Take on the LIRR

I have friends who live out on Long Island who do nothing but bitch and moan about how crappy the LIRR is but my response to that is, try commuting by NJ Transit Bus.
I walk into a train platform today at Hunterspoint Avenue 6:20PM for a 6:30pm train and it has to be the most pleasant experience of my life. No pushing, no lines, no standing in a 100 degree vestibule, no standing around at all actually. Just a friendly South Shore kid selling $2.50 beers with a smile and a "Thank You, Sir" when I told him to give me back $7

I could get used to this

Take on the Melania speech

The next First Lady of the United States is very good a a few things: looking hot, looking very hot and looking extremely hot, she is not, though, very good as original material. I don't bother to stay up to watch her speech after it felt that I had been berated by a very angry Giuliani although I did see clips of Donald's WWE entrance which seemed like it would have been worth saying up for. I did not see Melania which means I have still yet heard her speak although I can now catch endless audio clips of er speaking about being a black woman in Princeton. The way I see it, although I did not see it live, it seemed that it may have been worth staying up for, although to be fair, I already heard the speech once before.
We're now 12 hours away and people are still
Picking out plagiarized lines from that speech and our take is that as awful as it is, the act it came from Michelle Obama's makes it that much worse. Had this been taken from Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan, it would have at least been justifiable for the Republican base but not this, can't wait to have Trump tell us about his own childhood growing up in Kenya as a secret billionaire Muslim

Taken the delegates

I watch both the democratic and republican conventions every year mostly to see how ridiculous a bunch of white people can dress in the hopes of getting just a wink from some stiff like Mitt Romney or John Kerry. Today's coverage has not disappointed with a bunch of guys dressed like an elephant pooped on their shirts. The truth is that at the end of the day, there really is nothing all that momentous that will come out over the next week other than we are now clear where Scott Baio stands on the question of whether or not we should make American Great Again

Take on the mid summer family photo shoot

Not only did I agree to a full family photo shoot in the middle of the summer, I suggested we take the 11:45 slot in the middle of Central Park on a Sunday in the middle of July. This combination could make a grown man cry, and today it just about did. I was covered in sweat one block from parking my minivan after schlepping my family of five into the city today, before we even entered the park, my pits were a swamp and my balls were soaked and we hadn't even gotten to the park yet. I had spent fifteen minutes circling to find a spot, he maneuvered my double standard stroller past a piping pile of dog crap but still managed to get some on my shoe and was about to shove some ahole looking to sell me an umbrella

But hell really hit me,l when we entered the park. I had forgotten why every local was in the Hamptons this weekend because is 95 degrees and the park is swarming with tourists who are not at all concerned that I'm running late and that binding give a flying rats ass that they are looking for Strawberry Fields. And when I almost got run over by some dipshit on a CityBike, I just about lost it when I told him to shove his crappy bike up his Midwestern ass.
I had already spent my morning getting my girls dressed which involved me screaming at the top of my lungs for guys, had their hit brushed which was like the equivalent of taking a rusty rake through some foot high weeds and had threatened them with every thing I could think of to make sure they smiled during the session

I'll pick up my Father of The Year award next week

Take on the Trump-Pence logo

When Trump announced that Mike Pence would be his running mate we all knew he did it against his own judgement.   He wanted Big Chris by his side but apparently the Trump kids convinced Donald that Pence was the choice

What was more odd was the decision to unveil the new logo which looks like a gigantic penis breaking the seal of a gigantic sphincter.  If this isn't the perfect logo to describe how hard Trump is going to anally rape Mike Pence, The GOP and this country, I don't know what would be.    Hopefully Pence will bring plenty of lube although those small Donald hands prods my means it won't hurt that much. 

Sent from my iPhone

Take on salmon pants

There really is no worse look in this world than a fat where dude in salmon pants but somehow JCrew has convinced an entire generation on them that it's a look to go for. I walked through the ferry station today and caught wind of a dude whose ass looked like it was going to split the back of them like a salmon spawning which was only accentuated the sweat stains from his Bologna skin light blue button down, it was like the guy dressed like an American flag three weeks and 30 pounds after the fourth of July. Show some patriotism by not disgracing the flag next time, Tubby.

