Take on the Twitter Feed

Anybody who spends any real time on Twitter knows, the scroll can lead to an incredibly awkward feeling.   Since all the posts get thrown into the same feed, every person who you follow has the ability to get the same airtime.    I've in followed a ton of people who just post too often but still I can't seem to find a happy medium

It's not unusual to move from one post from Nicholas Kristof about a 14 year old girl forced into the sex trade in SouthEast Asia to one on the amount of jobs added by the WSJ and then all of a sudden get slammed by the imbecilic  musings of The Iron Sheik.    The beauty of twitter is also its downfall, serious journalism gets in the way of Jim Norton's rant on United Airways or Sarah Silverman's complaints about the size of maxi-pads.  

You move from a story about a victim in Aurora which pulls at your heart-strings and all of a sudden there is Bob Raissman complaining about Mike Francesca, you go from the death toll in Syria to five TED talk links posted by an Irishman (happy birthday by the way) all sandwiched between fifty posts analyzing every training camp throw Tim Tebow makes -including way too many of him throwing away his shirt.    You are interested in all of it but somehow the Aurora tragedy gets minimized because Eric Decker caught a five yard out.  

It's such a ridiculous way to get informed because the topics -and your mood- changes every five seconds.   It has become very obvious to me that Twitter should enable us to separate the posts into folders so you can at least decide before hand what you may want to be exposed to right at this moment.   There are times I need my Fantasy football fix, there are times I want a laugh, there are times I am dying for insightful political commentary and there are times I want to see what is going on in Syria but those usually don't all occur at the same exact time 

I want to read them all but getting them thrown together like BiBimBap is a bit of sensory overload

Sent from my iPhone

Take on feet

A few days ago when a bunch of i-buddies started bragging about the
beauty of my feet I just about puked. Guys shouldn't ever give a crap
what their dogs look like because well we're guys. I have often heard
people say you can tell how hard somebody's life is by how soft their
hands are and I have a similar theory about feet. Take any marathon
runner, rock climber, avid biker or walker and their feet will look
like.....feet. Having feet look like feet probably means you are not
some fat sloth who spends his days sitting on his couch just
increasing his gravitational pull. My feet are a badge of honor
proving that unlike my soft footed compadres I actually care about the
rest of my body and being around to enjoy more long walks past their
soft footed graves

Take on the earbuds guy

Is there anything more ridiculous than the guy who walks around using his IPhone headset to talk on his phone but then proceeds to hold his phone up to his mouth anyway?   I get using the ear-buds so you can have your hands free but then still holding the phone up to your mouth seems ludicrous

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the PostOffice receipt

I walk into the post office to buy a single stamp the other day and
before i know it i feel like i'm at some tourist trap in China because
immediately I get the full-court press put on me to buy a full stamp
book. The thing is that I pay my bills online and hardly never send
letters or post cards so really I have no need for a book of 20 stamps
but this lady just would not take no for an answer. Well I finally
buy one stamp and she prints out a toilet paper roll receipt. The
thing must have been 12 inches long with more irrelevant information
in it than one of those Cathy No soliloquies But then again this is
not an organization which cares about saving trees as it makes its
money on a vast amount of paper for crap like fliers, junk mail and
catalogues

--
Posted By Righetti

Take on the false descriptio​n

I log onto Amazon this week looking for an area rug and after
searching for a few minutes come across one that could work, it's a
rectangular rug with muted colors which would really tie the room
together.  Problem is that the picture doesn't do the rug justice and
that's not a compliment because it ha nothing to do with the quality
of the fabric, the colors or the detail.  It is that when you read the
specs you find out that it's a round rug even though you explicitly
went to search for 10x8 rectangular ones
So now I'm stuck trying to shove an ugly round rug into a rectangular hole

Take on the dribble

You'd think that after 36 years I would have figured out one of the
most basic acts out there but whenever I wear light colored pants
there is a real fear that I have to wait in the mens-room to dry up or
have to pretend I'm carrying around a big book as I walk out to cover
up what looks like a crime scene
Every time I take a leak there comes a time when I get this chill down
my spine which leads me to shake and inevitably spray piss all over my
pant-leg.  I can't control the spasm at all and it remains the number
one reason I buy almost only dark pants

