Too Much Information

One of the greatest attributes of the interweb is also its biggest detractor. The place is swarming with opinions, information and research but wading through it all is tedious and distinguishing between credible information and total garbage is time consuming and difficult and sometime near impossible when you cannot verify the source.


So much minutia and advertisement clouts and otherwise great medium but the bigger issues aren't about product information since there are dedicated websites like CNET which you can reasonably assume is mostly clear of bias. The issue is about the more important information like Medical care where TOR finds unbiased option completely missing.

I have done some searches on infant vaccinations since there are people who will link it to autism and for the life of me, I can't find anything I can reasonably trust since every option seems to have another hidden motive. This is where the Internet may give too loud a voice for the fringe groups because everything you read I have to be skeptical about.

What seems to be the only way to help make decisions is from actual people who may have real insight but finding that is near impossible. Websites like YELP or Yahoo! Answers try but I still find the information limited and its sources too difficult to verify.

The Twitter or Facebook status-updates give you some options but it is still limited in large by your circle. The best resource I have found is the ‘free for all’ section on a fantasy football website called FootballGuys but even there you have to wade through a ton of garbage to get to your best information.

But in the bigger picture the internet needs a card catalogue and a real way to pull the resources most important to you together.. I'm sure it's approaching but till Google invents this I'm stuck searching.
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going Postal

I spent 25 minutes waiting on an endless line today to basically beg a customer service rep to take my money. This is by no means an original thought but what the hell is up with the people who work here?


Maybe it's because they are forced to wear short sleeve button-downs which has to be emasculating or because they sell a service which goes for less than the Daily News but you have never seen less happy people.   They are also a very prideful bunch who will tell you that they can get a letter to California for $0.39 but won't tell you how long it will take or when you can expect it.  Problem is of course that the only thing you ever get in the mail is junk-mail, credit-card offers and catalogues.  Can't be too good for your psyche if you offer the kind of product nobody every wants to see.

The funny thing is that there is talk of a Post Office Bailout since they cannot operate without running some huge deficit. This comes from an place which prided itself on not needing federal funding to operate. I am so done with gimmicky bail-outs and hand-outs.  If you can't operate on your own budget either change your cost structure or get out of the business.  This goes for the PostOffice, the car companies, Amtrak and the Porn industry..
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Subway Hell

Not only do we have to worry about poodle-sized rats, fare increases and crazy homeless people we now have to worry about our fellow straphangers.
TOR was mortified when we heard about the. Brutal murder of a subway passenger for refusing to give up his seat late Friday Night. The victim had refused to give up a seat which he was occupying with his bookbag which although annoying does cannot be justified with cold-murder. This I have to imagine is every subway riders biggest fears, a psychopath attacking you while you are stuck on in a tin-can with no escape. It's like camp Crystal Lake without the Coeds.
One of the 'heroes' of the story was the train conductor who was credited with quick thinking when he refused to open the doors of the car when it pulled into the station keeping the killer trapped like a giant rat in a cage. One of the thoughts I had was that he not only kept the killer trapped but also all the other passengers stuck on that particular car with a guy who had just plunged a knife into the jugular of another man.
Another part of any story like this which bothers me is how the newsprint always looks for rational or reasons why this may have happened and will always find the one neighbor who will say "he seemed like a quiet guy, never said much but didn't bother anybody". I feel like you can get anybody to say that about anybody else they hardly know.
What bothers me more though are the stories that come out from family and friends with some twisted justification like telling the press the guy was laid off recently and thus very stressed. This is the biggest load of crap in my opinion, just because you lose your job or get reprimanded at work should not even be mentioned as reason to have killed a man.

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80's Hot

What is considered hot is always a matter of individual taste or perception. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but when you get uber-hot like Megan Fox there aren't many who will disagree.

