Take on Times Square New Years

About a decade and a half ago about ten buddies and I trike led down to Times Square, we had backpacks filled with booze (pre 9/11) we had bladders full of booze and we had ridiculous energy. We showed up at about 6pm and waited for six hours drinking our faces off. The issue was that they would not let you leave the pen you were in, so after two hours of drinking, everybody was dying. There just wasn't anyway you could go and it was only 8pm, so we devised up a scheme. All the dudes would huddle up like we were a college football offense in a giant circle and whip out their dickies and then proceed to piss in the empty forty ouncers. The issue was that the drinker we got, the worse the aim got. But everybody stuck to the plan..well everybody except one dude who kept pissing in his forty and then would hold it up high to cheers the world and then drop it, breaking it into a thousand pieces and splattering piss all over everybody's shoes and pants
Fast forward to 11:59, the world is looking up to the ball and the -drop the forty on the ground- dude looked at me and said "I really gotta go". I tell him to hold it for 45 seconds and we'd find a bar but he says he can't. He asked if we can get the huddle back but I told him that it was impossible, we were now squeezed towards the front and there was nowhere to go...well he is dying and he looks like he is going to cry, and he asks me for permission..I am drunk and tell him "why not". He takes out his minuscule zingy and starts pissing right there. The issue was that we were pressed up against the people in front of us, so he is literally pissing against this couple standing there about to kiss to ring in the new year. My buddy is like a dog and these two are a hydrant. The couple turns around and look at him and are like "what the f&ck?!?" My buddy just laughs and says "I can't hold it". The dude winds up like he is going to clock my buddy and then the ball falls and the entire place turns into jubilation. We duck out in the chaos and disappear in the crowd, my buddy still holding his dinky which he wipes on the back of a guy's new Tommy Hilfiger coat and we are back in NJ an hour later...after another buddy pukes all over the NJ transit bus


Happy New Year!!!

Take on Pataki

Yesterday George Pataki dropped out of the republican race and it was met with the same fanfare as the rest of his campaign has brought.... The question will now be where his (4) supporters will go. I mean Mrs Pataki and his kids are going to vote, right?

The saddest thing about Pataki and his crappy camps is that he always came across as second fiddle as governor to Giuliani, so nobody can be shocked that this didn't work out.

Take on the Guns N Roses reunion

It is official, sort of...Guns N Roses will reunite for something called the Coachella concert which I can only imagine is like Lollapalooza meets a handbag collection or something but at least this year..it will rock.

Then they will reportedly do a 25 football stadium tour and I will be happily shell out $500 or a seat. And for that I don't want much, I don't need backup singers, organs, flutes or anything. I just want 1988 back and I want it loud and fast and I want it rocking.

I am talking the original lineup, Axl, Slash, Duff. Izzy and Steven..or Matt I'm cool with that too. Forget Dizzy, forget Buckethead and Bumblefoot and DJ Jazzy Azra and whomever, I just need he original five and I need them to start with Welcome to the Jungle and end with Rocket Queen and I will die happy. It will book-end 25 years of my life perfectly. The first time as a 15 year old kid at Giants Stadium and then as a 40 year old father of three at MetLife..ma fit will still rock.

I cannot wait.

Take on the Japan-South Korean agreement on the comfort women

Today a group of hundreds of thousands of Korean women got their day in the sun, sadly for them all but a few dozen are still alive to bask in it. The Japanese finally admitted to the dirty secret everybody has known for decades, that their Imperial Army kidnapped women across the Sea of Japan and enslaved them as sex workers with some of then servicing 60 to 70 tiny penised Japanese guys per day.
What bothers us is that this apology took 80 years and when it did we cynically note that the agreed upon damages ($100 million yen) sounds like a lot but is only $8.3million dollars and then it isn't even paid out to the victims as it goes to some fund to be used for healthcare for the survivors. Yeah, this is great but is it just me or does it seem that they waited till there were less than 50 people left, keeping the total amount they had to pay down significantly. And really, for having to be a forced sex slave, these women are now given $180k each in health care when they are 90 years old, health services they are probably already given by their own government.
And for this big acknowledgement of guilt and the minor payment, it finally normalizes relations between the two countries. Pretty small price to pay for Japan I'd say

