gets to me, these people have nothing better to do with their time than to protest, scold and complain. I'm convinced they would protest a protest just so they can offer a contrarian view and sometimes I can see the drawback to democracy.   

I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to be surrounded with people who are this stupid.  

Seriously, who the hell could take the following post seriously?

we have some evidence of mice in our apartment, ever since the snow we've been seeing some droppings here and there but we can't find where they are coming in/out of.   anyone have a child-friendly, mouse-catching cat to rent?

now I'm not one who embraces beer muscles but at least there are some real physical consequences which can result in flexing those..

Take on Wireless

After years of suffering through the miserable phone options on Verizon Wireless, we made the move to the IPhone on the AT&T network last year and have mostly been thrilled with it.   The pictures are fantastic, the browsing blows anything short of a laptop out of the water and the functionality is first rate..   Now obviously as a long time loyal Verizon Wireless customer I wasn't thrilled when they announced that they would be carrying the IPhone almost immediately after I signed my AT&T contract and although I had heard about the misery of the AT&T service, nothing could have prepared me for the actual experience. 

A few weeks ago while I was in a cab going to the airport, my call dropped 3 times while I was trying to give the car-service my credit-card number..   I wasn't driving in farmland in Idaho or making a call from inside the Grand Canyon but was moving at 50MPH on the BQE at 4AM!!  Earlier today I had my call with a customer service rep drop twice while standing in my living room.

I travel around the world and with my GSM enabled Verizon Blackberry I have never had an issue being connected anywhere.   Whether I step off a plane in a little city in the middle of China, stand in a field 100 miles outside of Bucharest Romania or wait in the underground platform at Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street my Verizon service always worked while I can't even get service on my IPhone in my own backyard.    

I know Verizon has it's limits and the Verizon IPhone won't even work overseas like the GSM enabled blackberry I have but I do know that you are sure that if you are going to need your IPhone to be able to make calls there really is no choice..

Take on the New Logo

We don't often do this but I have to say the best deal in the city (now that Subway doubled the price of the breakfast melt) is the $1.50 cup of Pike Place Roast over at Starbucks. Now I am not one who fawns over Starbucks in general but also am not one who can't understand the appeal. Yeah the cup sizes don't make a lot of sense, yeah the bathrooms are filthy, yeah there are too many people who park their venti double cocoa chai asses in the good seats for way too long but I do appreciate a deal and for $1.50 you almost can't go wrong.

But what I don't get is why Starbucks has canned it's old logo and starting up with a new variation of it. There are companies that would die to have the kind of logo recognition that Starbucks has and they go and change it up again. To me this is like Google saying they will now park their search engines at www.Snooby.com. but really what is strange Isn't it all about brand loyalty and name recognition and they go and throw it all away...and for what? A brown logo instead of a green one?? Maybe some graphic designer will say the lines are sleeker or the picture is less cluttered but what is the purpose?

First of all the sea urchin has fat arms and hairy boobs so I'm not exactly sure who they are trying to appeal to but she's no Daryl Hannah.  Secondly isn't Starbucks all about environmentally green initiatives, what are they doing to do with all those old cups and napkins?   But most importantly how much will this rebranding cost and what will it do to my cup of Pike Place Roast?
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Take on Bike Lanes

A few buddies were arguing yesterday about the value of bike-lanes to a community and the argument when something like this

Buddy #0

The problem I have is that these bike nerds have totally screwed up the city with all these bike lines. Roads that were already too crowded and dangerously narrow are even moreso. In front of our building on Dean street we've got cars double-parked on church day and there is no way you can fit a bus and a cyclist alongside one another -- it's just a matter of time before someone is killed. Prospect Park West looks absolutely awful with the cars out lining the middle of the street and all this bright ridiculous blinking bike safety lights in addition to the traffic lights. Someone high up in NYC government must either be a huge bike guy or some cycling lobby has them in the pocket, because it all seems like such an expensive gigantic mess and it doesn't really improve things for anyone other than the small minority of bikers. We've got giant parks -- why not ride your bike there?


I get "going green" and all that jazz, and it's nice in theory, but not when it costs a ton, makes things more dangerous, and only helps a minority of people to the detriment of the majority. Doesn't government have more important things to do with money these days?

