Take on the Starbucks holiday Christmas cups

There is nothing lamer than a company like Starbucks caving to public pressure to rid themselves of all signs of holiday fun. This time the PC police convinced them to get rid of such offensive displays like snowflakes and reindeer because nothing spews religious intolerance like these universally insensitive symbols. Instead of sharing some Yule time cheer, Starbucks is going to go with plain red cups and are inviting to have their customers "create their own holiday theme" which is about as lame as charging $5 for an iced coffee

I hope Santa drops a bag of coal in their loafers

Take on the pretentious father

I was at the playground yesterday and was talking to some dude who was a cross between Jeffrey Katzenberg and Jeffrey Lebowski who was at the playground with his kid

Dude " what is that jacket your daughter is wearing, it looks like a cow, it's cute"

Righetti. "Oh, it's a Paw Patrol jacket, Marshall the fire dog, you know the tv program?"

Dude. "Oh, that's why I didn't recognIze it, we don't let little Lucas watch TV"

Righetti "oh, yeah well we have three kids and it's the only way to prepare dinner sometimes, how many do you have?"

Dude. "Lucas is it, he is our everything and just the thought of his mind being corrupted by tv would crush our soul, Victoria is a leading psychotherapist"

Righetti "wait, you named him after Luke Skywalker, right?

Dude "the mind of a child is so impressionable that it's important we allow it to grow with the body, information is its food"

Righetti. "Yeah, I guess but sometimes you need a few minutes"

Dude "totally, it is just a choice we made, we believe that we want to keep him entertained in ways that expand his mind"

Righetti. "You realize your kid just picked up a piece of gum off the floor and just stuck it in his hair"

Dude "lucas please give that to Papi, we are trying to let your hair grow, it is almost to the point we can braid it"

Righetti. "He'll be fine"

Dude "we just don't believe screentime is healthy, it leads to all types of disorders"

Righetti. "I can't get through a dinner at a restaurant without popping on the iPad"

Dude "I do see that in restaurants, mostly chain types."

Righetti "I think your kid just pulled down his pants in the sandbox"

Dude "But it's really just a choice, and there is not right choice with parenting. We have read every book there is, and wrote a few ones too hahaha, and it's just so powerful to use books and language to push their creativity"

Righetti. "Yeah we love reading to the kids"

Dude. "Yes of course, Children's books are fun ways of distraction. We are starting Dickens with Luke this week, he loves the descriptive nature of the written word"

Righetti. "Your son looks like he is two"

Dude. "He's actually three, he is bit stunted but his mind just grows with literature, we are almost through Moby Dick"

Righetti "we like Judy Moody, she has a brother named Stink"

Dude. "That is so funny, I haven't caught that one but I am sure it is great, maybe we'll introduce that when we want a lazy Saturday"

Righetti. You looked like you are 60, did you watch TV as a kid?"

Dude "I have to run, we have a kale party to go to, every household brings a different kale dish and we use the opportunity to speak only in Mandarin"

Righetti. But you are white?

Dude "never too early to emerge little Luke"

Righetti. Enjoy the veggie dumplings

Take on Marco Rubio's credit cards

When Rubio's campaign said they'd release the credit card statements "in a few days" I knew exactly what it meant.  It meant they would release them on Saturday evening and hope it wouldn't catch much wind which is exactly what they did.    

If the release time was in itself not enough to make you turn up an eyebrow, the explanations certainly would.  I have heard all his answered about mistakes in who to bill and mistaken charges and even still it was  guaranteed in his name but honestly I don't buy it.   I guess I could see a travel agent having the wrong card on file but I would never use my business card accidentally to buy pavers for my house and even if it was a pure accident, the thought he made this mistake multiple times for tens of thousands of dollars deserves some scrutiny.  

