Take on the green pool

The diving pool in the olympics went from light blue to lime green in about 12 hours and nobody knows why. I have no clue but I have to guess that they probably used a third rate filter or that maybe Michael Phelps has been hanging his sack in there in between races. But really there has to be some explanation because this thing looks like they are diving into the foot bath at the Korean foot massage place when I put my feet in it and let me tell you, there is nobody in their right mind who wants to dive into that face first

Take on Trump's "many people"

You know whenever Trump starts a sentence with "many people are saying.." we are in for a hell of a shitstorm. Trump's entire campaign seems to revolve around, or at least be stoked by, ridiculous conspiracy theories and whenever you see "many people are saying" it's like a dog whistle for the morons who believe this crap. Today he went with the already widely debunked theory that Hillary's email account lead directly to a murdered Iranian scientist but using his technique of saying without saying, Trump is able to change the narrative from one shitstorm to another, no matter how ludicrous the assertion. His "many people" are just the wackos on his Twitter feed who are like the voices he hears in his orange head and who have about as much credibility as those homeless guys yelling about 9/11 being an inside job, Elvis still being alive, Area 51, the moon landing (this one is actually likely to be true/false), Obama's birth certificate, Beyonce's clone, MH370 going to Kazakhstan (also likely to be true), the Sandy Hook dad being a paid actor and thousands of others. But Trump can say them because he's not really "saying" it, he's just a reporter telling us what is out there. We should be thankful for bringing this stuff to light

Take on the Russian doping thing

First a third of the Russian Olympic team gets banned from the Olympics because of widespread doping and now the entire Russian Paralympic team got booted for doping. The NYT had an entire expose recently where they showed how the doping worked with secret compartments which was ridiculous in both its complexity and its ridiculousness

This Putin guy can't be trusted with anything, Crimea, Syria, Olympic sports, Paralympic sports...I' calling it now, somebody check the Russian Special Olympic team

Take on the lame Olympic sports

Nothing sucks more than those lame Olympic sports that nobody cares about. I'm not talking about swimming or archery or dog throwing but the ones with professional athletes like tennis, basketball and golf. The Olympics is about the track and field and swimming events, not about the ones where a bunch of multi millionaires travel to Rio in their offseason to soak their wild oats.
First of all, these sports suck unless it's a major or an NBA final and since most of the good players don't come out, they suck worse. But that isn't the reason they really suck, they really suck because they just aren't Olympic sports, those sports are the ones defined by the fact that their biggest stage are the olympics. You couldn't get me to watch my own kid swim in a competition but I' glued to the TV to see some 6 foot 10 inch Ausie beat some bad-ass Chinese dude wearing pink shorts in the 400meter freestyle, I'd rather poke my we out than watch gymnastics, unless it's on NBC at 8:30pm in the summer and there is nothing less interfering than watch a bunch of juiced up meatheads run a 100 meter dash except when it's the biggest event in the world
I'll watch all of it but guarantee that if I see Carmelo or Venus or Jason Day that I'll turn it off because well, they all suck

Take on the Trump endorsement of Paul Ryan

We just watched Long Fingers Trump's full throated endorsement of Paul Ryan and genuine gratitude for John McCain's service and we have to say we're impressed.

There are four things wrong with that sentence. The first being "full throated" since it sounded more like an old lady reading off bingo numbers at the VFW, the second being "impressed" because it came a few hours after Reince Preibus and the RNC threatened to pull money from the campaign and this was obviously just him trying to appease them. The third being, "long fingers" since we all know the Donald has cocktail wieners for digits. The last thing was that the glowing part of the John McCain portion felt as contrived and painful as having to apologize for having peed on the seat of the handicapped stall.

But I guess for Trump, today was a good day.

