Take on replay

So baseball has finally done something smart and added replay to their
game. I am not the biggest proponent of replay as it slows games down
way too much, but I'm a bigger proponent of getting calls right.
The issue is that they are following some kind of convoluted NFL model
where an ump will have to go under the good and coaches and managers
have to be strategic in their use of a limited number of challenges.
What baseball (and football mind you) should be doing is exactly what
I've heard suggested before. They should have one centralized
location where all calls are reviewed at MLB headquarters. Get three
umps in a room who are watching games all day and make calls on balls
hot down the line, balls making it over the wall and safe/out calls.
Make it automatic. As each play happens, let the officials at
headquarters decide whether to review, not a baseball manager who
doesn't have the luxury of slow-mo replay. There are guys who still
chart balls and strikes in a notebook, no way are they sophisticated
enough to handle a fast forward button on an IPad

Football should do the same, one official above (either in the stadium
or at the NFL headquarters) buzzes the field if there is a play to be
reviewed and then he reviews it on a 60 inch HD LED 3D TV with a
thousand angles, no crowd noise and a big bag of cheese doodles and
calls back within 60 seconds with a ruling

It's really not that complicated

Take on the Citibike logistical problem

I always imagined my main problem with the Citibike experience would
be the fact that I couldn't get a bike but lately I've had an equally
annoying experience...There are many time when you can't find a spot.

Last week, I walk out of work at 6th avenue and find no bikes out on
the Citibike terminal outside of my office. In hoof it down to 8th
avenue and get one of the last bikes there, albeit one with a seat
which wouldn't move up. So, I low-ride down to ferry terminal at 12th
avenue to find a completely full rack. There are no spots and nobody
coming out who may take a bike with the rain we were having that day.
I call the number and they tell me that I need to drop it off at
another station, the closest one being on 11th avenue

So I basically got to ride about three city blocks and walked four
blocks in total (6th to 8th and then 11th to 12th and back).

Yeah, this thing is working out great

Take on the new Gmail Ads

Not sure if anybody noticed this but with the new Gmail format, Google is sneaking in more ads.. Obviously, Gmail is free, so I won't do a lot of complaining, but I will do some.  It used to be that Gmail would try to filter out spam, today they are filtering the spam right into your inbox. 

Under the promotions tab, they don't just filter all the crap from TinyPrints, Amazon and Joe Bryant, they also pepper you with items that you didn't actually sign up for.   These are ones that Gmail even calls "ads" and they are highlighted in yellow and today I got one from 'LowerMyBills' and another from 'Zillow For Pros'.   I guess they did their research and Zillow for Pros might be something I'd open but the one from LowerMyBills, will go directly into the trash..  

Take on hotel porn

Sometimes I see one of these OMG facts and think to myself 'that can't
be true'. I read yesterday that 6 in 10 movies rented at hotels are
porn. Although I wonder where exactly they find this information, as
i doubt all the major hotel chains are happily serving this
information up. I guess they could just be using normal statistics
but I'd have to think there are different rates on typical business
hotels than vacation ones.
But the most startling thing was that honestly the 60% seems a bit
low. I, for one, have never rented a RoCom at the Holiday Inn

Take on the GMA imbeciles

The lowest common denominator has to be the idiot tourist who line up
outside of Good Morning America for hours to get there terrible hand
written sign on TV or worse yet, to hug from that big oaf. Every
morning, I get delayed by 5 minutes as I try to wade through the crowd
of fanny pack wearing, coordinated shirt wearing, Olive Garden eating,
overweight imbeciles lined 5 deep in front of the large glass front
from 6AM till noon

I cannot imagine waiting even 20 minutes at any point, anywhere, to
see anybody yet these people routinely wait four hours to catch a
glimpse of Taylor Swift's left cheek or Jason Patrick's elbow just do
they can tell all their friends in Idaho that they saw a celebrity.

Take on Instagram

I realized a long time ago that I am not cool, hip or with-it and
someone about 4 years ago I turned into an old man, but really I don't
think I get most Instagram pictures. I signed up a few months ago
and followed a bunch of buddies, wives of friends and a few hot
chicks. But after about two months, all I ever see are pictures of
food. There are soft light salmon, there is disco style chicken and
thousands of burgers which look like the were served at Woodstock.
They must outnumber the hit chick photos 10-1

I don't quite get the appeal of photos of it, but like I said, I have
friends who I haven't seen since my kids were born, so I'm not up with
what is cool

Take on the airline deal

Is there anything more disingenuous than getting an email from an
airline with great flight deals.
First of all, every one of the "deals" have so many restrictions that
there is just no way to actually get a flight to Amsterdam anywhere
near $501 each way. I've clicked on the links and before I knew it,
the destination's cost jumps by 30% if you aren't able to leave at
11pm and return at 2am two days later

The other thing which annoys me even more, is the fact that they
advertise them as each-way fares based on a round trip ticket. It's
not a one way price, because those would be $800 each, and since it
is, by definition, based on a round trip, it's impossible to actually
get without buying the roundtrip. Nobody tells you that you can get a
$4 hamburger as part of a $7 lunch special. But more specific to this
case, Noody I have ever met has said to me.. Wow I got a great deal to
fly to Korea, only $712 each way. Everybody will tell you what the
total flight costs, not some convoluted formula, which has no real
meaning, based on a single leg on a round trip flight

Screw you Delta and your crappy deals

Take on the Pathmark shitter

There really aren't many more disgusting places than a men's room in a
supermarket. I walked into the Pathmark shitter and just about puked.
I am not sure if it is the employees or the customers but the place
smelled like an animal died inside.

