Sometime modern technology shocks me. I know that with WiFi, smartphones, EZPass, red-eye reduction technology, YouPorn etc you almost never have to deal with people anymore. This is obviously pleasant in a 1000 ways because the people you're avoiding are usually heavily tattooed, pierced and calorie indulged. I know there are discussions about job creation but if you look at the numbers the unemployment rate for college grads is in the 5% range while that for high-school dropouts is about 15%. Basically we don't want to deal with these types anymore and technology helps us avoid them and sometimes we find that not only is it more pleasant, it is better too
Last Tuesday night I went online and ordered a bunch of supplies from Diapers.com which any parent knows is the biggest life-saver out there. Well I can't speak for all scenarios but I was shocked when I logged into my account the next morning to make an adjustment to the order I placed 8 hours earlier and found out the goods were already shipped. I place an order at 10:30pm and by 6:30am it is already on a truck. Well that isn't the craziest thing about it, I show up at work and am told I had a delivery at 8:15am before I got there.

and by the way the shipping charge is free.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Taking on the Max

Last month when ESPN Radio personality Jared Max came out and became the first openly gay sportscaster it seemed like a big day, I'm not sure why it should be but it seemed another wall had come down.    I have never listened to Jared Max but I'm all for people being able to be the person they are and not feeling like they should be in the closet but it wouldn't make me listen or not listen to him past maybe an initial listen to just find out more about the way he runs his show.   With that said I turned on his show this week, for no other reason than the fact that my entire internal clock was off and I was up at 5AM. 

The problem with this show is that once you get past the fact he's a gay-guy talking sports, it's just really a terrible show.    The production feels like you are stuck in a RadioLab loop, the content is tired and lame and his delivery sounds like he's completely constipated.     I spent 25 minutes listening to him ask his audience riveting questions like 'who is your all time favorite Yankee?'   

Dude it's mid June and I realize there is an NFL lockout but between baseball, some NBA uncertainty, tennis, golf and NASCAR there are plenty of thing to talk about.   This dude has 1 hour of time to fill and the best he can come up with is a show based on people calling him with answers like Dan Pasqua, Bam Bam Meulens or Mickey Rivers.  

The way I see it, coming out was the best career move this guy could have ever done, he has drawn some new listeners to his show and he has now that insulated himself from ever getting fired.   How much heat would ESPN Radio be under when they actually fire him.  It won't matter that his rating stink because they won't be able to.

They would have to hire another gay guy, a couple of Mexicans and a female tandem to do afternoon-drive to over-compensate so they don't get attacked by every human-rights organization from here to Castro.

 

Take on Big Water

There are days when nothing goes right and there are days when nothing can seemingly go wrong.   When I walked into a Duane Read the other day to buy a seltzer water, I inadvertently picked up a bottle of Dasani lemon flavored water thinking it was lemon infused seltzer.   What I got was 1 liter of the most vile liquid any person has ever had to consume.   This stuff tastes like somebody squished way too much lemon-ice flavor into distilled water giving you with a combination of bland texture and awful taste.  I could honestly not imagine a single person who could honestly claim to like this

I propose a bill to be past requiring companies to submit new formulations for my approval so I can protect the fine citizens of this country from the evil's perpetuated by Big Water

Sent from my iPhone

take on the kind of mental-patient who waits outside the window of GMA

I made the mistake of cutting through Times Square on my way to work today at about 8:30AM and got stuck in a wave of Middle-America.   I have nothing against our heartland expect when it impedes me from getting an Egg and Cheese in the morning or when I'm driving through the vast emptiness past the Mississippi River.    As I got engulfed by a group of fanatically overweight people it occurred to me that I had accidentally stumbled upon the taping of Good Morning America and like a tidal wave I was swept up as the crowd swayed from side-to-side with each chew of their chocolate donut.   I stood there in awe thinking to myself that some yo-yo from Indianapolis drove 1000 miles to New York City to stand outside in the 100 degree weather at 6AM to have a chance to have his lame sign caught in the background of some segment about growing the perfect tomato.   This is like flying to a campground in the South of France filled with Americans.   Now I understand that the Today show gets an even bigger audience of weirdos and they sometimes have to shut down all of Rockefeller Center because of it.  The funny thing is that there is no New Yorker who has ever spent as much as two minutes waiting in front of the window of one of these hell-holes which is why the concept of SNY opening up a studio at street level on sixth-avenue never made sense to me.    If you are not going to have a national audience (read people from Topeka who have nothing better to do with their time than to spend their two weeks vacation standing on a street corner hoping to get a view of Charles Gibson's backside) you won't attract so much as a homeless person.

I have walked past that SNY studio a thousand times and there are literally more people waiting at the hot-dog vendor than people standing in front of the window.

It's to the point that if we ever decided to implement some type of population control over this country we could quickly save enough food to feed 100 people by taking out 50 housewives on the corner of 44th and Broadway.

 

Take on the 'hello my facebook friends, make today great" pomposity

Is there anything more pompous and self-serving than those aholes who post 'I hope everybody has a great hump-day" or "hello my facebook friends, stay warm today" crap.
It is like the mass text which is cloaked as a personal message but instead is only a lazy and lame.
This Status Feed is supposed to give an avenue for some original thought but instead it has become a complete wasteland of lost bandwidth. So I did what I should have done months ago...I took an ax to my list of 'friends' and cut down from 400 to well under 200. Now I am still shocked that I still have that many but my list is now limited only to family and people who I would actually call or text. Have eliminated every dude I went to high-school with, every chick I worked with three jobs ago and every friend of a friend who I met at a BBQ.
I have no time for your lame posts, out-of-focus pictures of your ugly kid, bad attempts at humor and mostly no time for your mass morning pep..
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Take on Equal Rights

Nothing we can say that hasn't been said before so we'll let the picture tell the story, I have to hope and imagine that last night the State of New York stood up for civil rights, equal protection and dignity and stared down the religious intolerant.  It hasn't been 12 hours since the historic vote and I feel like a generation of gay and lesbian Americans are vindicated of a crime which never was and never should have been.

