Dancing Puppets

Elevator Games

2007-09-21T11:20:00.000-04:00

You guys ever play elevator roulette?

It's when you get in the elevator on a high floor alone, pass wind and hope to get down to the lobby level without someone getting in and absolutely knowing that you were responsible.

I lost yesterday...

BLACK SEPTEMBER REVISITED

2007-09-20T15:19:00.000-04:00

We haven't had any seriousness here in a while. Perhaps it is time.
Here is a piece sent to me from a friend in Israel:

By, J.W.

Unable to hold back the tears much longer, I left the plane, slowly descending the ladder from the door of the plane, onto a jeep, and then onto the desert floor. I had a feeling of emptiness--I was being taken away from my family to a place that I didn’t know anything about. I had no one to console me except nine other men who felt the same as I did.

So begins the newly released Terror in Black September published by Palgrave Macmillan, the first eyewitness account of the September 1970 hijackings. It is authored by David Raab, who was held hostage for three weeks amidst a Jordanian civil war and a torrent of high level international diplomacy aimed as securing his and his fellow captives’ release. Raab, who has gone on to become a management consultant and a prominent pro-Israel activist, experienced the events as a seventeen year old high school student returning from a summer vacation in Israel with his mother and four siblings. The flight originating from Tel Aviv that he and his family were aboard was seized along with three other airplanes by the radical Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who intended to use their captives to gain the release of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli and European prisons.

Through this book, released on September 6th to mark the 37th anniversary of the hijacking, Raab returns readers to an unprecedented drama of turmoil and uncertainty that united the global Jewish community with much of the Western world and opened up a more virulent and deeply troubling era of terrorism. The terror group formed and named after the calamity that befell the Palestinians during Black September’s fighting went on to perpetrate the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. And, while international terrorism has since taken innumerable dark twists and turns, September 1970 still stands as a watershed event in the development of modern terrorism, with its quadruple hijackings mimicked by Al-Qaeda 31 years later on September 11.

The book intertwines excerpts from a diary the author recorded shortly after his release with a thoroughly researched history of the surrounding events. Through this unique lens of storytelling, which allows a historical record to read more like a suspense novel, Raab combines the personal perspectives of an innocent teenager swept up in one of the most tumultuous events of the time with the informed understanding of that period as viewed through the benefit of hindsight and newly-uncovered information.

Accessing thousands of previously classified documents and conversations, the book provides several never-before-published historical findings and describes a saga which, taking place amidst the already tense fabric of the Cold War, originated in the deserts of Jordan but carried over into halls of power from Washington to Moscow, London, and Jerusalem. In so doing, Raab offers a glimpse into the fascinatingly cutthroat yet typically hidden arena of the international diplomacy that kept his life and that of his fellow hostages in the balance as politicians and military leaders debated what measures to take, offensive, defensive, and punitive. For example, he writes:

In addition to hard diplomacy, [U.S. President Richard] Nixon also wanted [Henry] Kissinger to plan “some punishment…because we said we would hold them responsible. And we’ve got to keep our pledge in that respect…I want to have something we can do - not just a big statement. We just go in with a merciless air strike on somebody – even the Syrians.”…

At 7:00PM the Washington Special Actions Group met in the White House Situation Room to develop a final recommendation for the president on whether and how the United States or Israel should intervene, if asked. Within twenty minutes, the group concluded that it would be preferable for Israel to act, with U.S. forces “holding the ring” against Soviet intervention.

As the first book-length offering from Raab, who has previously authored several essays published by Israel-based think tanks as well as numerous editorial pieces featured in North American Jewish weeklies, Terror in Black September is a historical work that will be of benefit to the academic world but is also, at its core, a moving personal drama. Today, a father of three and grandfather of six who splits his time between New Jersey and Raanana, Israel, Raab concludes that his book is not just the story of an individual’s survival but rather is symbolic of a far more consequential triumph.

I think about my experiences in Jordan almost every day. My family and I celebrate a day of thanksgiving every anniversary of my miraculous release from captivity. It bothered me that no book had ever been written fully documenting Black September. I have now written that history. It is said that history is written by the victors.

Duke - UNC

2007-09-20T09:42:00.001-04:00

I can't wait for college basketball to start. So anything I can find is getting posted.

This is a prank that was pulled on Cav's GM and former Duke player, Danny Ferry in his new office.

Here is the story...

College Kid Tasered - Wimpy College Kids React... sort of

2007-09-19T17:13:00.000-04:00

This video has been on the news. Instant classic. Great question by the kid with great delivery. Definitely humorous. Gotta love the political nuts making their point.

Best thing is - Good ole John Kerry doesn't even flinch. He's answering the freakin question while this kid is on the floor in the back screaming and getting shot by the cops with a taser gun.

Ahhh... now for the reaction from the college kids who are still young enough to be gung ho anti-government. Modern-day pussy protesters. In the old days 4000 college kids would have shut down 3 Universities for 2 weeks protesting. A bunch of them would have wound up in jail, beaten and soaked by police power water hoses and batons. Today??? They put up a video blog expressing disappointment in everyone else for not acting up and protesting.

Get off your fat ass and go break some laws to protest. Stop telling other people to do it for you...

Here is the ditzy girl:

The scary white guy who later shoots up his class:

The uninformed half-white, half-minority, half-gay student who pretends he knows the rules:

The drama queen:

The whiny "I don't want to be a part of this country any more" fag:

The black dude:

God pipes in:

What an idiot...

Finally, I leave with the most important opinion. The scrawny white kid with acne problems who doesn't truly understand that issues at hand, but feels the need to pipe in and be heard because someone told him posting on youtube is cool:

Tell me if I'm wrong, but unless that kid (who appears to be sitting in the video) is a 6'10 basketball player from Croatia who is heading to the NBA next year, he is going to die a virgin. I'm not trying to be mean - ok maybe I am - but that is one ugly little man.

Yankee Fans Are Creative

2007-09-18T15:58:00.000-04:00

Same thing to a Met fan and more clear:

This one is beautiful:

The always famous:

And they do road shows too:

The Kevin Durant Era

2007-09-18T15:34:00.000-04:00

This guy makes me laugh...

Football Stadium Prank

2007-09-18T11:02:00.000-04:00

Nothing like the faggy kid who couldn't make an athletic team using his brain to take out his frustrations on the football program...

Here is an explanation of what you just saw in case you didn't figure it out:

Getting out of hand here

2007-09-18T09:05:00.000-04:00

OK, so the Brittney one is hilarious. The Belichick one is even funnier...

But now I think we might be getting out of hand...

OK, I'm not going to lie - this one is pretty funny... Brittney responds -

Shelley Duncan gets cooler and cooler

2007-09-17T14:23:00.000-04:00

What could be cooler than making a whiny little Red Sox fax cry?

WAA...WAA...WAA...

Answer: making his parents bitch to the media about something so ridiculous (and so funny) that it becomes clear they have no sense of humor whatsoever.

Funny for a minute or two

2007-09-17T10:44:00.000-04:00

You know how some things start off with a great concept and strong potential... but then plummet unexpectedly...

like... this clip for example.

11 Guys At The Playground - Watch more free videos

I just wish someone who could develop the idea had the time and resources to do it properly. It's a pretty good idea that could have been much funnier.

Immovable fat guy? A rare site. Usually the immovable fat guy is part of "I got skillz's" posse. "I got skillz" of course wasn't in the video, because they screwed up. I got skillz is the guy who comes to play who takes 75% of the shots and turns the ball over the rest of the time trying to make something happen. He's the guy that everyone on the court can't stand, but yet walks away as if he is god's gift to ball. Of course he NEVER gets convinced otherwise because when he leaves the court, his only friend, immovable fat guy, is there to tell him how good he is and how bad his team was.

Rule Book guy? I never saw a guy quote the 24 second shot clock in a pickup game. I do however appreciate that it was simply an over-exaggeration purposely set up to make a point and be humorous. I chuckled at the 3 second call. Didn't laugh at the backcourt call, and was ready to click 'x' after the 24 second call.

What about "football player playing basketball"? This guy should have replaced "Mr. Skins". the football guy always plays skins whether his team does or not. Loves to show off the upper body as he barrels to the basket hurting everyone in his way. His excuse??? Always the same - "I'm a football player, not really a basketball player." As if that somehow excuses his lack of athletic ability and excuses the imminent danger he provides to others on the court.

Whatever...

Jackpot!