I am not sure if he did it in the hope the GOP would not find out and just pay the darn bill or if he was doing it to finance thirty days because his own cards were maxed out but either way it looks bad and Rubio solid come clean and stop hiding behind the "I grabbed the wrong card out of my pocket" excuse.  That doesn't fly for twenty thousand dollars 

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Take on AOL.

Saw a tweet from AOL bragging about their new offices in downtown. I don't care if they have backless stairs, free sanpelegrino cans and topless chicks serving them, nothing will ever be cool about having to tell people your work address when you tell them it's Joe.Bryant@aol.com, plus the views of Manhattan might be cool but the 56k downloads for a PDF must be maddening and the entire "you got mail" every time your cubicle neighbor gets a message would make me eat to kill myself. So sorry, AOL but you lost any hope of coolness a long long long time ago

Take on Christie and Huckabee

Today Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee were told they'd be sitting at the kids table next week for the fourth debate and we couldn't be happier. We kind of like Christie so it's sad to see him go and join Pataki and Jindal and Graham but really he had no shot anyway. What we like is that it might give the real candidates a bit more time to talk although I think the two of them had less than 5 minutes of combined time at the last two hour debate.
There are just too many candidates and it is time to prune them. Get rid of Rand (sorry Zed), get rid of Carly (sorry Tim Hasslebeck?), get rid of Kasich (sorry Righetti) and leave the stage for the guys who are polling above 3%.

Next debate should be Trump, Carson, Rubio, Cruz and Jeb and that's it but they won't do that so instead they should play it like the premier league and force the guy who has the lowest numbers to move down to the kids table and promote one of the guys from the kids table to eat dinner with the adults.

Take on the carmines hand soap dispenser

Carmines is one of my favorite restaurants in NYC, the food is great, the portions are plentiful and the atmosphere is fun. The only issue is that when you go the pisser and you wash your hands (if you are into that kind of thing) you push down the soap squirted and go wash your hands and find out that instead of your hands sliding over each other in soapy matrimony they rub together in a friction filled grinding zone. You are dying to get back to The Titanic which is about to get hit by an iceberg on your table and don't think much about it.
Not until you get back to your seat and out your hand to your face do you realize that the soap you just washed yourBhands with is actually mouth wash. Now your hands smell like mint, your breath smells like shrimp scampi and the shrimp scampi smells like the he hands of a cook who washes his hands in mouth wash.

Take on Kasich

TOR has already endorsed John Kasich for the republican nominee for the President of the United States despite the fact that he has zero chance of actually winning.  We love his pragmatic style, the fact that he can't be pulled by the crazies to give up on all he stands for, we love the ability he will have to get things done like he did while working with the Clinton administration to balance a budget and we love the fact that he isn't a slave to the right wing ideology.  He is the only adult on a stage of hooligans, side show acts and wackos yet still h can't distinguish himself as the GOP seemingly does not want to elect a candidate who is, you know, competent. 

The problem we have with him is that when you actually see him, he comes across as a horny turtle.  With his hunched look, ridiculous arm waving, inability to stand still, mental patient haircut and the fact he looks like he is holding little Kasich like a flasher on the subway the entire time means that nobody will ever vote for him. 

So we do hope he can figure out some composure (literally) and some balls (figuratively because it does look like he is playing pocket pool the entire time) he might have a chance to not finish dead last 

Take on the new Jeb

Jeb Bush spent the day trying to reinvent himself, something that has worked really well elk for Madonna but never seems to go real well for a politician. In politics you kind of are what you are, you can get better (or worse) at who you are but at the end of the day you are exactly what we thought. Chris Christie will never come across as a genuinely caring person, Donald Trump will never come across as humble and Ted Cruz can never shake the "I have a fifteen year old girl ties up in my basement" feel. The thing is that with a guy like Jeb who already feels as authentic as faux leather, this is the last thing he needs to do and if this doesn't signal to the donors to save their money and buy a new refrigerator, nothing will