Buddy #Z

Bikes are used as transportation in tons of cities around the world. The prospect park west bike lane has been a huge success. ….


New Yorkers don't ride bikes because it's unsafe. As more bike routes are put in more will bike. I don't see how this is a problem….and how is this bad http://gothamist.com/2011/01/20/prospect_park_west_bike_lane_study.php#photo-0

Anyway I’m not sure how I feel about any of this. I don’t quite like traffic and I don’t exactly like getting run over by a dude in a S-Class so I’m a bit torn.

I'm not making any judgment about the pros/cons of bike-lanes but just look at those two pictures..

The old picture is taken on some cold dreary winter day with tons of cars parked including one of those black-cabs which is like bringing a gun to an anti-violence campaign while the bike-lane picture shows lush green trees and tons of open parking spots. I might even see some kids frolicking around with puppies and if you look really closely there might be a fair maiden picking a piece of fruit

Just going by the pictures the bike-lane world looks like the one I’d want to live in.

Take on the Cabs

Taking on Cabs

Driving in NYC means that you have to put up with a lot of aggravation including constant honking, jay-walkers, a complete lack of parking, terrible congestion and many streets which do not allow turns but nothing is more aggravating than cabs.  Now I will refrain from the typical complaint about  cabbies driving like psychopaths and instead will complain about something else.    See when you get into a cab in NYC you will typically tell the driver something like.. 'drop me off on the north-west corner of 53^rd and ninth'  as this is the corner closest to your destination.  What is completely frustrating about his is that in this scenario the north-west corner of 53^rd street at 9th avenue means that you are getting dropped off before the light and since there is nowhere to pull over you will hold up traffic on all of 53^rd street.  If he had come down 9^th avenue he will likely pull over into the left-lane and drop you off right in front of Mangia e Bevi which will mean that any car driving down 9^th avenue will have to move over into the center lane to get through the light.

 As we all know cabbies will seemingly pull over completely indiscriminately with no rhyme, reason or care about what is going on in front of them but nothing is more frustrating than getting stuck behind a cab who pulls over in front of a green-light.

So I implore Bloomberg to do the following  

·         cabs must pull over in front of a hydrant not in the right or left traffic lane

·         cabs must pull over past the light never in front of it to help traffic flow

·         cabs cannot pick up passengers in the middle of the street

Take on the Knicks

I have checked my magic-8 ball and the answer is NO!!!!

 

The problem with the sports is three folds:

·         There is no such thing as a team-game anymore, as much as everybody complains that this has to do with the selfishness of the players, just as much can be contributed to the fact that today's sports leagues are set up to feature a single player.   Between free-agency, sneaker contracts, in-season trades and hand-shake agreements to make mega-teams, there is just no place left for team.   Yeah they may be making a business decision but sports have to be more than that, it has to be about representing and playing for something for meaningful

·         There are just way too many teams.   Most sports could contract tomorrow and nobody would notice.. well somebody would notice because there would be less bad teams and thus more competitive games.   Guys who don't deserve roster spots woulnd't get them.     Honestly the NBA, MLB and probably the NHL although I wouldn't know could really benefit from contraction.   I love the concept of the Premier League where the worst team gets thrown to the minors for a few years.   That will stop these teams from tanking games in a heart-beat

·         Money.  

 

 

               

Take on the Trading Deadline

With the euphoria surrounding the Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks trade last night, it might be time to splash some cold water on the situation. Yes it will make the Knicks better, yes it will bring the NBA back to the city and yes it will mean the Knicks will dominate the back-pages until the first 3 game Yankee losing streak..
When it was announced I got the following email from the Commish a loyal TOR reader

"Truly, from the pit of my soul, do I hate the NBA. It's not okay that Carmelo wants to ditch his team because he..."wants to win".  That's complete manure.  Everyone tries to use that as an excuse and we all allow it.  There's an element to sport and gamesmanship and camaraderie and team play and actual dedication, not phony manufactured dedication brought to us by Gillette that is supposed to make athletes (especially the "great" ones) make the best of a situation. I know that this is a business. and he deserves to choose where he wants to plþay but I don't respect Carmelo Anthony, the NBA or any of the fans who don't know any better and who don't expect better from the sport and the demi-gods who are allowed to erode it. 
Plus, I've never liked Carmelo Anthony. 
I've never liked his face.  Nor do I trust anyone with baby dreads/braids. The NBA is utter garbage and children will continue to destroy it. "