Take on the latest polls

The latest poll the NY Times referenced today shows Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in a tie in the generals election race which is the scariest thing I've read since it was apparent that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would be the Democratic and Republican nominees.
I would have thought the backlash after Brexit would have dampened the Trump fervor but like almost anything else it just encourages it further. I'm still confident in that Trump will never be president but I've been wrong every step along the way, so no reason to believe that will change any time soon

Take on Trump's final three

Friday will end Trump's quest for a VP and hopefully for him it will last longer than the one Ted Cruz chose right before his not sank.   There are three dogs left in the race, and I do mean dogs.   Mike Pence who has about as much charisma as the chick who works at the Rec department, Newt Gingrich whose fist name describes him perfectly and Chris Christie who has a first name that is also his last name and who probably ate a box of donuts since we started to write this blog

We have been on record for months that Big Chris is Donald's guy here, he has a matching bravado and temperament and fits the bill perfectly as he has the appearance of being strong on terrorism and crime even he isn't really.  He is a fatter louder Rudy Guiliani.  Many people think that it will be Pence but I don't see it, first of all voters aren't that stupid to overlook the fact that Trump is the anti-Christ in a cheap Chinese made suit just because he chose some lame social conservative who looks like the guy who somebody kicked him in the nuts and he told them that if they ever did that again he'd tell the teacher, even though he was 40 at the time.  Newt is interesting in that he knows how to divide a congress as well as anybody and that is exactly what a president Trump faces but he also has the stench of establishment all over him and Trump is dying to keep that stench off of that cheap suit and ridiculously long tie

So we stuck by our prediction, big Chris and Donald will be cozying up together come Friday, I'd hate to be the Bologna in that sandwich  

Sent from my iPhone

Take on #PrimeDay

I am about as loyal an Amazon customer as you'll find, with the UPS guys easily delivering ten boxes per week to my house. We get paper towels, toothpaste, cameras, books and chargers delivered regularly, we own the echo, three kindles and a fire stick and upload all out photos to the Amazon account but somehow we have never gotten into the AmazonPrimeDay thing. To be fair, I have never shopped on Black Friday or Cyber Monday either, there is just no LED TV for $99.99 worth dealing with a bunch of people who think that it is. But what always entertains me are the horror stories of people getting trampled, websites crashing and people getting stuck with a crappy TV they didn't want, so the PrimeDayFail thing is great

Take on Pokémon Go

Every third tweet I read today are about something called Pokémon Go which is probably coded for "weird Japanese thing that will ensure you will remain a virgin forever" but somehow it is taking on a life of itself. I have absolutely no idea what Pokémon is but I think it probably similar to beanie babies and those scratch and sniff panties you can get in a Tokyo vending machine.
But the "go" version is supposedly a virtual live action game or something like that and it will probably lead to a bunch of dorky kids getting run over by cars

Take on the minivan

I found out the hard way why a minivan is designed for a mom of three to pick up a bunch of kids and bring them to soccer practice and why it shouldn't be used for off-roading.

After taking a turn off of the main road, we found ourselves in the wilderness today, bright but mountains, green and hippies. The world looked peaceful but exciting and for the first time in years, I did what any Griswold was born to do, I took the road less travelled. The issue was that my 250 feet of gravel travel lead to the back tire of my 2014 Honda Odyssey springing a leak almost immediately which ended my off road adventure about 100 paces off the main road and I then spent the rest of my vacation day editing on AAA

Oh. The life I live

Take on the family trip

Every year when we decide to pick up the kids and head off to a week of R&R, it feels like the worst idea in the world. We pack up the minivan with more crap than most families in the world probably own, pull out of the driveway and before we hit the stop sign at the end of our block, one of my kids has to pee and I am ready to snap.
It's not just the right quarters, it's the whining, meaning, complaining and fighting what makes me want to stop on the side of the road, stick out my thumb and hitchhike to Idaho. I don't know how others do it, but I am not a patient enough to father to do this and not want to jab myself in the urethra with a used squeeze pack

Take on the police robot

The existential question of the day wa whether a police force should resort to warfare by using a robot to kill a murderer who is actively engaging in a bloody standoff taking out innocent people

I'll make this easy on everybody. Hell F'n Yes

Kill them

Take on the Trump Fundraising machine

Yesterday, the NY Times had a story about Trump finally picking up a bit of fundraising steam with a $26million dollar haul which was better than before but still woefully inadequate when it comes to competing against the Big Blue Machine. Almost immediately Trump had his one tweet asking his supporters to donate to his campaign. This took away the one endearing thing about Trump, the illusion that he was self funding this thing and that because of his he couldn't be bought. Obviously that was always an exaggeration at best but at least it was something that was at least partly believable, be when he is cozying up with Big Banks and Big Money, he loses the higher ground and that might be the crack this country will need to break down his Mexican wall of isolation. Then again, the TOR editorial board has been wrong on Trump more often than we've been wrong on bad tuna.