I've often thought that days in politics play out in different ways but their results are as expected. Yeah, Trump was leading but nobody expects him to keep it up. Carson is leading now but we all expect it to come crashing down and at the end of the day the nomination will go to Rubio. Christie has no shot, Cruz scares vampires, Huckabee is already writing a book, Rand looks like he has a public hair haircut, Kasich looks like he needs to pee the entire time, Fiorina looks like a statue and Jeb is loved by nobody, even Barbara likes George jr. better

So get ready to welcome President-elect Hillary. We are so fucked

Take on the Mets

Daniel Murphy has a great bat, problem is that sometimes he takes it with him to the field instead of a glove 

I'm not a baseball fan an haven't watched a single game this season but all the talk around town is, rightfully so, about the New York Mets who are having a great run.   I don't quite get where all the comic book nicknames come from and I certainly don't plan to dig that deep but I do know a few things which I said to my buddy, and one of the biggest Met fan I know, Jimmy "The Chin" a few weeks ago

I told him that the closer with the name of a pizzeria would kill them in the playoffs,

I predicted that Daniel Murphy's glove would come to haunt them and I said that the manager would lose a game or two for them

The truth is that those aren't hard predictions, and I'm sure Met fans felt the same way going into the playoffs, predicting that is like predicting rain.  IYou predict it enough and eventually it comes true. 

What I did not predict was Cespades totally sucking, I did not predict Daniel Murphy becoming Reggie Jackson and I had no idea whether the young guns would be able to stand up to the pressure of the big series. 

Anyway, I'm hoping that they bring it to Kansas City tonight and expect Matt Harvey to go out there and dominate.  I always thought that if Harvey had the sack of Syndergaard he'd be Tom Seaver, problem is that I'm afraid they'll have to take him out tonight after six to preserve his innings count

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Take on the old trick or treaters

I love Halloween, always have. It is a great kids holiday, it is a great adult holiday but somehow that period between little kid and adult is odd. We had a bunch of teenagers ring our bell today at 8:45pm looking for something. These
weren't 13 year olds who still liked Thundercats, these were kids with beards and bras. It's fine to enjoy the holiday but at some point your parents have to let you go to a party or something because it's just weird when you show up at my house and your voice is deeper than mine and your boobs are bigger than mine, too.

Take on the flight seatmate

Getting stuck on the runway sucks, having it happened when you are sitting in the back I worse but when you add a five hundred pound animal next to you, it is true hell. I had the pleasure of having my personal space invaded by something that lies like they'd consumed six pizzas in a single and smelled like it, too. I get that I shouldn't belittle others over their weight but I also shouldn't be forced to carry thirty pounds of your gut on my lap. If I wanted that extra thirty pounds there is a much better and delicious way to get it. Time to start shipping some passengers in the cargo hull

Take on the worst seat

There is nothing more depressing than getting the seat in the last row of the airplane, the smell of the bathroom fill your nostrils, the seat can't be move back even one inch and when you do eventually land and are ready to deplane it is forty minutes after the plane got to the arrival gate because there are fifty overweight Midwesterners who are grabbing their homemade "I love Robin Roberts and the guy who looks like Michael J Fox) signs
Well there is one more depressing thing, when you fly a B717 flight your last row also means you sit next to the engines which is about as much fun as standing at the speaker of a Rancid concert. The noise is rancid, the bathroom smell is rancid and when you open your window shade you see nothing but the side of the engine which is rancid. So that, my friends, is the worst thing in the world

On no it is not, the worst thing is that when you are sitting in the last seat on the plane with the view of nothing and the smell of everything and as you pull into the runway the announcement comes on that says

"Ladies and gentleman this is the Captain speaking, seems like we have a maintenance issue, should' be too long but we are going to go back to the gate and..."