This would be a big FU from me if I were some 90 year old Korean grandmother who is told that reparations have been made in my name so that we can sell them a bunch of Samsung TV's and get a bunch of PlayStation IVs

No thanks

Take on the Christmas presents

We are 4 days past Christmas and there are four bags of toys still sitting in my living room. They were given to them from various friends and family members and will never ever be used. It is not that they are cheap, broken or whatever, it is just that they already have totes, lots and lots of them, so buying them lots more only means that they pile up until I get annoyed an throw them away. So this year, the boxes aren't getting opened, the clothes are not being washed and the puzzles aren't being made. They are all going right to goodwill, sight unseen

Take on the Dear White America piece

I got an early copy of the Dear White America opinion piece (http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2015/12/24/dear-white-america/?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=https://t.co/HIcD7LTL8w) yesterday, so unlike you I have had 24 hours to live with the fact that I am apparatus a gigantic racist...oh and a sexist to boot. The only good news is that you are too and so is every other dude and/or white person you know. If you are Chinese or Indian or Caribbean or whatever you are not a racist as far as I can tell, but if you are white you certainly are. It doesn't matter if you have black friends, are married to a black person, voted for Obama, like Tyler Perry productions, own a couple of Run DMC records, you are a card carrying white supremacist.
I think it comes down to the fact that you live an easier life and you benefit from ingrained institutional racism which sort of takes the responsibility of being a cross burning white robe wearing black person lyncher out of his own hands because he can't help it, just like I can't. It is like a Rottweiler who bites a kid's hand off, not really his fault because he is born to be a piece of sh!t dog with no real value.
I have no idea how to respond because his article makes it clear that if you reject it then you are just denying that you are a racist and if you admit it..well then you are.

It is like the old "when did you stop beating your wife" thing

So now that we are all racists, maybe we can start making jokes without looking over our shoulder

Take on the Elf on the Shelf

Well we made it another year, nothing catastrophic happened although we did have a few close calls. See our house is an Elf on the Shelf house which is translation for we are masochists. There are a thousand rules to follow (for the kids and the parents) and they are all set up for you to fail. Touch the thing and your kid will throw an absolute hissy fit, forget to move it one night and you are setting yourself for tears, put it low enough for them to "accidentally" brush up against it and you would not be surprised if your neighbors call 911.
But we made it, there were a couple of close calls (waking up at 3am to move the little sucker), fishing it out of a pot of soup, distracting the kids while my wife repositioned it on a lamp but I am just glad to have all my next month temper tantrums be about something real.

Take on the mask

For one day, I was Asian. The combination of a throat infection and Christmas Eve meant that since 10:30am I have had a mask on and I could not be more uncomfortable, it is hot, it is uncomfortable and breathing in your own breath is about as appealing as a Dutch Oven. I hear that in Japan people wear masks not for fear of getting sick, they wear it because they don't want to get other people suck and they prove again what a nice people they are, because there is no person in the US would ever do that. Let's hope I get better soon cause this sucks donkey.

Take on Rand Paul's shirt

If you want to be an outsider that is cool but you should keep your outsider-y stuff to weird policy like getting us back on the Gold Standard or isolationism not to dressing like a guy working at Ruby Tuesdays.
Rand Paul, who has made more sense than anybody could have imagined in the five debates so far, showed up somewhere wearing a peach colored shirt and to say he looked like a giant baby gerbil would be an understatement. No white dude with his complexion should ever be seen in public in that color, it completely washes out his skin and makes him look like a bigger weirdo than he already does with that Brillo pad on his head

Take on the Christmas cards

Years ago we would get more Christmas cards than our fridge would hold but now that we actually send out a ton of cards, it is shocking how little we get back.
As of today we had 9 cards hanging up, two of which were our own cards, one was a cheap CVS printout, two were preprinted generic cards, one was from the guy who mows the lawn, one is from the guy who handles the kids 529 plan and a couple were ones somebody actually out some care into. Maybe we are just not popular or friendly but it I odd that we would get so many before and now it is like a barren wasteland.