I know that I don't know much but I am confident that in 5 years it will feel insane that this was ever up for debate like the thought of blacks or women having the right to vote and it still saddens me that it takes 11 years into the 21st century for a liberal leaning state finally makes justice.  I'm sure it will take another 10 years before the rest of the country follows suit and there will be plenty of opposition so I'm sure the fight is just beginning but I will warn those standing in the way:   history does not look kindly upon those on the wrong side of civil rights

Take on the Black Hole

Apparently i jinxed myself  because my fool proof method  if avoiding getting sick on Asia backfired.  I didn't actually drink gh water but something I did eat did not agree with my pampered Western gastro-intestinal system   Luckily for me it didn't hit me till day 9 but unluckily for me it hit while in a car 200 miles from my hotel
I ask the driver to pull over at the reststop and I make the mind of dash for it they haven't seen since Ussein Bolt.   I run into the bathroom and all of a sudden it hits me:   This is not your daddy's bathroom, these are a bunch of holes in the ground you have to squat over.   Now I have some experience with this position as you may recall from my poop and run story in Prospect Park from a few years ago but this is a whole new ballgame.  I am not in shorts in the woods, I am in a full suit standing over what looks like an orifice  go hell.   See if I tumbled while in the park, the worst that could have happened was I fell into my own excrement but if my quads failed in this scenario I would be lying in a peasant compost heap. 
But I have no choice, my stomach is doing flips so I drop my pants, brace myself and release a stream of juice that splatters over everything in this little stall.  My legs burn, my eyes tear and my ahole feels like it got abused by a rugby team but the release is worth it.     This place looks like a scene out of Trainspotting to start with so I'm not actually sure what I am actually responsible for but i'm sure i am leaving it worse than it started out as and that is saying something.  I have no experience with this squat shitting so I feel like I should be given a pass on trajectory especially since i'm basically just pissing out of my ass.   I  finish surprisingly without making it into a scene of Chinese Slumdog Millionare which is impressive considering the situation.
I go to wipe up and realize there is no toilet paper

MLIA

Take on the Chinese Air

Whenever you get to China you are in for a shock Some of it is cultural, some of it is psychological and some of it is environmental But when you go to China twice a year for 5 years the shock is different When i got upstairs at the Shangri La and peeked out the window it no longer shocked me. Everyday that you stare out onto basically any Chinese City you look at a cloud of fog...smog. There is no sun, there is no blue and there are no white clouds. The entire city is covered in a perpetual gray fog which feels like it ages you by just staring at it. As much as we are told that te Chinese and their 1.4 billion are coming, it seems that for now they are stuck in a prison of their own growth. The money flows into the major cities but the smaller ones do not seem much happier tan 10 years ago. For all the promise if upward mobility from their industrial revolution it begs the question whether they are any better off. Quality of life is supposedly better and if that can be measured by Burberry and Louise Vuiton then I guess there is improvement. But who the hell can afford a $900 handbag here? The average worker is still living in a stagnated world even if their wages increase I have to think happiness for the average chinaman is low although maybe there is little to compare it to. They work backbreaking labor intensive jobs, in horrid conditions for minimal pay, they don't enjoy the 'finer things' and although their economy continues to grow at a feverous pace their country is taken a beating. The ponds are polluted, the rivers are toxic, the trees are brown and the air is thick with smog. Honestly for all the jokes about it being hard to deterimine the age of an Asian, here the issue is that the ones that are 30 look like try are 50. It s as if they smoked three packs per day -which they do.
How could you expect to be happy when you don't shower, live in filth and you never see the sun.

Sent from my iPhone

Take on The Bump

So after my bump from business class down to coach for my flight to China, I was livid when I walke into the 737 and noticed that there was in fact a full business class.  This felt like getting sent down to the minors even if you are hitting .350 and have hit three homeruns for the big club..you just feel like you deserve better.   So not only was I lied to about not having a business class, then I was bumped down with no payment or reimbursement but when I get on the plane not only is there an entire business class it is also completely empty
I make an Ill fated attempt at an 'upgrade' to my rightful seat as the Korean stewardess looks as me like I am Kevin Smith.   So not only do I sit in the back with the chickens, cargo and common folk  I come across as an ugly American

so there i sit in the back of the plain with all the mortals while the seat that is rightfully mine sits empty.

Take on the fool proof method of avoiding the water in China

for anybody who has ever traveled to a second or third world country, you know the dangers of drinking the water as our posh pampered gastrointestinal just cannot process the water that the locals have no problem drinking from.    The horror stories I have heard and experienced of hours of ass-pissing from the mere consumption of a few drops of local water makes us all weary of travel. Whether it is Montezuma's Revenge, Traveler's Diarrhea, Curry forcing Hurry or visits to the Great Ceramic Bowl of China there is just no pleasant way to go through a trip when afflicted.   The easiest ways to avoid this is by drinking bottled water, water that has been boiled like in coffee or tea or drinking your own urine because the EColi, salmonella and gonorrhea from other countries just do not mix with our immune systems.