What he might be trying to say is that not only does the NBA suck the league is rotten to the core.
See I hate the concept of in season trades, it's what's wrong with sports. We want our athletes to love playing for their team but we'll trade them away if there are enough prospects on the other side. They work together during off-season conditioning to form chemistry, they build camaraderie in training camp or spring training, they learn to depend on one another when they slug it out for a marathon season, they sit on planes and airplanes together building their relationship and for 9 months they spend more time together than they do their own families all in the name of becoming a team. But when the going gets tough, the tough get a hired gun.
Sports is all about competitive balance which is why there are salary caps, restricted free agency, revenue sharing and joint TV contracts but then you throw an is season trade in the middle of it and it can turn the entire league on it's head. One team becomes stacked and may easily surpass the 'teams' who may be less talented but have stuck it out together while other teams give up by trading away a star for some prospects. How is this good for sports?
I'm not saying go back to the days of the reserve clause but I am saying that in-season trades fracture a sport at it's seam. As a fan you invest months into Mosgov and Felton and then the next day you have to root for Chauncey Billups.

We don't reward loyalty, we don't reward chemistry, we don't reward cultivating your own stars and we don't reward 'team'

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Take on the President

Sometimes a holiday just seems to appear out of thin air, one year it's just a day on the calendar and the next the entire city is shut down. I guess I knew some people had it off but it never seemed like a 'real' holiday to me just a chance to 'honor' the forefathers by offering 15% off appliances or a chance to own a brand-new Ford Taurus in maroon. Throughout the last week I spoke with friends in banking, lawyering, softwaring and insurancing and they all had off while I spoke to people in manufacturing, retailing, door-manning and cleaning and they would all be at work. The USPS is off but UPS works, the banks are closed but stores are open.
My problem is that either make it a real holiday where everybody is off or you don't
I like holidays and understand ones to honor people or events but I don't like manufactured ones. As a country we shut down for Presidents Day but we work on 9/11. Many people get Columbus Day off but many work on Martin Luther King Day now explain that to me. Of by the way we don't even shut down on Washington's actual birthday, we just shut down on the nearest Monday. I don't quite understand the logic behind any of it, except probably where the day falls on the calendar. Many offices are open on Martin Luther King Day which is right after people had long Christmas Breaks while Presidents day falls in the heart of a dreary February.
But the reasoning is more dubious than that, it's about retail stores. It's the Federal Government fabricating a holiday to get people to shop for a new air-conditioner or a new fridge, it has nothing to do with Colonel Washington fighting the Brits or Lincoln freeing the slave. . Just look at the paper today, there will be caricatures drawn of the presidents under banners for '0% financing for the first 6 months' at Raymour and Flannigan but almost zero lip-service to the actual honorees in the 'actual' paper.
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Take on garbage bins in parking spots

So obviously you are well aware of the musical chairs situation involving the parking in Brooklyn with more cars than sports, more hydrants than necessary and more driveways than in suburbia. Well add all of this together with the archaic street sweeping rules and it's a clusterfuck so why not make it more complicated.
Like having some 25 foot garbage bin parked in three viable parking spots for a month on end. This is where government never serves its people. They will allow some building to set up a bin for 3 weeks but make no concessions to the neighborhood like relaxed street sweeping enforcement or an offer up three spots in its place by capping three metered spots. But no this is city politics where the sanitation commissioners block gets cleared of snow before they start the BQE and the Mayor suggests we all go to Broadway.
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Take on City Parking

