Take on the b.a. Sweet candy company guy

Travel to some random Midwestern airport and you may see a sign of some dumpy looking balding man with clothes which are two sizes too large in his late fifties holding a gigantic lollipop and asking you to follow him to his special place. Maybe I am just a cynical New Yorker but nothing screams child molester more yet somehow some genius in marketing through that this made sense.
Not only do I not want my kids to follow Mr Sweetie, I want the FBI following him.

Take on the new scientific study

USA
USA
USA

There is nothing is that makes me love my country more than good news and today a very prestigious academic institute proved again that there is no country greater than the US of A. Apparently our women have much bigger boobs than any other place is the world which shouldn't be a surprise because, well, we are just that much better.

The average cup size is a full D!!! Oh Baby

Take on the hottest day

There is no worse day in the world than a hot and humid one in NYC.   The streets smell, the homeless people smell and every single person standing on line at the Port Authority smells.   Of course this is also the day that all those stinky people at Port Authority are squeezed together like a pack of sardines because the crappy commuter buses inevitably break down on a day like this.   So here we stand with 300 people crammed together waiting for any sign of life as we all stare at some piece of garbage bus which has about as much hope of getting out of here as a guy has of getting it up after having his vas deferens cut open like a squealing pig. 

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Take on Brexit

After four days of turmoil, the British people are realizing what a huge disaster this Brexit thing is, most notably the fact they are single handily sinking the global economy with their little Trump moment. I get that most of them were too stupid to think of the consequences and now we're left with aftermath which is about as much fun as getting your vas deferens sliced open by a quack. I get that they all want a do-over and for the world's economy, I'd be all for this but I feel like even if they did get a do-over, there has to be some kind of penalty. You can't pull the fire alarm in a school and just say 'I'm sorry'.
I think that if they do vote again and if this time they don't do something idiotic and the crazies stay home, they should be forced to adopt Trump

Take on the "proper OR attire required" sign

The last thing I remember before they cut my manhood last week was a sign on the door of the emergency room which stated

NO ADMITTANCE
Restricted Area
Proper OR attire Required

What I'm confused at to this day is what the OR stands for in this sentence. I realize that I am an ESL student, but what the hell does that mean?!? "Proper attire required" would make sense as you wouldn't want a cowboy strolling in with assless chaps but the OR really confused me. Do you either have to be proper OR required to be dressed which I guess is sort of the same thing.

Really, I'm not sure.

Take on the Famous video

If there was ever a collection of 12 consenting adults I'd less like to share a bed with than the collection in Kanye's orgy video, I'd be shocked. He only combination which seems less attractive than Donald Trump, Chris Brown, Bill Cosby, George W Bush and the other star of Kim Kardashian's sex tape it would have to be Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Booker T, Jeff Van Gundy, ARod, anybody who was involved with Batman forever and a little Ted Cruz mixed in.
I get that just us talking about this is exactly what any Kardashian wants, so we realize that we are part of the problem and not the solution but seeing collection of misfits in one room would make me hope that if there had been a nuclear holocaust and these were the last people on earth, I'd root for extinction.

Take on snip snip

It's 1pm and assuming everything goes as planned, TOR will be well on its way to being rendered useless in the baby making department. I have to say that originally inhale some pause, mostly about a surgeon with unsteady hands or some unlikely swelling of my grapes to make them the size of grapefruits, but after having spoken to enough people I'm pretty confident that all should be good to go

We'll try to send an update tomorrow morning of me sitting at my desk with a sack of frozen peas on my lap.