Take on the theater matinee parking pricing

Is there a bigger rip-off anywhere than the increased pricing for
parking in the city on a Wednesday? Although I hardly drive into the
city adds explicitly avoid Wednesdays but when I am forced to drive
in, I am always shocked. Basic because a bunch of fanny-pack wearing
Pennsylvanians want to see Jersey Boys, I am getting banged with a
100% surcharge. F tourists, F Broadway and F you

Take on reasonable gun-control

We have been trying not to get into a political diatribe about gun-control in the wake of the Aurora shooting although we've yet to hear a good argument in favor of allowing ordinary people carry around the kinds of guns able to kill as many people in as short a period of time as possible.   Whenever these kinds of attacks happened (Aurora, Columbine, Gabby Gifford, VaTech, Fort Hood) a national debate begins to stir about gun-control but before a week has gone by the politicians have all gone into hiding and the concept gets punted until the next time.. the problem is that there is always a next-time..    It's time for this country to have a reasonable debate on gun-control, one without scare tactics, political clout, NRA bias or liberal wienies.     Say what you will about Bloomberg but at least he's got the guts to take the issue on he's the closest we have to a national politician willing to address it and that includes democrats and republicans. 

It's time to have a reasonable debate because I don't believe any reasonable person really believes that there should not be some kind of gun-control even the gun-toting hillbillies, hunters and the gang-bangers if they ever allowed themselves to discuss it would admit that handing guns out like candybars is probably not the smartest idea..    I always thought you have to frame the argument about controlling the guns for others..because everybody believes that they themselves are fully capable of responsible gun ownership but I bet they have much less trust in others to do the same thing.

One thing that I can't stand is that you can't even discuss this without it becoming a constitutional issue.. First of all the constitution was wrong on a lot of things including slavery and equal rights so although it's the law-of-the-land and its importance cannot be overstated, it isn't flawless.  The amendments to the constitution have always been about it being a living document with the intention that it could be changed, amended or altered.   The 2^nd amendment argument is a stale one because  there was no way that John Adams, George Washington, Thomas  Jefferson etc had any intention to arm US citizens with the equivalents of a cannon to sink a battle ship.   More specifically there are a number of things in it that we don't agree with today including slavery plus it's been well established that other rights like freedom of speech have limitations like screaming fire in a crowded theater..  well it might be time to say that we should limit the ability to shoot one up also.

I have no issue with responsible gun ownership, we see nothing wrong with hunters or weekend warriors at a shooting range and we have very little issue with a guy having a gun at his house to protect himself and don't even mind somebody packing heat if they feel they are in legitimate danger.   What I have an issue with is allowing a guy to buy a magazine that holds 100 rounds that can be fired off so rapidly that it's only intention could possibly be to do as much damage as possible.   We have an issue with people being able to buy 200 pounds of ammunition and it not raising any flags, we have an issue with people being able to buy gas-canisters and grenades; we're not comfortable with people being able to walk around in full Kevlar.    Mainly we have an issue that allows somebody to legally purchase guns with very limited background check and psychological checks..   It typically takes a kid 3 months before they get a driver's license in the south the same kid can buy an Uzi within 2 days at a real gun-shop and within 10 minutes at a gun-show and unlimited ammo like he's buying an RC car on Amazon.

 I'd like to have one legitimate argument as to why anybody should be able to have an Uzi because I can't seem to find a good argument allowing ordinary citizens getting their hands on anti aircraft missiles, a bunch of AsianOrange or an atomic bomb basically because we don't see any value in that.  Weapons of mass destruction (which I'd classify a semi-automatic gun capable of shooting 100 rounds in a minutes as) have no place in the hands of ordinary citizens and it's time to address it

Take on my albino white irritated thighs

When I look at my upper thighs I realize why Europeans wear speedos...
because as any straight American man knows your upper thighs may see
10 seconds of daylight per day and that is only when you take a leak
in the woods and the years of atrophy have taken a toll. My thighs
are not just palely white, they look like the legs of an albino
crossed with a newborn gerbil, virtually hairless with a few nasty
bumps, pimples and ingrown hairs. As I have chronicled many times
they are also huge, I am talking big fat woman huge, I'm talking when
I walk in a hot day they chafe which makes for an even less appetizing
scene if that is even possible.
So I have to ask for a straight-man exception and maybe pull the legs
of my shorts up because honestly a little sun might help although when
I first do it people may think two small white seals are eating my
torso