Well you can never be too careful but even as I take all the precautions there has been the occasional time I have erred mostly because the incredible bouts of jet-lag, long days and different environments in itself completely get you out-of-sorts.    I have avoided the worst cases by exclusively drinking alcohol while I'm abroad although having a Ting Tao at 8AM makes for a rough 11AM.  BUt this can't be foolproof because even if you control everything you drink you have to watch things that have been washed in the water like salads, fruits and vegetables so you are always very weary when eating.  But the biggest problem is not at the buffet lines but in an unexpected spot.  I have made the mistake of opening my mouth in the shower or brushing my teeth with the sink water so a few years ago  trip I decided on the following precaution:  No bathing for 10 days, which has had the unexpected additional benefit of helping to ensure an extra few seats around me on the plane.   

The tooth-brushing problem is a bit more difficult as my dentist wouldn't be thrilled with a week plus of not brushing.   You can avoid the sink water with bottled water of course but the problem is that brushing your teeth is completely routing.  It is so incredibly normal to just turn on the water in a sink so I needed a way to break this routine and came up with the fool-proof plan to break the routine which you must be drastic especially when you a tired and jet-lagged.  A few years ago, tired and hungover, i made the mistake of brushing my teeth with the sink-water instead of the bottled water I had sitting directly next to the sink.   So the fool-proof plan I developed was to place two cups directly to over the knobs so that even in a haze of maotai you cannot make the mistake of accidentally turning on the sink water

so far so good.

Take on Priority Seating

Maybe I am retarded, maybe I have OCD or maybe I just like to be early but for all the perks my platinum status on Delta affords me there is nothing I prefer more than being the first passenger onto a plane.  The thought of walking into an empty plane is pure bliss for the well traveled business man.  
There is something very freeing about walking into a cabin and seeing it before the masses have messed it up, fat people have cramped it up and kids have barfed in the aisles.
I am the one psychopath who will linger near the gate entrance about 15 minutes prior to boarding just so I do not have to walk down the aisle with the commoners in a stamped of humanity    I am not sure where this need stems from but I am impatient and don't like any kind of traffic.  I also bring all my luggage as carry-on so I need to stake out an overhead bin that can accommodate all my shit but mostly i want to be seated comfortably while the rest of the passengers push and shove each other into a sea of human stink.  It is the only way to make the experience somewhat manageable.

Take on Priority Boarding

Taking on the 1000 day challenge

We started to blog almost three years ago.  Back in the summer of 2008, we decided to throw our musings onto paper and submit it for the world to see.   I don't think we ever had a theme although  my sister in law said 'it's just basically you complaining right?" and that was true.   

The early blog entries were a bit scattered in terms of consistency but as we continued to get some interest from friends and foe alike we began to fall into a routine.  The first few months went quickly as we found abundant topics to write about but we heard one complaint often (well we heard a lot of complaints often but one kept coming back).    We were not consistent in our postings; sometimes we would post 3 or 4 times in a day and then not post again for days.   But on September 22nd 2008 we decided we would challenge ourselves and write every-single day for 1000 straight days.  We started this quest that September day and have continued it every single day since then..   We have written daily mostly while waiting for the subway but have continued it while travelling through Europe, we have posted from Holiday Inn's in Columbus Ohio, we have posted while at the hospital waiting for our daughter to be born, we posted from baseball games, while watching football games, during business conferences, from a ski-lift, while hung-over, while jet-lagged and when we couldn't move because of some nasty stomach bug caused by the water in China although our biggest challenge might have been to write through bouts of writer's block. We posted from the desserts between Libya and Egypt, we blogged while driving in a beat up car in Bucharest and wrote while standing behind a donkey and wagon in China.  We posted from vacation and posted from work and all in all we have hit our goal.    Yesterday marked our 1000th straight day of complaining so we thank you all for sticking with us.

The irony of it all is that i'm in China and the Great FireWall seems to have cut off access to anything on the blogger server so I must try to post this from a back-channel.  

It would be typical of my luck if I did NOT hit my goal of 1000 straight days only because my final post just couldn't connect to the server..

so somebody email me to let me know if this one posted... 

Take On El Brad Pitt

I'm reading the headlines as I'm sitting in the lounge waiting to board a flight and I come across the headline that says  "Brad Pitt is busted for major cocaine ring'.   I double check to make sure I haven't accidentally scrolled over to NationalEnquirer.com before I decide to click on the link.
Well the major drug-bust didn't involve the Legends of the Fall star but instead 'El Brad Pitt' so Mexican drug-lord kingpin accused of a car-bomb that killed police officers as well as a rap-sheet of drug-related crimes longer than a list of Jennifer Anniston grievances.

So although this guy is probably Lucifer personified you do have to feel bad for this guy, not only is he stuck living in Juarez or some-other god-forsaken hellhole but he has to walk around looking like grown-up version of the fat kid from Modern Family.   Just imagine this guy shows up for a blind-date and when the chick looks at him, she's mortified wondering if he's going to ask her to dance, shoot her or eat her.

So my word-of-advice is that El Brad Pitt should change his name to El Burrito or something so he can set expectations a bit lower.

Take on the Airline Bump

while on my trip through Asia I got a disturbing call from my airline about a flight i'm taking from Korea to China.

I knew I was in trouble after she said the prerequisite "this call may be monitored for quality assurance" and then said "can you please confirm that you recognize that the call will be taped? "
Anyway after a few pleasantries the representative told me that because of an airplane change, the flight will not have a business class but the good news is that they got me a seat in coach.   Obviously i'm not thrilled to sit in the cargo-hold with a bunch of Chinese day laborers but what really gets me is that when i asked if I was going to be getting a discount I was met with a big fat NO.  