Take on the mystery message

Every once in a while I will get a phantom message in my iPhone inbox. It will come from "no sender" the message will have no content and the date will state 12/31/69 which is either 53 years into the future or 47 years in the past but either way I'm not sure sure I don't want whatever level of scab covered immune busting herpes infected Zika which comes with opening this thing

Take on the spanking of a banker

In the US when a banker gets let go because of poor performance, he usually finds a soft landing using a golden parachute but in China things are a bit different. Forget bailouts and payouts, in Rural China when a banker underperforms he gets publicly spanked with a wooden paddle and that sort of sounds right. The big banks basically sunk the economy with their risky bets and crap AAA bonds and a couple of years after we bailed them out they are all sitting pretty again drinking champagne at their white parties in East Hampton. Except for one or two guys, nobody went to jail or was fined or anything substantial, they all just skated and after a few months in exile they were all brought back with open arms to sink the economy again

So maybe it is time to look East and take them to the mat to start publicly beat our bankers with a paddle when the F up, I nominate Gary Sheffield to man the paddle.

Take on Mohammed Ali

I love the Daily News for a a lot of reasons, none more than the fact that they just don't believe in editors. In a post yesterday about the Father's Day tributes of the children of recently departed celebrities the discussed those of David Bowie's kids which must have been incredibly touching as they lost their father in the last year, a man who offered so much and died way too young. Their words were filled with the hurt of a child who buried their parents and it felt real because e knew and loved David Bowie. The other celebrity they discussed was one Mohammad Ali and the touching tribute from his daughter Laila which just flowed from the heart from a girl who lost her dad. The problem is I have no idea who Mohammed Ali is, probably just some dude living in Egypt or something

Take on the NBA finals

I have not watched an entire (non NFL) sporting event the entire way through in nearly a decade. I may catch the occasional quarter of basketball or inning of baseball and might even watch a little tennis or a couple of holes of golf but there is no way that I am spending 3+ hours of my life sitting around watching anything not football.
With that said, tonight I may break my streak, if for no other reason there is just nothing as exciting as a game 7 in all of sports, and this one could go down as one for the ages. A 73 win regular season team with a unanimous MVP coming off of a championship season vs. a player whose skill set has never been matched by an NBA player in it's history. He does everything well, everything except win championships. If LeBron wins, he vaults himself into the top 5, if he loses he should be there too but people won't give it to him....but unless he totally craps the bed tonight, he needs to win finals MVP honors, win or lose

Take on the rescuers deer

Somehow a deer got stuck in a bathtub in Colorado and more shocking it became news across the country as his seems like a cat fight in a tree situation. First of all, the entire photo looks photoshopped which would be he kind of thing you'd see somebody spending time doing if it lead to something cooler than Bambi in a bathtub I also can't quite figure out where the "rescue" part came in since a my two year old could easily get out of a bathtub but I guess there is more to this thing, like maybe the bathtub is actually a slaughterhouse and the deer is actually a cow.

Take on the fallen Meatloaf

I just heard that then "I would do anything for Love but I won't do that" singer collapsed on stage yesterday and thought immediately that this was going to be terrible year music. Prince, Phife Dawg, Bowie and now Meatloaf

Luckily the big fat Blues Traveller looking loaf wasn't dead but I have to think it won't be long. The last time I saw a photo of him he looked like Chris Farley right before he croaked

Time to finally tell us that one thing you won't do for love.

Take on Hot Coffee

For years I was just worried about spilling my McDonalds drive-thru coffee on my lap and burning the already least attractive part of my body but apparently that shouldn't be my biggest fear. My biggest fear should be the fact that said scolding hot coffee can burn cancer into my throat which sounds like even less fun than introducing Little Righetti to the furnace.

I often drink scolding hot coffee, not because that is how I like it but because that is the way that Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts serves it because, well, coffee should be served hot. I guess I will have to ask them to leave a little space so I can add an ice cube in the future

Take on Trump's decision to revoke the Washington Post's credentials

I will often say that we throw around Hitler comparisons too easily, a practice which when made about a modern politician cheapens the memory of the people affected and distorts the level of evil that was 1930's and 40's Naziism.  When people said it about Bush, a president who I despised by the end of his term, I condemned them as there was nothing that approached the level of evil that fascism stands for.  When people said it about Obama I said the same and I've held the same position for all politicians running for the highest office in the land this time around...until now 

Even though Trump's behavior is erratic and his statements vile and abominable, I still chalked it up to a lunatic who was appealing to the lowest common denominator in today's bare knuckle politics.  But when he stripped the Washington Post of their credentials because of an unflattering headline I was shocked.   This wasn't the first member of the press he threw off but it is shocking in that the Post is one of most respected newsrooms in the country.  