Take on customer exchange

When I bought some bins at Target last week, I dreaded it as soon as I
got home. But although the package indicated it was a white one in
the box, when I got home it contained a green one which I noticed as
soon as I came home. The issue wasn't the color as much as it was the
schlep of having to return to Target to exchange them. The problem
is that I bought a $4.99 item and was going to exchange it for another
$4.99 item which sounds simple but means you have to go stand in a
long line. This is when I just feel like walking into target,
dropping off the wrong one, picking up the right one and walking back
out cause the prices are literally the same so you aren't stealing
anything but this isn't the way it works. You have to officially
exchange these things so as to not mess up their inventory management
because it would mean they'd have one too many green ones and too few
white ones and that means that this white one has to spend 20 minutes
on line.

Take on rounding

I am not often surprised but today when i got my brunch check and
looked over it there was one item that seemed odd... They added (or
more accurately subtracted) $0.02 for 'rounding'. This allowed the
total bill -after taxes- to become an round number. I guess it's
sort of nice but I don't get it because we don't specifically live in
a cash world so rounding to the nearest dime doesn't actually matter
because whether it shows $11.42 or $11.40 on my credit card statement
is irrelevant to me.
And in my case they rounded down so I got a free $0.02 but I know
myself...if they had rounded up and it cost me an extra $0.03 I'd be
pissed.
So don't do me any favors... Just give me a check for what I ordered

Take on Penn Station on a summer Friday

Is there anything more annoying than Penn Station? The answer is Penn
Station on a summer Friday because the place is crawling with
meatheads, jackasses, guys who wear clam-diggers, chicks in flats,
guys with accents and other assorted trash all ready for a weekend of
pretentious debauchery. First of all, Penn Station might be the
hottest place in the entire city, air just doesn't move down.
Secondly there and I feel like the ceilings are collapsing on me, it's
like being stuck in an endless loop of Being John Malkovich. Thirdly
you have to deal with that idiotic Bingo Board to figure out which
track to go to, there are 14 different trains leaving in an hot span
which means there are practically 200,000 people on that big hall all
waiting to sprint to the tracks the second their train-track is
announced. Watching the frenzy is like being able to see the inner
workings of the brain of a guy with Tourette's
But the worst part are the people... Every a-hole standing there is
wearing aviator glasses, preppy shorts and a collard shirt. Why
anybody would actually do this willingly every-week is beyond me

Take on the Jeremy Lin fiasco

We take a break from the Week of Hate™ to focus on the biggest story in New York right now Jeremy Lin.. although it has been pointed out to me that it doesn't divert too far from our week theme because we probably hate James Dolan as much as anybody But with the Knicks refusal to sign Jeremy Lin to the poison-pill contract offer the Rockets just signed  really comes down to the following:  money, pride and money 

Reasons to not re-sign ·      

   

• The third year poison pill would have cost the Knicks $50,000,000 and as much as I don't give a shit how much money James Dolan spends/loses this has to be a part of a discussion because even Dolan isn't a complete bottom-less pit but again basically laying the blame on the feet of Lin isn't fair because look how much money they are guaranteeing Chandler, Stoudemire and Carmelo that year..  Those three contracts are as much as fault as anything that Lin isn't in NY anymore.   ·         

• Jeremy Lin was awesome…when playing under Mike D'Antoni who could probably make me look good playing the point.. Lin's numbers when Woodson came in were a far cry from what they were with Mustache Mike        

• Injury.. This kid has played 35 professional games and was already having knee surgery.. I don't like my point-guard to have knee surgery this early into a relatively limited professional career   

  

• Image.. the Knicks want to be known as an overpaid, overweight team and Lin is just too young and in shape.. if you are not at least fat (Raymond Felton), old (Jason Kidd, Marcus Camby), overpaid (A'mare) or fat and overpaid (Carmelo) the Knicks aren't interested in you      

• The Knicks can't ever do anything right anyway so why jinx him with this shit organization 

Reasons to re-sign ·         

• Marketing.. this guy is a cash-cow and opens up your franchise to an entire continent…having some snot-nosed Chinese kid coughing up smog wearing a Knick hat is priceless   ·         