2007-09-17T08:46:00.000-04:00

If you haven't already, check out the video in the post below of the hermaphrodite bitching about Brittney Spears. Then watch this video. Who said people from Boston have no sense of humor?

Oh... and Derek Jeter is clearly god. Well, if he's not god, then god certainly wears a Derek Jeter jersey during baseball season.

DJ came into last night's game hitting .439 with 2 outs and runner's in scoring position. Decent numbers. Can't get much better than that, right???

Wrong.

8th inning. 2 outs. Yanks vs. Boston in Fenway. Game tied at 1 after a great pitching duel between Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling. Joba had just done his thing blowing away Boston in the bottom of the 7th to keep a tie game going. Detroit has crept to within 2 games in the wildcard with a victory over the Twins earlier in the day. 2-2 count. Men on 2nd and 3rd after a clutch double off the monster by pinch hitting Giambi.

Pretty clutch scenario for a guy to get a hit. Figure Jeter will try to poke one through the other way and give the Yanks a nice little one or two run lead.

Nah.

BAM!

3 run homer. Yanks end up winning 4-3.

Not to turn this into a Jeter gay fest, though I've stated in the past, I'm not sure if it counts as gay to have a man-crush on Derek Jeter... I love this commercial. I know it's simple and quick, but I just think it is cool.

OK fine, we WILL turn it into Derek Jeter day. Brace yourselves. Welcome to the dark side young jedi knight.

He's funny too...

OK, not so funny...

The only way Britney Spears will make it onto my blog now that she has hit the wall...

2007-09-12T14:35:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if this is a man or a woman. Can't really tell. Probably was one and now is the other, though not sure which way.

Regardless, this is such a great clip.

Oh lord, I think it might be a man... wow...

Yankee fans are even scarier

2007-09-06T11:23:00.001-04:00

Sorry about the Yankee theme today, but these are priceless.

John Sterling is scary too

2007-09-06T11:21:00.001-04:00

This gets funnier everytime you watch it...

Suzyn Waldman is scary

2007-09-06T11:07:00.001-04:00

Suzyn Waldman reacts to Roger Clemens coming back to the Yanks earlier this year.

The Jeter Hall of Fame Argument

2007-09-06T10:21:00.000-04:00

I was talking with some people recently regarding Derek Jeter and his greatness. Unfortunately, there are a number of Met fans out there who seem to think the captain is overrated. My answer is always to watch the guy everyday and then make an argument. I generally do not argue numbers – but that is because I didn’t realize how good Jeter’s numbers actually are.

One friend commented that in order to be a great player, one needs to either hit .350 or hit 50 homers. My first thought was, “that’s ridiculous, it doesn’t take into account position, or situational hitting, or a combination of average and power of some kind.” My second thought was to look up some numbers, which is what I did below. Turns out, according to this friend, there are a lot of average players in the Hall of Fame:

Here are some of Jeter’s numbers for comparison:
Derek Jeter –
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.317 1816 7346 1365 2328 192 922 262 .461
Fielding Pct. .975

Here are some horrible Hall of Fame shortstops to compare Jeter to slightly… just a start…

Pee Wee Reese – AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.269 2166 8058 1338 2170 126 885 232 .377
Fielding Pct - .962
He sucked, right? .269 and 126 homers??? Fielding percentage makes him look like he played for the Drays. Terrible player…

Cal Ripken, Jr. – another terrible player… So he played a ridiculous amount of games in a row… big whoop… wanna fight about it?

AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.276 3001 11551 1647 3184 431 1695 36 .447
Fielding Pct. - .977

Phil Rizzuto – awful… how is this guy even in the Hall??? Jesus… disgraceful. Holy cow! These numbers suck.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.273 1661 5816 878 1588 38 562 149 .355
Fielding Pct. .968

Honus Wagner – only hit .329 for his career, not .350… guess he sucks… Plus only 101 homers. No power here at all. This guy was so bad, they didn’t even keep records of his RBI’s. Probably a negative number or something based on that fielding percentage.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.329 2787 10427 1740 3430 101 722 .469
Fielding Pct. .947

Robin Yount – this guy should be in the hall of shame… I don’t even know how he goes out in public.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.285 2856 11008 1632 3142 251 1406 271 .430
Fielding Pct. .972

Luis Aparicio – who??? Numbers like this shouldn’t even make the majors…
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.262 2599 10230 1335 2677 83 791 506 .343
Fielding Pct. .972

Ozzie Smith – Now we all know he got in for his defense… but .978 is not that much better than the very average Derek Jeter’s .975 fielding pct. I guess his offensive numbers just bump him up big time as a star. Those 28 homers and 2460 hits are really impressive. When you hit for power like that, .262 average is totally justifiable, especially when you are a better fielder .3% of the time then a guy who hits over 70 percentage points better than you and will finish with almost 200 more homers and 1000 more hits. Totally justifiable.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.262 2573 9396 1257 2460 28 793 580 .328
Fielding Pct. .978

Arky Vaughan – This guy is a hall of famer with almost as good numbers as Jeter has… almost…
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.318 1817 6622 1173 2103 96 926 118 .453
Fielding Pct. .953

Let’s move onto some more names, not just shortstops, who suck something awful…

Here’s a nice one. Apparently Wade Boggs was not a good hitter…

Wade Boggs – not sure what all the hype was about. He hit only 10 percentage points higher than Jeter and probably about 150 homers less once career is done. Nebach.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.328 2440 9180 1513 3010 137 1014 24 .449
Fielding Pct. .965

I am going to pause here and thank you – because every time I do this, I start to see more and more how amazing Jeter is… even just by the numbers,… it’s amazing what his numbers are across the boards… amazing…

Let’s keep it going. This is too easy.

George Brett – this guy was so bad he should not have even been allowed to keep his uniform after retiring. I mean .305 and 317??? Jeter is going to beat the average easily, and has a shot at the homers. Oh, and he steals more bases and will have a few hundred more hits… and is MUCH better looking.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.305 2707 10349 1583 3154 317 1596 201 .487
Fielding Pct. .970

Lou Brock – how this guy was an outfielder in the majors with these numbers is amazing to me…Clearly he was doing some sexual favors for the owner.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.293 2616 10332 1610 3023 149 900 938 .410
Fielding Pct. .959

Rod Carew – they say he is one of the best hitters of all time – not sure who “they” are, but “they” are clearly retarded. My man Dan says .328 aint even a good season. At least he was a solid fielder.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.328 2469 9315 1424 3053 92 1015 353 .429
Fielding Pct. .985

Roberto Clemente – I know he is dead and its not nice.. but this guy was terrible. Probably got in because of Affirmative Action or something.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.317 2433 9454 1416 3000 240 1305 83 .475

Lou Gherig – FINALLY found someone who comes close to living up to the standards of greatness… I think there might only be one or two other guys with numbers like this… even Dimag wasn’t close… but I finally found a very good player – a little low in the batting average department, and a few more homers would make him great… but he was close, no?
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.340 2164 8001 1888 2721 493 1995 102 .632

Hank Greenberg – this guy was good…but only for a jew…he would never have gotten in otherwise.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.313 1394 5193 1051 1628 331 1276 58 .605

Ralph Kiner – I might start the petition to have this guy removed… Ralph who???
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.279 1472 5205 971 1451 369 1015 22 .548

Brooks Robinson – they just let anybody in there I guess… they mustve thought he was black or something and needed to make quota…
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.267 2896 10654 1232 2848 268 1357 28 .401

Fielding Pct. .971

OK – I have to get ready to go watch 2 of the greatest baseball players to ever play as I head over to Yankee Stadium… There are tons more Hall of Famers that we can throw under the bus later if you still need.

Don’t forget – these guys are some of the greatest players to ever live. They are all in the Hall of Fame. Very few of them have comparable numbers to Jeter…
Don’t give me the “today’s era” argument because I can provide a stat that shows that using that number makes Jeter look even better… so stay away from that. Also, if you are a sabermetrics fan, which I wouldn’t claim to know enough about, I went and looked up Jeter based on some of those stats – if you are a Jeter-hater, don’t go look because it might make you nauseous or suicidal. His numbers compared to league average, past league averages and all other kinds of combinations are phenomenal. Especially for an overrated, average player.