Explain to a laymen how exactly this works.   Man buys business class ticket, Airline finds out they don't have business class on flight, Airline bumps man down to coach and there is no effort what-so-ever for some kind of compensation so man pays business class fare to sit in the middle seat for 3 hours to shitsville China.    

it's funny that when you ask for an upgrade, airlines will allow you to buy an upgrade using miles or cash but when you get a downgrade you get nothing back at all.  It is like the concept of cancelling a doctor's appointment within a 24 hour period and having to pay anyway while a doctor can have you wait in his lobby for 2 hours or just cancel outright with no repercussion.

Of course I don't have many choice being that i'm in Asia and there is exactly one flight out of here to the city in China I will be travelling to, so they have me by the nut sack.

I really wonder if I get credited with business class miles for my frequent flier amount.

Take on James....I mean Timothy Dolan

with the NY State Assembly once again voting to legalize gay-marriage and the NY Senate only one vote away, it is just about time to pop some champagne and toast civil rights.  

Of course the Catholic Church decided this was another perfect time to step into this issue with their definition of morality with the typical lack of self-awareness they have shown before when Archbishop Timothy Dolan came out with the following post on his blog

The stampede is on.  Our elected senators who have stood courageous in their refusal to capitulate on the state's presumption to redefine marriage are reporting unrelenting pressure to cave-in.

The media, mainly sympathetic to this rush to tamper with a definition as old as human reason and ordered good, reports annoyance on the part of some senators that those in defense of traditional marriage just don't see the light, as we persist in opposing this enlightened, progressive, cause.

But, really, shouldn't we be more upset – and worried – about this perilous presumption of the state to re-invent the very definition of an undeniable truth – one man, one woman, united in lifelong love and fidelity, hoping for children – that has served as the very cornerstone of civilization and culture from the start?

Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America – not in China or North Korea.  In those countries, government presumes daily to "redefine" rights, relationships, values, and natural law.  There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of "family" and "marriage" means.

But, please, not here!  Our country's founding principles speak of rights given by God, not invented by government, and certain noble values – life, home, family, marriage, children, faith – that are protected, not re-defined, by a state presuming omnipotence.

Please, not here!  We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought; we acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a "right."  And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?

Our beliefs should not be viewed as discrimination against homosexual people.  The Church affirms the basic human rights of gay men and women, and the state has rightly changed many laws to offer these men and women hospital visitation rights, bereavement leave, death benefits, insurance benefits, and the like.  This is not about denying rights. It is about upholding a truth about the human condition.  Marriage is not simply a mechanism for delivering benefits:  It is the union of a man and a woman in a loving, permanent, life-giving union to pro-create children.  Please don't vote to change that.  If you do, you are claiming the power to change what is not into what is, simply because you say so.  This is false, it is wrong, and it defies logic and common sense.

Yes, I admit, I come at this as a believer, who, along with other citizens of a diversity of creeds believe that God, not Albany, has settled the definition of marriage a long time ago.  We believers worry not only about what this new intrusion will do to our common good, but also that we will be coerced to violate our deepest beliefs to accommodate the newest state decree.  (If you think this paranoia, just ask believers in Canada and England what's going on there to justify our apprehensions.)

But I also come at this as an American citizen, who reads our formative principles as limiting government, not unleashing it to tamper with life's most basic values.

my first thought was.... wait Dolan has a blog?   I bet this clown has more readers than we have over at TOR although we can sleep at night knowing that at least nobody in our organization has ever been accused of abiding to cover-up child-abuse cases.  

So anyway here comes the Church once again lecturing the rest of the world about what is right and wrong and again get themselves all  bend backwards trying to defend a defenseless position by spewing the kind of bigotry this entire mob has been doing for years.     

Let's take the argument step-by-step

I love the argument where he tries to turn this into a debate about limiting government.   Anybody who would truly want to limit governments involvement would obviously see that the government has no place in our bedrooms, our homes or our alters when it comes to deciding who we fall in love with.      If you want to limit government intervention let's start with eliminating laws that limit civil rights.

I also love the comparison to China and North Korea with the asinine comparison about limiting the size of a family.  does he not realize that not allowing two adults to marry is in effect limiting the size of a family from 2 (and eventually more) to 1. 

Then he goes into this entire defense of freedom..  exactly whose freedom are we protecting here Dolan?  Seems to us that you are only denying freedom not promoting it.   And the entire passage about not denying the rights of gay men and women is complete trash.  if you are not denying a right here what exactly are you denying?  I must have missed it in your rant but tell me again how exactly two gay women getting married at the Bryant Park Grill impedes on the freedom of a heterosexual couple living in Bay Ridge?

but the best part might be the fact that a marriage is a permanent union between man and woman this is where I have the biggest laugh.  The entire concept  that denying gay marriage protects the sanctity of marriage is ridiculous when there are thousands of people stuck in abusive relationships with spouses they cannot leave because of ass-backwards Catholic law.  These are the kinds of marriages that need protection? How about all the catholic marriages with chronic infidelity..maybe the sanctity of those are the ones he is protecting.

then again this is a man who represents a church has 1000's of  priests who make vows to protect the innocent and then sexually assault children knowing full well that their mob organization will cover it up from the Vatican on down.  Yes this is the kind of organization we need to hear about when it comes to morality.

take on the international data plan

In preparation for a 10 day Asian trip, I called both of my wireless carriers (AT&T and Verizon) to add an international data package.    Traditionally Verizon's package has been more comprehensive and I've traveled with my BlackBerry from Egypt to Romania to China and Korea and never had an issue.   The plan they offered was roughly $50 and gave you unlimited data overseas while AT&T always made you pay per MegaByte which at least feels more expensive and is obviously more limiting.    I call AT&T first and am given a number of packages which range from $24.99 for 20 megs to $499 for 500 megs and eventually settle on a a package where for $199 I can get 200MB for a month.   This seems like a ton of money but as I'll be in a number of places, hotels and cars I don't want to be left with no option and they did assure me that you can take the package off when you land and that they prorate the usage for the month.   So assuming I use 67MB or less over the 10 days, I can cancel it when I land and pay only $68 or so.   It's not a great option but for $68 I should be able to get pictures, emails and do some light surfing plus I'll have my Verizon package to lean on for my heavier usage.