• The Knicks have spent more money on bigger bumbs (we add the extra b for these guys being extra bumby)..  Tracey McGrady, Chauncey Billups, Steve Francis, Penny Hardaway, Larry Johnson, Chris Childs, Eddy Curry, Jerome James, Keith Van Horn..  why the hell do you choose 7/17/12 to financially prudent?   ·         

• Buzz.. the Garden has been a morgue for the last decade… Jeremy Lin brought the kind of excitement to the Garden last seen when Larry Johnson got fouled on the three point shot   ·         

• Talent.. he might not be a once-in-a-generation talent like LeBron or Michael but he's shown the ability to ball.. he's got guts, can create and can move.. hard to find   ·         

• The Brooklyn Nets..  with the little brother's finally getting his own room by getting out of the swamp that is NJ and into uber cool Brooklyn.. this is NOT the time to entice every kid in Brooklyn and Queens to start giving the Nets a try with their black and white hats and their black and white owners..  This is the time your put a strangle-hold on the city by giving them the one guy nobody else has..    Kris Humphries and Brook Lopez don't sell tickets, neither do Jason Kidd and Raymond Felton…Jeremy Lin does.. but with this move –or lack of one- Dolan has opened the door for people the Nets an opening they could not have dreamed up themselves.. I'm just waiting for a 60 foot sign on the corner of 34th and 7th that show JayZ and Prokhorov double teaming some hot asian chick,..    ·         

• Civic duty.. my poor friend Jimmy Ma, a Taiwanese American, is already deeply depressed about his terrible fantasy football team, his terrible receding hairline and his terrible gums.. he would really like something positive and Jeremy Lin brought him some happiness

Sent from my iPhone

take on the bus

Everyday I get up, walk to the bus, hope to get a seat and head to the city. 
The problem is that every day there is a point about half way to the city when

the bus hits a magic number (46 on a regular bus,85 on a honkey bus) where
people start complaining.   This is the number of seats available on
the bus and when it hits that number any new person is standing    But
because people are fat and inconsiderate the true number is usually
2-3 numbers before it.    See those horizontally challenged (or more
accurately horizontally indulged) often take up more than one seat and
I am sick of it.  I pay for a seat which means that I should get one
and just because you can't control yourself at the buffet shouldn't mean

I should suffer on the bus or any other confined space
for that matter
I got a novel idea...instead of you taking up two seats with your
double wide ass, why don't you walk to NYC

take on the hasdic half-day

Today we continue our week of hate, out attempt to get back to a more
unapologetic assessment of how we really feel
I am all for religious freedom as long a I have the freedom to not
deal with your religion but when it starts encroaching on my rights or
affecting me personally I realize why I'm turned off to the entire
mother-goose mortality a long time ago

Explain to me how this works;  I know a Hasidic guy, I'm talking full
beard having, black suit with white socks wearing, fur hat on Saturday
donning man of faith.   He's a good dude and we have our laughs but
when it comes to Friday night I feel like I'm being had.  See come
winter time when the sun sets at 4:30, I get him leaving at 2:30pm to
get home but when it's summer solace and the sun doesn't set till 9pm,
using your get-out-of-work free card seems a bit disingenuous.  He
walks out at 4pm on a Friday which gives him nearly 5 hours till
Sundown.   On top of everything with all the days you can legitimately
leave early in the winter, isn't it at least fair to make up some of
that time when the sun shines till 9pm.  

 

See you can't have it both ways with this stuff.. either you vote in an

unbreakable bloc, bang through a sheet, bath haphazardly and you

follow the Torah to the word which means you could legitimitaly be home

in time in the summer if you leave at 6pm cause otherwise you are just

another guy using your religion to get out of doing something making

you yet another hypocrite wearing a Harry Hanukkah hat

Take on Handicapped drivers

A buddy and TOR reader has this great theory about those handicapped license plates.  Whenever you see a car (usually a Buick) with one of them, you just know they will be terrible drivers and really it makes no sense since they theoretically have a physical handicap not a driving one.  Maybe there is a connection but it seems that just by having a disability it gives you a license to drive like an a-hole.  These guys don't use turn signals, drive below the minimum speed limit, hit garbage cans, drive with two feet (which is ironic being that they may only have one), make ridiculously wide turns and don't stop for crosswalks.  In other words they are a danger on the road and are able to do so because like the mob they do so without any repercussions and quite honestly I am sick of it.  Just because you have a peg leg, a missing eye or a case of elephantiasis doesn't mean you should be able to get away with reckless behavior which is exactly what it is and it's completely unfair especially because they already get all the good parking spots.