Take on the odd connection

TiVo went on some kind of social media blitz today I guess looking for attention, and somehow they found it. They mentioned that Babe the movie about an adorable pig who travels to cities around the world was released 21 years ago, which seems like sort of an arbitrary number to
celebrate the occasion but what was more off was that they then polled their tens of followers the question what their favorite way to eat pig was. I have no problem with the poll but in conjunction with the story of the pig frolicking around in NYC, it seemed a bit odd

Then again, they got us taking, so something worked

Take on Newt

Newt Gingrich is a wretched human being whose name does him justice since he comes across as a slimy lizard but even he can see the trouble of his ways. Three weeks ago, people were talking about him possibly being Trumps's running mate and today he is saying that he isn't even sure he can support Little Fingers. This has to be one of the most strategic about-faces, I have ever witnessed because there is nothing that Trump has said this week that wasn't at least something you could have imagined him saying. I get the Kahn thing is bad, the "can't we just nuke the Middle East" this is terrifying and the entire just change jobs if you are being harassed is outrageous but really, is it any worse than what he's said before?
Why now, after everything he has said, would Newt drop out??? One reason...the polls. People are jumping off the Trumptanic as fast as they can right now and Newt is not going to be waiting for the string quartet to finish their last song.

Take on The US Olympic opening night uniforms

How the heck are we supposed to scare rebellion out of the Ruskies seeing white pants and boat shoes?
The US team unveiled there absolutely horrible uniforms that they will be busting out for the opening ceremonies and I have to say that unless they want to be stuck on an island with a fat captain and a professor, these are terrible

The baby blue jacket is lame, the horizontal stripes will make Carmelo Anthony look like he ate Chris Paul, the white pants only work on menopausal women and anybody wearing those boat shoes should be forced to drink the sewage water they'll be rowing in

Take on the pajamas

We often bitch and complain that all the luxury and fun has been taken out of flying with the security, hidden fees and delays but we should be fair when the airlines actually do something right. Delta now gives you pajamas when you fly to and from Asia, and not just some crappy set like those terrible socks they give you, an actual decent pair.
I learned a long time ago that if you have any hope of getting a decent night sleep on a plane, you have to get out of your jeans and put on pajamas, so for me this want new or even necessary since I packed my own pair. Nobody can sleep with their balls scrunched into their five hole and a shirt that you've had on for 24 hours straight. It's really the only civilized way to travel

Take on the missed connection

There really is no worse feeling in the world than sitting on the Tarmac with a flight delay knowing it will cost you your connection. Leaving Beijing yesterday, we hit some kind of mechanical issue, one they told us would be resolved quickly by just getting another flight navigation thingamajingy. The "quickly" turned into three hours of waiting and when all was set and done we departed three hours and 22 minutes after our scheduled departure which meant that I was definitely not making it home for Dancing with the Stars.
We land in Detroit at about 9pm and by the time we are at the gate it is 9:30 and the airport is basically dark. There are no other incoming international flights this late, so immigration is a breeze but 9:30pm also meant that there are no other outbound flights for the night. Imagine an A340 worth of people who have now sat on a 14 hour flight after having sat on the Tarmac for 3 1/2 additional hours after having gotten to the airport two and a half hours early flooding into Detroit with no connections.

The entire place is zoo as everybody is forced onto flights the next morning but it still means we need a place to crash.

Luckily, as a Platinum Medallion Delta member they get me a hotel directly in the airport while they force the rest of the herd to some Comfort Inn about 7 miles off the airport. I get to the hotel and there is a line of 1000 people in front of me with similar issues. Every schmuck is there because they missed a connection our of DesMoines or Portland or Beijing, nobody is at the airport hotel on a Saturday night at 11pm because they want to be there and they are severely understaffed. I grab an $18 burger and two IPA's and crash hard, my first decent night sleep in a week till I'm jarred awake by my alarm at 6am and now on Sunday morning, I am back at the airport again. Welcome home

Take on Peking's terminal 2

The only less inspiring than the "artwork" on the walls at the airport Hilton might be the entire feel of terminal 2 at Peking international airport. It's retro in the sense that everything is dark, old and stained and the entire place smells like smoke, so I guess it does have that going for it, but for a country whose goals has been to show the western world that it's open for business, it is shocking that this relic remains. It's like LaGuardia without the charm of a leaky roof, a crappy runway and a never-ending delay. In the US you expect crumbling infrastructure, poorly managed and ridiculously over budgeted rebuilding projects and shitty service but to get that in China is a slap in the face.