Take on the Steve Harvey controversy

As a host to a game show or pageant you really only have an obligation to do three things....keep the show moving, find ways to feature your contestants and do not screw up the winner. I get that mistakes happened but if you can't get something correct as simple as reading a card..maybe it is time we get a robot to fill your spot

The only one who had any sympathy for Steve Harvey might have been Marisa Tomei

Bring back Trump

Take on the Democratic Debate part II

I tried my best to get some insight on last night's democratic debate but all I figured out was that

- O'Malley is primed to dominate on 2020, even if he is probably a donkey operative for this one to try to derail Bernie

- Bernie might have a coronary on stage, the dude does nothing but yell and scream and yell some more. I like that in my comedian, not sure if it leads you a lot of confidence in a guy leading our nation.

- Hillary. Apparently she missed the opening after one of the commercial breaks because she was on the can, she may break both the glass ceiling and the Depends ceiling in the same year.

All in all, sounds like no good fireworks as all three tried to stay above the fray...in other words BORING

Take on the democratic debate

It's well know that companies will announce bad news late on a Friday to limit the impact it might have on it's stock price. There have also been many times that other announcements are made to bury them from the masses. Saturday nights have often been considered one of the worst night for television, there are no sitcoms, dramas or other original programming..other than Saturday Night Live and Saturday Night Main Event so we wonder why the heck the democrats would hold their debate on a Saturday in the heart of the holiday season at 8pm...

The answer is obvious, they are in the bag for Hillary and are keeping any potential bad debate performance from getting any oxygen.

Take on Chinese public restrooms

Just read an article that a bunch of on pic restrooms in China will now serve beet salads, WiFi, organic chicken and ATMs. What makes this even more mystifying is that on a western toilet getting some WiFi makes sense, it is a perfect place to catch up on some light reading (TakeOnRighetti.com is often mentioned as a favorite for toilet reading) but on a Chinese toilet this is odd. See most of them are just holes in the floor, no place to park your ass while surfing the net for last minute Christmas shopping

Oh well


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Take on Shkreli

Today the feds busted Martin Shkreli, the mastermind behind the plan by Turing Pharmaceuticals to raise a rare drug from $13.50 to $750 per pill for Fraud charges.  It is of note that the charges are based on his work with Retrophin, another shady company Mr. Shkreli headed but proves again that if they want to get you, they will.   I'm sure this was a witch-hunt but frankly I don't care and nobody else will either and it will remind these criminal masterminds that they aren't the only one playing loose with the rules..  

but what this really reminds us of is that you can't ever trust some dude who's got a string of 16 consonants in his name, there is just no book to how the hell you go and pronounce Shkreli.  Is it Sch-Kre-Li or is it Suh-Kre-li, or is is Scr-Jack-Off..

either way.. glad to hear that this guy could spend a number of years behind bars swallowing his tongue

take on the GOP debate

**now with fashion commentary**

The GOP went back at it and like a good family Christmas get together, it got nasty. We still believe there are way too many candidates which has the effect of cheapening the event and also making it feel like a Royal Rumble which catapults it into must watch.

Let's go one by one

Kasich.
This dude speaks like he is simultaneously signing to a deaf audience. His hand motions are so distracting that he just comes across as a complete mental patient which is a shame since he might be the only one who is not. 

He was one of the only ones not wearing a red tie with his navy suit, I suspect this was his way of showing the moderate wing that he can bring balance to The Force

CarsonLike Herman Cain and Howard Dean and Mike Huckabee, he had his 15 minutes and now the gig is up. Nobody believes he is nearly versed enough in the issues to have a shot and unlike Trump he has absolutely no bravado to hide his lack of knowledge. Plus he pronounces Wolf like Woof which was distracting, 

It is of note that, except for Fiorina, he was the only wearing a pinstripe suit and, like Kasich, he was not wearing a red tie.. 

Fiorina
Never before has somebody with so little experience tried to give off the impression of having so much. I was the leader of a (failing) tech company, I had breast cancer, I have lost every election I have stood for and I buried a child so that makes me keenly qualified to be a president. If she wasn't a woman, people would destroy her for her lack of knowledge and experience.