One more for you…

Jackie Robinson – obviously he got in because he broke the color barrier… numbers like this,… please.
AVG G AB R H HR RBI SB SLG
.311 1382 4877 947 1518 137 734 197 .474
Fielding Pct. .983

Last note – I’m not going to give you Ted Williams or Babe Ruth’s numbers – they are too freakin’ ridiculous. Look ‘em up – they’re worth seeing. Will make you laugh how amazing they were. Lou Gherig’s numbers I provided above. Disgraceful.

Hot Retards

2007-08-28T09:45:00.003-04:00

This Sunday night, Ms Teen USA wannabe chick from south carolina answered a question on Education in the US.

Below is her answer.

I don't even know what to say...

2007-08-03T15:38:00.000-04:00

Got this one from my friend Noyam. I'm speechless...

OK, not totally speechless. With about 3 minutes left in the video, and this skateboarded lying on the floor motionless, the analyst actually says (in a goofy skater voice), "wow, I can't believe he made the 720..."

HAHAHAHAHAHA... Unless I heard wrong, this is amazing to me. This guy just fell 50 feet to what looks like his death, or at least a life of colostomy bags and nurses pulling fecal matter out of his tuches with a suction, and this guy "can't believe he made the 720..." Oh man, that's too much.

Sports Guy

2007-08-03T14:55:00.001-04:00

Good Stuff as usual.

Kyle Farnsworth is very bad

2007-08-02T16:34:00.000-04:00

Is it me, or does this guy give up a home run every freakin time he gets into a game?

I'm sure he is a decent person and a cool guy so I'm not ripping him on a personal level, but this guy sucks. I'd rather have Richard Simmons out there throwing "flamers" in short shorts. This is a joke.

On that note - Torre is a moron. How many times? How many freakin times does a guy have to be horrible to give up on him?

As I'm writing this - he just gave up a second homer!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mother of Christ!

Freakin Torre is to blame here, because come playoffs (if they come), you know who will be starting. Not the lineup that got us back in it, nope. Your lineup will look like this:

Damon
Jeter
Giambi
ARod
Abreu
Matsui
Posada
Cano
Phillips

No Cabrera, no Duncan, etc. He will go to Proctor and Myers and Farnsworth in big spots and the Yanks won't make it out of the 5 game series.
Ridiculous.
(I am aware that Proctor was traded. But watch, they will find a way to get him back and put him in when it matters most...)

So, what's missing you ask? Why has it been so different the last few years? What could possibly be gone from the great run of 1996-2000?

I have no idea...

The Iron Sheik In All His Glory

2007-08-02T10:33:00.000-04:00

Blast from the past.
The Iron Sheik, a former WWF wrestler has been brought back to life somewhat after a series of interviews with various Sirius Satellite radio shows including Howard Stern. This guy is radio solid gold. If you listened this morning to the interview and his interaction with Bubba the Love Sponge, this was an instant classic.

Seriously, this stuff is worth watching. It's beautiful...

You cannot make this up. This next one was an interview on the gay and lesbian station on Sirius. He is calling people "fags" on the gay and lesbian channel. This is priceless people, priceless. You gotta hear the reaction when they tell him that they are gay...

Bill Walsh, 75

2007-07-30T15:33:00.000-04:00

Football coach Bill Walsh died today.

Wrong Ball, Coach!

2007-07-30T15:31:00.000-04:00

Some would say these kids are too young to be pulling plays like this. Other might say it is just unfair... I say it is priceless. These kids are maybe 10 years old? Poor kids on defense don't even have a clue that they should be reacting. So unfair that it is funny.

Skip Prosser, 56

2007-07-27T13:04:00.000-04:00

Rather than pretend I knew this guy and rather than trying to write something nice about a guy I have only watched on TV and have no personal knowledge of, here is Andy Katz of ESPN with his thoughts after this tragic death.

This is some bull sh**

2007-07-27T09:40:00.000-04:00

This is a shame.

Society has certainly changed for the better in many ways over the last bunch of decades. In terms of race, we have certainly made strides and are a completely different nation than we were in the middle of the 20th century.

However, when you go to visit the United States Mint (that is where they print money for those of you from Idaho), there is a sign that kind of sums up a lot of different things in one simple sentence. When you walk through (and I havent been there probably in 15 years, but I remember it clearly) above the money printing stations and peer down through the very thick and likely bulletproof glass, there is a sign that sits next to where the money prints out that simply says - "you are so close, yet so far away..."

So are we...

People Got Gored

2007-07-12T11:23:00.000-04:00

I only don't feel bad for this guy because he is a moron... Seriously, look at this picture. He is bleeding bad. Hilarious. This poor EMT who probably didn't make it in medical school has to help control the bleeding from this guy's ass because he got raped by a pair of live bull horns.

Trvia Question:
Who of this group is most likely to contemplate suicide?
a. The guy bleeding out his ass
b. The EMT who has to apply pressure to this guy's bleeding ass
c. The guy bleeding out his ass's girlfriend who is probably watching on TV thinking to herself "where did I go wrong"?
d. The bull who will now spend the rest of his day with a piece of man-ass dangling in his face from his horns

Here is the article.

Here are some wonderful excerpts:

"The pack of six 1,300-pound bulls and six steers — meant to keep the bulls running in a single pack — disintegrated shortly after the animals set off on the dash through the cobblestone streets of Pamplona in the sixth of eight planned runs."

- No... No way... you mean a pack of wild animals wasn't obedient while being taunted by drunken and retarded humans? I'm shocked.
Listen - this is no different than that flamer in Vegas who got mauled by his tiger. Tiger had enough. You can train it all you want, but it's still a freakin tiger. You poke it in the ass enough times it's gonna get pissed off. This is not a cat that might scratch you or something. It's a tiger... it will freakin eat you.

"Several runners were trampled and seven runners were injured by bulls' horns. One 48-year-old man from Pamplona was gored in the chest and was reported to be in very serious condition. A 23-year-old Mexican was gored in the stomach and was also reported as very serious.

The other runners who were gored were from Poland, Norway, Spain and the United States, with ages ranging from 23 to 50, officials said. They were all reported to be in serious condition."

- Just good to know we aren't the only morons. Thankfully there's always the Mexicans.

"The run lasted 6 minutes, 9 seconds, compared with the normal length of about 2 minutes, because the bulls separated — the most dangerous thing that can happen at Pamplona."

- Correction: the most dangerous thing that can happen at Pamplona is to let six 1,300 pound bulls run loose in a crowded street.

Love stuff like this

2007-07-09T13:32:00.000-04:00

I love when professional athletes step out of that stereotype of selfish, above-it-all, spoiled brats and do some blue collar work and not just for the photo op.

Telling it like it is

2007-07-06T15:24:00.000-04:00

I love guys like this who just say it like it is. No politics, no kissing up. They call it like they see it and don't give a crap. President Bush is somewhat like this (often to a fault).

Adam Corolla Hangs Up On Ann Coulter - Watch more free videos

Watch out for lesbian gangs!

2007-07-06T14:50:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry but I just couldn't resist posting this one.

Perhaps I should be careful after some of my past posts.

Lesbian Gangs - Dykes Taking Over - Violence Again - Watch more free videos

So, how much practice time does this take up?

2007-07-06T11:36:00.001-04:00

I'm thinking about instituting this fast break play next year. Must be demoralizing for the other team. If I spend all my practices on this instead of fundamentals, would it be worth it?

Short white dude dunks off friends back - Watch more free videos

Damn do I love kids' sports...

2007-07-06T11:32:00.000-04:00

I love how the kids just stand there in the background. Such innocence. Seriously, adults should not be allowed at these games. There is too much purity getting ruined.

Pop Warner Parents Brawl - Watch more free videos

Two Items This Morning

2007-07-05T10:01:00.000-04:00

1. For a change, I watched a bit of TV this morning before leaving for work and caught this story:

A 72 year old man beat the ever-loving-sh-- out of a mugger who attempted to steal his wallet.

You ever have this kind of day? You know, you go through your usual morning routine before heading off to your job as a small-time pick-pocketer. Have your coffe, maybe a bowl of lucky charms and then out to the convenience store to target helpless senior citizens. But today is just different. For whatever reason, and you can't place it, but it feels different. Like maybe today you are going to get that rare really rich senior citizen who does his own shopping, and is cheap enough to go to the convenience store. You figure, hey, he is rich, he will part easily with whatever is in his pocket, and chances are it could be a lot.

