Take on midday drinks

I spent the better part of my morning enjoying drinks and the better
part of the afternoon wishing I had not.

Years ago I'd revel in the experience that is midday drinks on a
Sunday afternoon, now I want to kill myself. It's not that I get
smashed but even two beers in the afternoon makes me feel like I just
got kicked in the head by a donkey. Maybe it's the fact I am 38,
maybe it's that I have three kids who hate to sleep but I cannot
fathom being able to make it for the rest of a Sunday after a couple
of beers without a nap.

Take on the European License plate

There really is nothing more lame than the guy with the European
license plate in his back window. Dude, you live in New Jersey, you
shop at A&P and you drive a Toyoda Echo, there is nothing Autobahn
about anything you do, time to realize that and use your back window
for one if those stupid stick figure family sticker things

Taking on Obama's suit

We at TOR take our job very seriously as a reporter of all things both
relevant and annoying, anything can catch our ire and President
Obama's wardrobe house yesterday was no exception. Forget the fact
that during the entire press conference he showed again how disjointed
and clueless his policy is on both the Ukraine and ISIS but he did it
while looking like a guy trying to sell you a mattress at Sleepy's.
If you are trying to have Putin take you seriously, maybe your first
step is not looking like it's amateur hour in the Oval Office and
dress the part, this is like Romney showing up in pressed jeans, Kerry
wind-surgeon or W opening his mouth

I am fine with the POTUS playing a bit of golf and frolicking in the
ocean during the summer but when you show up at a press conference
like you are going to a summer wedding, it pisses me off. If you
want to be taken serious put on a tuxedo cause you look like you are
part of the khaki collection at Macy's, unless of course he is trying
to outdo Morgan Freeman.

Take on the guy who wears jeans in the summer

There is nothing more ridiculously uncomfortable looking as the guy
who refuses to put on shorts on a hot day. I know three or four guys
like this who for some unbeknownst reason believe that wearing shorts
in 100 degree weather is akin to having a giant vagina. Personally, I
am of the opinion that I have to dress for the man five days per week,
on the weekends I want to be comfortable. But these jeans guys all
feel like shorts for an adult somehow makes you less of a man, I
honestly don't care. I have three kids, work my ass off, have a
mortgage, out food on my table, you may be a bigger man than me but at
least I am not sweating my balls off in the 1000 degree weather


By the way, nice bag

take on the Josh Gordon case

the NFL decided to stick with the law and suspended star Browns receiver (and cornerstone member of the Silly Putty Sacks) Josh Gordon for the entire season because his blood showed traced of weed.   We completely agree that the law is the law and in this case the NFL and the NFLPA have collectively bargained their drug-policy but when any outside observer looks at the agreement they all signed off on, we wonder how sensible it is.   Forget that the NFL is suspending a player who tested positive for something that is at least partially legal in 30+ states including two of them for pure recreational usage, what gets our ire is that our fantasy-football season may be lost because their testing protocol is 1000% stricter than the IOC, an organization that has always been on the forefront on tough drug policy.. The IOC requires a positive test of 175 ng/ml for suspension while the NFL will suspend on 15 ng/ml.   I won't pretend to know the science behind any of this but that seems ridiculous, especially for a drug which probably has no positive effect on performance.  Gordon gets tested 70 times per year because of his prior history and has passed every other test except for this one and even in this case the second sample they took at the same time came up under 15 ng/ml but as their policy has always stated, the second test is just to confirm the presence of the substance not the quantity. 

But Gordon is a bad dude with a history of drugs with this being his 4th known offense plus another one for DUI coming up shortly.   The dude did the crime -even if that crime was second-hand smoke- and he should do the time even if it destroys my fantasy-football season.

what the NFLPA should do is go back to the NFL and open up their collectively bargained drug policy and offer them an LTT and do what the NBA players did.   The players negotiated a much more lenient weed policy in exchange for  stricter testing for PED's.   For the NBA guys this killed two birds, it showed the world that they were serious about performance enhancing drugs and allowed their big lumbering idiots to smoke as much dope as they could.