The pulled credentials were over a headline which Trump said implied he was tying Obama to ISIS which after reading Trump's comments, the headline probably wasn't far off. 

"Look, we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind,  And the something else in mind -- you know, people can't believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on."

Trump could have asked for a retraction or an apology (although I don't think either was warranted) but to pull the credentials from the Washington Post is insanity, we're not talking about the National Enquirer here.   

Never before have I seen an politician have this kind of gall and yield this kind of power and to think what this can lead to if he were to be elected is frightening.   

This country is based on a few tenets, and one of the most important one might be the checks and balances we have.   Some of those are held by our government of elected and appointed officials but just as important is the job of the press.  If the press cannot get access to our politicians, they cannot do their job which is a job that is crucial to a free and open society and that is Gestapo-esque. 

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Take on Orlando

After Paris people changed their Facebook pictures, after Brussels they did the same but after Orlando, I wonder how many people will do it to show solidarity with a community in shock.   The issue is exactly what I feared, this would be seen as their tragedy and not ours in much the same way that gang killings in the inner city is seen as their problem.   People don't want to be confronted with horror, so we all quickly compartmentalize, but that coping mechanism is quickly seen as indifference and in many ways it is.   

But what is the most complicated is that this is not something that happened to them, it happened to us.   We don't choose tragedy, if chooses us.   Time to turn your Facebook profile pictures to an American Flag, preferably one with rainbow stripes held by Mickey Mouse 

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Take on the Google Storage Plans

I started backing up all my photos on Google Photo which has been a godsend because it allowed me to finally clear out my phone. I was confident in it because it was a) Google and b) a great app and so I happily paid them $1.99 per month for a hundred gigabytes of storage. The problem was that today I finally hit my 100 gig limit, actually I got to about 135gigs which was my real limit as I accumulated a bit more storage over the years by doing some random sign up things.
So I go online and figure I'd have to shell out an additional $1.99 per month for another 100 giga but that's where it got weird. The only option after you've hit your 100 gig storage point is to go to a 1 terabyte storage plan for $9.99 per month...a dollar increase of 500% Now I don't need a terabyte with of space, especially not today but there's no other option. I called customer service and hey confirmed that they would not allow you to stack two separate 100gig plans together. This seems odd since I could easily buy another 100 gigs using a different gmail account but on the one account I use (and store all my photos), I am stuck with only those two options. Either limit my photos to get under the 100gig number or increase my spend by 500% for 900gigs of space I don't need at all.
It's like dealing with the cable company

Take on the Orlando Club rampage

Nothing is scarier than the thought of being trapped in a dark packed club with a madmen unloading rounds from an uzi into the helpless crowd and these madmen know it.  Whether it is in Paris or at that movie theater in Colorado or in the club in Orlando, the shooters have figure out the best way to instill terror and kill as many people as efficiently as possible using every thing at their disposal 

What I am the most sad about is that I'm afraid that in this case, the country won't rally around this like the national tragedy it is, solely because it happened at a gay club.  You can already see the comments online which are often muted and not fully engaged 

We've come a long way but I just know that this will not be seen as our tragedy, it will be seen as theirs by far too many people. There are likely so many people who will seem ambivalent to this and some will even see it as justified and that will be the ultimate tragedy.    

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Take on the slam dunk case

Sometimes I get breaking news and think to myself, was this worth the bandwidth?
Just yesterday I received one that say "NJ woman who beat 94 year old grandmother to death gets prison". I have to think that that must have been expected, right? Although in a world where some college swimmer can get a slap of the wrist for rape, nothing should be taken for granted.
But I guess I am happy that justice was served, now let's hope her fellow inmates can help continue to serve justice.