Plus that cross around her neck made her look like Flava Flav. We get it, you love Christ but Jesus that thing had more bling than a Trump casino.  Her dress made her look like a red pear

Christie
Big Chris acts like he is a front runner and lectures from what he believes is the bully pulpit but the truth is that every time he leans on that lectern it looks like it was going to crack. Let's just hope big Mike Huck didn't have the same one in the undercard
And he is just a fatter Rudy Giuliani.. 

Nothing in this world looked more pained than that one button on his suit trying to keep it closed, he does look like a nice apple compliment to Fiorina's pear

Rand Paul
He actually makes sense. I have no idea how or why or when it happened but whenever he speaks, he makes a valid point. Then you look up and see who it is and think that you can't wait for Trump to shove this turd in his locker.

a turd wearing a navy suit and red tie in size 38 small.

Jeb
When Trump shoves Rand into the locker he'll find Jeb there already. It is mystifying that Jeb is so inept at this, he actually makes W seem competent. His attacks on Trump really don't do anything but allow Trump to come back and pummel him. Even if he nails one (which admittedly he did) Trump comes back and pulls away his chair as he is about to sit down. Jeb supporters are the loneliest group in the world (https://mobile.twitt...946951854825472) kind of like those guys that hang outside of a movie theater for three weeks to see Star Wars only to see a 6'4" Biff show up with the Star Wars nerd's sister and gets a better seat. But the seat isn't just better it happens to be right in front of the Star Wars nerd meaning he is staring at the back of his head as Biff makes out with the poor guy's sister but worse than that you just know he Biff doesn't have the faintest idea the chronology of Boba Fett

His suit just looks too tight. like he thinks he should be a slim fit when he's actually a standard one.. that can't be comfortable standing like that all night

Rubio
He didn't go to his "my dad was a bartender and my mother was a maid" thing which was a step up but he is just such a disingenuous politician who has sold his soul to the devil for this opportunity (and a smoking hot wife). His ears are still way too distracting and somebody please get him a glass of water cause he was coughing up a storm.  

He does look like he fell right out of a GQ ad, picked up the high school cheerleader, won the homecoming king award and helped an old (illegal immigrant) lady across a crowded street.. still we all hate him

Cruz
I am borrowing this from a smarter person than I am but it fits

Can anyone else picture Cruz alone in an apartment somewhere, smearing lipstick sloppily over his face, wearing heels and a dress, dancing slowly as Chris Issac plays in the background, while mascara runs from his tears and he stabs a doll slowly but with purpose, muttering things like, "You're not so pretty now, are you, Mr. Wiggles? Now who's the belle of the ball, now, Mr. WIGGLES?" Well,if you weren't before...

the guy is just a gigantic creep.. he should have Radiohead as his theme song..

Cruz just looks like a sleazy car salesman, his suit is just off enough to make you think that he just lost a bunch of weight or he took his brother's suit or he got it at a garage sale one day while the Senate was in sequester 

Trump
I just don't know what to say, he just wins. He knows nothing about the actual situations, he is lost on the nuance, he is lazy when it comes to facts and he yells and screams louder than anybody. I still believe he went into this to get some publicity and then surprised everybody (including himself) that people took to his message. He never had plans to be the president but now it looks like he might have a chance to.

What is striking is that he never buttons his suits, like he is walking around trying to show you the size of his junk.. but then he hangs his tie about 2 inches lower than you are supposed to do (look at Rubio that guy knows) so it always looks like his tie is way longer than anybody else's.. just a weird look

So the big winner last night was....Hillary Clinton

take on Ruby Rose and Phoebe Dahl

Saw a headline today that some celebrity couple who I have never heard of before has called it quits..  Apparently Ruby Rose and Phoebe Dahl decided they can't handle the thought of spending holy matrimony till death do them part and are now off to try to find hotter chicks to marry, which is fine with me.. 

what struck me was that although I had literally never heard of either chick what I did notice, and it bothered me to be honest, is that these two chicks look like twins.. they have the exact same cheek-bones, eye structure, smile and terrible haircut...   maybe too much of the same thing really isn't that great..

Take on the fountain of youth

Researchers are close to finding some kind of anti aging drug that could see humans live well over 100 and I for one am not thrilled. First of all, have you met old people?? They are very crabby. Secondly, how are we going to pay for all of these old people. Our social safety nets are set up for people to retire at 67 and live maybe another 10-15 years and they we're done paying but if people work till 67 and then live till they are 120 we will be out of money immediately, so unless you are willing to move the retirement age up to say 90, this sounds like a terrible drag on our economy.