You get to the store and there he is. He has the look. Confident, smart, but still old. This one has to be over 70 easily. You figure he won't even notice as you slide your hand into his pocket. But all of a sudden things go drastically wrong. He grabs your hand while it's in his pocket and before you even realize what is happening he drops a good 6 punches down on your face. Before you even have a chance to react he's landed another dozen blows to the back of your head.

That's right - you just picked out a 72 year old former marine and former Golden Gloves boxer. What a day.

For video of the vicious beating the mugger took, click here.

2. The "Bat Mobile"

So I am on my drive to work today and notice this car in front of me:

My first thought is," wow, what a loser."

Then I drove up alongside the car and realized there were two black guys in the front.

My second thought was, "The Bat Mobile... cool!"

Is that weird?

Gay

2007-07-03T13:25:00.000-04:00

So I saw this video on another blog and cannot resist but to copy the post.

This is the Seattle Seahawks team video from the 80's... GAAAAAAYYYYYY!

Alert: This is not pleasant

2007-06-22T14:22:00.000-04:00

The below is why I only stick to the baby roller coaster at Nunley's and nothing else.

Rides shut after Ky. Six Flags accident

Those Crazy Japanese

2007-06-21T15:01:00.000-04:00

For Real...

2007-06-21T10:58:00.001-04:00

There is no way this link wasn't going up...

Pair told not to name son '4real'

You get what you pay for...

2007-06-19T15:12:00.001-04:00

Gazans stream to crossing with Israel

For real, I have joked around in the past about the violence and other issues. However, I have always been for the peaceful resolution of the situation in the Middle East. Despite the ridiculous number of times that this type of resolution has been proved impossible by the wonderful men wearing bedspreads as clothes and dishtowels as hats, I have always felt that there has to be a way.

Well, guess what - there isn't a way. These lunatics are now killing themselves off and fast. Not that they haven't always done stuff like this, but this latest example is downright humorous.

Bottom line, when you breed and nurture a culture of violence and hate, eventually that culture will learn to hate itself and the differences it has within. Since this culture knows only to deal in violence, the result is the automatic resort to violence.

Meanwhile, Israel is sitting on the side looking at the world with her arms folded, nodding her head and quietly muttering, "You asked us to give it up, we gave it up. Tell us when you are ready for us to clean up the mess and restore order."

Eventually it will work like this - Israel will begin to bulldoze these areas that are now becoming a civil warzone between Hamas and anyone not agreeing with Hamas. This will lead to dead Israeli soldiers, cries of occupation, and suicide bombings against civillians within Israel proper.

I for one, have had enough with this crap. No more peaceful solutions. These people just have to go. They are no longer worth one Israeli life - soldier or civillian. How many times does this need to be proved? It's the same crap every time.

Read this post again in a few months and you will see how right I am. It's not because I am brilliant (though that certainly helps), rather it is because we've seen it all before.

Classic Ending to a Classic Show

2007-06-11T09:49:00.000-04:00

I thought this final episode could've gone a few ways:

1. Paulie kills Tony - I think a lot of people were betting on this one.
2. Janice kills Tony - outside shot, but could've been interesting.
3. Tony lives and all is happy and well - boring, but many Tony fans were hoping for this.
4. He gets arrested - would have been a stupid way to go, I think.
5. He gets killed in the restaurant the way his dad did in front of his family (looked like it was about to happen).

What actually happened - nobody could have predicted or had as an option, but after thinking about it, I think it was a GREAT way to go.

The last scene sets up after Tony knows he has an 80 percent chance of indictment. Then the quick meet with Uncle Junior and off to the restaurant. They set this up great. The suspense and waiting for something to happen were gripping. The whole set up of him looking up every time someone walks in, checking the guy at the counter, the timing on Meadow being late with the parking looking like it will set up some kind of coincidence, and the guy getting up to go the bathroom (ala The Godfather). It was freaking perfect.

And then the screen goes blank...

I reviewed this part. The screen goes blank for a good 7 seconds or so. That is a long time. Almost long enough to call the cable company. Long enough to process that it went blank, think something is wrong with the TV and then just as the credits come on with no sound realize that they just left the ending up to you. The following silence allows you to contemplate.

My thought process went like this:
1. What the...?
2. That was it?
3. What a stupid ending.
4. Wait a second...
5. What were they going for?
6. Freaking brilliant.
7. (About 10 minutes later) - I loved that ending and think it is classic!

Beautiful. This ending is perfect. It is exactly the point. The last 5 minutes just had all of us viewers experiencing the same feelings and emotions that Tony will be living with (if you choose to decide that he lives) the rest of his life.

You see, this ending did three things:

1. It allowed you to experience Tony's emotions. He is with his family trying to enjoy a normal family moment. The music is playing, his family is there. He is waiting for his daughter (who he is suddenly extremely proud of) to arrive. He has his son who seems to have a new and more positive outlook on life sitting across from him, along with his wife, who - through it all - he cannot live without. Yet, every single time the door opens, or someone gets up to go to the restroom, he has to wonder if that serenity he is experiencing will suddenly come to an end. The show gives you the attachment to his family, along with the suspense, and then leaves you wondering... the same way Tony is... if he will make it through the night.

2. The ending allows you to decide. Does Tony make it? The 7 second blank at the end invites you to fill it in. Does he get killed and therefore bring closure to the uncomfortable feeling you have as a viewer while he is sitting in the restaurant? Or does he survive the night only to experience many more like it in the future? Your call, whether you like it or not.

3. This ending ensures that people will discuss it, which of course makes sense for the show. People will argue, analyze and over-analyze... This is fascinating to me because in general I HATE television shows and have no interest in thinking about them. This is why I watch only a few things on TV. Sports, Family Guy, and HBO. That's it. I have no interest in Lost, ER, West Wing, or any of these shows that I'm sure people love for a reason. They just don't capture me. Sopranos, and this ending in particular, actually captured my attention and made me think.

F----ing Awesome...

2007-06-07T15:58:00.000-04:00

YouTube

2007-06-06T16:38:00.000-04:00

OK, youtube is officially moving into the top 5 of greatest inventions of all time.

It is a great time killer, provides instant entertainment, an easy way to share hilarious things with friends, and so much more.

Plus it is a good way to post on a blog without having to think of anything original. Though I do plan, now that I've mentioned it, to create a list of the all time greatest inventions. Then we can see if youtube really is in the top 5. I believe it will be.

This clip just makes me laugh. If you don't know the background, Howard Stern backed a movement to get a certain American Idol contestant named Sanjaya as far as possible. Apparently the guy sucked but made it very far because of this movement. Below is a clip from a CNBC segment interrupted by a guy who happens to work on the Stern show. His whole demeanor compared to the segment makes me laugh.

Grow Up!

2007-05-31T10:05:00.000-04:00

What Alex Rodriguez did last night wasn't dirty, nor was his slapping at the ball a couple of years ago against Boston. It's an anything to win mentalitly. Especially at this desperate time, whatever it takes to win...

Seriously, every person you know does that when there is an infield popup... kids do it in little league, adults in softball. It's like screaming at a guy on a fastbreak layup in basketball, or knocking your stick on the ice to trick an opponent into passing you the puck in hockey. It's part of the game. Frankly, I think the Blue Jays' players are a bunch of ovaries for the way they reacted. Just catch the ball, stop whining.

Ty Cobb was dirty. He would slide with his spikes up and one time laid down a bunt on the first base line against a pitcher that previously had hit him. He ran over the pitcher and stomped on his chest with his spikes. Pitcher had to leave the game.

Bruce Bowen is a dirty player. He kneed Nash in the nuts, and constantly is making sure his feet are in the landing path of the offensive player he guards on a jumpshot.

Bill Romanowski was a dirty player. He once snapped a player's finger in half during a fumble pile-up.

Alex Rodriguez is far from a dirty player. He pulled a playground move that should never work in the pros. It's like getting away with the hidden ball trick. The only person who should be embarrassed is the guy who falls for it.

If you saw the game last night, the pop-up that Posada hit was a routine weak pop to the shortstop. This was shallow shortstop, not even on the outfield grass. There is absolutely no way in hell a left fielder is calling this one. The shortstop panicked and choked. It's as simple as that. He heard A-Rod shout and crapped his pants. He should be embarrassed. There was no excuse for him not to make that play in the pros.

Waaa! I missed a game winning foul shot because a fan yelled AIRBALL as I was about to shoot.

Waaa! I passed the ball to the wrong team because my opponent said "I'm open, I'm open" and I didn't look to see where I was throwing the ball first.