Take on the people who should not be allowed to get tatooed

There are a few groups of people who shouldn't allowed near a tattoo parlor.   Hipster white chicks, Hispanics and white-trash because these three groups of people cannot be trusted when it comes to self mutilation.   I am not here to say that we should police private activity and curb personal freedom but i am here to suggest that for their own good (and those of us who have to look at these canvases of crap) anybody dumb enough to get one of theae hideous tattoos should not be surprised when they spend more time at a job wearing a name-tag than standing on the other side using the service they are offering 

Walking through Brooklyn yesterday you see a fair share of two of these offenders and quite honestly the lack of thought to the patterns of ink is insulting.    There is a certain mystery about the  chick who has a secret tattoo below her panty line or on her ankle but when the thought goes from less-is-more to more-is-more I lose it.   The hipsters have these horrible tattoos running down their legs, arms and backs like they have been attacked by a group of geometrically challenged adicondas.   The only design they seem to care about is to see how long a piece a Slim-Jim they can have permanently imprinted on their body's.   They start in the neck, wind over the back and usually wrap around their legs like a nasty vine

The Hispanics one-up them with these heinous RIP tats on their gigantic guts which have only expanded since they got inked a few years ago so now little Jesus Rodriguez looks like he was drawn by a drunk Picasso.  

The white-trash might be the worst because the tattoos they have seem to be scatter on their skin completely haphazardly, with one ugly design bleeding into another.  Like the architecture in Houston there is no city-planning when it comes to layout on the white-trash back   so they pair a bulldog with a hand holding a cross with rosary beads next to a Dallas Cowboy logo.  

Sent from my iPhone

take on Korean Mothers

I’ve been told that TOR has been a bit lame lately..  and by told, I’ve actually reread some of my posts from 2008 and it seemed like we had more energy back then.. or at least more hatred.. so this will be our attempt to get back to the more vile blog-posts you all love to hate.  Let’s call it the week of hate…where we will go after races, religions, sexes, the handicapped, the small breasted and anyone else we find despicable.

A buddy showed me a picture of some Asian chick in her mid 30’s who –like many of her Asian brethren- looked like she could easily be 10 years younger than the date on her driver’s license.   I grew in Fort Lee New Jersey, have been to Asia about 15 times in my life, have dated my fair share of Asians, used to listen to Depeche Mode and Erasure…all of which I’m sharing to prove that I have the kinds of credentials necessary to properly address the subject.

The crazy thing about these Asian women (and Korean women more specifically) is that they really have two looks:  They go from this fair-skinned, ageless face when they are under the age of 45 and then all of a sudden it’s like they run straight into a wall of age.   Every 30 year old Korean girl I know looks like she could pass for 15 and every Korean mother looks like she’s channeling Kim Jong Il .

But forget the complexion the more troubling thing is that when you see a bunch of them at the airport it’s like you got attacked by the killer clowns from outer-space.  They all walk around in this ridiculous look with these colorful pant-suits, huge white Nike AirMax sneakers, with their terrible purple perms sprouting out of their golf-umbrella sized white visors perched on top of their huge fish-like heads.   It has to be one of the most unattractive sights I have ever seen and every time you turn around there is another band of them pouring out of another undersize circus car.

Maybe it’s generational, maybe it’s the water, maybe it’s just bad luck but these women couldn’t be less attractive as individuals and more ridiculous when you see them walking in a group of what can only be described as sequenced mental-illness.

take on Bobby Kraft

When I was forwarded the following story from DeadSpin, I was more than a bit taken back.   The story is about New England Patriot owner Robert Kraft taking part in some YouTube video audition with his 'pal' some slutty bikini wearing white trash chick.  I have no idea what the audition is for but it reminds me eerily of the 'audition couch' set, so the entire time I'm expecting Ricki Noel Lander to take Kraft's little Gronkowski into the end-zone..