And really, should we be putting a bunch of people in their 100's on the road behind the wheels of a 89 Buick LeSabre

Take on Santacon

I'll never quite understand Santacon. from what I know it is an event where thousands of grown me dress like Santa Clause and get absolutely blitzed to the point they can barely stand up on a weekend day at 4pm and are mooning old ladies. Actually, this sounds a lot like my college experience so I guess I can't say that it makes absolutely no sense to me. But what is odd is that it is based around something as homely and safe as Santa, I even get rallying around a local sports talk show host as a more viable option.

Take on the Trojan horse

Ted Cruz has been surging in the polls and somehow that thought is even scarier than when Donald Trump does. I am still convinced that at some point we will wake up and collectively say "we can't really nominate  Trump" but what I am getting more nervous about is that it might mean that all those Trump crazies jump ship and land on the Ted Cruz lifeboat and then we're stuck with a guy who is literally certifiably nuts running on top of the GOP ticket.  It is not just that Cruz is crazy and weird and creepy, he would be a disaster for the ticket....or worse yet he isn't a disaster for the ticket and we're stuck with a guy who looks like he'd be going door to door on Pennsylvania Avenue to make sure his neighbors knew he was moving in.  

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Take on the bus

I take a commuter bus in the morning which routinely takes an hour and a half to et into Manhattan, so when you are on the bus for that long you certainly do not need any additional reasons to be uncomfortable. Knowing that most fellow commuters are relatively courteous by regularly showering, keeping their music low and not speaking on the phones but one thing that you do get is people reclining their seats all the way back. Does a 5 foot 3 inch Korean lady weighing 130 pounds really need to have her seat reclined into my lap?? I get you want to catch up on some sleep but realize that by you doing that, I'm forced to have my knees jam up into my gut..so knowing that just realize that all those body shifts I'm making which might feel like they've got some purpose behind them are really just love taps.

Take on the dude wearing skin colored leggings

Much like that blue gold dress, the interweb is falls over itself trying to figure out if some dude standing at a fancy hotel reception is either bottomless or wearing really odd color leggings. We are firmly in the, this guy is a flasher camp, and see no reason to believe that the bunched up rolls at the back of his ass are nothing but bunched up rolls of his ass. Some people have tried to point out that it looks like you can see a seam at the bottom of his legs saying he is wearing leggings but I really can't see anything other than an overweight white dude with his junk pressed up against a stand up desk. What man in his right mind wears leggings and if he does why would it be pasty white colored?


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Take on Korean male cosmetic products

Read a headline this week than one fifth of all worldwide gender specific cosmetics sales go to South Korea which is a shocking number, because it is probably the 20th largest country by population in the world. What was even more shocking was that this figure (1/5th of the world) is not for South Korean women to keep up their ageless beauty...until they hit menopause and start looking like Kim Jung Il that is, but this number represents Korean men

Korean men buy 20% of the world's male cosmetic products.  

We have two questions

What the hell are male cosmetic products?   I have a razor, Q-tips, a toothbrush, floss, deodorant and a comb.  What the hell are people buying and why?   Are people buying face cream, hair highlighters, mascara, cover up??   

The cosmetic industry has to be a multi billion dollar one, so are you telling me that a bunch of dudes in one medium size country are buying 20% of that??   

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Take on Beijing

We typically keep these smog posts for when we are in China but it is worth noting how bad the air has gotten there this week.  The air quality readings in Beijing got a 600 reading this week, which is 40 times the acceptable levels by the WHO and honestly I don't see it changing so quickly.   Well that is not entirely true, it will change in the short term because Beijing will not want to be seen in this light (or lack thereof) and will take immediate steps to improve it.   Maybe that will mean shutting factories, limiting cars or having a million people use big hand fans to wave away the smog but they will do something.  It will get better for a while and we will start talking about something else and then..one day this spring those levels will be back up over 500 and cats will be dropping dead on the street and people will notice and we'll play the song all over again. 

