Take on the ballet scam

There isn't a bigger scam than the kindergarten aged ballet performance. Seven girls dressed in pepto pink prance onto stage in $100 outfits to an audience of dozens of aunts, uncles and grandparents who have shelled out $25 a piece to watch little Olivia crash head first into Perfect Penelope forcing artistic Allison to shove future Juliard student Stephanie into the lap of  the crazy grandmother screaming about the Lincoln Center esque performance.   There are weeks of rehearsals, hundreds of dollars in costumes, makeup and pictures and an entire day devoted to dress rehearsals and prep and when they finally get on stage it is 2 minutes of roller derby.   But the issue isn't even so much the performance your kid gives, it is the hour and fifty eight minutes of other kids who have less talent than a lizard's thumbnail you have to sit through and having to courteously clap for them, too.  

I have been forced to sit through a half a dozen of these things and have personality been responsible for a couple as my kid's been shoved into tights and a tutu and had their hair done up and makeup put on so that my family and in-laws have the pleasure of spending hard earned money on something as ludicrous as this, I know all sides of it.  

It comes down to the fact that you want your kid's lives to be magical and torture your family in the meantime 

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Take on the hairy palms

As a kid I remember being told that beating would lead to blindness or hairy palms but today's kids are being told about a much more disturbing malady. Some preacher is going around telling everybody that the act of self pleasure will get your hands pregnant which is a frightening thought because where exactly are you birthing these infidel kids from?? Do they have to rip off your thumbnail or do they just chop your entire hand off as if you were a thief in ancient Arabia?

But assuming this is true, here is a new idea for a TLC staring Righetti called 19,000 and counting

Take on the prediction

I have looked into my crystal ball and see bloodshed.
There is some Prophet Muhammad cartoon drawing contest happening today and I would be shocked if it wasn't met with some kind of violence. I believe in free speech and I'm not trying to be hard on the soon to be 'victims' of this soon-to-be crime but to feel any sympathy for an event destined to lead to some kind of jihadist revenge, is like feeling bad for the guy who decides to rub peanut butter on his junk and then agitate a rabid pit-bull while the two are locked in a broom closet.
Some sociopath will undoubtedly come up to that contest today and slit somebody's throat with a machete and there will likely be residual damage but I can't think of a group of people who deserve it more than the peanut-butter on the junk rubbers who will be in attendance draped in their American flags and bibles. Well maybe that's not true, I feel even less bad for the rabid pit-bulls who will hopefully become the 100 virgins for some dude named Biff in maximum security prison.


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Take on the old couch

I bought a couch a decade ago at one of those couch warehouse places on Atlantic Avenue In Brooklyn, actually it was three pieces that came as one set including a love-seat and a single chair. The combo probably cost me $800 which, at the time, seemed like a fortune. The craftsmanship on the couch was nothing to write home about, the materials were nothing special and the Teflon like microfibers didn't repel stains like they claimed and instead absorbed and spread them but for a decade it served me well, or at least adequately.

Well this week I finally let go, putting the couch on the stoop and hoping for a buyer and by buyer I mean somebody who wanted to expend enough energy in lugging the piss covered thing away for the price of $0.00. The thing is that had I still lived in Brooklyn the couch would have been gone before all four legs hit the pavement stains and all. Years ago I'd put out old college engineering textbooks which would be gone before you came down with the second set but in the burbs the foot traffic isn't quite as heavy and the amount of poor college kids willing to lift a finger to get something for free is near nil.

So now I am just hoping the garbage truck takes it away and doesn't charge me some kind of additional heavy carriage fee cause I sure as hell am not putting it on Craigslist to have a psychopath come and cut me up and eat me for dinner on his brand new couch

Take on the Times Square crazies

I caught one of those crazy jesus freaks in Times Square hamming it up with Captain America on this brutally humid day and all I could think of was, who is convincing who?
The trouble with Times Square now is that there are ten of everything, ten Elmos, ten Cookie Monsters, ten Naked Cowboys and ten Captain America's and they are all so miserably desperate for your dollars bills the entire place feels like a strip club without the fun. But they are at least sort of liked because the guy who stands all day with the "repent now" sign gets absolutely no attention and it must be killing him when he sees fifty grandmas from Ohio lining up to take a picture with Mario and Luigi or worst yet some dude in a pair of tighty whities playing an acoustic guitar

take on the AdultFinder hack

When I saw an article on CNN about Adult FriendFinder getting hacked and exposing the dirty secrets of tens of thousands of private information that people use and vigilante hackers are exposing these secretes on social media to the victim's friends and family.

We thought we'd use this as a public service announcement for the TOR readership as we want to make sure that our audience is prepared for the likely fallout.

So that means you, guy who is obsessed with being clean and smooth  in Brooklyn, Kinky Korean in Flushing who daydreams about the sweaty Hispanic guy on the subway, Dirty-Diaper-Dandy in NYC, peeper guy in Orange County who likes his girls to have bodies that look like prepubescent boys, sex addict lawyer guy in Los Angeles, banana cream pie guy in west jersey, weird obsessed guy with sportstalk in north jersey.. you are all about to be exposed so better prepare your defense now to your husbands, wives, girlfriends and coworkers .