But forget the cheesy video, the bad production, the weird lighting and the "Fuck You, Pussy" dialogue, what is most disturbing is that I think Kraft's wife died like two weeks ago.   Just a few months ago in the SuperBowl Tommy Brady and the rest of the pretty-boys were wearing these MHK decals on their uniforms  and the vision of Bobby  boy breaking down in tears and being held up by a bunch of players feels like it just happened and now less than a year later this dude is tagging some 31 year old hooch.  If my math is right when Kraft was married for 18 years she was 1. 

You gotta give him credit thought… she's got a bit of a weird eye thing going but for a dude who probably needs blue-pills like Belichick needs a stylist, he's still able to pull some decent tail even if it's probably paid for..

I wonder if the patriots will be wearing RHL decals next year

Take on the ESPY's

Is there anything less interesting than the ESPYs?   I have watched sports for nearly three  decades and the only thing with less appeal that an award show is the NBA all-star game.   For all the promotion, this has to be one of the lamest made-for-tv events ever because unlike the Oscars nobody gives a crap who the best Team was in 2012 or who made the best play, these debates are regurgitated on a daily basis on ESPN's thousands of outlets anyway and by the time you get to the day after the MLB all star game and it's 100 degrees outside, nobody cares anymore whether TO or 85 made the best (ass) grab during the season

 I can't claim to be all that affected by it as there was no chance I'd even spend 20seconds of my life to even scroll to ESPN for it (plus I really have no idea where any channels are on FIOS)

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the Target anti/pro gay marriage shirt

caught an article on the NYDailyNews.com website today which they published a few weeks ago about a TShirt Target was selling based on the national debate on gay-marriage..  

Maybe I'm making a giant mistake but the headline says "Target selling Anti-Gay Marriage T-Shirt" while they are actually selling a PRO gay marriage t-shirt, so the message is very different and pisses off a completely different crowd of people.   I can only imagine they meant to have the headline read "Target selling anti anti-gay marriage t-shirt" but microsoft word saw the same word repeated and put a big red line underneath it and some intern deleted the second word, or maybe people at the Dailynews aren't as bright as they'll convince you they are

Obviously we at TOR understand that there are times when things go to print without being properly proofread but this is not some fly-by-night blog but instead a major news-rag and this article was printed more than a month ago.

So NY DailyNews.. get on your game and start pissing off the right people

Take on NY1

 Forget the tax savings from moving out of the city, forget the fact my lungs might improve ad forget the fact I can expect to go to sleep at night with no fear of being awaken by hooligans screaming in the street the best thing about moving out of NYC is that after a decade of being stuck with the terrible Time Warner cable, I have finally figured out a way to get out from underneath their Vulcan grasp.....

I haven't had many conversations I've enjoyed more than calling TWC and telling them to cancel my service effective immediately.   The only issue was that I still had to schlep down to 23rd street to return the cable box and modem which really was a small price to pay for finally getting FIOS.  

But as I was sitting there I caught a large banner sign they have trumpeting their service.  The entire ad campaign is based upon getting NY1 which is ONLY available on cable mainly because it is owned by TimeWarner.   I like NY1 as much as the next guy but if anybody believes that NY1 is enough to keep anybody from switching to a better service they are sorely mistaken.  This is like trying to convince you to have a one-night stand with a fat chick as opposed to a skinny one  because she has nice eyes

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Take on CHOP'T

I get that we are a society of sheep who will follow every recent
trend but whenever I see it in practice I am more and more appalled.
I never understood those crazies who will camp outside the Apple
store to be the first douchebag to get the latest Ipad, I don't get
people waiting three days to meet Justin Bieber and I don't get people
waiting on an endless line for a salad.

Today while walking down 23rd street I was met by what can only be
described as mass hysteria as I walked by some new lunch spot called
CHOP'T which markets itself as the new salad bar. I am all for a
good cheap lunch but when the line wraps through the restaurant then
out I the door and then down a half-a-block you have lost me. I
cannot possibly imagine waiting online for 40 minutes to get a plate
of lettuce, tomatoes and grilled chicken. They could be giving them
out for free and I still wouldn't be caught waiting there in 90 degree
weather.

