No complaints today

Enjoy your day

Take on the wallmart alert

I don't need an alarm clock to wake up, don't need somebody to tie my
shoes and sure as hell don't need to be notified of every movement a
pack of socks I ordered online makes but somehow Walmart decided that
this is something I want. Last week when I ordered something i
started getting text messages alerting me of the status
I don't mind getting an email confirmation but who needs to be
bothered with a buzzing sound when my package hits the local UPS hub.
There are so many things we deal with I'm more than content leaving
package tracking to a less invasive process

Take on Erasure

Cathy No who runs a pseudo-blog/Internet forum available by invitation only mentioned listening to Erasure early today and asked if I'd ever been.  I told her I did and that it was quite possibly the gayest thing I've ever been apart of (NTTIAWWT) and that's coming from a guy who served as a minister of a gay wedding, talks about women's shoes constantly and went gay bar hopping with a friend (chick) a few years ago where I saw a dude's unit which literally hung to his knees.

 

It was probably 1999 right after the Cowboy album came out which is probably remembered as the gayest Erasure album of all time -which again is saying a lot- for those who have not had the fortune of listening to it, I could describe it as a song and synthesizer made to sound like unicorns jumping through rainbows while angels and fairies dance around a pond.   Now I was no stranger to New Wave concerts having seen Depeche Mode that same year and the combo of Boy George, Human League and Howard Jones a few weeks before that.   I owned every Kon Kan CD, every Anything Box album and every Pet Shop boy song at that time so I knew what I was getting into..

 

Well regardless of my knowledge of what I was getting myself into, when I walked in to Radio City I was met with a wall of gay I'd never seen before.. there were dudes in chaps without pants on, there were dudes in cowboy boots and a thong, there were dudes wearing shirts so short and tight they looked like a running-bra, dudes were slapping each other on the ass, guys were wearing more makeup than Boy George did, there were dudes giving each other BJ's in the aisle,   Between all the male ass I saw, the total disregard of privacy during hand-jobs and the smell of sweat I felt like I was in the sauna a NYSC..   During Always which is quite possibly the gayest song off the gayest album from the gayest musical group there were literally orgies happening on the velvet seats and everybody thinks Eagles fans are bad during the draft.. 

They played for like 2 hours and then a bunch of my buddies went to the after-party where I think they met Vince Clark and Andy Dick but believe it or not I was Erasured out by that time..

 

Great show by the way.. would do it again

Take on the transit check

My company has always offered TransitChek to help pay for commuting costs.   It used to literally be these huge ridiculous paper checks that you had to present at a window to get a buspass or a metrocard but they've since upgraded to these handy prepaid VISA cards.  Not a bad concept since you get a prepaid value of $100 or whatever on them and you use them until your balance hits zero.. the issue I have is that when you hit zero you just throw it into the garbage which is a gigantic waste...literally and figuratively.

 

Every month the lady working in HR gives every person at my office a new prepaid card, she records who got which card and when it was given out and how much money was on each one, the next month she washes, rinses and repeats.    Why can't they figure out a system when every person gets their card and TransitChek just automatically adds to it each month, this way you aren't literally giving out cards every month.  

The HR department could just go online and just enter

Mr. Righetti jr. would like to add $120 

Mr. Righetti sr would like to add $130

Mr. Francessa would like to add $80

Mr. Moishe would like to add $0 because the private buses don't take it 

 

this would be easy and efficient.  I have no doubt the cards can take the abuse since the life of a credit card is easily 2 years before the numbers on the front and back strip start wearing out..

Take on the bachelor party after-effects

I have gotten old and nothing proves that more than the fact two days after a weekend bachelor party I still feel like dog-crap.   Sadly though it's not some prolonged hangover being that I probably had 4 total beers and no shots.  I am still shot because as part of the activities I got to share a room with a few buddies and an oversized panda.  I hit the pillow at 1AM and I sweat i stared a hole into the ceiling because the panda snores like a goddamned machine gun.  