Well I call Verizon next and am met with the new company line which is that they no longer offer an unlimited international data-package and that they only option they offer is some kind of limited data package.  This isn't a great option but as I don't have that many options I inquire further.   They then tell me that since i'm flying to Asia there actually is NO data package at all and that the only option is a straight pay as you go .   They are charging $20 per megabyte.   I ask to clarify since even AT&T's smallest package is $24.99 for 20 megabytes and the rep checks into it and confirms the price.    I know that a single picture can by 2 megs so $20 per megabyte is going to cost me a total fortune.

Explain to me how Verizon who claims to cover you anywhere with their entire 'can you hear me now' campaign basically is now saying that 'you can't hear me or get emails now that i'm in China'    

Take on the Republican Debate

Well it took about 31 months but TOR is back to some Presidential Hopeful commentary.   I know that most of you have already logged out of TOR by the time they saw the headline but for those of you left this is our take on the first Republican Debate

first of all, we must confess that we didn't actually see the debate so none of our information is first hand or unfiltered but anyway here are our comments

- I get the whole Mitt Romney looks presidential thing but let's be serious this country just doesn't like him.  He's like the guy at the party who is married to the crazy friend of your moms who you are stuck talking to.  He seems like a decent guy but anybody who is that tanned scares me.   This dude lived in Utah and in Massachusetts, not Florida..   so either he's playing a ton of golf -which tells you all you need to know about how serious he is about getting serious- or he has a tanning bed which means that he's probably been exposed to way too much radiation for my blood.   I know that he's hoping for one of those Dallas Maverick moments where you show up to the dance enough times and finally when everybody around you either dies or has a political scandal you are the last team standing.    A guy this polished has to have more skeletons in his closet than wives and that scares me too.

- Tim Pawlenty.    I'd like to do Timmy boy a favor and just let him know right now that he will NEVER be president.  He seems like a nice enough guy and I'm sure he's plenty likable but lets be completely serious..  He looks like the president of the Chess Club and probably spent a lot of time tattling on his elementary school friends.   Honestly look at your boy Mitch Daniels and save yourself and your family the stress and just bow out now, you will never be taken seriously...seriously

- Michelle Bachmann.   I get it you are the anti-Palin sort of Palin Palin.   You are not as hot and not as dumb and not as chipper but you do have some serious backing from those Tea Partiers..  You might be president..of the congressional glee club but you will NOT be POTUS

-  Ron Paul.    I get it  you hate the FED..  not going to happened.. sorry Zed

-  Rick Santorum.   You couldn't win a reelection in your home state state.. please go away

- Newt.    a half a million in a revolving Tiffany's line of credit is hard for the American public to relate to.. although a bunch of debt and a ton of infidelity probably isn't.     It might be time for Newt to bow out before the busboy quits and he is sitting in an empty restaurant hoping to finish his apple-tart

- Herman Cain.   I swear to you that I've never heard of this guy.   He looks a bit like the old RNC chairman guy and I'm not saying that because they are both African Amer.. wait. maybe I am.     Anyway this guy is the CEO of Godfather Pizza..  are you kidding me, is this really a serious candidate for president, it seems like he should first be forced to move up in the restaurant business.   I have never heard of Herman Cain and I also have never heard of Godfather Pizza so until this dude takes over at Dominos and brings back the 30 minute or less delivery guarantee, I won't take notice..

- Jon Huntsman.   I'd be more excited if he changed the spelling of his last name so it started with a C
honestly I don't know anything about him except for the fact that like Romney he's from Utah which probably means he's competing with Newt in the race for most wives.


so that leaves us with a bunch of total retreads like Guiliani, Palin and Hucklebee.    I am not excited about any of them that even that dweeby Indian dude from Louisiana seems like an interesting option.

Taking on the Weiner Distraction

As Anthony Weiner faces increased pressure he ducked out of the spotlight over the weekend and went into some kind of therapy.   We've seen this before as male politicians behave badly whether it's a Newt and his apparent Mormon version of Catholicism, Spitzer and his Client #9 , Arnold and the ugly maid, Larry Craig and the men's room foot shuffle or the dude from South Carolina and his hot Argentinian chick.    Obviously these guys all have some kind of addiction which is basically an addiction to control.   As has been proven time and time again this kind of indiscretion is easily forgiven by voters, Americans love the come-back story and if nothing else there are probably a Vivid contract in his future.

But what these guys all do wrong is the kind of lesson you would have thought they learned in Politics 101,
- denying something in the beginning is always a disaster, when the Sun or the Star or the Post have the inside scoop, you might as well give up because your denial only makes you look more guilty.  Everybody knew he had sent those pictures out and his account wasn't hacked..

-Tell Nancy Pelosi you want to meet her in private and when she walks into your office in the buff.    See how long it takes her to ask for your resignation..   It's a risky play but it could really pay.