My question is, do people seek out these public restrooms to birth
fecal? I need a little privacy when on the can and the last thing I
want is the sound of roast beef being sliced up and smell of dead
animals surround me and then wipe my ass with the sandpaper they
offer. Although to be fair, there are always those circulars laying
around that you can read and there is never really a bad time to clip
some coupons and see if they have prime rib on sale

Take on Windows

I always wonder why our blog doesn't get more traffic.. Maybe it is
the lowbrow subject matter, maybe it is the grammar or maybe it's just
not marketed past a large email list (and it's retarded fraternal
twin) but considering we have been doing this for 5 straight teas,
you'd think we would have gotten some traction.
But now we understand what happened, apparently there was some kind of
hiccup with Windows and TOR which Gizmodo reported on today, so good
news for all you readers....no virus for you today. (Unless you count
the virtual herpes like virus of those email lists

Let's hope we can get Bill Gates to make an appearance and spread that
virus to the highbrows

Take on the Gang Bang Organizer

Read an article on Gawker today about some dude who got busted for organizing gang-bangs after he set one up for some  MILF who wanted to celebrate her 45th birthday by doing 45 dudes in one night..  The weird thing was that gawker seemed incensed that this guy would put 'gang bang organizer' on his business card which seemed odd being that he is, in fact, a gang-bang organizer.   I'm not exactly sure how you would describe Scott James Frank Pollock's job any any better than that.. If he just titled it 'party planner' he would probably be fielding tons of calls for corporate events..  Then again, when you are a gang-bang organizer you probably reek of pussy, so it wouldn't take the K9 team to find you anyway..

The thing that got me scratching my head was that this poor Pig Vomit looking dude got busted for heading a prostitution ring, because the cops found that he was making each dude pay him $20 to have them bang this broad.   I'm not really sure if I buy this as a true definition of prostitution as this seems more like a finders fee.   It's not that much different than going on match.com and looking for chicks who describe themselves as party girls.  You are paying match.com a fee for essentially getting you laid, but nobody is accusing them of being a pimp.

Maybe we can start a new "dating" site called JoinMyGangBang.com 

take on the ARod verdict

Well we finally got it.. Cameron Diaz's ex boyfriend got 211 game suspension, which he'll appeal.   Obviously this sh!t show is far from over but at least there is a chance that David Wright, Geno Smith or Hakeem Nicks can get a shot at the back page of the Daily News.

 

Forget right or wrong, best interest of baseball or the worst, what I don't get from this ARod thing (and Braun before him) is that the amount of games just seems so ridiculously arbitrary.   I get that 211 games will mean that he won't see the field until 2015, which is fine with me, but had they ruled on this a week earlier he would have had a 218 game suspension and a week later it would have gotten cut down to 206.  The number just seems arbitrary and when you are working to set a precedence, I don't think arbitrary will work with an arbitrator

 

And what happens if he appeals and eventually loses?  He'll get to play through the appeal process which could take up to a month and a half.  Does this mean that he gets suspended for the rest of this year, all of next year and then 40 some-odd games in 2015?

 

 

Take on the ARod thing

If there is a less interesting story than this ARod thing, please tell me.   I cannot believe that this still has legs at all.   It seems like we have now been waiting for a month waiting for Bud Selig to send up black smoke and banishing this loser from this miserable sport for the rest of this life

The problem is that, you just know this won't be the end of it.  He will appeal which will drag this on for months with daily speculation and no resolution.  Then he'll have a big prime time interview with Barbara Walters or Oprah, then he'll start playing in the Independent League, batting third on the Newark Bears behind the beloved cleanup hitter, Ozzie Canseco.   Then he'll have a sex tape, a sexting controversy and finally he'll come out of the closet and admit to a torrid affair with Joe Girardi.  But that won't be enough, he'll become a WWE villain, will be signing baseball in a mall somewhere and bitch and moan a la Pete Rose that he can't get into the HOF

And we'll watch every second of it

Just get the show going already, these previews suck 

 

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the late bus

I vowed to never be that guy again.  The guy who after a late night
bender found himself drooling on himself during a long ride home on
public transportation.   Then again I also bowed to lose 10 pounds,
and we know how that is going
When I was in my twenties, I'd probably get smashed up a few times per
week but now I have a really big night out maybe once or twice per
year.   This usually means that I drink too much, eat badly and then
have to somehow manage to get home.   The problem is that the
combination is lethal because I am already sleep deprived so when I
get onto a bus or subway at 2am after 10 beers, there really is not
that much hope
Thursday, I was the guy who fell asleep on the midnight bus and woke
up only when another passenger tapped me on the shoulder to announce
that it was the last stop.  Sadly for me, the last stop also meant
that I had missed my stop by 5 miles.  So there I went, walking those
5 miles at 1am
Nothing makes your dread the next morning more than knowing you are
going to pass out at 2am and your kids will be up by 5:30

 

Take on the random LinkedIn request

whenever I get an email friend request from LinkedIn, I think 'uh oh'..