When discussing the chicks most people will agree when it comes the general levels of her hotness although there are a few exceptions (Sarah Jessica Parker comes to mind) where most of the male population will come to a reasonable assertion while a smaller rogue faction which is apparently blinded by too many tequila shots will give you the exact opposite.
What some people consider hot others are disgusted by but nothing seems to exemplify
this more than the trashy look.

I have often argued that the trashy slutty look is one of the best and no decade did this better than the 1980's. Fashion travels in cycles but often gets grouped into decades.

The 50's had an innocence where long skirts met corsets giving a woman her shape, the 60's gave you a rebellious look fueled by free-love and herb, the 70's offered a pure example of when bad acid leads to bad fashion. They were all distinct and most people will come to the same conclusion when discussing the look of the decade.

The 80's on the other hand had a look which people tend to remember in very different ways. For some the hairsprayed, spray-tanned, leather pants and tight shirt look is pure trash while others see this as trashy-hot. .

So we a TOR propose to add a phrase to American lexicon: 80's Hot. This will describe the look some women still sport in 2009 which left with 24 hour music videos and cable remote attached to your TV with a long wire..
It's not for everybody but neither are anchovies

80's Hot isn't your normal hot, it's stripper hot.

80's Hot is chick on the hood of your Transam hot

80's Hot is Lita Ford

80's Hot is a chick who looks like she just smoked a pack of Reds and polished it off with a couple of gin-and-tonics and isn't gonna puke

80's Hot is NOT looking like you belong in High School.

80's Hot is a chick in a leather jacket and tight jeans. . I'm not talking fitted jeans you get today at some fancy boutique but a pair of stone-washed Levis preferably with holes ripped in the knees.

80's Hot is that out-of work stripper with a face that looks like it's gone through a war look.

80's Hot is where skankiness and hotness comes together like a car crash.

80's Hot is a Whitesnake video.

80's Hot is a chick who rolls down the street blasting Cherry Pie wearing a head-band to keep her hair-sprayed bangs out of her eyes.

80's hot is a chick who drinks and drives Budweiser in a Corvette

80's Hot is a chick who bangs instead of going to the gym.

80's Hot means never having to say sorry for bleach blonde hair.

80's Hot is a chick who take the midnight train to anywhere

80's. Hot is real cans or really bad fake ones

80's Hot is a chick who realized Coldplay sucks

Some will argue that these aren't example of hot but these are the same people who try to convince you there is nothing wrong with a man-on-man massage.
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those crazy college kids

A buddy sent me the following story about a bunch of college kids which I was hoping would involve multiple acts of sexual debauchery but alas it hit another nerve in the TOR universe.

• College Students Arrested For Refusing To Pay Tip



Should you be required by law to pay a gratuity if you don't think the restaurant's service was worth it? The police in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania think so, and they arrested two college students for refusing to pay a $16.35 tip over what they claim was poor service.


"You can't give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip," said Pope, a 22-year-old Moravian College senior who's a Pottsville native, according to the Lehigh Valley Express-Times.


They had to find their own napkins and cutlery while their waitress caught a smoke, had to ask the bar for soda refills, and had to wait over an hour for salad and wings, they told NBC10.


The pub, which was very busy that night, took the $73, but then called the cops, who treated the matter as a theft.

TOR has been a big backer for the fight against automatic gratuity and this once again proves that the law is on the side of the big corporations and not the individual. The auto-gratuity is complete racketeering as it forces you to pay a price for something that should be a service and doesn’t allow for anything.

Now this story above involves a bunch of college kids who are probably spoiled and disrespectful and the fact that they got arrested although not warranted for the ‘offense’ committed is probably justified for other crimes like peeing in public, smoking dope or having sex with underage chicks but it is time that this travesty is brought to the national stage. This comes down to highway robbery as the innocent patron gets taken advantage of by the lazy waiter. See there is no reason for the waiter to work any harder if his tip is assured, so like a union teacher he can piss in your mashed potatoes and still be entitled to this compensation. I go out to dinner very often with parties over six and –as long as the service is at least adequate- will always leave 20% so I’m insulted that I’m forced to pay something which should be left up to the discretions of the patron.