Take on Victoria's Kitchen

I watch SharkTank pretty religiously and have actually bought a handful of items I've seen there including that sponge thing with the smiley face and have generally been reasonably happy. The one exception is this godawful almond water they hawked a few months ago and I got scammed into buying. I love coconut water, and thought this could be a good alternative option but when I bought a case of the crap after Robert, Cuban and Mr. Wonderful raved about the flavor it was one of the first times I felt the show failed me. Their "just a hint of sweetness" should read "loaded with sugar" because the rose flavor tastes like you are eating a candy flower, the sweetness is completely overwhelming. The entire thing reminds you of a potpourri air fresheners they have in a restaurant bathroom which is about as appealing in a drink as literally having it served to you in a restaurant restroom

Take on the Al Qaeda recruitment tool

I'm all for introducing culture to my kids but when it is an obvious form of recruitment to the cause of Islamafacism I get a bit concerned. I open up a present for my one year old this morning and see a burka wearing owl staring right back at me, inviting my baby to the join in jihad and pick up arms in the 1000 year struggle against the Great Western Empire and Christianity
I haven't yet but I am sure when you open up that book and I am sure there are photos of a 1000 virgins opening the pearly gates (or whatever they have) to the lair of Saddam, Bin Laden, al Zarqawi and all their minions because I am sure that is what the author, Nina Laden, had in mind to recruit my kid to fight jihad against the evil west.

Either that or it is just a kids book

Take on the AT&T message

I got a random text messages this week from AT&T and it was more than a bit disappointing. For some reason they decided that they needed to start collecting my monthly fees earlier than before and of course they didn't as much as give a reason why. Then again we all know why and it isn't that complicated....it is all about greed. AT&T decided that they wanted to get their grubby hands on our money even earlier and now I'm forced to not just part with my hard earned money more quickly but even more annoying is that now I have to change all my automatic online payment options which is the real travesty of this entire thing

Take on the end of a Kingdom

With all the talk about David Letterman's retirement, leave it to the King to turn the entire conversation from the gap-toothed funny man from Indianapolis to himself. This week, Fatso announced that he knows the date he'll retire end and indicated that that date isn't far off. This caused quite a stir in the interwebs as an entire army of self-proclaimed Mongos took to Twitter to pay their respects. The sting was felt from Fort Lee to Montvale, from Brooklyn to Harlem, from Cresskill to Parsippany and from Seattle to Costa Mesa, everybody listens to Fatso, whether they admit it or not.
If Francesa does leave it will mean that for the first time in 30 years there will be no member left on WFAN from the original Pope and the Dope show.
Mike Francesa has been the go-too sports talk voice in this city for thirty years and nobody comes close to being a must listen anywhere on the dial, be it terrestrial or satellite radio.
Now this could all be a ploy by the big man to exhort some additional cash out of WFAN, but if he does close up shop I cannot imagine who Chernoff puts on instead, certainly hope it isn't David Lee Roth.

Take on the quadruple murderer

The more I read about the psychopath who killed that family in DC and burned the house down, the more I am convinced that this is the same animal who three a rock at the window of that Amtrak train that derailed last week outside of Philadelphia. Who know why, what or where he decided to do this, but I am almost 78% sure that somebody hurled a rock at that train which set it off and caused that kind of catastrophe and who better to suspect than this guy?

I hope they hang him by his sack in his cell while they let that dude in Florida who ate the other guy hang out with him till he's nothing but bones, thugs and harmony

Take on Robert Kraft

Does Robert Kraft literally only own one shirt? The guy is a multi millionaire and he wears the same stupid blue button down with the white collar and a red tie every single time he is seen on TV. I get a lucky sweater or a lucky pair of drawers but to wear one dress shirt for every public outing is a bit much

Maybe he is like Einstein and didn't want to waste time picking out a shirt so his entire closet is blue button downs with white collars. Either way he is a pompous ahole

Take on sleep

I got a FitBit last month and although it is is great to see how many steps I can take in a day, what is more interesting is to see how you sleep...or don't
After a month or so I checked the graph and I sleep an average of 5 hours and 38 minutes which back when I was in college was considered a nap

Somehow I need to find a way to travel more...just so I can sleep

Take on the morning (and midday) commute

I got into a cab at 6:25 this morning and rushed to LaGuardia for an 8:30am flight to Indiana. I got there at about 7:30, the cab ride taking longer than expected mostly due to the huge amount of fog hovering over NYC. When I get there I am first met with the typical Monday morning lines which feel like I'm standing on line for a completely overrated Shake Shack burger. I finally get to the gate and am told we are delayed by 30 minutes.
Anybody who travels knows this is the worst kind of delay, because it does not allow you to do anything. If you leave the area, you might just miss pre-boarding, so you can't relax because you will be pacing back and forth to the board every thirty seconds

Anyway I stand around for 30 minutes and right as we are due to board it gets pushed back another 30 minutes, a half hour later gets me yet another delay, this one for 45 minutes and then 30 minutes later they finally the dreaded cancellation announcement. Since I am not flying to a real popular destination like Chicago or LA it also means that there aren't many options and the next flight out of LaGuardia leaves at 4pm, and it's only 10:30. I go to the desk and am told there is a 2pm out of JFK, so I jump in a $40 cab (delta does not pay for this as it is weather related) and head to JFK. Now I sit here for three hours...wait make that three and a half hours since we were just delayed another half an hour here

Kill me.