It's ot because I try to shy away from almost all social media but mostly because whenever somebody joins LinkedIn or updates their profile, you probably won't be using their work email address in about a week.

Just today I got a friend request from a buddy who I always assumed was pretty secure at his gig but my thought right away was 'shit is he going to be asking me for a short term loan and crashing on my couch?  

I emailed him and it didn't sound like anything was imminent and he just figured it was time to set one up, I guess so that he does ever find himself on the cusp of layoffs, it isn't that obvious..

Take on the spelling test

Being a Jets fan is pathetic, your friends constantly mock you, your
team hasn't won a championship since the 60's, your boisterous coach
for muted and your QB dances around bottomless on Vine. The team
regularly over-performs, the fan base is a bunch of drunk frat boys
and the ownership is completely lost. The one thing the team did have
was a real mascot, some slob from Staten Island who would get up on
his brother's shoulders and start this J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets chant
waving his hands around like a cerebral palsy. Admittedly it's not
much, but I guess it is something.
But last year the mascot unceremoniously quit because he either felt
the team wasn't supporting him enough or his brother couldn't support
him anymore. So the Jets and Fireman Ed split ways and he is now
back to being a Dolphin fan, I think.

Anyway, the terrible team decided that instead of focusing on
jumpstarting a dreadful offense, they would instead now draw up plays
for their fans. The Jets are having the Fireman Ed chant coordinated
by the stadium as opposed to the mascot and they wanted to make sure
there were no butt fumbles this time. If that isn't pathetic
enough, knowing how dumb/drunk the fans are, they feel they have to
hand out cheat-sheets to tell each person what they are supposed to
tell and when. I guess this is so people don't screw up by yelling T
when their section should be yeling E.

So not only do they want to bang you for a PSL, now they also want to
insult your intelligence

Let's go Geno and welcome to our newest TOR reader

Take on the simple transaction

There must be two or three times per week where I have this awkward back and forth.  It's usually when I am standing at a deli or coffee ship and am told my total.   Are, I have this incredible ability to do simple math in my head, a real skill, I know.  

So the teller will ring up $13.05 and I immediately start to calculate what I have in my pockets and how I can consolidate bills

I will then give them $23.05 and pray because the chances they just assume I gave them $13.05 and then I am stuck with this he-said she-said argument about exactly what I am owed. 

So in order to preempt this, I always overly annunciate "that is twenty three dollars and five cents"  and half the time I get an eye roll and probably a matching loogie in my coffee

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the much needed diet

I caught a picture of myself at the beach this weekend and was
terrified at what was staring back at me. Somehow the 181 pound
marathon runner had turned into 197 pound of gut. Maybe it was the
orders of French fries I haven't been passing up, maybe it's all those
IPA's I've been downing or maybe it's just the fact that I am getting
old but this slide had to stop. On Sunday I decided it was time for
a good old diet. No more bread before dinner, no more snacks of
cheese at 9pm, no more lemonade and no more hamburgers with fries.
So for the foreseeable future, I will be chewing down on celery
sticks, drinking light beer if I'm going to indulge and strapping my
running shoes on and getting back on the road more often than once or
twice per week

Yeah, life is about to really suck

Take on the big Weiner

Like everybody else, my buddies have been discussing the Anthony
Weiner debacle. Obviously, Twitter has been exploding with news,
analysis and jokes since he had to admit that he continued to send
pictures of his junk to a bunch of coeds. Now, with the chants of
resignation turning into a full fledged choir, I think it's important
to relish in these last few days of Weinergate
My first question remains, why would anybody post a picture of their
junk. I see what is going down there everyday and it's just not
pretty. Between the hair, the pimples, the sweat and the chafing, it
looks like a complete mess
Secondly, I am fairly new to Twitter but have still not figured out a
way to send something anonymously. I get that using a Carlos Danger
alias gives you some anonymity but why not just set up an email
address and exchange the pictures of that?

The genius of the General Petraeus thing was that he and his Chica
shared a gmail account and they would write each other messages and
leave them in the draft folder, so no messages were ever sent. Seems
like a guy with a bit of history and the entire NY tabloid media
following his every move would be a bit more careful, but then again,
if he was we wouldn't have any fun at all

Take on the Beach

For years I have tried to figure out why people love going to the
beach. It's crowded, it's sandy and it's hot which are all things I
go out of my way to avoid. If the sun burning cancer directly into my
skin isn't enough, the guidos, bad tattoos and drunks surely are as
the entire boardwalk is a collection of the ugliest and most out of
shape people.

The little that gets salvaged by spending a day burning up is washed
away with the filth surrounding you decides they need to start
drinking at 10am and usually don't finish until one of them drowns.

I think, I finally figured out a way to not feel miserable is to
realize how miserable these schmucks will feel tomorrow as they bathe
in aloe and prune juice.
Other than that it is a lot of sand in my ass-crack and puke on my feet

Take on the AI pants

Can somebody explain this Allen Iverson look I've been spotting around
NYC? These broads are parading around with pants with one short leg
and one long leg. It's this schizophrenic look where it appears the
chick can't decide between pants or shorts and instead pull the only
look which actually might be worse than jorts. Then they pair it with
these awful neon bags and it's like you are staring at Boy George from
the back.