Take on the renewed Dump-Trump movement

The primaries and caucuses are behind us and the nightmare the GOP was hoping to wake up from has turned into their new reality, their standard bearer is a loon. I think they all hoped that somebody, anybody, would come out of the dark forest on a white horse to save the day and skat the dragon but Trump has taken on all they threw at him and there is really nothing they can do about it. Yes, there is always the idea that somebody will come out of the woodwork and run as a third party but even that seems less and less likely and I think the GOP is resigned to a bloodbath and then spending for next four years regrouping.
But there is still a movement which you hear bantered about with them keeping the nomination from him at the convention somehow. The issue is that as much as I fear for our country, he won this thing thing fair and square and to change the rules now by adding more super delegates or to change the voting or something will be worse and there will be an uproar. The party leaders like Paul Ryan and little Mitch will have to suck it up and eat their broccoli because they cannot take this way from a guy who despite his unbelievable unfavorable ratings, did end the primary seasons with more votes than any of the other muppets they had up on the stage and has ended up with more votes than any other GOP candidate ever. He deserves to see this thing through, even if he brings the party to its knees in doing so.

Take on T-mobile

I switched to a T-mobile wireless plan a few months ago and have been very happy with the service overall, especially in NYC. It is faster than AT&T and with unlimited data, I am finally able to use my phone without worry. Travelling overseas is also great with free unlimited data there (albeit on 2g service, 3g would be extra) was awesome. Lastly, the price is hard to beat when I went from $140 per month to about $60 on a family type plan. All in all it's awesome

The one drawback is that when you get out of the major cities, the service gets spotty. I was upstate last weekend and I lost service right as we passed the Donald J Trump state park and this week travelling I have had a couple of times where I go from spotty to straight out "no service" in a matter of blocks. My hotel room for example had literally no service at all, although I did get AOL type service in the hallway and perfect service in the lobby.
Not sure what it is but it might be time to upgrade some networks or at least let us piggy back onto AT&T or Verizon.

Take on Norman Seabrook

Anybody who listens to talk radio in NYC has heard commercials for the Correction Officers Benevolent Association and they thus know Norman Seabrook as the voice of those commercials. They've always seemed odd to me as they are often spoken words over a heavy bass line almost like bad poetry meets worse hip hop and often pushing the limits on context of what you'd ever officially expect out of a union. It was even odd that there were commercials at all, you don't ever hear other unions put money into that unless they were in the midst of some kind of contract disputes but Seabrook as the star of those commercials probably saw value is raising his own profile...

We weren't surprised that this megalomaniac was apparently profiting illicitly off his role with demands of $150,000 to move some of the association's member money to some hedge fund.
So here is to you, Norm, we hope the correction officers in the joint take good care of you.

Take on the Newark Delta Business lounge

Flying out of Newark has a few benefits over LaGuardia, coming from New Jersey the commute in the morning is slightly shorter and without a bridge or water crossing it is a bit more predictable. You also have less fog and the air traffic backups, which still have the potential to be terrible, are generally a little better

That is where it stops. As a Delta frequent flyer, the flights out of Newark are limited so it isn't much of an option and when I do fly out it always feels like you are the overlooked younger brother to the big bad United bully. Even that I can live with but why is becoming the biggest drag is the lack of a place to sit while you wait for your flight to board. The terminal hasn't seen an upgrade in decades, the shops are limited and the food options are high school cafeteria level.


But it doesn't stop there, as a frequent flyer I can at least get away from the herds by ducking into the business lounge but at Newark, I'm always shocked by how poor Delta's business lounge is. Not only is there absolutely nothing worth eating, the entire place looks like it's dropped directly from Beijing into Newark. The lighting is poor, the seats are stained and the view is of the back of the terminal. They have two TV's the one that isn't just a Delta sign is no bigger than 28 inches and the staff looks like they could be held there against their will. There is a sign boasting "an improved Delta Sky Club coming to EWR" with a target date of Winter 2016 which, considering winter has come and gone doesn't give me much hope unless of course they mean we'll get one for Christmas.