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Take on Yuengling Summer Wheat

I love wheat ales especially a good summer ale, and most seem to be realizably. good. The Brooklyn Summer Ale is the best, the Sam Adams one of the worst but still is entirely drinkable. So when I walked into A&P last weekend and saw that Yuengling Summer Wheat was on sale, I thought I had found a pot of gold. What I actually found was pot of crap, the Yuengling Summer Ale tastes like it's been filtered through an Armenian's sock and then rinsed with the hair of his goatee. Here's to hoping the suckers at my BBQ next weekend drink them all up.

Take on route 3

I moved back to New Jersey a year ago and convinced myself that having more space would outweigh everything else (the smell, the no shopping on Sunday's, the accent, the landscape). In general I am happy with my move except for the nearly 15 hours per week I spend commuting into NYC. The commute is pretty predictable, the bus picks me up at 7:45am and I make it through a few local town in about 29 minutes with my bus driver yelling at a few random people along the way for not having exact change

Then we hit the turnpike and after 10 minutes of 60mph we hit the route 3 merge where we then spend one f*cking hour staring at the back of the other bus. If there is a hell, I hope I get through the gates faster than it takes me to get to gate 200 in the Port Authority

MLIA

Take on the Amtrak crash

There is nothing more terrifying than realizing that when we do something as innocuous as commuting to work, we are putting our lives in the hands of somebody whose background we know nothing about. Take the Germanwings pilot as an extreme example in a case where there really is nothing an average person could ever do about it. You board a plane or an Amtrak train or a bus and nobody knows what the mindset of the pilot, driver or conductor is. There are other jobs which affect lives but I can't think of many where a fragile mental state could lead to such tragic results. These instances may not happen that often but it still happens too often and they are not all deliberate or preventable but there certainly are ones that are. Look at that ferry captain in Korea for example.
What was particularly troubling was the fact that technology does exist to help prevent instances like this, if this one is deemed preventable, we just don't care to invest in the infrastructure to make it happen let alone have the people who man our transport be thoroughly screened and not overworked to points of physical and mental exhaustion

Take on the Patriot good fortune

Whenever I read about this deflate gate thing I have exactly three thoughts

1- Even as a Jet fan, I find this entire thing laughable.   Gaining advantages like altering balls is something that happens in all sports (see stick-um, stealing signs, grabbing jerseys, spitballs, phantom tags, pine tar) and celebrated but because Goodell got caught being to lax on Ray Rice he felt like he now needs to overcompensate but we all know this will turn out just fine for the Patriots because......

2- you just know that this thing will turn out into a Mo Lewis moment for the Patriots.  There is just no way that Belichick's good fortune ever runs out and Jimmy Garoppolo will be the next NFL star, breaking every scoring record on both be gridiron and with the chicks

- but as much as much as he will probably be Tom Brady and Derek Jeter and Tony Romo and Michael Jordan wrapped into a marketers dream, every time anybody says his name you will forever think of http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/11/121411_EXP_jg.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg. And really that is punishment enough 

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Take on the AOL takeover

When I read this morning that Verizon was buying AOL for $4.4billion dollars I almost fell out of my seat. If there was ever a buyout which will have less of an impact on actual people, it has to be this one because when they realize they forgot to have AOL throw in the time machine, Verizon won't feel it and the people it might actually affect will all be dead.

The $4.4 billion Verizon they paid is surpassed only by the $4.2 billion AOL paid to by Netscape a decade ago because for only $200million they also MapQuest, Movie Phone and a million CD-ROMs

I did read that there were still over 2 million people who actually pay for AOL which I guess is impressive/sad but it also means that Verizon paid $2000 per member which seems ludicrous even they own the Huffington Post and TechCrunch and they have some technology that allows companies to buy ad space.

Buying AOL is like trading for Peyton Manning before the 2015 fantasy football season or better yet trading for Archie. Even if this ad buying software is phenomenal, have them spin that off as it's own entity and sell it because having AOL in your portfolio only makes you look and sound like my grandmother, and she's dead.

Take on the NBA porn 'stach

Caught a highlight of the end of the Cavs game and while everybody was falling over themselves to anoint LeBron as the savior, I looked in the background and wondered how a cast member of Boogie Nights made it onto the floor. I don't follow enough NBA to be sure but either Adam Morrison came back into the league or Anderson Varejão's is channelling a young Andre the Giant. When that shot fell, every dude imagined himself in LeBron's shoes and every chick imagined herself in Anderson Varejão's pants.

LeBron's mom better watch out cause Delonte West's got nothing on this man and his porn star 'stache.