Take on the Times

When I opened my NY Times app the other day and saw an article about turkey, I clicked on it. Problem was that, for some reason, the Times decided to publish the original transcript, which is written in Turkish, as opposed to say.....a translation.   

I appreciate the attempt at limiting media bias, but it seems a bit odd to post something that 99% of your audience wouldn't be able to read anyway. 

Whatever, one less thing for me to feel obligated to read. 

Sent from my iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

take on a million dollars in singles

I read an article on Gawker yesterday about a bunch of cops who were ordered to return $1 million dollars in singles to a stripper after they took the money after a traffic strop.

The article explains that the cops confiscated bundles of singles tied in $10,000 bundles which the article explained was intended to be used to fund a bar/restaurant in NJ..

now this article has a few things scratching my head

Carrying a million dollars in cash is a bit odd, especially when you consider that they would be carrying a million singles.     I went online and some guy on yahoo answers predicted it would take 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes and 50 seconds to count to a million.. that isn't counting bills but just counting, so you'd have to think that literally counting a million notes could take twice as long and that doesn't include all the paper-cuts you'd get.   

Looking a bit further, I thought that a million dollars in singles must be incredibly clumsy and heavy to carry around.    Yahoo Answers predicts it that it would weigh about 2200 pounds (not including the rubber bands).   That is the equivalent of the combined weight of my entire fantasy football league and those guys are incredibly clumsy and heavy to carry around.

So how exactly would you shove this much money into a car and then drive it from Nebraska to New Jersey?  I have to think you need a UHAUL or something.   Then what would happened if you needed to take a leak or wanted a bit to eat.. You can't exactly take the money with you, so you'd risk getting some of it stolen each time you dropped a deuce

there are so many unanswered questions here, I think it might be time we go to FD's to figure them out.  

but by far the oddest part of this entire thing is that a stripper was able to save a million dollars, these are not people who are renowned for their financial acumen.  Most of them probably have the money they earned that night spent by the next morning on blow, whiskey and silver-dollar pancakes   

-

Take on my first Citibike experience

I cannot believe how badly I've gotten screwed by CitiBike. First, I
sign up and 10 days later I am still waiting for my key. I call them
and they tell me that my application still hasn't processed yet and
it doesn't sound like it will this week either. So far, I am two
weeks into this partnership and am biking as often as I have for the
past five years.
But more troubling is the fact that everytime I walk out of my office,
the rack of 30 or so bike-slots it completely empty. It doesn't
matter if I walk out at 5pm, 5:30pm, 6pm or 7pm, there are absolutely
no working bikes at all. There are a couple with flat tires, broken
pedals or busted seats usually but that doesn't do you any good
I can see it already, I just laid out $100 to not be able to bike

MLIA

Take on the Press 1 for English Option

When I called my insurance company regarding a medical claim earlier
today, I was dumbfounded by how complicated their automated system had
become. Trying to navigate the vast insurance field is difficult but
just trying to get a person the phone is the equivalent of running a
three legged 400 meter hurdles. But maybe the most annoying thing is
the very first curveball they throw at you.

They ask you to press 1 for English which is odd, as this is usually
the default. But honestly, past it just adding more time, why can't
there just be separate phone lines for Spanish, Chinese or Dutch
callers. This is 2013, phone lines are as cheap as they have ever
been. Services like Google Voice are literally free
Then they get you to jump through hoops with claim numbers, doctor
visits and amounts only to be told that they can't help you because
your issue falls out of their specific expertise.
What expertise am I asking about, it isn't as if I am asking them to
perform the brain surgery, just that they pay for it but the fact they
can't even figure out how to streamline their English speaking calls,
doesn't nose well for my surgery

Take on the Instant Substitute

When I walked into Target the other day to pick up some items when I noticed they were all out of maxipads (don't ask).  Apparently the red-sea had parted that weekend because they were completely out of them.  I didn't quite know what the next step for desperate women might be other than stuffing a bunch of paper-towels down there but what really confused me was that Target was generously offering a 2 pack pregnancy pack as an instant substitute.

Now I am admittedly not a complete expert on the female body, but I don't think that those two items are generally considered a real substitute for one another although I'm sure there is somebody who reads this blog who could confirm that for me

I did use the opportunity to stock up on clearblue pregnancy tests as it seemed like a really good deal.

Take on the legend of José

My favorite sports memory isn't of a particular championship, chip-in off the green, or touchdown.  It isn't a particular perfect game, hat-trick, or dunk.  My favorite sports moment has more history to it than any of that.   In the late 80's, the sports world turned to Oakland, California to tune into a little baseball team who was quickly becoming legendary.  The team featured a willy old closer, a top of the rotation starter, a manager who would become legendary and Rickey Henderson.  But even the championships were secondary to the Bash Brothers who were quickly becoming all the rage.  Mark McGwire and José Canseco were belting homeruns like no kid my age had seen and when they did, they based high-fived with their forearms.   Mark would eventually set the season home run record * and José had his sight set on being the first 40-40 guy. They were the talk if baseball and all the world was expecting a third member of the bash brothers to soon join the party, José's twin brother Ozzie.   