Sleeping (or trying to) next to an animal suffering from sleep apnea is complete torture because the noises that came out of this thing were like trying to fall asleep with a dripping sink except instead of a drop ever thirty seconds it sounded like somebody turned on Niagara Falls

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the 145th street escalator

For 10+ years I have taken the uptown D train and transferred at 145th street for the last leg to the GWB on the A and for 10+ years I have noticed that the escalator is out of service.  Now I don't really care since I've never had to actually go up to the street level at this station bit it is telling that for all those electronic signs, red vests and extra large rats the MTA likes to hang its hat on, they can't seem to ever get a simple escalator working

Then again maybe it's all part of Bloomberg's plan to get Spanish Harlem into shape

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the new MTA public service ads

You gotta love those public service ads on he trains,  you know those MTA beauties with little stick figures giving dire warning against riding between cars or giving to the homeless.    Well the latest one is one warning strap-hangers from standing too close to the platform edge as you boils get killed by an oncoming train.  Pretty solid advice I would say although it has to rank up there with 'look before your cross the street' or 'wrap up before you bang a Brazillian prostitute'. 

The thing is although this is nice advice, I can't imagine anybody reading this thing and thinking 'woe that is really good information, I should not do that anymore'    My guess is out of the 147 accidents, 145 of them happened to some drunk kid or some strung out meth-addict

The other two were probably pushed by homeless people.    

If you are falling down drunk I doubt a little sign is going to make a difference so the only one they are protecting are the ones getting shoved by the craze homeless dude so maybe they should change the sign to say. "stay away from the edge when a dude who smells like rotting flesh with 3 huge hefty bags full is walking on the platform'

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the broken coffee pot

I am no engineer but would think that after 10000 years of modern
civilization we could have figure out how to make a coffee pot by now.
I don't care if you are in Boston, Paris, Hong Kong or NYC, I have
yet to find one which actually pours directly from the spout into a
cup without having the ants and cockroaches feel like they have to
pair up. There is just something wrong when an act as seemingly
simple as pouring into a cup turns into a complete clusterfuck but
that is what happened today when I managed to get more coffee on the
counter, on the floor and the front of my pants than actually inside
the confines of the porcelain

Take on the new breed of meter maid collectors

Is it just me or does it feel completely shady every time you see a
parking meter collector? These guys walk up to the meter with a huge
set of janitor keys, open up some compartment and all of a sudden it
sounds like they hit a jackpot in AC. The thing is that they don't
wear any kind of NYC uniform, the dude today was sporting a straight
bill baseball cap, a brown tshirt and a pair of baggy shorts, he was
dressed like he should be hanging out on the boardwalk but instead
collects thousands of dollars per day.

Take on the dirty gyro

Once or twice per week I have indulged in one of the true delicacies
of New York City, the dirty gyro. There are a number of carts city
wide but for my dollar (well $4) there is no one better than Mr Kahn's
up on 45th street. He piles the meat high, his lettuce is green and
the pita is fresh. A buddy used to say that it was the best $4 you
could spend because you filled up for lunch and it came back to you
for dinner so it was like getting two meals for the price of one.
Well today some old-hag decided to ruin my day by jumping the curb,
hitting a hydrant and slamming her foreign car into these patriots who
sweat over a burning hot griddle to make sure the white-collar workers
of America are fed so they can make sure the banks and insurance
companies run smoothly

I'm hoping to see these two guys back on their corner tomorrow because they
make the best piece of processed lamb this side of the Mediterranean

Take on Dodd Frank

We have a lot of issues with over-regulation and a lot with under
regulation and feel like there is probably a happy medium somewhere.
This editorial board never felt Dodd-Frank properly accomplished this
for both what they left off and what they tried to babysit to a fault
But one thing that came out of that WR did appreciate, I believe as
part of a consumer protection they are making credit card companies
show exactly what paying the balance off in small increments could
really mean.
I won't excuse poor decision making or an inability to live by a basic
budget but for somebody who is very careful to limit m debt and live
within my means I thought this small addition to my statement was a
welcome and worthwhile addition

Knowing that it would cost me an additional $400 over four years to
pay off a $750 bill should tell even the most careless spender that
the flat screen they bought on sale has very quickly turned into a
pretty bad deal