Take on the Bed Bugs on the train

It used to be that when you traveled on the subway your biggest fear
as having somebody shove you in front of a moving train but that all
changed with news of bedbugs on the N train.
Between the smell of the homeless people and the nail clipping all
over the floor for any train that travels through Flushing the entire
train system already felt like a cheap motel but now add bedbugs and
you have the holy trinity of disgust. Add to that the poodle sizes
rats and ther rat sized roaches and you just checked into the Hotel
California

You have to love the fact that in a city with a chronic housing
shortage, the simple act of commuting to work can basically force you
to have to burn your apartment down, this is NYC at it's finest

Thanks MTA, my sh!tty commute just got a bit sh!ttier

Take on Chinese Americans bluntness

I love Chinese Americans, I really do. Unlike some of their Asian
compadres they aren't pretentious, shy or boring and they can always
be trusted to tell it like it is. I caught a sign online the other
day for an all you can eat Chinese buffet which basically scolded
people for sitting there all day gorging on food. The beauty if this
sign is that the people most likely to try to take advantage of this
all-you-can-eat buffet are fellow Chinese folks. Still the bluntness
of it all is refreshing in a PC world

I have a buddy whose parents owned a dry-cleaner. He'd have a
thousand great stories but the best one was about a customer coming in
complaining about a stain on a pair of pants which didn't come out
after they were cleaned. Instead of offering to clean the pants
again his mother, a fresh off the boat Chinese woman, told her
customer

"You go to doctor and you die, you still pay". In other words, no
deal for you.

Forget this mentality as a business practice, you have to appreciate
the bluntness.

Take on the retired numbers

And then there was one, or better yet 2. The Yankees, an
organization steeped in history and tradition, did what they do best,
make a legend out of a very good baseball guy for the some reason that
he wore the pinstripes. The Yankees now have 18 retired numbers (17
really because #8 was retired twice) which is almost double that of
any other team. Of course the Yankees have won more than any other
franchise (27 championships) and have had some of the most iconic
players on their squad (Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle) but they also
monopolize the 'tradition' market by seemingly enshrining somebody
into monument park every week which cheapens the entire thing. I
get that O'Neill and Tino and Posada were important members but it
seems like we are about a week from Luis Sojo day.

But when it comes to retiring numbers, they have really cheapened the
experience. Of course 3,4,5,7 and 8 should be retired in the single
digits but there is no reason 1 or 9 should be and even 10 is a so-so
call to me. You can honor your tradition but when every player gets
their number retired there is nothing left. Torre was a manager,
Rizzuto was enshrined as much as a mascot as a player Billy Martin was
fired more times that he was caught drunk driving, Marris has one
incredible season and a couple of great ones but was on the Yankees
about as long as I was. When you get into the double digits with guys
like Reggie who was a great all-time player but was on the Yankees for
a week. I also don't like retiring managers as it should be an honor
reserved for players

I wonder when the Mets will retire Piazza, Edgardo Alfonso and Mr. Met

Take on Floyd

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is going to kick some DJ ass. This week an audio
tape was released that showed the champ trying to read a basic five or
six sentence radio spot and having about as much success as boxing
promoters have had to get Floyd into the ring with Manny Pacquiao.
His reading is on par with a 3rd grader and some no name DJ decided to
make a name for himself and take Mayweather to task, ripping on the
boxer for not being able to read. I get the Mayweather hate, he
really has done some despicable things but I've seen enough
after-school specials to know that making fun of a jock who can't read
isn't suppose to be cool. Maybe it helps that 50 cent has offered
some insane amount of money to ALS if Mayweather would agree to read a
single page of Harry Potter because at least he can pay to defend
himself but this Mike Francesa wannabe better watch out when he is
walking to his car in the parking lot at night

Take on the Snoopy Bowl

Is there a more hyped event with mess bang for your buck than the
annual Snoopy Bowl preseason tilt between the two New York hometown
teams? I get that in the last week of the summer there just isn't
much to get exited about on TV since baseball sucks but the amount of
hype the media gives this meaningless game is embarrassing. I have a
ton of buddies who are Jets and Giant fans and nobody gives a crap
about this game, they just hope nobody bets hurt (Sanchez, Sehorn) The
papers will talk about bragging rights but the only bragging rights
anybody has in this 'rivalry' is summed up in four numbers. 4 and 1
because nobody counts SnoopyBowl victories and unless you are a Jet
fan in you mid 50's the number should be 4 and 0.
This rivalry is such a media creation it's comical, the only place
these two teams compete is on the covers of the local tabloids, the
problem for us Jets fans is that they win the back-pages and the
Giants win the front-pages