MLIA

Take on the blackout

You gotta love the fact that on the biggest stage, even multi-million dollar sports leagues and their media company partners can't avoid their laptops crashing. A couple of years ago it was the Super Bowl, now it is the World Series which got interrupted by technical difficulties which must have been harrowing for the 6 people actually watching. I didn't see a single minute of the game but do find it comical that baseball is now so dependent on replay that they had to stop the game when Fox's hamster got tired, because there would not be a feed in case there was a disputed call. Baseball has been played for 150 years without having some schmuck in a replay booth to tell you that a ball is foul or fair but now it became a national sensation and they had to halt a game that started when most kids on the East Coast should be in bed and ended when kids on the West Coast should have been snoozing
I get that if you can get a call right you should use everything in your power to get it right but maybe if it is that important you shouldn't depend on a broadcast partner for your feed or, you know, have a backup plan.

Maybe the next time they will come back late from a commercial for the new 24 and they'll have missed a crucial bang bang play. Oh the horror

Take on Journey

Journey played the National Anthem at last night's Monday Night Football game and although I didn't watch it, I was disappointed. Journey without Steve Perry is like ordering breakfast and they forgot the eggs..and bacon..and toast...and coffee. It is like getting a couple of those plastic throwaway creamers served and being told it is breakfast. I am sure that these guys have some link to the original band, shit maybe a couple of those guys were in the original band (the two other guys certainly look old enough) but the lead singer looks like some dweeby Asian kid singing karaoke. He might be fine to cover the parts but come on this is not Journey, this isn't even Foreigner or the guys who sang "I'm the next to be with you"

I looked up and Wikipedia says the lead singer is some dude named Arnel Pineda who sounds like a pitcher on the Yankees although the photo of the guy at the game yesterday looks like he might be Arnel's second cousin or something because his dude looked like he should be working at a OfficeMax. He has about as much Rock & Roll to him as Phil from accounting.
Next time get us Steve Perry or Katie Perry, Jesus I'd be happy with former running back Chris Perry or Kyle Petty or Richard Petty or Perry Mason or Rick Perry, he has plenty of time

Take on processed meats

I stopped eating pork twenty plus years ago and never looked back and for the first time in my life a decision I had not thought through, turned out to potentially save me some unwanted bowel cancer.
Of course the WHO study today doesn't link having a piece of bacon or sausage once in a while to automatic cancer but the research certainly shows that it increases your risk. The issue I have with this is that I am not sure what constitutes processed and non processed meats. I buy grass fed beef, organic chicken and wild caught fish and only buy organic and pesticide free vegetables at home but somehow it doesn't seem to be enough. But still a couple of options I do eat like all natural deli meats may be laced with cancer causing crap, so are hot dogs and then the study goes to say that unprocessed meats may also be carcinogenic

But the least surprising part of the headline is the "vegetarians smug" portion. That is the least surprising thing you are going to read today.

Take on candy cigarettes

If there was one thing I was sure had been round up and shot behind the barn it would have been those candy cigarettes I used to get as a kid but no. I walked into the bagel shop today and saw a huge box of them right on the counter. I'm all for personal freedom and everything but I have to say that these things have no place. Just like I would be appalled by seeing candy cocaine, a chocolate fifth or a jelly bean shaped needle and bent spoon, the thought of a kid getting a kick out of a cancer stick is a bit much for me but then again I also don't but toy guns for them so I might be the evil Santa Clause

Take on Lincoln Chafee

Well that didn't last long. Today Lincoln Chafee announced he would be making a big campaign announcement and for the first time in his campaign people took notice because he dropped out. When he showed up at the debate we were surprised he was even in the race although we are using "in" very liberally here. He bumbled and stumbled and before you knew it he was gone a week after old Jim Webb threw in his towel.
What made this inevitable (other than the fact his poll numbers were basically 0) was that this week the Times ran a story to say that Chafee had exactly ten big donors and by big donors it counts anybody who has donated $200 or more. In today's world $200 for a candidate like Carson or Hillary isn't a big donor, it is hardly a donor at all. I bet you can't even get a Jeb hat for that donation or a Bern Baby Bern bumper sticker. So I feel for old Lincoln but we are happy that he finally realized what we all knew, nobody likes you, nobody knows you and nobody cares enough to show up to your funeral. You are the George Bell of politicians