I’ve worked in the service industry, I have been a waiter and I typically tip very well but I don’t believe I should be forced to tip a certain percentage just because my party is 6 people. The cut-off is arbitrary as I am sure there is no data to show a party of 6 will undertip more often than a party of 5 would so if you are going to have a restaurant that forces auto-gratuity do it for everybody not just large groups and while you are at it change your name to McDonalds.

Are you Sirius?

It seems most new cars come with a Sirius/XM receiver built into the dashboard. They offer your six months of a free trial before you must decide if you will pay a monthly fee of a few bucks per month to have it continue to stream into you car and life.
I've had it for exactly a month and have to say that I find there to be almost no redeeming quality to it. Now I haven't concentrated very much on the music stations but this morning I spent 3 hours flipping between the talk stations and if the old adage 'less is more' holds true I think the same can be said for the inverse.
The people behind satellite radio are obviously using the model set by cable television and intend to offer virtually unlimited choice.
The problem I have is not with the concept but when your choice is between Wanda Sikes, Jeff Foxbury, some horrible morning Zoo show on the Playboy channel and the audio feed from CNN television or Sportscenter you haven't offered me anything. There are probably 100 some-odd non music stations and they are either dreadful or forgettable. Terrestrial radio may have it's limitations and obviously Howard Stern was given a King's ransom to bring satellite radio to the masses but listening to him after a 5 year hiatus for me was sad. Somehow everybody has convinced themselves that by cursing it will open up the format but instead it closes it. What years ago was a format which would allow for some imagination has left it completely exposed.
It's the difference of seeing a glimpse of a hot girl walking down the street and catching a bit of leg and turning on YouPorn and seeing some uninterested trut get plowed by some has-been with a limp winky. They have left any imagination out of the format. Howard 100 seems to dominate the airways but shows from the Playboy Channel are more blatant. Pornography is too easy to get today why do I need to get slapped across the face with it like I am a retard?
But my biggest issue is safety. I have to imagine that most people listening to satellite radio are in a car on route to work. Forget cell-phones and texting do we really need thousands of horny dudes taking matters into their own hands as they listen to chicks talk about some threesome while they are barreling down the interstate?
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The cruelty of it

First time fatherhood does a lot for a man. He learns that things aren't all about him and puts his life decisions in perspective. The lack of sleep is easily outweighed by the smile of your daughter staring at you. The added benefits include weight loss from lack of alcohol only makes the experience that much more rewarding as you help shape the mind and values of a person. You give up on most of your social life, realizing how much more important this little person is than going out and getting shitfaced.
The difficulty lies in not sleeping enough and losing most rational thought. The serenity of a smiling baby is a cruel mockery when you realize it can turn into top-of-the-lungs screaming almost instantaneously. The young father adapts and learns little tricks to help coax his baby back to sleep through songs, gentle rocking and improvisation.
There have been a number of times when at 4 in the morning, a father gets desperate having tried all the tricks in his repertoire. He even considers taking his baby out in her stroller or baby carriage as the confined baby while moving is almost always happy and will fall asleep quickly.. As a veteran of parenting will tell you an even better solution is the automobile as babies will sleep almost immediately when a car starts moving. Maybe it's the humming of the engine or the comfort of the bumps but a baby will almost certainly konk out when driven around.
In my desperation last night I though about the extreme, knowing I had tried everything at my disposal. I considered bundling her up and going driving, burning gas for the sake of sanity.
But alas.. I had a really good parking spot earlier in the night which in Park Slope Brooklyn is like finding gold.