The entire world figured that if José could hit 37 home runs, his biological equivalent could do the same.   Ozzie did come up for a cup of coffee but was never able to hit the curve.  A pitcher would get ahead of him 0-2 or 1-2 and throw the hook and Ozzie would twist himself into the ground like a cartoon.  But after a while we all forgot about the third triplet because José and McGwire kept belting home runs and winning World Series games 

Years later, before the 70 home runs, the tell-all books, the twitter account, years before the world knew Big Mac and José were juicing, they had both left Oakland and were playing on the Cardinals and Rangers respectively.  McGwire's star was still rising but José's was already a comet, barreling down to earth. 

One day against the Indians, the Rangers asked José to play right-field although he had long ago traded in his globe for a permanent DH role.  The game was going by, I can't tell you anything about it, until Carlos Martinez hit a long fly ball to right.  José had it tracked while searching for the wall with his bare hand until the ball caromed off his head (http://youtu.be/DLs0pjWnzTY) and bounced over the wall for a bizarre homerun which has been the top highlight of every blooper reel since

But the little known story behind that play is what makes it that much greater.   José in the twilight of his career was known to frequent the local bar scenes and the night before had allegedly gotten pretty hammered at one of Cleveland's top joints and had gone of quite a bender.  The next afternoon when his roommate called José's agent to report he never came back and  couldn't find him anywhere.  They did an all out search and finally found the slugger covered in blood, piss and prostitute and in no shape do anything.  Quickly a plan was devised, so as to not draw attention on their star having peed himself and fallen and busted his Cuban face.  

Part of José's contract stipulation was playing a certain amount of games and with José's injury history, his people were afraid he wouldn't make it. They called Ozzie, who was playing on an independent team in Columbus or something, and asked him to get to Cleveland ASAP.   He arrived at the ballpark about 30 minutes before game time, threw on a uniform, took his position in rightfield and became a legend

and nobody ever got the better of it

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the 100 degree heat

When we read that NYC had broken its record for amount of megawatts
used, we were 't surprised. This has been an absolutely miserable
week, with tentative a topping or nearing a 100 for what seems like 6
straight days. The thought we continue to have is that the all those
AC's blowing cold air into those 3 million apartments are also blowing
out so much friggin' heat onto the streets, that just walking around
has become nearly impossible. The idling cabs along ninth avenue are
themselves contributing to a 2-3 degree upwards temperature swing, the
subways are pumping heat through the streets, but nothing compares to
the extra heat those AC's are causing

Maybe if everybody turned their AC's off, we'd actually cool the city
down and not feel like my balls are going to melt into my inner thighs

Take on the pedicab fare

I am all about ripping off tourists, if for no other reason that they
interrupt my commute home with all their picture taking, slow walking
and sidewalk huddling. But even I was shocked when I saw how much the
pedi-can guys charge unsuspecting Asians at the Hilton on 6th Ave.
one guy charged $3/minute, not $3 per ride or $3 per city 10 minutes
but $3 per minute which translates to $180 per hour or $375,000 per
year which I think is more than the US Postal team gets for climbing
10 miles into the Alps each summer

take on the 3:41AM alarm

It was 3:41 in the morning a few days ago whenI was awoken with the most horrifing noise I had ever heard.   The noise was excuciating and I immediately thought about an escape plan for me and my family.   After being awake for a few seconds, I realized the alarm was not coming from the smoke-alarm or our CO2 detector but from my IPhone..   

 

At a few minutes before 4AM, the NYC police department had sent out one of those Amber Alerts about a missing toddler to every person within about a 100 miles of the city.  Obviously, as a father of two young girls, I could see how this is helpful, but what really got me was why out of all the missing children that dissappear every year, this was the first one I've ever gotten. I checked the AmberAlert website and found out that, just today, there had been a thirteen year old who had gone missing.  As you can imagine there had been no notice sent out and it seems to be considered a police matter.

 

The difference here, was probably one of P.Y.A, or protecting your ass.   In the 3:41AM case, a mother with psychological problems, took her baby from a human services center without permission.  It doesn't take much to read between the lines here, but what this means is that somebody f*cked up, somebody let her walk out with the kid and now they were sweating.     I am convinced to that fear of the gigantic lawsuit the city was about to face, got the NYPD to blast the alert to 20 million sleeping people..

 

I get that this is a good cause, but to wake an entire city in the middle of the night for one kid,while hundreds of others go unnoticed, seems a bit arbitrary.  