Take on the Peking Smog

I thought I got off easy this year when the city in Henan province when the sky allowed a little bit of blue to peak through but it all went to hell as I flew into Beijing. Looking out of my window from the plane with about 20 minutes left, we descended through a cloud towards PEK but unlike a normal cloud it didn't end as we descended. Instead we landed into what was some of heaviest fog I'd seen in years, the kind made up of PPM contaminants. If you see an Asian woman in the USA she often looks half her age, take the same woman and plop her down in China as opposed to Los Angeles and she looks twice her age in a year. The pollution is so thick you get bloody nose almost immediately and you can feel the grit in your teeth and in Beijing it is the worst because the city is located in a valley surrounded by mountains and the smog gets trapped and the only way the air gets conditioned is by people's lungs.

Happy sneezing






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Take on the ghost cities

Drive through China and you'll see cranes, you'll see concrete and you'll see what should be construction but you won't see people. It is odd that a country with 1.3 billion people living on the same landmass as the continental USA can have any empty buildings but there are thousands in every city and many more in "cities" that are unoccupied. You can't believe your eyes but you realize the Chinese don't plan for two weeks from now or two years from now or even two decades from now, they play for two hundred years from now. This is why their "city airports" are 60km outside of the city, because they know, that in time, that will be the city.
They have built roads and rails and airports and now are just awaiting them to be used, and they will, sometime. But until then it's a sad empty landscape of concrete and glass which if there wasn't so much smog, you might actually be able to see

Take on the chicken dinner

I walked into a restaurant today and was greeted by the sight of a dead chicken hanging  in the window is always incredibly appetizing, especially when it is 107 degrees outside.   When we cook chicken at home, my wife busts out the hazmat suits and anything that the chicken touches gets disinfected with rubbing  alcohol and a blowtorch but in China they don't even bother to refrigerate the thing and I doubt the wash their hands before they touch it let alone after they handle it.  

If I make it through the this trip without about six parasites, I'll consider myself lucky 

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Take on the Trump obsession

Will continue with our regularly scheduled "China is filthy" programming after this blog post but this just has to be said. Every time I open up the New York Times, it seems that every single opinion article is about the guy they all despise. I get that Trump's oversized ego and personality will help command the stage far longer than any politician ever could but he obsession is sickening. This Sunday's Week in Review had at least four of it's columnists write about Trump. It is as if there is nothing else going on in this world other than reporting on this megalomaniac which only feeds his ego further and leads to more outrageous comments which leads to more press and before you know it, you have spent your entire life on one orange faced man

Congrats NYT, your readership doesn't need to be convinced to not vote for Trump since they are, by definition, NYT readers but now they are all culprits in the obsession with him because they keep laying out the cash to pay for the paper

Take on the China Eastern First Class check-in counter

Nothing tells you that you are no longer in Kansas than when you get to China and everything you hold dear is gone. I went to check-in today for a transfer after getting off a flight and being a platinum SkyTeam flyer you'd think it should be a simple and pleasant experience but as should be expected, it was anything but.
First of all after landing in Shanghai for a connection to the heart of China is ludicrous. They literally make you leave the airport in order to check back in. Their concept of a "transfer station" is to get you to the sidewalk with the taxi line and then have to go up three floors to check back in. This is with all your bags after a 14 hour flight in the 100 degree heat.
When you finally get to the check in station, you see why this is still a communist country. It's not political statement, it's just that their concept of VIP means nothing. The service takes forever, they don't have an English speaking person anywhere in the section and they tell you the lounge will be a 25 minute walk to the gate which makes the entire experience about as pleasant as eating gizzard. But what is most telling is that their red carpet looks like the rug of an abandoned crack house. It has rips and cuts and stains and looks like it hasn't been washed ever. I don't care and don't need my feet to walk on rose pedals but what it is, if nothing else, is telling. You are no better than anybody else.