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Fitted shirts

Obviously there has been this concerted effort of everybody in NYC to imitate the European chique and I quite frankly won't stand for it. I have buddies who wear tight $150 jeans, buy $125 fitted button down shirts and get their hair cut at places with a name like a bad Belgium martial art moviestar.. Now if you are actually European I will give you a pass but if you are a normal red-blooded American you better watch out because you have gotten slapped across the head with the gay.
Now I am not talking about dressing like a homeless person with newspapers coming out of every pocket or going to work with a ketchup stain but what the hell is with these fitted clothing on men?
I went to get a tuxedo fitted yesterday and saw a dude get his jeans taken in. WTF is wrong with you? Jeans come in thousands of cuts and sizes and you can't find a pair tight enough around your crotch? Fitted shirts is another thing, I get you have a need to feel your nipples get hard on the fabric but do you have to spend $150 to do so?

The saddest thing is that it seems every non-European who I see wear a fitted shirt also looks like they are smuggling Garfield under their shirts. So let me get this straight, you will blow well over $200 on an outfit to accentuate the fact you haven't been to the gym in a month.

Maybe my hatred comes from the fact that as I tried on this Tuxedo dude put a fitted shirt on me, I glanced over at the mirror and couldn't possibly have looked worse. I looked like a goddamned PEZ dispenser. I have this gigantic gravity defying head which in a fitted shirt looks like the Rutgers Mascot

MLIA
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Take Note

The "Metropolitan Diary" features anecdotal stories in the Times on Mondays about living in New York City. They are mostly about catching a bus cross-town or observing a quirky NYC moment but we at TOR have taken umbrage with the fact that it has too often become a column where prissy NewYorkers gloat about themselves. It's not uncommon for a writer to add a small glib of information which is irrelevant to the story but allows them to take a bow for being a good samaritan. We have read stories of people who had a bus-driver entertain them with a funny saying when they add a small detail like "while I was on the way to rescue dogs from the shelter" which turns your stomach.

Today's edition actually took a different take but contains three TOR strikes

Dear Diary,
On Oct. 9, my father, Richard W. Sonnenfeldt, who had been the chief interpreter at the Nuremberg trials and Hermann Göring's personal interpreter at the end of World War II, passed away.

As we finished sitting shiva, our customary week of mourning, and took the traditional walk around the block, we concluded with a regular breakfast, at Barney Greengrass on the Upper West Side. Just after we sat down, Caroline Kennedy sat down at the adjacent table.

During the eulogy at his funeral, I shared my father's most admirable qualities but avoided dwelling on the others. Steely and courageous and disciplined, he was not a man of soft or visible emotion. The only time I had remembered him crying was during the taping of the biography I filmed on his early years through Nuremberg, when he wanted us to remember the few good people in Germany who had saved others' lives, like those of my grandparents, at the risk of their own.

But during the shiva, other members of my family remembered another time my father had cried: one Friday night in November 1963 when President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. I had cried, too, they remembered, at the age of 8, wondering aloud what would happen to the president's young children.

John Jr. is gone now, too. But how odd that within minutes of ending the formal shiva for my father, I should find myself next to Caroline, who looked happy and radiant, even in casual clothes. I agonized over whether to invade her privacy with my story and decided against it, but I couldn't get it out of my mind.

Life goes on, and we should savor every coincidence that weaves the invisible fabric of life.

Michael W. Sonnenfeldt

Thanks for a copy of the phone-book.

First of all, this is not an obituary page.. Your father sounds like a great person and a swell guy but the minutia of his life story is not needed but more importantly your little addition makes me want to gag.

Why you felt the need to add your line about yourself at 8 can only be reasonably assumed because you crave attention. We understand that you were probably a remarkable child who had a deep understanding of the human psyche but please leave your self-serving fluff out of my Metropolitan Diary. The story (and your father's legacy) was fine without it and was made worse by it.

And lastly the fact you left Caroline alone isn't something to be commended but instead should be expected. Why you think that she needs to hear your sob story is beyond selfish, leave her alone you insensitive prick. The fact that he cried probably puts him in the company of millions of other Americans and if Caroline had to field every one of those stories she would no longer look so radiant.