Go Jets

Take on the IPhone battery life indicator

Ever notice that when your battery life meter starts dropping it's
like it picks up some kind of crazy hyper speed. It takes an hour to
go from 100% to 95%, another hour to drop to 85%, an hour later an you
are at 70%, one more hour and you are at 50%. A half-hour passes and
you are at 25%. Ten minutes later you hit the red-zone, five minutes
later you are at 15% and three minutes after that you are carrying a
dead phone. It's like it accelerates like it's being pulled down by
gravity, WTF

Take on the LED screens at Port Authority

When you walk through an airport there are screens everywhere telling
you all types of information on when your next flight leaves, what
kind of delay is expected, what gate it is leaving from and what other
flights to your destination are leaving that day. When you walk into
Port Authority you are met with huge signs that give you almost no
information at all. The screens don't display delays, don't offer
alternate routes and definitely don't give you any information that
would actually make your life easier. The only thing it does is tell
you which bus goes out of which gate but since the buses at Port
Authority always leave out if the same gate, it is basically useless.
Maybe if you were a tourist or an infrequent bus-rider this would
offer some value expect that it only lists the route number and the
final destination which is great if your stop happens to be the final
destination for that particular bus but does you no good if you need a
stop along the route.

Great investment guys, maybe you can dismantle them and use the huge
screens and mount them to the roof to stop the rain-water from pouring
in.

Take on the CitiBike disaster

The entire CitiBike program is going from bad to worse. The first
issues were with logistics with not enough bikes in places where we
need and not enough spots in places you need to park them. Then the
issues came up with the docking stations which went from relatively
easy to now being about as pleasurable as docking with another dude.
Then the maintenance of the bikes started to rear it's ugly head with
tons of red lights on at all the stations but now the issues are the
fact that 50% of the bikes that are even docked are falling apart.
Originally you would press the red button when you parked and were
sure they'd address the issue but now it feels like the techs just go
over and turn off the red lights and send the bikes back on the road.
This week I had one bike whose gear skipped, one whose steering was
all messed up and one which could only operate in the top gear, so you
were biking a thousand revolutions per minute and moving about as fast
as a fart in a damp room.

Take on ISIS (or ISIL)

Is anybody else annoyed that a few news organizations take it upon
themselves to dub the Islamic insurgency in Syria and Iraq as ISIL
when the rest of the world has been calling it ISIS?? This reminds
me of the alternative Usama spelling that the CIA used for Osama Bin
Laden, which just seemed like the nerdy kid who pronounces all then
french root words with the stupid French accent. First of all, this
ISIS/ISIL thing makes no sense, if the group is called the Islamic
Studs of Iraq and Syria then stick with the ISIS thing, why come up
with something different just for the hell of it?? Yeah I get that
there is some nerdy second name for Syria called Levant or something
but using that is about as cool as when Obama says Pakistan with that
quasi Indian accent. This thought that if you show some level of
respect because you pronounce some bunch of terrorists name correctly
is about as dumbfounded as thinking Pakistan is ever going to come
into the gold and stop harboring Al Qaeda (or is it Al Qaida??)
Plus is is really goddamned confusing because I can hardly follow all
the names and places to start off with and you go and throw a
different acronym in the spelling just for the hell of it?

Yeah, we get that, maybe, you are a bit more educated in that
particular avenue but you sound like a total tool when doing so.

Take on the Jorts guy

Hey Dude, do you mind moving your anti-establishment, big bearded,
shirt open revealing too much chest hair having, sunglasses inside
wearing, Jerry Garcia hippy self over a few feet so I can get to the
milk station at the local Starbucks?? Don't get me wrong because I
love your outlook and get that the world is too rigid for your type of
lifestyle but the fact that you have't showered in a week and reek off
Mary-Jane is cool just not when I am with my kid. Listen, nobody
should tell you how to live or what time to wake up but realize that
you are paying $5.50 for a double latte, heavy cream, no water coffee
chai tea.