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Take on Trump

Trump outTrumped himself today with calling for a total ban on Muslims entering the country. This is a new low, even for him and should be the last straw for GOP voters..but it won't
We have all enjoyed the Trump race as it has been entertaining but now that we are within a few months of the primaries, it is time for the GOP to smarten up

Take on the sissy injury

When I saw a tweet during today's official Charlie Brown bowl, I snickered. Jeremy Kerley the seldom used slot receiver and frequently used punt muffer went out of the game not with an ankle, knee or shoulder injury, he went out with a head injury, just. It the type you thought. It seems poor Jeremy got a migraine and no amount of extra strength Advil was helping, so instead of being out there helping his squad, he was sitting in a dark room trying to deal with a headache. Truth of it is that it probably is a type of concussion and I am sure they just said he had a migraine to avoid the league's concussion protocol but they have to realize they make him sound like a sissy.

Take on the diet

I got on the scale last week and for the first time in a decade plus it started with a 2 and all of a sudden I realized it was time. I'd been slowly moving back in the direction of two bills but had been able to avoid it mostly with stress, lack of sleep and decent genetics but recently Father Time has been catching up with me.
I immediately knew what I had to do, and it couldn't be half assed, I went on a low carb, no sugar diet. So far through 9 days I feel like hell, act like an ahole and look like crap, in other words, it is working. It's not a true Atkins as I am eating fruits but have cut out bread, pasta, rice, sweets and most importantly..beer. I thought for a second to cut off coffee just to make me more irritable but decided for the sake of those around me that this would not be nice move

Take on the Super Bowl 50 halftime show

The NFL knows how to market itself, knows how to make an event out of a bunch of dudes bashing each other's brains in and somehow they have been able to convince the world that they out on the greatest halftime show even with the lamest band in history performing. Forget washed old timers or lame pop-stars this time they bested themselves and came up with what can only be considered a challenge to the USA to see if they have any ability to think for themselves

Coldplay will headline the event which basically means it can be changed to Coca Cola presents by Progressive Insurance with special guest Ronald McDonald on the Subway hot-take drum-kit.

I've said this often but Coldplay isn't commercial music, it is music for commercials. These guys write catchy jingles which stick in your head like a piece of chewed gum sticks to the sole of your shoe, anybody who buys their CD or downloads a copy is directly responsible for the downfall of our civilization

Take on the M&MD reunion

First we heard about a bunch of the original cast reuniting for The Force Awakens, then rumors of GNR possibly reuniting and now the Pope and the Dope will be coming back together again and I am greased up and ready for it all

Today Mike Francesa and Chris Russo announced they'd be reuniting for one day this March and guys from Parsippany to Brooklyn from Harlem to some rehab place by the mall and from Seattle to Costa Mess couldn't be more excited.

Tommy C. "This is like Christmas in March"

Norman Z "I am pumped like I just worked out"

David B "Kirk M said this is better than the day his kid was born"

Kirk M. "I NEVER SAID THAT!!!"

Chris F "I seriously wonder how you guys aren't virgins"


So get ready for a wild ride, it will probably be a letdown but the next four months will at least make one guy miserable


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Take on splash back

Some scientists devote their lives to find cures for some of the worst diseases, others try to find ways to visit the outer reaches of our universe, other yet work on a nano scale to focus on what can't possibly be seen with the naked eye but the research that will ultimately change the world is done at a center working on trying to avoid splash back. Forget breaking the sound barrier orgasp) the speed of light, the biggest dilemma in science is for me not to have piss all over my jeans after I use a public restroom and I, for one, applaud this measure of entrepreneurship because if there is something that really sucks it is some other dude's piss on my trousers

Take on the Mark Zuckerberg donation

Marky Mark Zuckerberg just announced that he and his wife will donate 99% of his Facebook shares to charity in his lifetime, a gesture we applaud. At first this seems exorbitant until you realize his stocks are worth $45billion dollars, which would still leave his newborn daughter, or whomever else, with $450,000,000 to spend on a modest three bedroom house, a trip to Disney Land and a Kia.
What we will say though is that we expect the Facebook stock to tumble in the near future, so if I were those charities I'd be calling Mark the Shark now to see if he could cut a check today for my Save the Injured Panda charity I'm working with cause if you look at the history of social media you notice one trend..what once was cool is now a graveyard.