I swear that I don't only read this section to police it.
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Forced castrations

Discussing the act of -and difficulty of- having babies with some friends got me to thinking that it's so difficult for some-people who are well equipped in their life situations to have babies while so many people ill-equipped are pumping out kids every day of the week.
I know we live in a free country but I truly believe that if you have screwed up with one set of kids and owe all sorts of child-support and alimony that you shouldn't be allowed another chance to procreate. I'm talking forced castration or at least beta-ray sterilization. We do it with stray cats, we should do it with stray dudes too.
I'm sorry if I sound like I'm starting a police state but in football you need to put pressure on the Quarterback if you hope to contain the offense and procreation amongst the stupid, the incompetent or ill-equipped should be no different.
They make you take a test to get a drivers license and made you passing typing to get a high-school degree but the only thing we had to do when we took the baby from the hospital was sign a waiver that we watched a TV program about 'baby-shaking syndrome". How they let a guy who's fathered kids multiple women without taking real responsibility walk out with a baby when you can't order Dominos without giving your name, address and phone number is beyond me. If you don't qualify to get a BestBuy credit card you shouldn't qualify to procreate!!!
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The guy who looks like he forgot to shower is going on trial

So the 9-11 mastermind comes to New York to be tried for the murder of 4000 people and the city tabloids are giddy with their coverage as the plaster his mug on their front pages. They obviously have a pulse of a country which is blood thirsty after having just put the DC Sniper to death. CNN.com asked whether he should be tried in New York and as somebody who generally appreciate the circus that comes with national stories you would think that TOR is in full support to have the trial in down-town Manhattan but this editorial board would prefer it to be held far far away.
The biggest issue is that there really aren't any thing you will out of this. If it becomes a trial like Slobodan Milosevic went through it'll just give a forum to the kind of psychopath who shouldn't be allowed a public access show

Secondly finding a jury of his peers might be hard unless we can dig up Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan and Dick Cheney.

I know people love closure although I can't see how anything clear of actually personally escorting Bin Laden to his 80 virgins will bring any closure. Just getting him to his virgins would be great especially if he shows up expecting chicks who look like they can make $800 a night at FlashDancers and instead leave him in a room full of female Pittsburgh Steeler fans.

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Politically Incorrect

I've been in a foul mood lately which I will blame on not getting enough sleep but its always leads to a crabby TOR blog.




If you are going to be 350lbs why bother to comb your hair? Some dude yesterday as big as a three people waddled through the halls of a building I was in and I noticed his Pat Riley do. Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't shave and bathe but why can't you care a little bit about your health (and our collective healthcare)

We have chronicled 2000 calorie meals at Burger King and rallied against people who add 5 sugars to a coffee. What I don't get is why somebody can spend hours fixing up their cars so it doesn't have a scratch or spec of dirt yet their arteries mirror the LA Expressways.



Lou Dobbs made a career of being a fat loudmouth opposed to illegal immigration when the biggest issue we face is that we're not seeing what's happening within our own borders -and waistlines. The long term detriment of a nation to fat too move is a much bigger issue than a Mexican busboy ever will be.

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Why do you get so much more for your money for basically the same service depending on only where you are?

A hotel room in Tokyo is three times what you pay in Atlanta, a steak in Detroit is half the same cut you may get in New York. Going to a movie in Los Angeles is double what it would cost in Charlotte.
Maybe you argue that you get more for your money than just the item but honestly that can't be enough.

What is the most outrageous though is that a bottle of Miller Lite at the Ava Lounge overlooking Tomes Square in NYC costs $8 while the exact same bottle in Columbus Ohio would cost me $2.50.  

There is no difference in the beer quality you are paying for the setting and the view.    I guess we pay a premium because arguably there is better eye-candy in NYC might be better than Columbus.  My problem is that the chicks probably aren't hotter than the chicks in Columbus so it's really only the setting which although cool is probably not 3 times as much fun as the Columbus bar.