Take on The Sign

A few times per year you will read a story in the paper of some
grandmother finding an image of The Virgin Mary in her spaghetti, a
depiction of the crucifixion in the crust if bread or some guy finding
a picture of Jesus in his dog's ass. Whenever I see this and laugh as
it obviously seems like either some kind of scam or a cry for
attention....until now

Just this week I found a very clear image of a whale in my salsa.
This wasn't some made up concoction but an actual image clear as day
and one that could only have been made by a greater being. At first
I did not know what to do with it except stare at it for a while but
the more I looked, the more I wondered if this was a sign. For years
I have been registering my daily complaints over at TOR but for the
first time I wondered if I was not put on this earth for something
else.

Was this a calling from a higher power finally a real meaning to life??
Maybe I am here to spread a new gospel, a new way of life, a new
mindset which might finally bring peace to Earth, stability to the
Middle East and the end of famine, abuse and illness. This new
movement would be built around the fish and the freedom of the
shackles of technology, schedules, the mighty military complex and the
rest of the stress of he modern world. This movement, like the
movement of the fish, would allow for total freedom, our disciples
would be found in the vast unexplored oceans and incredible connection
with different beings. The movement could be spread around the world,
like a fish could swim across an ocean and the people would be
referred to as Pescetarians

I thought about reaching out to the local media, to show the world the
sign and begin the movement on a grass-roots effort, recruiting my
young children to help spread the word of the fish but I also had a
different need and desire. One for chips and salsa, which somehow was
stronger than that of the Fish and the Pescetarian movement came to
it's first crisis.

Now if I just had a beer to wash it all down.

Take on the character assassination

This Michael Brown story keeps getting more and more fucked up. This
morning there were reports that this kid was a prime suspect in a
armed robbery earlier that day which really did nothing to quell the
masses. The grainy footage of the robbery that I saw incriminated
Michael Brown as much as it does 50 Cent or Dwayne Wade. Yeah,
Michael Brown is a black dude of above average build..but that is
about the Ed of it. Honestly, I am not quite sure why announcing him
as a suspect here is at all relevant; the only reason to release this
information now is as part of a character assassination because there
has yet to be a witness to have come forth with anything other than
that Michael Brown and his buddy were walking down the street.
The beauty of this suspect claim is that it came out today that the
cop wasn't even aware that he was a suspect in the case, so that puts
no credence in that argument, other then to say that the Ferguson
police has -once again- overstepped their bounds. Time for an
intervention

take on Ferguson

We at TOR wonder, how (or why) a small town in Missouri has access to a bunch of tanks and using them to quell civil unrest??    Michael Brown, an unarmed 18 year old a month away from starting college gets killed and when his community comes out to support him and ask why this kind of brutality is seemingly accepted, this little community of a few thousand people turns into Tiananmen Square with armored trucks which could pass for tanks rolling through the streets and fully armed cops aiming guns right at protesters..   I am not quite sure how this kind of police state is acceptable by anybody but the overall media coverage -before the clashes- of this had been atrocious with only twitter offering any real update.  

What is most disturbing is that the constitution is getting trampled all over when people cannot protest anymore and are being forced to stop recording the scenes on their smartphones..   The crazy thing is that Clive Bundy supporters are probably on the other side of this argument, mainly because Michael Brown was Brown and Clive Bundy is white.     

I use to stand by the police in these kinds of situations but the more often you see this, the less justifiable it seems, especially when all reports coming out are that Michael Brown's hands were up in the air when he was shot and killed by the cop..

the overreach of our government is ridiculous

Take on the trapped Yazidis

The US defense department announced that they would send over 130
advisors to try to rescue a minority tribe of people who have been
holed up on too of a mountain in Iraq while ISIS comes bearing down on
them with fervor and venom. This seems like the equivalent of
bringing in an advisor to helping a fat kid get laid instead of
brining him a chick who will do the laying. I get that Obama would
like to keep himself out of the Iraqi mess after he has given his own
Junior Bush "mission accomplished" moment a few years ago but when you
are dealing with genocide, it's probably time to take down the banner
on the Navy Destroyer. You either go all in and send a couple of
apache helicopters in under the shield of heavy protection fire and
airlift these people off of Mount noHope as it were Saigon in the 70's
or you step back and say F'it. Sending advisors is one of the lamest
half in/half out measures you can take and it's about as effective as
telling a teenage couple to only allow it to go half in.