- get out in front of this thing.   As my buddy The Irish Lad said, as soon as this sucker broke he should have gone  and taken a picture in a speedo for the cover of Vanity Fair, as he so eloquently stated he should double-down in this situation and "turn that Weiner into a Footlong"

- when you go to sexual therapy, pull a Little Kim when she went to jail and embrace it..  If I were Weiner, I'd be going out in a ticker-tape parade down the Grand Central with your constituents blowing you kisses and some.

Take on the New York Court Ruling

A New York court ruled that strip clubs are no longer exempt from paying sales-tax and I for one am appalled. I'm all for changing the revenue stream based more on a consumption basis. but there has to be another way. There are just some industries which don't lend themselves to collecting taxes like a hot-dog vendor or a street artist. It's not that they shouldn't charge tax but the transactions don't lend themselves to it. Maybe allow .certain industries to build the tax into the price like they do with gasoline because I'm already envisioning the following

Pour Some Sugar On Me fades
"Wow that was awesome"
"Thanks... You want another"
"I shouldn't"
"No problem sweety, that will be $20 plus tax.. Total comes out to $21.78"
"Do you have change for a twenty?"
"Where would I keep change??"
"So what do we do"
"Give me $40 and we'll consider the 18.12 an extra tip"
"MLIA"

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Take on the Genetically mutated water

Last weekend at a picnic a friend offered me a vitamin water. Now obviously Vitamin water 's appeal is that it tastes water down and stale so it's like drinking a Gatorade filtered through a used athletic sock so I am not going to complain about taste..

What I can bitch about in this case is when i noticed the sell-by-date which was December 2010 while it is now June 2011. Now I cannot imagine that anybody would possibly die from drinking this sugared urine but it bears the question whether there is any logic to these sell-by-dates. You know this sportsdrink is some laboratory designed genetically mutated version of water and like Velveeta cheese or I can't Believe it's not butter it doesn't seem to have any organic elements which should ever go bad.
So although I'm all for sell-by-dates and I often will not even drink something within 3 days of it's sell by date there have to different rules to organic and non-organic items.
For example any of this lab designed thirst quenchers should probably be held to the same lifetime standards as its plastic bottle container..

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Taking on the Sebastian Bach wedding look

I have the unfortunate luck of owning exactly one dark suit and drinking too much at weddings and the combination has really limited me not socially but aesthetically.
..
This week as I got ready for a funeral, I stepped into my black suit pants and was quickly reminded of the Jon Bon Jovi routine at the last wedding I attended last year. I guess I had tried to keep the Righetti on Wedding Roids debacle locked far away in my subconscious even if I still carry the literal scars of many JBJ wedding dances past on my knees. The issue is not my knees or my ego but the that the damage it has done to my already poor wardrobe is beyond sad. I owned one nice Brooks Brothers tan-suit until I went to Egypt and slid across the dance floor and ripped a hole so big I looked like a preppy Sebastian Bach. I rented a tuxedo but I left pieces of fabric all over the dance-floor in Seattle and I owned this one black suit but now the only chance to wear it is if I turn the pants into shorts if I have a need for Angus Young look.

So I go to the funeral wearing my black suit jacket with a different pair of -slightly different colored- black pants and once again I look like I got dressed in the dark using piece I found in my dad's wardrobe.

So for the sake of my (very limited) wardrobe, the JBJ wedding debacle is officially retired..



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Taking on the Subway Musical Chairs

Anybody who takes the subway knows that getting a seat when you commute into the city is virtually impossible unless you are lucky/unlucky enough to live out in the middle of bumblefuck Queens or Brooklyn. By the time the trains roll into stations West of Fort Hamilton Parkway there is a zero percent chance for a comfortable seat and a 100% chance you will be standing with some giant Russian's armpit pressed into your face.
But as any veteran subway rider will tell you, there are some tricks so you at least give yourself some room or maybe a chance of a seat throughout the ride.
Friends who take the L train will tell you that if you are taking it to 8th Avenue it is best to walk towards the front as the exits for the first few stops are towards the rear which means most people will pile into those cars. People on the A train know that you are better off at the back since you'll get more people crowding the front looking to get off at 175th street. It may mean you have to walk a bit further when getting off but you won't be covered with Ivan's BO.
I take the D train our of Brooklyn and one of the best methods is to stay in the center cars. You'll be crowded through Manhattan but by the time you get to Grand Street there will be a giant exodus. The trick here is to get onto a center train and plant yourself right in front of the oldest Chinese woman on the train because there is a 100% chance she's getting off there which means that with a quick sleight-of-hand (or of ass) you will be cruising all the way to midtown.

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Taking on the professional sports teams

There is a sign on the FDR for some storage place which rhetorically asks why anybody would move out of a city which is 'has six professional teams and yeah also the Mets"
I'm all for clever advertisement and for taking a shot at Met fans but my question is different.
What six professional sports teams are they talking about

Except for the Mets there are three teams that play in NYC: the Yankees, the Knicks and the Rangers.   I'm sure they are including the two football teams who both wear NY on their helmets but play in a stadium in NJ.  That gets you to five teams.

So who is the sixth?
Maybe it's the RedBulls who have the hybrid NY-NJ thing going

The Islanders play on Long Island and nobody in NYC will ever claim parenthood for this red-headed stepchild
I can't imagine they are already counting the Nets who are on their way eventually but they aren't exactly NY yet.
If they did include the Nets they would have to include other NJ teams but that would make it seven because of the Devils

So the only way this makes sense is if they include the Liberty but come-on!!!   Would we also have had to include the Hitmen back in the late 90's and whatever professional lacrosse that pops up every few years?