When you live in a city known for it's tough parking rules and then combine it with a neighborhood notorious because there are not nearly enough parking spots for the amount of cars in the area you are usually in for a treat. NYC's street sweeping rules seem archaic many of it's ways as if the person who decided which days the roads should be cleaned never actually looked on a map.
In Park Slope the issue I had was that the fire hydrants are always on the North Side of a block yet the city decided that they will clean the north side of every block in an area on the same day and the south side on another day. The effect is that on the days they clean the south sides there are at four to six less parking spots available on every block since they have 2 or 3 hydrants per block. Why in the world they couldn't just rotate the street sweeping to do half the south sides and half the north sides on one day and they the other two halves on the other day is beyond logic.
In Bay Ridge the rules are similarly asinine, they also do the North-South thing but unlike Park Slope which at least puts 3 days between the north and south sweep days where at least there are a few days to find parking, in Bay Ridge they throw the two sweeping days on consecutive days which means that every car in a 20 block radius is looking for parking on the same night. So you will give us approximately 60 less spots and only one evening to divvy them up..that's genius.

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Take on Spice

As long as I can remember I have loved spicy food, I love the burning on my tongue, the burning down my throat and the burning when it leaves me again.    I love Indian food, I get excited just thinking about Mexican food and I take my wingers extra hot.   There is this commercial on the radio right now for Tabasco sauce which explains that the spice enhances the flavor and turns an ordinary dinner into a roller-coaster and I can honestly say that there is a lot of truth to this.

The problem I have is that I sweat profusely when eating spicy food..   It's as if I just ran a half-marathon after getting through with a meal.  There is a sweat on my brow and on the top of my lip.   My hair is a damp and I'm breathing heavy.  How can you ever be expected to look every remotely respectable when you are eating a bowl of nachos with spicy salsa or some of those atomic wingers from Cluck U.     Not only am I licking my fingers and probably trying to dap a warm wet towel on my shirt to get out a couple of stains but I need a towel to wipe down my face and head and there is just no way to stop the Schvitzing is by standing underneath a cool shower for about 10 minutes and most of the time they don't offer one of those at a typical Korean restaurant although they may have a bed somewhere upstairs

Take on Shampoo

Almost 15 years ago when I first moved out of my parent's house into my own apartment my life changed.   I lived on my own schedule, paid my own bills and bought my own groceries.   Now paying for groceries kind of sucked but my roommate at the time was about the best shopper you'd ever met.  It was like he'd run through the aisles like he was competing on an episode of Supermarket Sweep except he got extra points for finding deals.    He would find things on sale in the paper, he'd clip coupons, he'd find two-for-ones and he'd buy in bulk but he'd always get a good deal.  He knew which day of the week to go and buy cold-cuts cause when the supermarket was most likely to discount the cheese, we'd feast on London Broil because you the most bang-for-your-buck, we'd get the 75% lean ground beef which he proved actually tasted better,  he showed me that buying generic spices was a great way to save money and he'd always look for the dented pasta cans.  But where he really sold me was when he told me that there was no difference in shampoo and that we should just buy the least expensive thing on the shelves.    We searched high and low (mostly low) and found bottle of Suave which came in every color of the rainbow (or at least every color of the Gatorade rainbow) and we were off.

I have been using the cheapest shampoo I can find ever since and never had a complaint.  never up until about 3 months ago when for the first time I started to notice something….specks of white on my black shirts…then I started seeing flakes of snow in my hair even when it wasn't snowing and finally I'd see it rain onto the screen of my IPhone whenever I read on the subway..    

It was like I all of a sudden turned into an old man overnight with cranky knees, a crabby attitude and an itchy scalp which you'd think was bad enough until I got another swift kick to the unit when I walked into Duane Reade and dropped $5.99 for a small bottle of Head and Shoulders.

Take on the Deficit

 

I hate to bore the TOR readership with the minutia of federal budget but the more I hear about the way that the Donkeys and the Elephants want to cut the deficit seem inadequate.    The new Republican class who rode in on a wave of Tea-Party populism has promised to cut $100 Billion from the discretionary Federal Budget in the 2011 year which by the way is already well under way.  In order to accomplish their goals the cuts they have proposed will be deep and painful but maybe necessary.