 

 

 

Take on the Subway Etiquette when it comes to pregnant women

I've been having a lively discussion with a few friends about subway etiquette when it comes to a pregnant chick..   I contend that men and women are basically equally rude when it comes to giving up a seat, having witnesses both genders quickly stare down when a pregnant woman walks onto the train, but the other party seems to think this happens more with men than women.   I've looked online and there seem to be a bunch of informal polls which, when taken together, tell you that a black guy in his early 30's is probably the most likely to give up a seat and a middle aged Asian woman least likely.   White dudes in suits, Millennials of both sexes and Hasidic didn't rank really well either (chart put together by some pregnant woman)

 

I tend to think that the reason my friend, who by the way is expecting a baby, believes women get up more are three fold

 

• I think that women who do get up, probably do it more quietly, doing it for the benefit of the women as opposed to getting some kind of credit from fellow passengers.   So the only person who does notice would be the person who gets the seat given to her.  Dudes on the other hand want to make sure that their chivalry is acknowledged, so from an outside observer it seems that they are giving up their seats in larger chunks

 

• There are studies which show that guys are much less likely to take a seat on a crowded train, so maybe the ones who would have gotten up, are already standing.    I, for one, tend to not take a seat, unless there is nobody else on the train who looks like they will need one.  So although i would like to give up my seat, I usually don't have one to give up..   As anybody who takes a rush-hour train knows, getting a seat is nearly impossible, and will usually mean that you have to cut somebody else off in order to get one.  Firstly, we all know that the most ruthless when it comes to this are, in fact, women.  I have seen many non-pregnant women give a guy a very nasty look if they take a seat they had intended to use..    But in general, I'd guess that the people who are wiling to give up a chance at a seat for a non-pregnant woman would also be likely to give it up for one who is, but they can't since they don't have one to give.

 

• When an able bodied guy doesn't give up a seat, I think it's very likely people will be more angry about it than if a woman doesn't, as you can't always assume the seated woman isn't possibly pregnant herself. ..

 

but then again, these all seem like excuses for a bunch of selfish people who we live with because I have to say that having taken the train many days with my pregnant wife, about 90% of all people will duck their head into a book, newspaper, smartphone, set of boobs or anything else rather than give up their seat.  Basically everybody on the subway is scum who would step over their own mother to get a seat..

 

 

so I propose a new TOR test, we will ask all readers to report to us the gender of the person doing the giving whenever they see a seat given up.

Take on the new new new Gmail interface

So gmail decided to mess with a good thing and change the entire
experience and interface again. I don't quite know why this was
necessary, but they decided I needed to have my emails filtered by
them in three seemingly random tabs. One is a social one but it gets
all sorts of junk mail filters to it, another is for promotions, which
honestly should have just been called trash and then there is the
third which is supposed to be your normal email, but even that seems
all weird

Give me my old one back, please

Take on the home remedy

Whenever it gets hot, it's not just my balls that stick to my inner
thighs but my feet start to crack like an egg. As the TOR
readership is well aware, these cracks lead to all sorts of pains when
crap starts getting caught in it

I decided to look up a couple of remedies and found various people
suggest that you can mash up banana pulp or avocado, you can soak in
vegetable oils, you can drip vinegar on it, you can throw them in a
bath of lemon juice or you can stick them in a bag of raw meat

So I walk over to A&P and pick out about $100 worth of groceries and
start to make a goddamn smoothie in my bedroom. I throw in a couple
of ripe avocados, a few green tomatoes, BBQ sauce, few chicken breast,
a gallon of milk, three or four eggs and some parsley. The only thing
missing was a rubber sheet.

I put my tired dogs into my smoothie and sit down eating some pretzels
and having a cold beer, as all of the suggestions where that you keep
'em soaked for an hour or so.
All of a sudden my phone rings and I drop my pretzel into the bath.

I did what would have been expected, so I fished it out and ate it right up!!

Take on the single guy with a cat

I will never understand why a single guy would ever decide that
getting a cat is a good thing. You always hear scary stories of old
ladies with a thousand cats, but there is something even more
disturbing when a dude owns them. Whenever I hear about a dude and
his cat, I have this immediate image of mental illness. Think about
it, there is not a single guy you know who has a cat who you don't
believe deep down could be a complete sociopath or at minimum a
pervert. There is just something very disturbing seeing a guy
willingly take on that responsibility

Maybe it is because I just don't see the appeal to a cat. They don't
love back, they are terrible companions, they stink and they make my
eyes water.

Take on the shoe hole

I bought a pair of shoes six weeks ago off of Overstock. They were
you standard Oxford type, fairly unassuming and cost me about $60.
But after a few weeks, I started feeling like the street was a bit
closer than usual. I could sweat that I could feel pebbles and other
debris as if I were barefoot.

I look down after work yesterday and notice my socks were a bit wet,
who h seemed odd but I had noticed it ever since I got a bit too close
to a puddle

I turn my shoes over and see two quarter size holes in the soles.
Maybe my callouses wore a hole in them

take on the unsubscribe email

There really aren't too many things that annoy me more than getting junk mail, whether it's the physical crap I get in my real mailbox or the virtual crap I get in my inbox.

 

I do appreciate the fact that, at least the legitimate companies, now give you an unsubscribe button on the bottom of the emails to opt-out.  Years ago, I remember being warned of ever doing that, as it only confirmed to spammers, that this was in fact a life and real email address.  Most of the ones I click, are ones where I am certain that I know the company and they seem legit  (i'm not clicking the unsubsribe button for an email about hot horny asian chicks wanting white dudes for example).. Whenever I do go through the process, I am fairly certain that I inadvertently signed up when ordering something.