You pay for atmosphere, location and hot chicks to stand in the same room as you.

This seems to be standard practice regardless of industry but there is one industry which doesn't seem to take setting or eye-candy in mind when setting their prices, the strip-club industry.

Have you ever noticed that regardless if you are at the Spearmint Rhino or Crazy Horse in Vegas, FD's or the Penthouse club in NYC where the girls are all A's with D's or you go to Franks Chicken House outside of New Brunswick where they are D's with C's you almost always pay $20 to walk through the door and $20 per song.
In other words you get either a girl who can pass for Roller Girl or you get a girl who looks like she went through the roller derby and you pay the same buck. This is the one industry which is all about looks yet their product all costs the same. All lapdances cost the same regardless of where you go and I can't figure out why because you wouldn't pay the same money for a Armani sweater as you would one from the GAP.

There is an old adage in strip-clubbing which states that you never get the hottest chick because she will not work as hard for her money. You obviously don't get the one with the stretch marks and ugly tattoos either but you scout to find one who needs to work for her money.

Maybe that means that all of the ones working in Queens are the equivalent of a street-cart vendor when it comes to effort
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Vets

What I’ve never understood about national holidays in the US is how exactly they think they are honoring anybody.


Today is Veterans Day and TOR would like to send out or heartfelt gratitude for the men and women in uniform around this world who are fighting for our country (however misguided some of the reasons we are there may be.)

All week I’ve seen NFL pregame shows held in Afghanistan, Mike & Mike broadcasting from a battleship in the NY Harbor or Lebron James sending out his well wishes to the troops which are all fine displays of support but honestly not nearly enough considering we have asked an all volunteer army to go back for tour-after-tour in Iraq or Afghanistan with very little support from anybody when they return.

The shooting in Fort Hood this week was horrible but what is worse is that these types of crimes on bases are far from scarce they happened way too often. Violent acts committed by service men and women are greater than what happens to normal civilians. Service men-and-women suffer higher levels of depression, have higher divorce rates and are more likely to fall into homelessness than me or you and a lot of it can be directly correlated to tours of duty in war-zones.

The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that these men and women suffer from is devastating for their families and themselves but the fact we ‘honor’ our men and women by giving them a day which most people use to go shopping or relax is embarrassing.


As a nation who covets its freedom, I ask

Why don’t we compensate these people better?

Why not offer them better psychological help when they return?

Why don’t we stop sending them for tour after devastating tour?

What always sits in the pit of my stomach is the fact that there are so many holiday’s which have become reason’s for car-dealers or electronics stores to have sales.

Look at Memorial Day or Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday; they are celebrated on Monday’s so that people can go away for a long weekend. These should be the kinds of holidays where kid’s are in schools learning about great people and great sacrifice not days to sit at the beach or hit the ski-slopes

It's not a library

I don't leave any magazine or books in my bathroom because I am a firm believer of getting in-and-out when it comes to somebody else's shit-house and don't want to give anybody any incentive to stick around.


Secondly there is the contamination issue. I have friends who won't touch the handles in the subway but would happily pick up a MAXIM magazine in somebody's bathroom. I'm not squeamish but the last thing in the world I want to do is get my hands I already know is covered in human excrement. What kind of civilized person wants to touch any page of a magazine which somebody may have used as toilet tissue 20 minutes earlier.

My old roommate told me he couldn't go unless he was reading something but when I refused to leave anything worth reading he took to reading the ingredients in the toothpaste. I would purposely leave crappy magazines in the can so he wouldn't rummage into my room for my stash. Poor kid read the same shitty copy of US Weekly for 2 years.



So people please.

 No reading in the shithouse: sit, squeeze, wipe and leave

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At least you’ll only need one meal per day

Watching a show on the Travel Channel the other day where they were going around the country trying for find the most fattening, greasy, highest calorie meals. They went high and low and finally came to some place called the Heart Attack Grill in Arizona which featured a sandwich called the Quadruple Bypass. This bad boy has Four Half-Pound burgers, soaked in lard with all the fixin’s and is paired with unlimited fries fried in lard.