In term Obama has made some concessions in his budget including a way to trim $1 trillion from the deficit in the next decade and the NY Times put together the following handy chart to show how the federal dollars are spent http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-budget/index.html

Obviously the largest expenditures have nothing to do with discretionary spending like foreign aid, farm subsidies, veteran affairs etc but are overwhelmingly located in the entitlement section (Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security) as well as a huge amount in the 'interest on public debt' category.    Now if you are $100,000 in the hole personally you may try to cut the cost of your deli meat by deciding against Boars Head and instead going with generic bologna but in the big picture that won't put a big enough dent in the $100,000 you owe.   At that point you have to make a couple of bigger decisions.   Now you may decide to not paint your house or pay a guy to mow the lawn and these cosmetic decisions seem logical but the hard part comes when a huge tree collapses and smacks into your roof and there is water gushing in by the tub-load.  Now you can decide to fix the leak in the roof or just throwing a tarp over it and keeping your fingers crossed.

But at the end of the day I would look at this defecit issue and attack it this way..

·         Raise the age of retirement from 67 for full Social Security benefits to 70.   Life Expectancy rates improve constantly, so should the age at which time you collect.  If you are going to give people a cost of living increase then you should also adjust their chance of living criteria.

·         Start moving Social Security into its own slush fund.  Don't include it in the normal federal budget and don't allow the normal politicians to touch it.   Keep it separate and pay out each year based on 90% of what the take-ins where last year, keeping 10% for a rainy day..   For example if this year the government collects $800 billion than you pay out $720 Billion to every person who is eligible that year.  If we take in $900 Billion the next year than each person gets a bit more, if we take in $700 Billion then each person gets a bit less.      Look at how revenue sharing works in the NFL with players making 60% of the total intakes…maybe that's not a good example.

·         Take an ax to Medicaid and Medicare and cut 10% from each budget..  yeah it sucks but let me tell you, when I took a paycut last year it sucked too.    I'm sure there are tons of administrative costs that can be cut here and honestly there is no reason that everybody needs brand-name medicine.   Make it mandatory that every person use 50% generic where applicable.  If you don't like it pay for your own medicine.

·         Use the 'savings' from the Medicaid and Medicare package and apply it to pay off the public debt.     So next year your debt will be less and thus the interest you pay will be less since you will be charged interest on a smaller amount.   Use the 'savings' in next years budget to continue to pay down your debt.    I'd suggest the same for those of you with big credit-card bills

·         Eliminate all subsidies to the gas and oil industries.  They don't need any of our help.. they get enough of my money when I'm paying $3.30/gallon at the pump..    Subsidies are un-American

·         Cut taxes for businesses but make sure everybody is paying their share.

·         Force all companies doing business in the US to pay taxes in the US.   There is no reason there should be any allowable tax-havens in Dominica, Switzerland or Costa Rica

·         Simplify the tax-code by making the whole thing 1 page..   There are too many deductions and too many people able to skate because they are able to hide money.     If you want to donate to the arts or to a church you do it on your own merits not because you get a tax break..

·         Eliminate the subsidies the government gives companies for health-care and have people pay their own way.   Subsidies are anti-capitalism

·         Force Congress to balance a budget every single year..  If I have to sit there and balance a checkbook so should congress.

·         Give every person in congress a 15% pay-cut..just because

Fringe Cringe take 2

For those of you who watch Fringe I need to get something off of my chest. Now granted the show kind of sucks and FOX has already signed it’s death certificate by moving it to Friday Nights right before Full House and after Family Matters so I don’t think anybody has any hope for much longer run.

Sadly I’m still a fan even if as my buddy the Bump will always point out, they always go to the same formula. Something crazy happens, the old guy comes up with some idea, everybody assumes he’s crazy and then 58 minutes later it happens to be exactly as he had predicted.

Now they haven’t used this formula since season 1 and the show has gotten a lot more interesting especially with their whole war-of-the-worlds theme. With that said they throw a lot of clunkers in the middle of the good episodes whose purpose seem to only be fill up space.

I’ve decided any episode which focuses on the bizarre love-triangle between Olivia, Peter and Fauxlivia sucks . Give us more scientists concocting crazy schemes, crazy creatures and episodes with death by paralysis and less lovey-dovey crap. There is NO chemistry between them and the entire thing feels contrived and tired.

BUT what really pisses me off is that they beat you over the head with stuff, never let you think about it. Basically every episode leaves you with a cliffhanger but they can’t just leave it out there like a matzo-ball they have to beat it down like it’s a piñata.