Take on the #LGM thing

I grew up a Yankee fan when they sucked and got less interested in them as they got better basically and gave up on baseball altogether about 15 years ago. NYC, though, hasn't given up on the sport and everywhere you go you see guys wearing Mets hats, singing Mets jingles, recalling their favorite Lenny Dykstra moment and comparing Howard Johnson vs Ray Knight war stories. I'm sure 90% of these guys watched less than 5 games in their entirety over the last 3 years and I'd probably even put that number at 98% and 1 game but good for them, the fanbase has suffered long enough The franchise is often a total mess and the ownership group is a bunch of criminals but the one thing that I do appreciate is that every playoff Met tweet I've seen is followed with the #LGM thing. Just like the way that franchise supported the cops and firefighters after 9/11, they are standing up for what is important. Honestly, I was pretty impressed that these knuckle dragging Long Island barbarians could so much as spell lesbian let alone embrace the entire gay and transsexual community. For that alone I hope their run continues because nothing brings an important issue to the forefront like awareness.

#LGBTM

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Take on the Lonely Death of George Bell

This week the NYTimes ran a piece (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/nyregion/dying-alone-in-new-york-city.html?_r=0) on a man who passed away in NYC, it was the equivalent of the "If a tree falls in a forest but nobody is around to hear" thing. Thousands of people die every year and nobody notices and the story of George Bell is probably the same as hundreds of other. The only time anybody even notices something is wrong is when the neighbors call to say there is an awful smell creeping from under their door. Officials come in, find a body, surrounded by belongings, search the property and find nobody to call. there is no one to claim their body, no family members to call and no friends or coworkers to attend a funeral. The city life goes on just like any other day...for everybody except a few people who have to sort this all out. In the case of Bell, he was a hoarder and had his house packed with Betamax tapes, baseball cards, Chinese takeout boxes and everything else under the sun...that and about a quarter of a million dollars. He had a will from 30 years ago which named three people only one of whom could be located and that dude said that he hardly knew Bell, even thirty years ago.
He had virtually no contact with anybody ever and he seemed to like it that way. It was obvious this man didn't have any friends and that was a conscious decision, he never let anybody into his house and died amongst all his possessions safely buried behind the chain lock door of his apartment.
The article is good and worth the read but two thing struck with me about this story of old George Bell

-There is a sad irony in that this man who lived his life trying to keep to himself is features in this piece for the whole world to see and his entire lifestyle exposed. He went from a guy who, by his own wishes, nobody knew was alive -or dead later on- to a guy whose story is front page fodder

- I'd hope the Blue Jays would at least wear a patch for the remainder of their postseason.

Take on Lamar's new kidney

I am not one who is rooting for Lamar Odom to kick the bucket, I don't care to cheer his demise but I am also not one who feels he should be afforded any special treatment because he was once an fantastic basketball player. He had Magic Johnson type skills but never had his mental makeup, his internal fortitude or his killer instinct but few people do. Lamar Odom was suppose to change the game with his unique skill set which was a bar which was just too high to live up to but make no doubt about it, he was a terrific player. He won a couple of championships, sixth man awards and had a bunch of other accolades but sadly his biography will probably read more about what he didn't do and what he did do outside of Vegas last week.
I don't have any ill will but also do not believe that he deserves any special treatment because he was an all-star. You hear about endless lines for kidney transplants, lines of people who have done everything right and that is one thing Lamar has not. He does not deserve to jump the line after his self induced viagra and cocaine induced coma and if he does then you will know how ass backwards our society is with hero worship.

I'm rooting for him to pull through but not at the expense of a child who never had a choice and there are plenty of those on the list.