Take on Kim Jong-un's gigantic fave

I caught a tweet today about some new sanctions we are hitting North Korea with because of their disregard of anything humane. I won't get into the nuisance of the policy other than to say that Kim Jong-Un should be taken out with an exploding cigar, or in his case maybe an exploding pie.

Why is I find interesting N was that the photo of Kim that the NY Times used for their tweet was just a gigantic face, it's like they are mocking the fact that the dude has a head that would need a 38th parallel to encompass is fully

So Kim, have fun with even less crap especially in light of the stories that came out last week that it seems that even China has started cutting back on delivers into The North. But you better believe that the new Fast and the Furious ends up streaming into Kim's bedroom over torrentz.eu

Take on scromboid food poisoning

I went to lunch today at a place I eat at often, sat in the same seat I always do, had the same glass of water with lemon I always drink and ordered a tuna wrap which I often get. I'm there on a business lunch and as I take my first bite into the tuna, I think "this doesn't taste right". I added some extra sauce and chief down the rest of it and had my normal cup of coffee and continued my work lunch.
But all of a sudden, I felt like I got hit in the head by the flu, if the flu was wrapped in the Zika virus and fermented in Malaria juice.
I went from being able to concentrate to feeling dizzy and light headed, and just uncomfortable. I cut my meeting off short and walked back to work, aware that the bright sun was bothering me more than normal. I get to my desk and a buddy walks past and asks me if I'm ok, stating that my eyes are bloodshot and my entire face flushed. I look down and my arms look like they are morphing from fat cute kid Michael Jackson to freaky kiddie touching Michael Jackson. My stomach is red as a lobster, my arms are covered in hives and my entire body is shaky. Within a couple of minutes my arms look like Gorbachev's head and I decide to hoof it to my doctor. I run into the office and run into the bathroom and proceed to shit my brains out, like you are sliding into first and you feel something burst. They shot me up with prednisone and sent me home.
I walked back to work and got a car to go home and rest. The rash sort of spread and got worse and then better and then worse but by 5pm it was almost all gone.
My first thought was that I could be allergic to something but that would an odd thing to figure out at 40, especially when I ate the same food from the same place I go to often.
I did a bit of research and it sounds like there is some kind of scromboid fish food poising from eating rotten and detaining large finned fish like tuna and the symptoms sounded exactly what I went through: flu like, dizziness, face flushed, hives on arms and torso, short term but forceful diarrhea and facial rash.

My life is not very good

Take on the New World Order

Everything is right with the world again, the economy recovered from Brexit, France kicked the crap out of Iceland, my balls don't hurt that much anymore and Joey Chestnut is back on top of the competitive eating world.   I have to say that when they started the hot dog competition a few decades ago, they never imagined that a human would ever be able to put down 70 dogs and buns in a sitting. 

In 1978, the fourth year they had the completion, two dudes tied to win it by both eating 10 hotdogs   I knew a kid in High School who had 15 grays papayas in a single sitting with onions and kraut, I could even put down a 10 spot back in my college days. 

Now these guys are eating the equivalent of a calf wrapped in burrito.  

I'm just glad an American won it. 

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the pedestrian flow zones

The people behind Times Square must read TOR (or any New York bitch blog) and started putting up these signs to show slow walking tourists to keep on moving and get the hell out of the way. I'm all for the idea, and even would consider forcing all of these cheeseburgers from Wisconsin into a pen like they are doing to the muppets and naked Cowboys.
Maybe they can just designate areas where they can stand and have crossing guards try to et them from one pen to another

Take on the Ball Drop

A few weeks ago I was a happy, fertile forty old dude who would easily run six miles without any kind of support for the boys. I've always hung low, but somehow playing hacks sack with my sack while walking or running never bothered me, that was until I decided to go from fertile to infertile by having some quack cut my sack open.
After a week, my balls have that "20 minutes after having been kneed in the nuts" feeling. This sort of dull ache that never subsides. I also can't walk around without having some serious support, think of a chick with double D's jogging, that is what I feel like all the time now. On top of that, my sack somehow sunk further than before, I swear the bottom of my sack now touches the top of my knees. I am thinking the vas deferens was actually keeping them pulled up and now that I've cut the cord, they are just laying on the bottom of my scrotum and any slight movement means they are getting flicked.

My Life is So Incredibly bad

Take on the Black Lives Matter leader

I read an article about one of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement who was warning the Clinton campaign that they should expect protests at the convention

What I found most entertaining was not that DeRay McKesson has capitals where there shouldn't be and lower case letters where there should but that he apparently operates out of Aspen Colorado, easily the whitest white town in he affluent world. You sort of lose credibility when you are skiing on $1500 skis on a $350 per day ski pass
This is worse that that white chick who was the head of her local NAACP chapter