You can make fun of the Mets but if you have to think this hard and must include the Liberty in the equation than I'm sorry but you've had to work too hard.
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Take on Anthony's Weiner

With Anthony Weiner's admission that he sent pictures of his wiener to some CoEd in the Pacific NorthWest we can put yet another political scandal to bed.
This jackass made so many ill advised decisions it's a surprise he is able to get dressed in the morning although not that surprising that he got elected to congress. So first he takes a picture of his crotch (weird), then he sends it to some chick over Twitter (stupid), then he lies about it to everybody (pathological), then he amid continual relentless pressure he admits to it (sort of sane) and says he'll stay on to serve out his term. (Maniacal).
The question I have but have not been able to answer being that I'm firmly on the 'I like Chicks, I hate dudes' side of the argument is why does any guy think a picture of his package is attractive. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror every once in awhile and shriek in horror. Between the hair, the limp noodle, the ingrown follicles, the jock itch and the wrinkly sack it has to be the least attractive part of my entire body and for a guy who has big fat double cheeseburger thighs, a disproportionately sized head, an asymmetrical face and an ass which looks like a connect-four game that is saying something.

A friend of mine who will remain lesbian confided in me once that she threw up at the mere sight of one when she saw one in person and even chicks who are into dudes can't possibly get turned on by seeing one yet this jackass Congressman thinks Twitter is the perfect vehicle to send the world a closeup.


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Take on the Subsititute

As an avid sportstalk fan, I have a major issue when the regular guest goes on vacation.   Now I'm not saying that they should strap Mike Francesa or Colin Cowherd to his chair and not let him get up for 365 days per year although that might make for some interesting radio.   The issue I really have is that the guest host should really have a similar style or worldview as the original host.    

Last night as I was going through some insomnia spell after some bad Korean Beef, I turned on ESPN Radio to listen to AllNight with Jason Smith, one of the best smoozing shows on the air.    Smith talks sports but keeps it light and throws in enough pop-culture stuff to keep his audience awake as they are barreling down Route 80 in an 18 wheeler.  

Well Smith was on vacation and instead they got some dude named Mike Hill instead whose style, delivery and content was completely different that Jason Smith.   This dude sounds like a bad version of Stuart Scott who himself is a bad version of Stephen A Smith.   Mike Hill should sit in and just do AllNight without force-feeding the audience to prove he's got street-cred.  

I'm not anti Mike-Hill although his style and delivery are irritating, what really bothers me is that it clashes completely with the style and content of Jason Smith.   Somebody at ESPN should look at the audience and notice that the AllNight Audience likes a dorky host talking about Sketchers or how hot Kim Kardashian looked in US Weekly not a dude whose has to throw 'keepin it real' into his dialogue ten times in the first 5 minutes.  If you are regularly listen to Rush Limbaugh, maybe Glenn Beck could work for you but you'd probably not be thrilled if you got Ed Shultz sitting in while Limbaugh was on a weekend bender of Oxicontin with a chick who isn't his third wife..    In sportstalk it's similar; you have to get a guy to fill in who if not already pretty familiar to the audience should not try to change the direction of the regular show too much.  If Brandon Tierney sits in for Bill Daughtry or when Erik Kuselias sat in for Mike Greenberg I'm OK with it because even if I'm not crazy about the guest-host because the style and topics they cover are similar.

 

Taking on Sexist Dads

As a father to a young girl I have noticed a disturbing trend. Whenever you see a father with a kid at an organized activity from a music class to swim class that kid is almost always a son
I take my little girl to a tumbling class and it's striking how I'm the only one who has ever shown up with my daughter without my wife being there. I took her to swimming class and I was again the only man there with a little girl.. I'm not saying that fathers never take their daughters to places but whenever you do see a dad chances are they are with their son. It doesn't hold true with moms and sons but it's almost as if fathers can't take their daughters anywhere without the moms hanging around.
Now when the kid is in their teenage years there might be some natural bias based on mutual interests but when the kid is a toddler what the hell does it matter? This country is so sensitive about sex -not the act but the gender- that men feel uncomfortable in social settings with their daughters.
Guess there is still some stigma for men changing diapers or some other crap and I guess maybe fathers are uncomfortable as they don't know where they should change their little girl as they don't want to bring them into the mensroom.
I agree that I don't want my kid sitting on one of those piss covered toilet seats but when she's still in diapers that makes no difference and even most boys early on sit on the throne.
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Take on HBO On Demand

A few weeks ago I swallowed hard and told the misery over at Time Warner Cable that despite my unhappiness with them, I wanted to give them more money every month for their crappy service. In exchange for an additional $15 or $20 a month, I would get HBO, HBO2, HBO3, HBO HD, HBOFamily, HBO On Demand, HBO adult and HBO Latina. It sounds like a hell of a deal until of course you realize that each of these channels suck. For $20 we will watch 4 hours of HBO per month, so about the equivalent of minimum wage.
It's a free country and nobody put a gun to my head but what I was shocked to find out when my wife put on Game of Thrones On Demand this week because she missed Sunday's first run episode was that for $100 for cable, plus $30 for the HD package and$20 per month for HBO, Time Warner only gives you HDB On Demand But NOT HBO HD On the Demand. So what the hell am I paying for? I already pay for HBO and I pay for the HD Package but for my On Demand feature I have to watch it pixilated and scrunched!!!

I also think a lot of the other secondary HBO channels are only offered in the non 600's.
.
In a world where everybody basically has at minimum a 42" LCD HDTV and most people watch TV shows at other times than their first runs why would you not offer HD On Demand? I tell you why because why would they. Time Warner doesn't have to make you happy cause you have no other option and like James Dolan they can keep screwing you and there are no repercussions.
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Take on the Satellite Dish

Obviously I have my issues with Time Warner cable as they run their entire company like the CEO's name is Soprano. They know as long as FIOS hasn't come to your area, the average Joe Schmo has no other option. If you want high-speed cable and internet it either means taking it up the 5-hole from Time Warner or basically adding an addition to your house.