SPOILER ALERT

This week is a perfect example they spend an entire episode talking about cockroaches which is dreadful and when they finally get to the last scene they take the one good part of the story and ruin it. Basically Fauxlivia things she’s infected by a killer roach and is taken in an ambulance where they run a sonogram to find out if they can find the roach in her system. Of course they see something and first assume it’s a roach but after a few seconds they realize it’s a fetus.

Now they could just leave it like that and let the viewer infer.. Obviously they already made it perfectly clear that her fiancé has been away for about 3 months and we know that she’s banging the piss out of Peter while she was in the other universe. BUT NO, they can’t leave it even for the slightest bit of imagination. First they march the boyfriend in there to make sure the baby isn’t his, as if that wasn’t enough they then bring back to her apartment where they show a bunch of empty boxes all in disarray when all of a sudden Walternate walks in to make sure that everybody in the world knew that this was his grandchild as if it wasn’t already abundantly clear.

Now I understand needing to make sure your audience is able to follow the program but when you are basically dumbing it down to the level of a second grader what are you really doing?

Take on Valentines Day

Sometimes we bitch about things we can control other-times we bitch about things we cannot control and sometimes our friends do the bitching for us but the fight remains about us vs them though sometimes the players in the us camp turn into them and the players in the them camp become us.

 

There is an ongoing fight in a number of communities against Wall-Mart and other "Big Box" stores moving in and ruining business for the "mom and pop" stores.  I know we are supposed to side with David and not Goliath, but when David tries to give it to you with no Vaseline, it's hard to take his side.  Case in point:  Valentine's Day.  We all have to go out to buy flowers for the little lady no matter what your hipster senses tell you.  There's what's right and what's right and flowers for you lady on V-day is right.  I stop in the local florist to order a dozen roses for pickup on the 14th.  The owner helps me and writes up my order.  The charge, $85.  Yes that's right, for a dozen flowers.  More than 7 dollars a flower.  I call up a bigger chain to see what their pricing is and they have a dozen for $45, nearly half of the mom and pop.  I know I am supposed to feel for the plight of the small business, but when they take every opportunity to screw the small guy, I won't play ball.  Why not charge a fair price and create a customer for all year, than to just try to cash in on the one day we are commanded to buy flowers.  Don't even get me started on local restaurants and their special prix fixe menus.  $65 a head and they expect you to SHARE a dessert. 

Word Nazi

One thing I can't stand is people who use the term Nazi in everyday speech. It wasn't always this way but now i hear it all the time and it's becoming more and more prevalent in speech. Yesterday I was told I was a Time Nazi because I wanted to get somewhere on time, last week I heard somebody complain about a grammar Nazi for using the wrong their. Not long ago I heard a guy say that his workplace was like a concentration camp but really the liberal use of Nazi to describe any situation which is the least bit demanding is sickening. The words Strict and Nazi aren't synonyms but in this 24 hour News cycle world, people throw it around like 'liberal' or 'conservative'. I am sure that at some point it will lose all it's meaning but I'm not ready for that yet.
Maybe I'm old fashion but that wound still seems a bit fresh, I mean you don't regularly hear people call each other slaves or slave owners and that wound is older than the slavery one. What gets me is this new generation (I feel old everytime I blog like this) just doesn't get it, there are just some things that shouldn't be used in a sentence between 'like' and 'oh my god'
I don't know when it will be OK for me but it won't be any time soon.
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Hipster vs New Father

It is sometimes difficult to tell the differences between races. It's not uncommon for somebody to confuse a Korean and a Chinese person although for those of us who can tell the difference the game is as easy as shooting fishheads in a barrel. There are other groups that are difficult to distinguish from one another including Native Americans and South East Indians, Swedes from Nords and Hipsters and New Fathers.

I'll leave the Indian and Northern European discussions for another day but I wanted to give you some information to help you distinguish the other two. Now they share a lot of characteristics including the thick bags under the eyes, general crabbyness and self perceived importance.
BUT there are a few ways you can tell a new father from a new Hipster, you just have to know what you are looking for.

Although they may dress and look similar to the untrained eye the expert can make important inferences with the quickest glance

See although both may wear a hoodie, the hoodie strings for the hipster will be headphones while the hoodie strings for the new father will be only strings.