Take on the 14 hour flight to China

It feels like it was just a few months ago when I was last sitting in the lounge waiting to board a flight to Shanghai before connecting further into China but here I am again for what is probably my 20th trip to Asia. None of the travel bothers me much, I know what to expect what I'll see and eat and what I'll be up against but when you get a weather report of 107 degrees with a smog index of 100000 you know it won't be fun. The beauty of China is that you don't have to be that dressed up, most guys show up with dirty shirts and pants that are three sizes too big, so at least it won't be too stuffy but I am going to try to not leave the hotel once. If I can accomplish that it would be a miracle

Also, connecting in China is never easy so we hope to keep the TOR streak alive, we'll blog it every day but realize that we might be a few days late in posting if my VPN doesn't work like it should

Take on GNR part 2

TOR was there when GNR first reunited and played their first planned shows in Vegas and we'll be back in the audience tonight as Axl, Slash, Duff and a couple of guys with buckets on their heads rock out MetLife. From what we have learned since they boys reunited they have gotten tighter, faster and better at every stop and there are even some rumors of the boys going back into the studio for their first real studio album of originals since the Use Your Illusions from when I was still young, skinny and had hair down to my ass.

The other thing that we've learned is that, unlike two decades ago, they actually go on on-time which is blessing for a bunch of 40 year old dad's who have kid duty obligations in the morning.
We'll be rocking it out tonight, and somehow I doubt we will be the oldest, palest, baldness or fatest.

Take on the new NJ gas tax

For as long as I can remember, New Jersey has had some of the cheapest gas around often coming in $0.40 or more cheaper than it's neighboring states. Add to that the entire no pumping your own gas thing, and it's a wonder why people were aren't flocking to its rolling greens, beautiful beaches and array of smells on the turnpike. But today, the NJ Senate agreed to raise the gas tax by $0.23/gallon which means that the average person driving 15,000 miles per year and getting 25mpg will pay an additional $138 per year which is a small price to pay if they actually do something. The issue is they probably won't do anything and instead we'll all be giving the most corrupt state government around an additional $138 per person

But forget all of that, the most disturbing thing about this is the Tom Selleck Borat looking pornstar state senator who negotiated this thing.

Take on the LIRR part 2

Our first experience on the LIRR was absolutely glorious, we had a cold beer in hand, the twins left on time and we just generally loved life but not 10 minutes after we posted yesterday's TOR Everything changed

I live blogged it for a few buddies, here is the transcript

Now there are a bunch of meatheads discussing going to get lit and killing hookers

So much for this joy ride 

I just saw a 24 hour fitness 

Jesus, I just got up and these meatheads are in their 50's.   WTF is wrong with these people 

They are all doubling fisting, it's a commuter rail and it's 6:15

These dudes are going to hammered just in time to get home to beat their kids

Just switched trains at Jamaica, this must be what it feels like in purgatory  

I just saw another 24 hour fitness. Next to another 24 hour fitness

I like the fact that all the signs for shit out here don't even include an area code

Every thing is like

"john's auto parts 

445-2352"

Just heard some doucebag from Lake Ronkonkoma tell a story about his "fuckin kid hittin a fuckin homer during his little league game that fucking made the entire fucking stadium gasp in fucking horror"

Somebody just farted, it was either the heavy chick sitting next to me or her guide dog.   But it stinks 

There are a lot less hot chicks on this train than I would have thought 

This ride would be a lot better if the doucebag from Hicksville would stop blasting Storm Front through his headphones 

In my third transfer (fourth if you count the subway, that IPA seems like it was a century ago

The chick next to me (after my third transfer) is wearing those sneakers with the rounded bottom that supposedly help you tighten your rump.  It doesn't look like it is working

Better than the the conductor who just took my ticket had his short sleeve button down half untucked and had a huge coffee stain on it.   Classy 

Jesus, they LOVE above ground pools around here.  

Another 24 Hour Fitness

"Hey honey, should we take a dip?"

"Sure, let me just park the truck on the front lawn and throw a couple of Bud Lites on the grass" 

Another stop and I'll be there, God can somebody shut off the Storm Front album

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