 

What really annoys me, is that these companies, even the legit ones, will often state their exit question in such a way that you can easilly mistake it and answer it in a way to keep you on their list.   Mind you these are companies that you've done business with, and would probably continue to do business with, if it weren't for the vulcan death grip they seem to have on your scrotum.

 

Just look at the way that you unsubscribe from the Harry and David fruit basket thing.. How anybody would willingly want to stay on this list is beyond me, but you can see how you can try to get off feels like you are running in quicksand

 

When you click on the unsubscribe button at the bottom of an email, they send you to a webpage which asks

Please unselect this box if you wish to no longer receive Gift History emails

 

So you are trying to unsubscribe but they want you to unselect a box staying that you no longer want to receive the emails, as opposed to say, selecting a box to say you don't want to receive emails about .. click the box if you want to stop receiving emails or to click on any email correspondence that you would like to continue receiving.

 

 

I only know of one list that is harder to get off of... you get on that one and it's like getting stung with herpes

 

Take on some important scientific research

When I read a tweet about a study showing women's moods after having semen enter their bodies, I knew I needed to share this with the TOR audience knowing that many of you (well one of you) counts on us to keep up with important current events

I can't say this study surprises me, if for no other reason than it could be comparing a group of chicks who are having sex vs ones who are not because even the study admits it's not a true blind study but based on a survey.   

Rather than being a controlled research project, this study was based on an anonymous survey of nearly 300 women on the SUNY campus. The women were asked to complete the survey as well as the Beck depression inventory to come to their conclusions.

Researchers Gordon Gallup, Rebecca Burch and University of Liverpool psychologist Steven Platek determined via the surveys that women who regularly engaged in oral sex or had unprotected sex where happier overall than those who did not.

So it's not much of a study but if nothing else, chicks who might be willing to do this for their dudes are probably more likely to have the act reciprocated.    It can also probably be directly related to the fact that everybody hates rubbers, so as much as your health teacher in the 10th grade tried to convince you if feels just as good, we all know that is dirty lie

Then again, who am into argue with science, chicks get on your knees and get happy, I am sure the rest of us will agree.  I do feel bad for lesbians though 

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the smokers safe haven

As if having to commute into Port Authority isn't enough to make you
want to poke a pen into your urethra, you also have to deal with a
bunch of chain smokers hanging out right outside the doors. I walk
out everyday, trying to get the stink of NJ off of me, and instead get
caught in a cloud of tobacco because until every other building in
NYC, one that is actually run by the government allows for people to
camp loiter out in front if it. Bloomberg has made it illegal to
smoke just about a anywhere from parks to restaurants to the workplace
and places of ill refute yet somehow they spared this one place.
My building at work won't allow you to smoke, neither will almost
every other one of them in midtown, so apparently the smokers have all
decided to congregate right outside of the doors being used by
hundreds of thousands of commutes each day

I guess this is Bloomberg's answer to the new commuter's tax

Take on the Asiana flight escape

One of the lasting images I have seen from the Asiana crash this
weekend, was a bunch of Chinese ladies walking away from the wreckage
carrying luggage. There really aren't any sicker images to look at,
than one where you know that somebody took time to gather their
belongings while there is a plane full of people in a burning inferno
behind them. Knowing that somebody had the chutzpah to make sure they
weren't leaving their fake Louise Vuitton bags behind while that could
mean life/death for a fellow passenger is beyond sick and knowing how
widespread it is, makes it even worse.
I have never been in a crash, but I have tried to disembark from
plenty of normal flights on my life and I know that as soon as people
start pulling crap out of the overhead compartment, I may as well pull
out a sandwich cause I will be there a while
I hear all the excuses, like this is some kind of cultural difference,
but honestly having taken plenty of flights in Asia, the difference is
that nobody on those flights pay any attention to the messages. These
guys are jumping out of their seats to collect their luggage from the
bins before the flight even lands. There is no, 'wait till the
captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign'; people are literally
getting up before the plane has even slowed down. I have heard many
American flights attendants basically throw their hands up in the air
because their instructions are completely ignored. It's not just
chaotic, it's a total zoo and a complete pain in the ass for the rest
of the rule abiding passengers because they are throwing shit
everywhere. All you bags are getting turned upside down because some
idiot needs to locate his green-tea box from behind your laptop bag.
But now to see it when a plane is down with potential dozens of people
hurt and two casualties is so callous it is disgusting. All l in the
name of a a few dollars, a knockoff brand bag and an iPod

take on the subway pisser

When I was sent an article from a buddy about some guy who got killed on the subway, I assumed it was either some nutcase who jumped in front of the train, or worse yet.. some nutjob who pushed another in front of one..   Instead it was something much more juvenile, and thus more likely to happened to me..   Apparently, two dudes who had gotten a little sloppy at a few bars, decided that since the subway stations probably reeked of urine and the 100 degree temperatures down there only trapped that smell, that why not add to it themselves.   I have to admit, that I have too almost pissed in a subway station, but am proud to say that I have never bowed that low, but I can't claim that the thought has never passed my mind. 

 

anyway, one of the pissing fools, electrocuted himself by pissing on the third rail, if this doesn't confirm Darwinism, I don't know what would ..(I think the other just burned his penis really badly)    Can't say that didn't put a bit of a smile on my face as anybody who knows anything about the trains, knows that you should always avoid the third-rail.  Add to this than basic knowledge would tell you that putting liquid in contact with a current is a recipe for disaster (or a burned unit), so I don't have much pitty for these two.