Waaa! The catcher was talking to me while I was getting ready to hit and I got called for strike one.

Waaa! The strong safety bumped me off 6 yards from scrimmage and got away with it.

Grow up!

UNBELIEVABLE

2007-05-17T16:34:00.000-04:00

This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen....

Clemens Back with the Yanks

2007-05-09T11:43:00.000-04:00

A lot of people have made a HUGE deal over this signing. People are for it, against it, embarrassed by it, disgusted by it, thrilled by it, you name it.

Some people can't stand the contractual terms allowing Clemens to leave his team between starts. Some people don't like the special treatment. Others point out that to sign arguably the best pitcher of our generation, you have to give a little more.

Here is my very simple view on this whole deal:

1. I don't personally know Roger Clemens or any other member of the NY Yankees at this time, nor do I expect I ever will.

2. I don't know or care how his coming and going looks to people.'

3. I don't care of he talks to other pitchers, players, etc...

4. I certainly don't care about the money since I am not writing the check - and don't give me the "you buy the tickets" BS argument. When I want to go to a game I will buy a ticket, when I don't want to I won't. If I cannot afford it, I won't go and I'll watch on TV like I do every night. This ticket price argument has always been stupid to me. Bottom line, you didn't sign a contract like the Yankees did, you don't HAVE to pay for a ticket!

It boils down like this -

If the Yankees win the World Series this year, then it was a good signing.
If the Yankees do not win the World Series this year, then it was an irrelevant signing.

The rest of it all is a bunch of crap.

$67 Million Dollar Suit

2007-05-03T13:21:00.000-04:00

Not sure how many of you have read about this. I first heard about it on the radio this morning and then read about it this afternoon.

Full Story

For those who don't want to read it, here is my version:

Judge Roy Pearson, a pompous jackass judge with way too much time on his hands decided to sue the owners of a dry cleaners because they could not locate his pants. He did not just complain, nor did he accept his pants in return when they were found a few weeks later. He took advantage of his position as a member of the Bar and as a Judge and filed a feraking ridiculous 67 million dollar lawsuit against people who cannot even afford to defend themselves.

He has rejected settlement offers of $3,000, $4,600, and $12,000. His calculation of getting to $67 million is quite ridiculous and it will not hold up in court. That is not the point. He is costing the defendants thousands of dollars (though I have a feeling the free publicity may help them out once the suit is dismissed or ends in one way or another).

Clearly this so-called judge could care less about the money. He is intent on ruining these people. He is either a racist or just a vindictive bastard, or most likely both. This guy needs to be removed from the bench, disbarred, and sodomized by a green, AIDS infected monkey in Africa.

The end.

First Time Long Time

2007-05-03T12:59:00.000-04:00

Been a few months... I've been busy. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Anyway, this is one of the funnier clips I have seen on youtube lately. It's immature and simple, but so damn funny.

Funny

2006-10-27T10:16:00.000-04:00

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1715915/context/popular/

Whatever...

2006-10-26T11:09:00.000-04:00

THIS IS A CEILING MURAL IN A SMOKER'S LOUNGE.

Marketing genius? Or an organization full of retards? I choose the latter...

2006-10-25T13:48:00.000-04:00

Below is the new Knicks slogan that I heard on the radio this morning. Not sure if this is supposed to turn you on to the team or if it is a ploy by competing radio and TV stations to keep you away from MSG. Either way, this reminded me why I cannot wait for the Maui Invitational to start... Thank god for college basketball.

"New coach. New season. Same old Knicks attitude."

Neon Deion to the Rescue

2006-10-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

This Picture and caption appeared on TheOnion.com

We all love Prime Time, so it has to get posted.

Incoming North Korean Missile Intercepted By Deion Sanders

Borat

2006-10-23T15:55:00.000-04:00

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1713836

"The Bridge"

2006-10-20T12:25:00.000-04:00

There is a new movie coming out next week called "The Bridge". It is a documentary about people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It is supposed to be really fascinating.

Interviews with people who happened to be there when someone jumped, footage of guys jumping, interviews with families and an interview with a guy who survived the jump.

These guys camped out there for a year and caught 24 of the 25 splashes in 2005... I'm so in!
This stuff is fascinating. 24 jumps, 24 different stories and troubles that we can only ponder and never know. Truly frightening how many people kill themselves and how sick these people must be mentally not to be able to cope.

This is not meant to be a humorous post in any way. I am seriously intrigued by what drives people to do this stuff. Watch this trailer and tell me how you cannot be interested in this:
The Bridge

Thousands of people walk this bridge every single day. About 25 times a year someone takes an unexpected right turn and hurls themselves from 250+ feet, 25+ stories into the water. This is no high dive act. You hit the water at that speed (35-40 mph) from that height, you aint breaking water, you're breaking bones... and lots of em. It's like hitting cement.

Some people have a heartattack and die before they hit. Some initially survive and drown. Some hit a wave or strong current break and actually get sheered into pieces like falling on the sharp end of a huge knife. Some people actually hit the water and start to swim (body's natural instinct) but die within minutes of internal injuries.

People who jump don't just jump and die. It is a vile, gory death. So, why do people do it? Most people kill themselves in private. A few come out to the most public of places and do it in front of joggers, commuters and families taking an afternoon stroll. Why? What could have been so bad in their lives that this is their decision. I think people don't realize what mental illness is, and how it can take over control of a person.

I hope this movie is as revealing and educational as it seems. While there is no way for it to give us insight into the mindset these people had before they jumped, perhaps it will push people to realize that this is a real issue and one which needs attention.

You Tube, You Know You Do...

2006-10-19T16:17:00.001-04:00

You Tube has to be one of the greatest internet inventions of our time. This website, until some kind of legal battle brings it down offers anything you can imagine to help you make a point. People can waste a whole day or week of work on this site just checking out different clips.

One site can bring you so much entertainment. It can make you laugh,

cry,

yell,

cringe,

all in a span of 10 minutes. After I finished putting this together, I looked back at all these video clips and realized, that each emotion attached could be connected to any of the clips. Except the Theisman clip, that's a cringer all the way.

Funny - Check it out

2006-10-17T17:57:00.000-04:00

http://i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=20076

It's hard not to laugh at something like this:

2006-10-13T09:57:00.000-04:00

Cory Lidle's doomed plane didn't just crash into anybody's apartment. It exploded into the empty bedroom of Kathleen Caronna, the Manhattan woman who was critically injured when a balloon knocked part of a lamppost onto her head during the 1997 Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Straight out of a movie...(Anchorman)

2006-10-12T16:11:00.000-04:00

Why is it necessary for this to be news?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15237612/from/RS.5/

Someone please explain...

By the way... 'Anchorman' is one of the funnier movies of the last bunch of years. Many people don't appreciate the humor. Between 'Anchorman' and 'Dodgeball', we have two modern-day classics...

"Effin 'A, Cotton... Effin 'A..."

So You Had a Bad Day

2006-10-11T16:25:00.000-04:00

Can you imagine you get out of work early on a Wednesday afternoon and head home to your nice upper east side apartment? Not a care in the world feeling quite immortal as you sit in the shower and think about whether you will watch a replay of 'Baseball Tonight' or 'NFL Live' when you get out. Then, as you get out of the shower and start to dry off, deciding in your head whether you'd prefer melted cheese on bread from the microwave, or old school grilled cheese -which would require more work of course-while you watch ESPN.

Then you step into your room to get dressed and decide to take a peak out the window and across the street to see if the hot girl who lives across the way maybe got out early and also decided to shower at the same time, and who knows, maybe you catch a peak, or maybe she catches a peak (either way works for you). Of course, she has a real job, so she isn't there, and you return your focus to the task at hand - food and football. You turn around a little too quickly and stub your toe on the corner of the radiator. You know, the really antique metal radiators. The kind that not only makes your toe swell up immediately (yes, the pinky toe, the one that hurts like hell, but you cannot do anything about), but also breaks the nail on the toe and causes you to bleed. Kinda makes your foot look like one of those disgusting Lamasil commercials.

So now you are no longer enjoying your free afternoon. Instead you are on your knees in a towel looking under the sink for a bandaid to put on your toe. Of course, you forget that you left the cabinet above the sink open and as you stand up you slam your head into the open door. The kind of hit that makes you feel like your head split open, but really does no damage other than a headache. But enough of an impact that you now head into your kitchen to get some ice out of the freezer for the top of your head.