We believe that there is a place for some regulation to avoid the
cluster of 2008 but it can't be done to the detriment of a healthy
economy and there is always a place in government for consumer
protection and protection of health, environment, food and drugs

take on Bank of Idiots

When I had to transfer my car's registration from one state to another, I was sure having to deal with the DMV would be the most frustrating portion of the transaction.   Although this cannot be a very complicated manner since people move regularly, the thought of having to deal with two seperate DMV's was beyond frightening..   Well I was (un)pleasantly surpised when the DMV portion seemed to be fairly straight forward and easy.. not because the DMV has made it so easy but instead because the Bank who holds the title of my car is run by a bunch of idiots.

I sent over all the relevant information to Title Support at Bank of America three weeks ago.. It was a pretty simple request, one which I assume they get often but one that they can't seem to perform easily.   Two weeks after I put in my request I still had not heard back from DMV and when I called them they told me they were still waiting for my bank to send the title.  I called Bank of America and after being ping-ponged around their automated system and finally speaking to a rep, I was handed over to the property title division which apparantly is NOT the same one which handles car titles.  They finally get me to the right spot after three transfers and a bunch of hold times and I speak with a guy who informs me that they tried to reach me last week but the phone number on my request was incorrect.    I asked them the number they had on record and they gave me a mangled version of my own.   Now I can understand that we can have typos and user error but I've been a Bank of America customer for 20 years having gone through the Fleet and NatWest versions so you would think that somewhere in their entire system which includes checking account, savings account, car-loan account they would be able to cross-reference my account and get my cell-phone number, work-number or email address from somewhere, God knows they send me enough junk mail and spam.

anyway they told me they'd call me back within 2 days to settle this...

fast forward five days and surprise surprise I still have not gotten any call from my dear friends over at BoA...  I call over there again and after doing the automated jumble again finally speak with some broad who tells me they tried to contact me on Wednesday but that the number was wrong..  these jackasses corrected the number on the request but STILL CALLED THE INCORRECT ONE.

absolute idiots.

Take on the new NFL uniforms

As disgusted as I was watching this woeful Jets offense last night
during beatdown they received on the hands of the Giants during the
annual pre-season battle, the only thing that kept me from throwing my
beer at the TV was the fact my eye kept getting distracted by these
new terrible uniforms. The fit is fine, the colors are adequate but
what really bothers me is the little Nike swoosh on the shoulder,
it looks like you are watching the game through a mirror. I know the
NFL signed some billion dollar deal with Nike to outfit their players
but even for a billion dollars they still look like their made in
China.

Whenever they show a player's right shoulder the swoosh looks is
reversed and it looks ridiculous. I figure they are trying to make
the uniform balanced so that both sides look identical but if that is
the case they would also have to reverse the number on that shoulder
which they (obviously) didn't do. So they are hoping to have their
fans spend $60 to $400 for jersey's and they will all look like they
are knockoffs, real smart!!!

Next time they do one of these uniform designs maybe they should bring
in the average asshole to give them some advise

Take on the gangbang teacher

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

take on the AM New York vendors

I've worked in NYC for about 15 years and commuted from a place other than Manhattan for about 12 of those and can proudly say that in those nearly 3000 commuting days, I have read AM New York less than 10 times.  It's not that I'm anti tabloid newspaper (as I read the Daily News fairly regularly and will check out certain sections of the Post to make sure I'm up to date on my fashion trends and celebrity gossip) but have yet to feel like I need to regularly pick up the free one that homeless people hand out as you walk in and out of train and bus stations.   I'm not squeamish generally but anything handed to me by a person whose last shower was probably in the 90's is just not something I do especially since I don't typically wash my hands before I grab an egg-and-cheese from one of the grease trucks around the corner from my office.   I do applaud them from having jobs and quite frankly I'm impressed by it but just haven't come around to reading their rags.   I have though taken note on their selling techniques, this morning for example one dude up at the bus terminal on 175th street sang "AAAAAM  NEWWWW YOOORK" which was a fairly pleasant method, the guy down on 47th-50th street subway stop kept yelling "take this paper so I can go home" and the guy by Port Authority likes to shove it into your gut like you are a running back taking a handoff.  There is a dude near Bryant Park who will tell you that if you don't take his paper he'll beat you with it and there is a dude downtown who sneezes constantly so you hope the paper has an article about curing Hepatitis because by the time you get to that section you will likely have gotten it.