Take on the pool sheet

I remember being a kid and seeing the sort of clever "welcome to our OOL, notice there is no P in that word, please keep it that way" sign at most public pools.    Fast forward a few decades and now the pool instruction sheet is a full page long single spaced and filled with weird typos.  

The CDC which is apparently the Connecticut  Pool commission has outlined all the stuff you can and cannot do to "protect yourself from recrea-" what ever that means.  It might be some weird play on words or just a weird typo but since this is the official handout you'd expect it to be better proofread than an entry on TOR.  

It has helpful info like don't shit in the pool, don't eat in the pool and don't f' in the pool but also has stuff like don't swim when you have diarrhea, check children's diapers often and encouraging your pool manager to spread word on RWI.  So after you read this piece of homework, figured out what all the stupid acronyms are and have followed every rule, you are ready to go back home 

 

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the parking garage

This garage I have been using a few days per month has this great new
feature where you text over you ticket number as you go to pick up
your car, so that you aren't standing around like a clown waiting of
them to move 1000 cars to get to yours. It's an awesome program in
theory, the only problem seems to be the execution because every time
I have done it, I get to the lot and there are a bunch of dudes
sitting around and most to be found.
They then run up the stairs to get my car but I wonder what the hell
the point is when you don't actually execute a pretty simple task

Take on Bud Light Lime

You can go to the Big Y and spend $20 on a case of watered down beer,
$10 for a case of lime seltzer or spend $22 for a case of Bud Light
Lime and get the worst of both worlds. Not only does it taste like
dish-water, it is covered up with this lime flavor which makes it
taste like dish water after you cleaned your dishes with scented Joy.
The issue is that the fact that it has any alcohol content at all will
mean that you could put ten down and not even realize you are drinking
and if you aren't careful you could wrap your car around a tree
without even knowing you had a drop of booze

I give this beer the TOR seal of disapproval

Take on the lobster roll

There really is no bigger ripoff than the lobster roll? There is no
sandwich which hits you so hard in the wallet without hitting you in
the stomach at all, even if they bit you do her to eat is delicious.
I ordered one at one of the lobster grease trucks last week and
couldn't figure out if the fact it cost $14 or that it was served on a
normal hot dog bun was more disappointing. Considering the lobster
looks like a gigantic sea cockroach, you'd think they couldn't give
these things away yet they have to be up there as the most expensive
meals per pound you can get

take on the worldwide leader

ESPN announced it suspended lame loudmouth Dan Le Batard because he financed a billboard in Akron Ohio mocking Lebron James.   I have not read any commentary on this but this has to be one of the lamest moves I've ever seen.  If you don't allow your radio hosts to have a personality, why have them.   Not every show can be as vanilla as Mike and Mike and that's OK but somehow in the mighty Disney world, anything other than total boredom is seen as somehow insulting the mighty shield.

Get off your ass ESPN and have a laugh.. you know we're all laughing at you anyway. 

Take on the double park

There are not many things more annoying than some ahole double parked
on a two lane road especially during rush hour. Today I caught some
huge moving truck double parked on Riverside which lead to a backup
from 96th street to 72nd street and caused me and thousand a of others
more than just a bit of aggravation. If we make road maintenance
happen during the overnight, we should also make sure idiots like this
aren't impeding traffic during the daytime hours either. The NYPD
should be actively ticketing these guys as opposed to choking people
especially when there is a gigantic bus-stop right next to where they
are parallel parked. Yeah parking in the bus-stop isn't right either
but at least it doesn't affect every single person from here to
eternity

I hope you step in a heap of warm Upper West Side dog crap while you
are moving that piano down the street you inconsiderate prick.