They pride themselves on wheeling customers out of the restaurant in a wheelchair and any customer who weighs in over 350lbs eats free EVERY day. This is exactly what this country needs, the slobs who now have a weight goal so they can get fatter and more disgusting.

My buddy OCZed makes the following comment

I feel better now knowing that I will now be paying for the health care of the mouthbreathers that eat this stuff.

Going onto the Heart Attack website, I have to say that at least they are consistent.  In addition to their vaunted Quadruple Bypass burger their menu features Jolt Cola and Unfiltered cigarettes. So not only do they fatten you up, they ease your demise by burning your lungs and then getting your heart to race at 1000 beats per minute which can only lead to a 350lb slob keeling over.  Maybe it's their way of avoiding too many of these fatty's from eating them out of house and home with their Eat Free deal.

I know there are arguments against health-care with preexisting conditions but having cholesterol over 200 should not be treated in the same way as having cancer in your family-lines. There are some things you have no control over and there are some things you do.

I actually feel for (gulp) the insurance companies who have to insure somebody with a cholesterol level higher than the total hits Ichiro averages in a season. Seems to me that if you are not going to give a crap about your own body then why should anybody else? We should go to each of these households and rig up a stationary bike to the TV so that the energy needed to power the TV must come from some slob riding the bike.

Discusing this entire thing with a group of friends one of them mentioned that even Burger King now offers a triple Whopper meal which comes in at 2000 calories. At least the Heart Attack Grill is a novelty, this is a major chain restaurant with locations in every town of this country. 
What does this say about our populatin when they are the same amount of calories in a single meal  what is recommended as a daily diet.  

A single meal of 2000 fucking calories, if you have this as a regular part of your diet you deserve to die.

Health Care 101

Early this morning the House of Representatives past their version of health-care which regardless of how you feel about the thought of universal care was historic. TOR had a few observations

- CNN reported at about 11pm that they had learned of 39 democrats who would be voting against the health-bill.. They described them "not as typical' democrats in the sense they were pro gun, anti abortion, anti-deficit and obviously anti universal care. I guess they are considered Blue Dog Democrats although in my world those would be called 'republicans'.
It seems a bit strange to be against the main four platforms of the entire party but still be considered a member. This is like claiming you're a porn star but refusing to give BJ's or do anal.. The Democrats will take anybody apparently: from liberals to conservatives, from god hating to god fearing, from blue dogs to blue cross and from the most corrupt to batman.

- I don't think there was much Republican support for the bill so it proved again Obama's ability to bring people together.. Too bad for him he brought those BlueDogs together with their Republican brethren.

- immediately Obama sent out a 'personal' email thanking his email-rolls for their support. Maybe he didn't realize that TOR philosophically disagrees with having health-care tied to your employment so not sure how personal that personal message was after all.

- I also noticed the email asked for a donation of $25 or whatever you could afford to continue the fight as the Senate votes on their bill. Wouldn't that $25 be better spent (or saved) to pay for increased copays? Especially for the 10% of people who are now unemployed.




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Why waste my airtime and more importantly my real time

There isn't a more meaningless costly energy-wasting irritant in this world than the cell-phone voicemail. I know there are probably people who disagree but I cannot think of a single reason to spend cell-phone minutes to call my voicemail to only get a message like. "Hey dude, call me back"

1- it's a cell-phone which shows a missed call as soon as you pick it up. I don't need a second reminder to call you back. If I don't call you back it's not that I forgot but more likely that I don't want to. ..