Pants
The Brooklyn father and the Hipster will both wear a pair of jeans which both probably haven't been washed in months and both will be a tight. The difference is the hipster's will be purposely tight while the new Father will just have put on a few pounds

CellPhone
Both will likely be buried in their IPhones and both may be using the camera.. the difference is that one will look like he's examining nature using the camera while the other is preoccupied with instagram

Then if you look at the apps on their phones you'll see the father has FishSchool while the hipster just downloaded the new Conan app.

Hats
both may wear a baseball-hat though one will probably wear an NFL hat while the other wears a mesh trucker hat.

Homefront
Both the new dad and the hipster will likely make his dwelling in Brooklyn, the difference is the former will come from Park Slope while the latter comes way of Williamsburg

Boots
Both may be wearing boots, the difference is one may have spurs on them while the other has snow boots that don't breath.

Haircuts
Both will have a disheveled hairdo. One will have spent hours on making sure it's perfectly disheveled while the other will just look like crap.

Social Networking
Both the new father and the most cutting edge hipster will have shunned social networking. One will be done with it as he feels his time is better spent with other things while the other has disconnected to fight the power

Pickles
Both love pickles, one buys them from the farmers market while the other pickles veggies himself

But the easiest way to confuse them is based on facial hair. See where both species will likely have some facial hair, the difference is that the new father will wear a scruffy beard while the hipster wears the porn 'stach or a full bushy beard.
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the women of the world

TOR came across this gem during the week at http://i.imgur.com/lO9OV.jpg which came with the following very scientific description. 

This image contains composites representing the "average" woman from each of 41 different countries (or regions). Not "average" in the sense of being a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. They're all very attractive. But "average" in the sense of being the result of blending a lot of individual pics together

We have decided to rank the chicks of the world.. now mind you were are going only by these pictures and not taking into consideration all the wenches we have met over our lives from some of these parts..

1	Greek	Hoya Goya
2	West African	beautiful features
3	Italian	seems this chick is imported
4	Russian	something tells me a Russian Bride looks nothing like this dhick
5	Israeli	how would anybody want to start wars with chicks this hot? Plus you know what they say about Jewish chicks
6	English	oh lord
7	Swiss	very girl next door.. In Switzerland
8	Polish	something about those eyes…and really I don't like sleeping on the couch
9	Montoglian	plus you know she's probably a savage
10	Ethiopian	I'm glad my $0.40 a day has gone to something worthwhile
11	Indian	I like..
12	Spaniard	I would like to be her conquistador
13	German	lady the wall came down 2 decades ago..get some sun
14	Thai	you know this chick might be a dude right????
15	Peruvian	imagine an entire empire of chicks that look like this
16	South Indian	I'm not sure which tribe she belongs to but Cherokee she is not
17	African American	not Hally Berry and not Shaniqua either
18	French	terrible haircut
19	Taiwanese	how about some makeup
20	Central African	I'm not a racist, look at my #2
21	Finnish	exactly average
22	Welsh	Hard to judge
23	Sweden	if this was a bikini contest she would be higher I'd guess
24	Burmese	not ugly.. I just am not into girls who look like they are 10
25	Japanese	at least you can buy her panties out of a soda machine
26	Afghan	that National Geographic chick she is not
27	Cambodian	refuge camp material
28	Iranian	move away from the nuclear reactor
29	Romanian	thumb way down
30	Vietnamese	the classic definition of 'non descript asian chick'
31	Filipino	I think they used the same picture as the Vietnamese one
32	Chinese	she actually looks better than 50% of China.. And that's saying something
33	Latvian	This haircut sucked in 1982
34	Puerto Rican	now realize that she'll be 250 pounds by the time she's 24
35	South African	Michael Jackson???
36	Mexican	the only way this chick swims across a river is it it's made from fudge
37	Irish	built like a rugby player and belches like one too
38	Uzbek	dude this chick has an Adam's apple
39	Korean	I think you can still see a chunk of Kimchee on her chin.
99	Hungarian	that Eastern European life must be rough
100	Samoan	this chick needs a spear in her hand and a boar in the other