Take on the Port Authority

Only in NYC and in Port Authority do they post signs like the one I
saw today which stated that a minor accident on route 3 is expecting
to delay buses by 45 minutes. How minor of an accident is it that it
will almost double my commute time home? Port Authority is a
decrepit relic in desperate need of an overhaul because it is quite
literally bursting at the seams. When there is a rain storm, water
pours out of the ceiling which the janitorial staff try to catch in
huge yellow garbage cans, the delays coming in and out of the place
are horrendous and the lines are endless. Somebody has got to start
putting some money into this hellhole because the place is falling
apart

Take on the tourist shirts

Is there anything dumber than those people who walk around NYC in matching shirts signifying their vacation?  You often see entire groups walking through the streets all donning the same stupid printed shirt and all I do is shake my head.  As if it wasn't obvious enough when you opened your mouth to ask where "Houston" street was that you weren't a native, you decide to compound the issue by dressing like an absolute douche-bag. 

Hey everybody look at us, the Idaho City Falls class of 2014 is all going to NYC and wearing these shirts ensures we don't pick up any STD's while we are here.  

Sent from my iPhone

Take on Andy Dalton

A few years ago the NFL and their players association redid their
agreement which basically amounted to bumbs (he is so bad he gets a
second b) like Sam Bradford from getting paid like a King coming right
out of college. This was necessary because NFL owners are idiots and
this was a way to restrain their excess for guys who hadn't proven
anything. I always thought this was an easy negotiation for the
players association because they didn't -at that exact time- represent
anybody who was going to be negatively affected. The only people that
would be affected were future NFL draft picks who -by definition-
weren't represented by the NFLPA yet and since those people couldn't
vote, they got taken to the cleaners by their future brethren.

Well the idiot owners are at it again finding a way around their own
overpayment rule for unproven talent when the Bungles gave Andy Dalton
$115million contract. Andy Dalton is incredibly not good and signing
him as your franchise QB and paying him a fortune is about as smart as
something you'd expect out of that organization

Take on the secret TOR army

Listen Vlad, we aren't afraid of you (well actually we are but we are
pretty sure you have no idea who we are).

When we read that Putin and his cronies where trying to expose the
inner working of the TOR empire, we felt vindicated, not only because
if meant we had arrived but more so that David had been able to rouse
Goliath from his Siberian slumber.
So here we stand, August 3rd, 2014 and the mighty Russian empire has
come looking for little old us and offering millions to break our
code. .. Well I'll make if easy on you, our office number is
201-947-7332 and I am ready to tumble..I'm mean rumble

Take on Topless Times Square

Have you guys noticed that as the muppets that have basically
multiplied like bunnies in Times Square, the 'performers' have gotten
more and more risqué? First there was the Naked Cowboy, then the
Black Naked Cowboy, then the Naked Cowgirls and recently all the rage
are these smoking hot topless chicks who don't even pretend to do
anything as complicated as playing guitar but just walk around wearing
only thongs. Their tops have that body paint on them but they are
completely topless and one is hotter than the next. The biggest
difference between them and the naked cowgirls is that not only are
these chicks not wearing bikini tops or carrying around crapy acoustic
guitars, they don't have big fat cottage cheese asses and the tourists
are eating it up. There have to be 500 horny Japanese business men
gawking at any given point and is causing me a goddamned headache the
traffic they cause




Sent from my iPhone

take on the Minnesota Viking Uniforms

Last year the Minnesota Vikings did something outrageous and one frantic NFL fan and chronic masturbator was up in arms.   Although the case could be made for both, this case wasn't because of the way how Christian Ponder played but instead how Adrian Peterson looked in the uniform.    You can't blame a guy for wanting to see a top product on his TV screen, so when they put TOR on the case, we took it upon ourselves to further investigate.  

Last year the Vikings went with this new matte finish on the helmets, which everybody would agree looked great, the problem was that apparently they ran out of money in their uniform budget because they paired it with their old uniforms which are that poly fiber material.    Anybody who knows anything could tell you that this is like trying to combine whiskey and sex, it just doesn't work.  The shiny uniforms completely clashed with the matte finish making the uniforms look completely disjointed and awkward. It was so bad that on an LED 1080p 55" Samsung TV, you could actually catch yourself focusing on the odd combination instead of the odd combination of plays they were running last year..

Let's hope that they'll make a few adjustment for the 2014 season, although at the speed of Cordarelle Patterson, it might not matter cause it will all look like a blur anyway..