2-there is already a superior method of communication through a cell-phone and it's called a "text message". Checking a text message is quicker and easier and unless you can't yet email or MAYBE if you still have an email address which ends in @aol.com you should be almost exclusively using text

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Netiquette

As the regular TOR reader knows, the editorial board has two hard and fast rules

1- We hate everybody and everything
2- We invite everybody and everything to use the platform to pitch and bitch


We got an entry for our regular 'Relief Bitcher' section yesterday from TOR reader (and soon to be groom) as the starting bitcher has gotten a bit gassed late in the game it's time for the manager to call in his big-guns.

The stereo-system blasts U2's "Beautiful Day' as righty Philphy Ryan jogs in from the dugout.   Ryan's got a 2-5 record, a 4.13 ERA, a crappy haircut, a hot fiance, 6 holds, three blown saves and a 1.29 WHIP but it's a 1-10 blowout game and the fans are looking for some excitement so here it goes:

I’ve got quite a few serious pet peeves when it comes to netiquette but there are two that drive me insane:

Evite and two things within Evite. People who look at the evite and don’t respond. Why look at it multiple times and say not even say maybe? You know the organizer can see that you’re looking at it every day right? It’s like the young teenager who goes into the magazine store and loiters near the porn mags pretending to read fly fishing monthly! That’s why I never open an evite if I’m not ready to respond. The other thing I hate in evite is when people make changes (picking the actual location or changing the time or whatnot) and send out an ‘I made changes’ email. Why can’t you make a note of the changes in the email so we don’t have to click on the bloody link? Seriously!


BCC – Staying on the party scene, why do people send out invitations to meet up and BCC everyone? I make a point of not replying if I don’t know who else has been invited. Is it an intimate affair or a blow out party? What if there’s some idiot I want to avoid? Probably the one sending the damn email to begin with. You see, the distribution list is critical in making an informed decision about attendance. This is especially true in NY where there always seem to be conflicting parties and dinners. It’s somewhat similar to sending a text message and saying ‘hi everyone, wanna meet up?’ This gives me no details and doesn’t even get a response. Also, I’ve noticed the BCC crew (I’d use an acronym for BCC but the first C rhymes with runt and the second one rhymes with hunt), do this BCC thing for everything! Articles, requests for info, filling in a survey, etc. Is there some secret BCC society where nobody knows who else is a member cos for obvious reasons?!?!?

Musical Chairs!!!

Opposite Side of the Street parking in New York is like a giant game of musical chairs expect in this case there is only one chair and about 30 people looking to plant their oversized ass on it. I have spent so many hours looking for a parking spot due to all the street-sweeping regulations that I’m ready to rip my hair out as I drive around the same block for the 10th time. I know I drive a hybrid so in theory I’m not burning that many gallons of Saudi bought oil but the aggravation of not finding a spot isn’t offset by that fact.

The problem with these parking situations in these yuppie neighborhoods is that there are easily 100 more cars than spots so you can’t ever just drive up and find a spot. My neighborhood continues to build huge 100 unit condominiums which comes with 100 new yuppie couples with 100 new puppies or strollers but most importantly usually comes with maybe 20 new cars. This is where the city of NYC has it all wrong. We pride ourselves with the fact that so many people use public transportation so I’m sure we use less petroleum per capita than the rest of the country in our commutes to work but then there aren’t nearly enough spots so we burn our petroleum not on an 8AM commute but instead an 8PM game of Duck-Duck-Goose.

I refuse to go to a parking lot because like George Costanza said ‘You don't understand. A garage... I can't even pull in there. It's like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay, when if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free?’ What I have considered the Seinfeld-esque idea of paying somebody to find a move my car during street-sweeping days but I’m not sure about giving my keys to some nut-job.

So although I feel dirty about using a parking lot, I have come to the point where I would pay somebody for their spot on the street. I’ve spent a good two hours of my life in the last few weeks circling around my block and have really considered pulling up to somebody who just pulled into a spot and offering them $10 for it.

one last thought, which genius the the NYC parking spot department decided that all the streets cleaned on Monday's and Tuesday's are the same sides as the fire hydrants which means that on the days there are two or three less total spots per block