Of course your freezer is packed full with food that you will never eat. You know, the leftovers that your Mom couldn't get your Dad or siblings to eat, so she decided that she could convince you that she was doing you a favor giving you food for the apartment. Both of you know you will never eat it, but both of you also know that you would never insult her by not taking it. So you say, "Mom, I'm covered with food for the week, thanks anyway." And she responds, "that's OK honey, just throw it in the freezer. It will last forever." Which of course you do, and it of course does. Which is why you now have to stick your hand across the top of all the frozen goods to the back of the freezer for the ice tray without pushing any of the food out onto your feet. We all know how much THAT would hurt.

You conquer that task and now you are sitting on the couch, in a towel, with a bandaid on your toe and ice on your head, and of course you've now missed NFL Live AND Baseball Tonight, and the only thing on is a re-run of the Poker World Series and some Asian-Lesbian woman playing pool against herself. It's either the Asian-Lesbo, a re-run episodes of Dharma and Greg, or watching a stupid Chevy Chase National Lampoon's Vacation movie for the 210th time.

You are thinking to yourself how maybe you would have been better off just staying at work. But you convince yourself that if you can look out the window one more time and see if the girl across the street who leaves her shades open got home early, it would all be worth it. So you head to the window, and as you pull back your shades you see a 4 seat, single engine airplane barreling right at you...

Seriously, what are the chances of actually having this kind of day? All I know is some poor soul who died today on the Upper East Side of Manhattan has family who will have to explain his death by saying he died in a plane crash.

Friend: "Oh really! What happened? Where was the flight heading?"

Family: "Don't know. He wasn't on the plane. The plane actually crashed into him."

Friend: "Wow. Where was he? At the airport? On the ground somewhere?"

Family: "Nope. He was at home watching a Chevy Chase movie (you know you all would have picked that) and the plane came right through his window and took out his whole apartment."

Friend: "Wow. How many people died? Did the whole building come down?"

Family: Sighs heavily. "No, just him. Just his apartment. Plane actually came through his window and sat down on the couch. Landed right on the remote control and flipped to Dharma and Greg."

What a crappy day this guy just had...

The sad state of our society

2006-10-10T16:03:00.000-04:00

Look what got featured on the Yahoo homepage.
Print Lovin' On Your Toast

This ridiculous article appeared in one of the most read, most viewed sections on the internet. Who would read this useless garbage? (I ask myself). Apparently, there are 25+ pages and well over 400 comments worth of losers who took the time to read, ponder and respond to this critical issue of burning toast into a design. For the love of losers!

Here are some of the comments:

Posted by wanagi006
i work the A.M. shift in a deli,i would LOVE to send some messages on toast LOL
You are uneducated AND a loser. What could you possibly write with a toaster that sends a message of F.U. to a patron better than a thick wad of phlegm-filled saliva in the relevant a--hole's tasty burger. Furthermore, what will you do when you get fired from your dream job of serving smelly truckers coffee at 4:00 in the morning? You better get a long pair of rubber gloves, because it's off to the stud farm to help out large horses with E.D.

Posted by elyse_1966
Well, I mixed feelings about it. On one hand I think it is completely useless, and yet, I would love to send my husband to work with a picture of my ass on his B.L.T. It could be one way to hurry your husbands home ladies!
Well isn't this one interesting. Mixed feelings about a piece of toast from the kinky lady whose husband works at the construction site. Lady, your ass is the last thing your husband wants to think about at work. Chances are he spends half his day staring at the office girl's ass, and the ass of every other woman who may walk past the site. In fact, one of his goals when he leaves for work everyday is to rid his head of any possible visions of your ass. You put your ass on a B.L.T. and he will be trading his lunch off the gay affirmative action guy who cleans the hydraulic excavator after they finish digging it through the mud. It's either that or he might just jump under the steamroller.

Posted by kimhumphreys5
What a waste of money. Why not feed the hungry instead?
Oh Jesus Christ! As if that was even an option, feeding the hungry. Here's an idea: Get Laid! Better yet - Kill ya self!

Next!

Posted by zzyzx7
I agree with lindsey_112_14103 - yeah, the thing is essentially useless, and yeah, the world can live without it, but hey, I think its a clever invention. No one out there can tell me that they wouldn't want to see it in action...
Oh! You agree with lindsey_112_14103, do you? Well if lindsey_112_14103 jumped off the Empire State Building, would you jump as well? Would you? Please? Can you?
By the way, as a retort to the assumption at the end of your wonderful comment - I would not want to see it in action. What're you gonna do about it? Nothing? That's what I thought.

Posted by charming_hispanic
talk about being bored... in my opinion this is just one more way to print out porn...ha ^^
This guy's pretty funny - but the funniest part is his username - "charming hispanic" - priceless.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the man who molested and killed Jon Benet Ramsey.

Posted by chicshateme2
One of theses needs to hit the market before Christmas. I'd eat more toast if I had one of these. I wonder who will be the first sucker to propose on toast. Will you marry me toast?!? Now thats golden Pony Boy!!!
There is a reason your username is true.

Posted by hay21ley
Can be a smart idea now but why waste materials. As I heard we'll buy because it sounds fun but yet it will be sitting in the closet in a month or so. Shouldn't we be finding cures for alzhiemers not creating art toast?
Believe it or not, there are a lot like this. Because there are actually people out there who think that the same person who thought up the idea of burning toast a little more in one place on the bread as opposed to another place on the bread could come up with a cure for a disease that has been around for ages.
A retard with a heroin addiction could have invented this by accident.
Besides, without Alzheimer's how would your significant other avoid committing suicide?

Posted by eriq73
LOL... imagine the possibilities, myTOAST.com ?! web toasting (instead of web hosting), like you could even "burn" a disc onto a tortilla! Or maybe a celebrity "Toasting" like they do on the cable comedy network... :)
Or maybe, when I'm trying to think of a good way to post a comment while I'm sitting at my dead end 9-5 job in a mid-size corporation with crappy benefits and no overtime pay, I'll choose the name 'eriq' instead of using my real name, Eric (you see, adding the 'q' keeps the same sound there, but removes my actual REAL name from the post). Then after work, I will head over to the local pub and sit at the bar and drink club soda. I will watch very beautiful blonde ladies walk in and out and will never interact with them any more than our eyes meeting while I give my 'horny teenager' stare and they return the 'concerned that you might be a rapist" look. Then I will go hang out with my nerdy friends from high school over the weekend. We will work on our book club website and tell made up stories about all the girls we met that week hanging out in our respective bars.

Freakin Loser.

Posted by elyse_1966
I think it would be fun to send my boss a b.l.t with a picture of me giving him the "bird"
Apparently one post wasn't enough for elyse 1966, who previously posted about putting her ass on a B.L.T. for her husband. Here's an idea: pull the old switcheroo. Give your boss the ass, and your husband the finger - You will get a lot further in life.

Let's take another one before we go...
Posted by solochick101
it would be really cool to be able to send messages to your friends on toast from your house!
Sadly, this chick's screename says it all. If they would turn this message board into a dating room, a lot of people would be finding mates they never knew existed. 'chicshateme2' meet 'solochick101' - the two of you can eat toast, send messages, grow old, fat and retarded together.

The end.

No I did not read through all 400+ posts to find these. I just clicked through and read a couple per page. Check it out if you want more humor - this thing is a goldmine of laughs.

The Mindset of Pressure

2006-09-25T14:16:00.000-04:00

Did anyone else read "The Blind Side" in Sports Illustrated this week?

This has to be one of the more fascinating pieces I've read in SI in a long time. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. I will be making the high school varsity basketball team that I coach read the article. I am a big advocate of preaching the crossover between football and basketball. I think on many levels, there exists the opportunity to use the sport of football to teach important principles of basketball. For example, the whole idea of angles on defense in basketball (specifically in a pressure defense) is predicated on the concept of angles used to make tackles in football. The Quarterback in football and Point Guard in basketball share many similarities in responsibility and philosophy (i.e. scoring point guard and running quarterback, or a pass-first point guard and a passing quarterback). The concept of spacing the court with picks and cuts, is similar to a running game in football. The run sets up the pass, just like the drive sets up the shot. You get the point.