Take on the David French non presidential bid

I guess we won't have a French Revolution after all.

Yesterday, National Review columnist David French declined an option to run for president which sent shockwaves through the system. Well maybe that is a bit too strong since he probably has less Twitter followers than Frédéric Weis and is probably less recognizable than Paris Hilton's third cousin's boyfriend's brother. But it did remind us all how little influence Bill Kristol seems to have. It's not that anybody thought this Frenchman had any chance to win, let's be honest Pepé Le Pew has a better chance of being president. The issue is not that he would win, it is that he may have been able to disrupt the process enough to ensure we don't carpet bomb Nice because our new president feels insulted that his new Mediterranean hotel lost a court case.l on air rights

We need somebody to jump on the sword here and to ensure we don't start World War III over a perceived insult. The issue is that whoever it could be would have to either be incredibly wealthy or be able to very quickly tap into a massive fundraising network
But looking over the landscape it doesn't look very promising.. Bloomberg is out, Romney too, Mark Cuban us too busy arguing with Mr Wonderful, Zuckerberg doesn't meet the age requirement, Buffett is over the age limit, Bill Gates is a lefty, Elon Musk a foreigner and I think Ross Perot is dead

Take on The Donald J Trump State Park

Everywhere I go, I see signs that we are closing in on the apocalypse.. 'My entire Twitter timeline has been cluttered by Trump for a year, the view from my hotel in Seoul was directly at a Trump Seoul Grand and when I drove up the Taconic this weekend I passed by a state park named after him too. I did a bit of research and apparently Trump donated (and took a $100 million tax write off for) the property after purchasing the property a decade earlier for $2 million but not being able to get zoning for a golf course. It is completely undeveloped and supposedly has asbestos filled buildings on the property, so it now sits as a sort of upstate version of Chernobyl.

The sad fact is not that Trump already has a state park even before he has ever done anything as a statesman or patriot but that it come right after the Franklin D Roosevelt state park about 10 miles before it.

What the hell is wrong with us

Take on that big ugly middle finger building on the NY skyline

I'm the furthest thing from an architecture snob but I have to say that there is really no uglier thing on this green earth than that new residential building called 432 Park. The design is uninspiring and the fact that it almost looks taller than iconic buildings like the Empire State Building and the Freedom Tower is just...wrong. It is like the architects, and the Chinese buyers of the apartments, are giving the middle finger to the city. You just can't build a building as tall as the Freedom Tower, and the idea of some building throwing a gigantic shadow over Central Park is the biggest middle finger of all..

Take on the teacher student sec scandals

Where the hell were all these hot teachers who put out with students when I was in High School? I'm not sure if the numbers will bear out that the incidents of female teachers has increased over the last decade or so,but it certainly feels like that. Ever since that one teacher was caught banging the Filipino looking student and having his baby, it seems that every week a teachers is caught banging a male student and they are getting no hotter loping. I know this will sound bizarre but truthfully, I don't think society cares. Now change the sex of the student to female and the sex of the teacher to male and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose, but a woman teacher taking advantage of her make student carries as much umph as a wet dream.

Take on bad offers

When you get an offer to see Ray Romano AND David Spade for "an evening of hilarious banter" it is time to finally retired the old Hotmail address. I always thought that nothing in this world could be less funny than David Spade but I guess I was wrong because somehow adding Ray Romano makes me want to go from stabbing myself in the urethra with an ice pick to wanting to stab myself in the urethra with a rusty ice pick

Take on baseball"athletes"

I have not watched a baseball game in years. I am not taking about an entire game, I am taking about actively watching even an inning or two. It is not that I hate the game, it is actually a great game, but I hate any professional sport that is played (and excelled at) by slobs. The best players look like any schlep in my neighborhood with their beer bellies, double chins and shitty mustaches. This might be considered a sport but it is not athletics since the amount of athletic ability needed to excel at it is right above cricket

They should all be hung by their balls and swing at my midgets