I was walking home today and came across this monstrosity, my neighbors live in a one family home have four (4!!!!) Satellite Dishes on their roof. Their house looks like Bristol, CT with so much visual obstruction you'd hope they could at minimum hear alien life form coming from the far galaxies.
So either like buying guns, buying satellite dishes seems to be a bit addictive or these people feel like they need to live inside of a TGI Fridays. What else can explain that somebody would have four of them on their roof.

That is unless you realize the scam perpetrated by the dish companies. The way I see it those dishes are like that little piece of tape that you use to hang a Bon Jovi poster up, in the beginning it just keeps the room full of 80's fever but after a while you realize that it is actually acting as structural support for the entire house.
I know that when you start to mess with the integrity of a roof, you basically can kiss the thought of Waterproofing goodbye and I believe that with each new account Direct TV makes you get a new dish. For whatever reason (probably corporate greed) if there is a dish sitting on your roof from previous owners, the guys over at Direct TV or Dish will still install a new one.
The problem I have seen in every building I have lived in is that the roof looks like a satellite dish graveyard., the owner of the dish has no reason to bring this thing with him and probably forgot he paid for it and the new owner is not going to get on the roof like he is Clark W Griswald to rip the one down. In an apartment building it is especially tricky because nobody knows who owns which one. My previous apartment building had 12 dishes for 10 apartments and I know for a fact that 5 of the units used normal cable. When a dish goes up it can never come down.
The way I see it, it's all by design. They want to keep people buying more hardware both new customers and existing ones because if you own one and the satellite moves, now your angle isn't right and this your reception sucks you can't move the thing because the roof will collapse so your only option is to shell out another $300 for a dish and install it three feet from the last one that is unless you are OK with a tiny skylight in your bedroom.
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Take on the Subway Sacrifice

I am standing on the platform staring at my hasidic friend and seriously considering pushing him onto the tracks. Now I'm not anti-semitic and don't normally have sociopathic tendencies but my desire is to help my friend by putting him out of his misery. See it's NYC in the first week of June and it's already 100 degrees with 100% humidity and I am witnessing pure hell..
See years ago it wouldn't have been like this because we had four distinct season: a hot summer, a dry and cool fall, a snowy and cold winter and a beautiful spring but somehow we've traded in four seasons for two and a half. We now are stuck with a cold winter where we have snow-drifts that pile up to my second-story window for about 4 months followed by 2 months of nasty rain which leads to four months of miserable humidity.

Well it's only the first few days of June and standing on the subway platform is beyond disgusting for me and I'm wearing thin pants and a button down with rolled up sleeves But as bad as I have it, I am standing next this schmuck who looks like he's dressed for a wedding in November. He's wearing a black jacket over his black vest, over his thick buttoned up dress shirt over an undershirt. He's got his big black-rimmed hat which covers his yarmulke and his beard looks like a freshly watered chia-pet. . Forget water-boarding, what I am watching here is true torture and I'm not even sure he knows it... I figure even a soft push can do it, he'll never see it coming and then in one big splat it will be done. I reconsider when I realize it may really delay my commute home but still it might be worth it to help a fellow man..
As I stand there I realize why these guys take their private buses into the city, I always thought they got there faster but maybe it's done to avoid being a sacrificial lamb because 'm not sure those school-buses have AC anyway.

He's a good guy but still I stand there contemplating sacrificing my friend to the D-Train gods for his own good because no man should have to stand there putting up with this.

So MTA if not for me then at least do something for my orthodox friend, he cannot possibly be expected to stand in this sauna fully dressed and come out expecting to be productive. He's got sweat beads on top of his sweat-beads and it's only early June So please stop allowing the building above to pump their AC's directly into the tunnels which is the only thing that can explain this monsoon. I mean, heat is supposed to rise so why does it get hotter when I go lower?? Maybe add some fans down here because either I am going to pass out or the orthodox guy is gonna get it and it will be his blood on your hands
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take on the NY Times Iphone app ads..

When I put down my credit-card a few months ago to pay for the NY Times IPhone app, I did it mostly because I know that journalism costs money and that the model using money only from advertising is not enough to sustain the type of journalism I demand.   In a democracy it's important that you have a free media to be a watch dog to make sure the politicians, big-wigs and bankers are staying in line.   For this $15 I'm supposed to get unlimited access but I wasn't told that with my unlimited which earlier on was offered for free but  I was at least hoping for a better app as the old NY Times app was dreadfully inadequate as it would crash 10 times throughout my commute home.    

For the first few weeks I was happy to see that the application froze less often but over the last few weeks I noticed that the 'new-toy' thrill has kind of worn off when at some point the app basically tripled the amount of ads I see.     Not only is basically every article now flanked with an ad, if you click through about 10 articles you'll get blasted with a full-page ad.    Now ignoring the ones on the bottom are OK and in a world where the MTA puts advertisements on the turnstiles it's expected but when I'm already laying out $15 do I have to have to deal with the full page ads too? 

I remember people would use NetZero back in the late 90's but had the understanding that they would have to deal with your browser crashing, a flurry of pop-up ads plus a few Trojan-horses, viruses and deals for Viagra.   Most people would opt out of this 'free' deal by paying $20 to AOL where you would have a much lower level of these nuisances.    

The issue with this NY Times ad is that if you downloaded the new app you got both a $15 bill and a ton of ads, if you are still using the old one you get free unlimited access and almost no ads.   Something doesn't add up.