One of the similarities of these two sports that I had not before thought much about is intimidation, pressure, and fear. The effect these three things can have on a football or basketball game is tremendous, and often in the same kind of way. It is amazing what effect intimidation, pressure and fear can have on a game, even in professional sports. The fact that Lawrence Taylor could affect the economic and strategic future of his sport (the toughest sport) by sheer pressure and intimidation is unfathomable. The fact that offensive linemen and Quarterbacks would go sleepless the night before they had to face LT, and the fact that opposing coaches would design entire offensive game plans around him, shows the effect not only of one player, but the effect that player can have on the mindset of an entire team. He wasn’t just a great player, he was a scary idea.

The crack of Theisman's leg, the concussion to Montana and other hits from the blind side forced Quarterbacks to be thinking about more than the play at hand every time they stepped back into the pocket against the Giants. It is truly amazing where football went from there. Read the article to understand more about this evolution of the left tackle.
The reason I will make my basketball team read this is to try and help them understand that with a pressure defense, it's not just the pressure itself that affects the game, but the fear of the pressure on the opposing team that affects it even more. If teams spend a week preparing for pressure, that team’s kids come out on the court intimidated automatically... that's more than half the battle. They are expecting pressure, and are immediately scared and tight. They are playing with fear. Fear means they are thinking. When Joe Montana was thinking about anything other than the pass or run about to happen, he was no longer Joe Montana, instead he was just an average Quarterback. What made Montana, and other Quarterbacks great was the fact that there offensive lines were able to alleviate pressure and remove fear as a factor in the game. Only then could the true talent shine through.

As a basketball team, if you can bring pressure on an opposing team like they have never seen before, you will intimidate them and cause them to play with fear. Especially at the high school level, a Point Guard comes up court with a given play or set from the coach to run. He has one, occasionally two options to work with. He does not have to think, he just has to act. Now all of a sudden he comes up court and is pressured by the opposing team’s guard. Then he is forced to dribble a certain direction. The trap has not yet been applied, but the point guard has already forgotten about option one and two. He is now concentrating on how he is going to get past the defender who is applying pressure. He quickly speeds up his dribble towards the sideline and before he can even react or pull back, he finds himself in a stopped dribble and trapped with the ball by two defenders. Turnover. Basket the other way. The mindset of the Point Guard, the confidence of his team, and the momentum of the game have all just shifted in the favor of the team applying pressure.

The next time those teams meet, pressure is not only going to effect the game in steals and turnovers, but it effects the game before it begins. The opposing team comes in already in fear of the pressure. Already expecting it. They have spent all week at practice trying to deal with pressure. They have fear. They are already at a disadvantage. In football, where a Quarterback gets decked numerous times in a game, he beings to think. The next game against that team, the Quarterback will be looking around and throwing fast. He will loft the ball off his back foot in a hurry, he will throw errant passes and lobs over the middle. He will turn himself over. Similarly, the Point Guard in basketball will be trying to make quick decisions, dribbling in traffic, lobbing the ball and throwing errant passes. He will turn himself over.

The parallel between these two sports is very usable from a coaching standpoint. It is fascinating to think what a ‘pressure the Quarterback’ football mentality can do to a Point Guard in a basketball game.

Terror suspect: Naked women worse than bombings

2006-09-20T09:43:00.000-04:00

Click for article

By ASSOCIATED PRESSJAKARTA, Indonesia

Alleged terror leader Abu Bakar Bashir said TV shows featuring scantily clad women were more harmful than the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, the state news agency reported.

Bashir, recently released from jail after serving 26 months for conspiracy in the bombings, said images of naked or semi-naked woman on television were sinful and chipped away at the moral fiber of Muslim believers.

"So, if I am asked which is more dangerous, naked women or the Bali bombs, then my reply is of course those women in skimpy clothes," Antara quoted him as saying at a public rally calling for the imposition of Islamic law in Indonesia.

Bashir, 69, has traveled across the predominantly Muslim nation since his release from jail preaching in favor of Islamic law and against the secular government. He previously urged relatives of victims of the Bali bombings to convert to Islam and said the attacks themselves were part of God's will.

Go Rays!

2006-09-05T09:13:00.000-04:00

Sorry this took me so long... but...

ahahahhahahahahahahahahahah!!!!

ahahahahahhahahahahhahaha....

ahhahahahahahahahahhahaha... sad story really...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14675529/

I love when nature wins. It's always such a better story. For years I've been rooting for the crocodiles and sharks and all the others. They're like the Chicago Cubs. The loveable loser. Well finally nature got it's revenge. A freaking stingray. The most boring feature in the aquarium. The one fish that you know is never going to do anything. It lies there on the bottom looking like it could just be the meanest bastard ever, but science tells us they rarely do a thing. Then BAM! Stabs this dude right in the heart. Go Nature!

Mo

2006-09-01T13:47:00.000-04:00

Read this article by Joel Sherman of the Post.

"He has been so good that, I think, he actually is underappreciated. He has not only been the best closer ever. He has been the best closer ever while employed in the American League and in the Steroid Era. He has been better in the playoffs than the regular season. And he has done this not in Kansas City or Houston, but in New York. He has handled this smorgasbord of pressure impeccably.

"...Now consider that Rivera is doing this for an 11th straight year, and for an 11th straight year he will not win a Cy Young or MVP, though there is no doubt he is both the Cy Young and MVP of the last 11 years."

Read This...

2006-08-11T19:11:00.000-04:00

http://noyam.blogspot.com/2006/08/rav-seren-roi-klein.html

Hate My Ideas, But Don't You Dare Hate Me Only Because You Disagree

2006-08-11T15:12:00.000-04:00

A post on Noyam's blog triggered the following comments:

I heard a great point in a speech two weeks ago. I forget the famous Rabbi's name (real famous I guess), but he was a leader of the real Neturei Karta (not the fakers you got running around today pretending to be pious). He used to host major anti-State of Israel rallies in front of the U.N. and in front of embassies. But the second a non-Jew would join the rally, he would disband and send everyone home.

He always made the point that this ideology is just a different ideology. It is not supposed to be Jew vs. Jew, rather it is just a disagreement on a fundamental principle of Messianic timeliness and rights to the land. But the second that a non-Jew would join the rally, rally ended. Because he was not there to breed hate towards his fellow Jews and felt that this was not an issue for anyone else to take up, but rather a political and ideological split amongst Jews.

When the guy was speaking, as always, my blood started to boil at the thought of these anti-semitic Jews. But when he started to make his point and talk about these real Neturei Karta who had and have such a deep disapproval for the State of Israel, but yet such a deep love for their nation, I actually kind of didn't mind anymore.

I have no problem with the person who thinks differently than me. You don't have to agree with everything your country or your people do, but you can never turn your back on them and join with the enemy who seeks to kill them. That is unacceptable.

Bottomline - F' those guys, and they know who they are. F' em.

Watch this too

2006-08-10T15:56:00.000-04:00

http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

Watch This

2006-08-03T12:43:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIx0QMDj8Z4

Why the World Should Stand Back and Let Israel Do What It Has To Do

2006-08-01T18:44:00.000-04:00

Nebraska Alliance - Times Herald
Lincoln , Nebraska July 19, 2006
** Why the World Should Stand Back and Let Israel Do What It Has To Do **
**by Dave Wilson, Capt. retired, US Navy

When I was in the Navy, I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo ( Philippines ) that still haunts my dreams. The fight was between a big oafish Marine and a rather soft-spoken, medium sized Latino sailor from my ship.

All evening the Marine had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine... figuring him for a safe target. When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight the Marine sucker punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man's mutilated ear.

Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this Marine, but my shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handedly back him towards a corner with a series of stinging jabs and upper cuts that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the Bronx.

Each punch opened a cut on the Marine's startled face and by the time he had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone to stop the fight. He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons to stop the fight. He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and swollen brows.

Nobody moved. Not one person.

The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this sailor's lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the Marine's head. The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of beef in the meat locker.

Finally the Marine's pleading turned to screams.... a high, almost womanly shriek. And still the punches continued relentlessly. Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd and held them tight. I'm not ashamed to say that mine were two of the hands that held someone back.

You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft cadence: "Say [punch] you [punch] give [punch] up [punch]... say [punch] you [punch]were [punch] wrong [punch]". He had been repeating it to the Marine almost from the start but we only became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage.

This Marine stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely to block the carefully timed punches that were cutting his head to tatters... right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he gave up... or that he was wrong.

Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat. I'm sure this strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue on his career as a barroom bully.