 

Gotta love the eulogies this guy will get.   "Johnny loved pissing...."

 

 

Take on the IKEA child rearing list

Might be time to stop trusting the Ikea bible on child-rearing.
Number 10 on their list involves keeping bumpers in a crib, which any
parent knows is a complete no-no Although honestly, it is completely
impossible to keep up with everything you are, and are not, supposed
to do for your kid

They have to be kept facing backwards, eating organic locally grown
food, kept completely away from any TV screen, spoken to in Mandarin,
read to in French and yelled at in Dutch. They should not eat Swedish
Meatballs, should not climb on furniture and should only go into a
ball out if is has been disinfected with an organic green cleaner

But this list really could take an update. Maybe they can include a
new one: don't let them choke on an Allen wrench

Take on the EZ Pass pullover

As if going to Long Island isn't frustrating enough, Is there anything
worse than getting to an EZ-pass lane on a busy bridge and finding
miserable traffic because some a-hole from One of those Five Towns
can't read??

I got stuck crossing the Throgs Neck the other day for what was
honestly almost ten minutes. The problem is that if you are
unfortunate enough to get caught behind this imbecile you are totally
screwed. They have all these signs threatening a fine and two points
on your license if you back up, so instead one guy's inability to read
a road sign causes me ten minutes of heartache

This is where the police can actually help, instead of writing a
ticket at the booth, how about using some common sense and having
these idiots pull over to the side.

Instead they scold the guy, write him a ticket and probably give him a
full strip search with an anal sweep while there is a line of traffic
building up from here to Merrick.

So officer, please have your little power trip on the side of the
road, it is a hundred degrees out here

Take on the foot fish tank

There are not a lot of things more unpleasant than cracked heals, so
today, I finally decided to do something about it. Forget the Korean
foot spas, forget epson salt soaks, forget the night time cream and
forget the no pain approach. I went for the nuclear option which
involves putting your dogs into a fishtank and letting some little
guppies eat away the dead skin.

The problem is that the second I dipped my feet into the tank, it
looked like a Chinese river with the water turning a florescent green
color with fumes coming off of it and within 5 minutes about 25 fish
laying belly up in the industrial waste

Good news is that my feet now feel like a 10month year old baby's butt

Take on the dollar steak

There are a few items, I wouldn't shop at the 99cent store for:
condoms, wine and steak but apparently I might be the only one
Just today, I drive past a place offering a 3.5ounce steak for a buck.
I am all into saving money but this isn't even a grocery store and
they may not even have refrigerators. It's like 50% off sushi, it's
just not worth the savings.
So, unless you are homeless, I cannot see this appealing to anybody
and I am convinced it is a channel 12 new investigative report

Take on the Gawker headline

When I read the headline on Gawker about the chicks in their 20's needing bigger bras, I got pretty excited.   Although I know I'll never actually get to see one in the flesh (unless they are hanging off of a pole), I do have a vivid imagination and the thought of a bunch of 20 year old hot coeds stretching their tshirts is enough to make me want to do 100 push-ups.

The problem was that the article (http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2465111) they were referencing included these stats

Sales of the larger bra band sizes 44 to 50 jumped 17% from 2011 to 2012, and sales of D-cup and Double-D grew 2% in the same period

Well, if that Gawker article wasn't more sensational, it could have been in the Enquirer.  Yes, chicks need bigger bra's but the only thing that matters is cup-size where large cups only saw a 2% increase in sales which probably falls within some margin or error or can be attributed to statistical noise

Where they really saw an increase was for the bad size, which means that chicks don't have bigger t!ts, they have bigger backs.  Last I heard, there aren't a lot of guys staring at chicks and commenting "man look at the back on that chick, she's got a girth of nearly 5 feet."

So, although technically correct, the fact that chicks with the same size cups planted on 10% bigger frames is a out as exciting as seeing Aaron Hernandez modeling them with his 52" back

Sent from my iPhone

Take on 92% humidity

Why the hell do I live in NYC? We don't have seasons, we go from
humid to rain to crap to three days of spring to humid. At 8:02,
four minutes since I left my house, my shirt is already wet. My
armpits are stained, I have this messenger bag bra line and my
terrible haircut looks like I'm impersonating a guido cause it looks
like it's gelled back

My balls are sticking to my legs, my thighs feel like two pieces if
uncooked chicken and my upper lip is soaked

Today is going to suck

take on the emergency text message

I have had my phone ringer off for the better part of 3 years, finding almost nothing more irritating than sitting next to somebody who gets pinged constantly when they get a text message, so i was more than a bit surprised when my own phone started buzzing like crazy today.   Apparently the government cannot just spy on your phone calls but they can also force AT&T and Verizon to send you some crazy messages about flash floods and hurricanes and also bypass my 'do not ring' command

Now although I do agree that this is probably helpful, what bothers me is that I didn't sign up for this..  I'm not even sure where the message is for, because I have a 917 number but live in a 201 area-code.   How long is it before they start sending me coupons for The Olive Garden or Mandy's.