 

 

 

 

Take on the Cemetary

I't feels like I've been to way too many funerals in the last few years, some very big ones, others more intimate but one thing and all of them incredibly sad.   One thing which I always think about when I'm standing in some huge cemetery is that it really bothers me that the onlookers -myself included- are always crowding around to pay our final respects and inadvertently standing right on the closed graves of other people as we watch them lower the coffin of our fallen friend or relative into the ground.    It just feels so disrespectful that there are 50 people standing right on the plot where somebody was laid down for eternal peace and even more awkward when you see somebody leaning against a headstone or using it to hold their purse or jacket.

 

I know that cemeteries have gotten very crowded but really can't we find someway to have a funeral for somebody without standing 6 feet above somebody else?

 

Take on the sped-up iTunes option

In general I like all thing Apple, the interface is clean, the
applications easily integrated and the operating system second to none
but there are a number of things which I don't quite understand. One
of these things is the ability to speed up the playspeed of a audio
file. I was listening to a podcast the other day while running and
all of a sudden it sounded like Jacob Goldstein turned into Alvin.
Now we all know he's got a terrible radio voice but having it sped
like he's ODing on crack up doesn't help.
I am all for efficiency but don't quite get the allure of this because
when would you ever want to listen to any recorded track at 1.5x
speed, it's enough to make you want to poke an ice pick in your
eardrum.

Take on the United States of Obesity

When a brand new map was released showing the states where you are
most likely to have to share part of your seat with a fellow because
their ass can't fit in their own space, TOR was asked to evaluate.
To no surprise to anybody places like NY and California had a very low
level of obesity while the south proves once again why the lost the
civil war. These slobs spend their entire time screaming about the
athletic accomplishments of young black football athletes while
spending no time making sure their own kids get off the couch. On top
of everything this is a self reported study and most slobs will
underestimate the amount overweight they are so I am sure that the
real numbers are easily twice as high.
But this is the beauty of this country where it is all about personal
responsibility except when it comes to health because these slobs are
the reason the price i pay at a buffet costs twice what it should

Take on the low trajectory fountain

Can somebody explain to me why the guy whose job it is to rig up water fountains doesn't set the trajectory of the water to a level where you can at least have a chance to hydrate without having to FrenchKiss the spout?   You have to contort your body like some Chinese Gymnast and then stick you tongue out hoping to get a few odd drops without actually touching the hardware 

The problem has always been that these low-spouting water fountains are always located in some public place so when which ensures you are basically sucking on homeless junky ass.  

Sent from my iPhone

Take on The double R

We've stayed away from the political commentary lately partly because it's lame, partly because we're not sure what perspective we are really adding and mostly because we are already burned out by yet another 'most important election' of my our lifetime

By with that said when I turned on NBC yesterday morning hoping to catch some of the Olympic archery I instead got some Mitt Romney rally where he announced Paul D Ryan as his running mate ensuring the ticket locks up the cranky white guy vote.   I am not sure how bold the move is on policy but it sure as hell wasn't bold when it came to trying to appeal to a broader demographic.  He could have gone with Marco 'don't call me Ricky' Rubio that weird looking Indian Mr Rogers or that one HP broad who gets mentioned during every search kind of like Denny Green. 

But never before have two whiter people stood on one stage together and my buddy Bump kept commenting about a very uncomfortable looking black couple sitting behind the stage and observed that they probably meant to go to the Obama rally but made a wrong turn. 

But really this was a bold move, sort of,  because the one thing Ryan has done is lay out an economic plan which four years into Obama we are still waiting for.  The two problem with Ryan's plan is that they say it would gut Medicaid and welfare which obviously won't help the ticket in the swing state of Florida and because he (like anybody else Mitt would have chosen by the way) will make the electorate realize how lifeless the top of the ticket really is

Then again maybe he uses his 

middle initial to try to sway the old people back

Sent from my iPhone