Take on the Wimbledon info box

I watch about 30 minutes of tennis per year. You couldn't pay me to
watch rhe ATP tour in Toledo or some random tournament in Madrid, I
could give two craps about the Davis Cup, Tennis in the Olympics has
zero appeal and I have never seen a single set of the Australian Open
The only chance you have for me to watch is one of the other three
majors and even then I rarely watch the French although the clay
surface does intrigue me a bit because it doesn't feel like tennis
season until they are playing on grass.
I appreciate the transition and history of Wimbledon even if I will
probably not catch a match in its entirety again this year. I can't
figure out why I lost interest because I liked it back twenty years
ago but feel like it's mostly because tennis lacks personality. The
top three men are as boring as a physics convention and any chick not
names Williams has a last name you can't pronounce and probably speaks
no English.
There are only three things that keeps me even remotely interested;
the history and tradition, the chance to catch some Czech tail and the
pure sexiness of Serena.
But when I walked by on some ransom doubles match I caught the top
ESPN box which said Serena/Venus as opposed to Williams/Williams. I
get that these two are divas and like Madonna or Cher you don't need a
last name but this is Wimbledon where they still have to wear white if
you want to walk on the court, where the refs act like they are
refereeing an opera yet they allow ESPN to Bermanize them on
center-court. The Bryan brothers also carry the same last name but I
am sure it reads Bryan/Bryan, when John and Patrick played doubles it
read McEnroe/McEnroe and John had as much personality as both of the
Williams sisters and similar international stature.
I am fine for ESPN to do this in the second round in Cincinnati but
not on center-court

Take on the difference between cash and credit

I love getting gas in jersey, even if it's watered down more than a
margarita a TGIFriday's (unless you know the bartender). You don't
have to get out and get your hands dirty plus it's easily $0.40/gallon
cheaper than CT or NY gas. How they can handle this is beyond genius
because you get more gas for your money while also getting a service.
The only problem is tipping. The real savings in NJ gas is to pay
with cash because it chops off another $0.07/gallon so all of a sudden
you start contemplating the real 'savings' because whenever you pay
with cash there is an expectation to tip
The thing is that when you pay with a credit card, tipping doesn't
feel so expected but when you pay cash it really feels awkward to not
throw the dude a buck. So I pull up and have the guy throw in $30
which gets me about 9 gallons on Jersey's finest and then I tip him a
dollar. But this really works out badly for me because I saved $0.63
by paying with cash but spent a dollar on a tip so all of a sudden I'm
down $0.37 PLUS I spent all my cash

Take on Tiger's gorgeous niece

When I read the NY Daily News today as part of my normal routine to try to stay connected to the big city, I came across a screaming headline amongst the ones about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Mitt Romney's latest gaff and latest development with Linsanity.

There was a headline about Tiger Woods' female niece following in her uncle's footsteps and going to compete at the US Open.    I think it's great to have a new face on the LPGA especially one with American heritage which that league will need to hope to get any foothold in the US market and really I have no issue with this broad trying to make a living and I wish her the best.   My issue is with the headline which read 'tiger's gorgeous niece plays US Open'  

This honestly looks like a female Tiger which immediately makes her completely not attractive.   She's got this ridiculous build with more muscle tone than a Chinese Guy at a pool party, she's got a jaw line of boxer and it looks like she's got hands the size of catcher's gloves..   There is absolutely NOTHING gorgeous about her in this picture and this comes from somebody who LOVES Serena Williams.   As with any 'hot' female athlete if you have any hope of capturing a male audience you have to allow them to day-dream about banging her but with her striking resemblance to her uncle, I can just imagine her doing the stupid fist-pump when you put your putter in her hole

Take on the TimesSquare photographer

There are many things which annoy me but almost none as much as having to dodge picture takers in Times Square.  I know it is probably rude but I have come to the point of not giving a crap anymore about avoiding the firing line because I just walk through any picture.  First of a if you were to stop for every picture it would take an hour to walk five blocks and nobody had the time for this.  Secondly I believe having my shoulder in some picture of you wearing an I heart NY shirt, running sneakers with dress socks and a fanny pack makes the picture all that more authentic

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the pocket panties

Last week when I flew last minute to Europe for a funeral, I had one of those moments.    I walk upto the security line, dutifully taking off my shoes, removing my laptop and emptying my pockets (I never take out my toiletries) and walk to the scanning machine.   Anybody who travels at all knows about these full scanning machines they are using now which are basically everything those XRay glasses they offered in the back of comics were supposed to be.   As a side note those glasses never worked and only exposed you for the horny creep you were since they gave you no ability to actually see through Peggy Toledo's tshirt 

Well when I went to the airport, I got shuffled to the full scanning machine as opposed to the normal metal-detector (probably for my refusal to take out my toothpaste).  I check my pockets and head over and of course the machine starts beeping like I just smuggled a bunch of mexican coke in my five-hole.

I check my pockets and feel nothing metallic but the guy points to my left pocket.  I pat it and tell him there is nothing in there but he makes me empty it anyway.  Obviously those machines work because inside I pull out a pair of girls panties which should have been an incredibly proud moment for any dude.... But sadly this wasn't one of those time because the pair I pulled out had Dora the Explorer printed on them

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the Guy who refuses to move back on the bus

One thing I have noticed about taking the crappy NJ transit bus is the stupidity of people.  Everyday during rush-hour a hundred people stand at Port Authority in a huge line to squeeze onto a bus to take them to jersey which in itself would make you want to kill yourself (the bus ride not Jersey) but what is the most ridiculous is that every day the bus fills up it's 55 seats and then allows on an additional 20 standing room only seats.   The issue is that every single day some standing ahole decides to park himself in the middle of the aisle as opposed to pushing all the way back to the end which only leads to a complete clusterfuck up front because the bus won't leave until all 75 slots are taken up.   So the dance routine goes like this.   Bus Driver makes announcement to move back and guy in the back ignore him, bus driver refuses to leave until he moves back allowing the last 7-8 passengers on so he makes another announcement.  Guy in the back continues to ignore him.  Eventually the entire bus gets annoyed and starts to murmur for said ahole to move back.  Eventually he does but only after he delayed the entire departure by 5 minutes which only means we all (him included) will get home that much later

Thanks dude hope standing up for your rights was worth it...

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take on the locksmith

When I called a locksmith to get a quote on rekeying a couple of cylinders, I was shocked by the sticker price.     It went something like this

 

Righetti:     I'm looking to rekey a few cylinders at our new place in ******, NJ

Locksmith:   Great, we charge $20 per cylinder.

Righetti:   I'm looking at two doors with two cylinders per door, so I guess it's $80 correct?

Locksmith:  yes you are correct plus the keys which are $2.50 per key

Righetti:   send along 4 keys which should get me to $90 right?

Locksmith:  you got it plus a $30 service call charge

Righetti:  Ok so $120 what time can you get there?

Locksmith:  will check when I get back to the office..

Righetti:  great, is that $120

Locksmith:  yep plus $80 per hour labor cost with a minimum of one hour

Righetti:  wait there is an additional $80 for labor?

Locksmith:  yep..

Righetti:  what is the $30 for?

Locksmith:  service call

Righetti:  what is a service call?

Locksmith:  for us coming out

Righetti:  but I live down the street from your office

Locksmith:  yep

Righetti:   and the $80?

Locksmith: for labor

Righetti:  but rekeying a lock is labor.. there are no parts

Locksmith:  yep.. but people are rich so my boss charges a lot

Righetti:   so I'm looking at $80 for four cylinders, $10 for four keys, $30 for a service call and $80 for labor for a total of  $200?  Do I get a bj with that???

Locksmith:   that'll be an extra $50..$80 if you want to go bareback

Righetti:   do you take visa?

Take on moving

13 years ago when I left New Jersey, I left behind a lifetime of
memories, a handful of BonJovi records and 45 pounds. The day of my
big move I called a few buddies and for the cost of a couple of pizzas
and a case of beer we moved all of my belongings in the bed of a Dodge
pickup and my Jeep Wrangler. When I moved four years later, I was
able to call on the same team but rented a UHaul to cross the East
River to Brooklyn, six years later I called man with a van and moved
10 miles south. Then when two years later I moved back across two
rivers back to jersey, I opted for a legit moving company who managed
to puzzle-piece an entire 18 foot moving truck full of my crap. It is
shocking to see how much shit (I don't use that word lightly by the
way) I have accumulated over the last 15 years and how much I hate all
of it. There was literally not an empty spot left in the moving can
and I had to drive back the next day to take the last piece that just
couldn't fit
I swear that if the brakes on the van had failed and the entire moving
truck flipped over the railing of the GWB I would have secretly
thanked God for my fortune -assuming of course the three Persians in
the van got out completely unharmed.