Finally, in a wail of agony the Marine shrieked "I give up", and we gently backed the sailor away from him.
I'm sure you can guess why I have shared this story today.
I'm not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody spectacle, and the sound of that Marine's woman-like shrieks will haunt me to my grave. But I learned something that evening that Israel had better learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors:

This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage... but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat.
Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today.

President Lahoud of Lebanon , a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria , has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.
Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for Dummies Arab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt . Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success:

** Instigate a war. **

Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you... get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease fire.

Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population... and will force a truce.

Once a truce has been called you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle.

This tactic has never failed. Not once. In fact it worked so will for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War - a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel - as a military victory! No kidding... it's a national holiday over there!

President Lahoud has already begun to shriek like a school girl to the UN Security Council to "Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and then after that we'll be ready to discuss all matters."

Uh huh. Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow. He allowed Hezbollah to take over his country. He allowed the regular Lebanese army to provide radar targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that struck the Israeli destroyer. He has turned a blind eye while Iranian and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country. And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw.

As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen, strong hands need to hold back the weak- hearted and let the fight continue until one side finally admits unambiguous defeat.

Switching Gears

2006-08-01T13:24:00.000-04:00

I've always been a master at transitions...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13509704/

Numbers Skewed

2006-08-01T11:29:00.000-04:00

This why you can never take at face value the number of civillians or so-called children killed in a war on terror. There are no civillians. There are no innocent by-standers. Sometimes there are non-combatant supporters, and sometimes there are innocent children...or sometimes the children themselves aren't so innocent... see below.

Youth Killed in Gaza Involved in Kassam Launching

They have THE BOMB and haven't used it... There's your restraint!

2006-07-28T11:00:00.000-04:00

I have to say, political, religious and moral ideoligies aside, in this era of the U.N. and constant requests on retaliating countries for restraint, it is so damn refreshing to see a country defend itself at the force that IT deems reasonable.

It wasn't more than a few hours after the initial rocket attacks, murders and abductions of Israeli soldiers, that right away the world was calling for Israel to practice restraint in its retaliation. Israel, thankfully, ignored these ingorant and ridiculous pleas. How's this for restraint - Israel has nuclear weapons and has not used them yet. You happy? There's your freaking restraint.

I think that even though the world cries out, as they always do when there's an opportunity against Israel, there is finally some understanding that enough is enough. Land for peace has been a failure. They left Lebanon in the hopes of peace and got war They left the Gaza Strip in the hopes of peace not even a year ago and got war.

The problem is the same as it always has been. Were Israel to lay down its arms and hope for peace, there would be another Holocaust. Were surrounding countries and militant groups to lay down their arms, there is no question there would be peace. Therein lies the problem.

The days of pretending there is moral equivalency are long gone. The days of Israel holding back in the hopes the maybe, just maybe, this one time diplomacy and conversation would end the bloodshed are long gone. The days of believing that becoming the only country in history to return land won in a legal and justified defensive war in exchange for peace from neighbors are long gone. The days of irrelevant and often counterproductive foreign "forces" are long gone. Dare we say that the United Nations as an organization is obsolete. They are certainly ineffective. Look at conflicts across the world where the U.N. has placed its peacekeepers. There are numerous places across the world where they have failed and none where they have succeeded. And this is not just a function of the Middle East, because it has happened in many more areas as well - look it up, it's true.

Most people don't even know what a Palestinian is. If they only truly understood the history. There is no nation of Palestinians. Palestine was a British controlled land prior to 1948. It was named after the ancient Phillistines of Biblical times who constantly fought in the area. In 1948, under the Partition Plan that was rejected by the Arab countries, Israel was created. It was only a tiny strip of land, compared to the still very small strip of land it is today. In 1967, Jordan and Egypt along with a number of other Arab countries surrounding tiny Israel declared war simultaneously. In 6 days Israel managed to defend itself, and in-fact to annex buffer zones extending Israel into what once was Jordan and Egypt displacing thousands of Jordanian and Egyptian residents. Jordan and Egypt did not want these refugees in their country and in fact blocked them from entering. These same refugees were offered the opportunity to become a part of the Israeli state, according to many, a huge mistake by Israel who should have exiled these people back to their countries. From these mostly Jordanian and Egyptian refugees came the birth of the Palestinian and the claims of a lost homeland that was never truly theirs.

Perhaps Israel needs to do a better job educating the world, but is that really their responsibilty? Perhaps the world just needs to better educate itself. Until then, it is nice to see a country that truly believes in the action it is taking, and feels no need to answer to anybody but its own civillians who need protection. And it is just as, if not more refreshing to see a country like the United States and its leaders throw its unwavering support behind one of its greatest allies.

Holy Hell

2006-07-27T11:20:00.000-04:00

These people are out of their freakin minds...

Al Quaida calls for holy war

Bombing of the U.N. Observation Post

2006-07-26T12:45:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Israel "accidentally" or "deliberately" bombed a United Nations observation post in Beirut killing four U.N. "soldiers". While Israel claims this was a terrible mistake, Kofi Anan called it "an apparently deliberate" attack. Whatever.

Now I by no means will belittle the deaths of the four United Nations observers, but I will say this - Don't you think the U.N. as an entity deserves to be hit? I'm going to be totally frank and honest as I always am. If the four obliterated soldiers did nothing wrong besides have good seats to the game and jump on the field and get blasted, then it is a horrible tragedy... But don't tell me you can't picture a scenario where these four guys were giving coordinates to Hezbollah and Israel found out and then, well then, oops.

Afterall these are the same U.N. observers who observed Hezbollah building up resources and arms over the last six years when they were supposed to be ensuring that very group's disarmament. This is the same U.N. whose observers videotaped the Hezbollah kidnapping of an Israeli soldier a number of years ago and then denied having the tape, only to be forced to apologize to Israel for lying and forced to turn over the tape. This is the same U.N. who has been trusted by Israel to provide a buffer from terrorism in numerous locations throughout Israel, never once proving to be effective, and in fact more often than not proving to be cooperating with terrorist forces. This is the same U.N. that for years has condemned Israel for the humanitarian crisis in neighboring countries and areas, demanded restraint from Israel in its reaction to terrorist attacks, but not once has addressed the humanitarian issues caused by the constant terror attacks against civillians in Israel. The same U.N. that insists that Syria and Iran should be a part of the diplomacy but refuses to recognize that they are not a part of the problem, but in fact are the problem.

So maybe this was a mistake and maybe it wasn't. Either way, I'm not losing any sleep over it, and I doubt the Israelis are either. If it was truly a mistake, well, things like that happen in a war zone and it couldn't have happened to a better group of guys. And if it was in fact, as Kofi Anan calls it, "deliberate", well then I tip my hat to Israel for having the balls to make a point that should have been made by someone years ago. America made that same point to France when they were bombing Khadaffi in Libya. France tried to get in the way, and their embassy's backyard got a free gardening job courtesy of the United States Airforce.

Nobody wants to see violence and nobody wants to see death, but when someone tries to kill you, you kill them first. It's a simple and natural principle. Derived from that principle is another - if someone aids those who try to kill you, you kill them too. Just because the United Nations is a diplomatic entity and not a military entity doesn't mean they are objective, unbiased or in fact innocent. I would argue that along with many countries and entities (E.U. and Arab League included), they have a big decision to make in this global war against terror. Make no mistake about it. This is World War III. It's much different than the first two World Wars and not as easily recognized, but it's clearly a World War. The interesting factor is there are really three sides here.

You have the worldwide terror organizations such as Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Hamas along with their supporting countries such as Iran, Syria and parts of Iraq. Then you have the United States, Great Britain and Israel along with a few other democracies with a black and white view on terrorism. Finally, there is the U.N., E.U., and Arab League along with many European and Arab nations who will pick and choose when terror is acceptable and when it is in fact unacceptable. It is this third group that is key in the War on Terror. Without their support and understanding of what this war is truly about, victory will not occur.
The terrorists cannot win. They do not have the resources to, BUT they don't want to win. They only want to keep fighting as long as possible. Until other world powers come to this realization, the terrorist nations and groups will continue to fight and punish us for our stupidity.

So while the real enemies are Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and others - the U.N., E.U., Arab League and many of their members are certainly not allies at this point. Israel's bombing of the U.N. position, whether deliberate or accidental, will hopefully drive that point home. It's time to get on board with the good guys.

Are You For Real?!?!

2006-07-20T20:25:00.000-04:00

I started typing up a post about my frustration with the U.N. and European nations. As I was typing I realized I'm wasting my time. So I'll just say this:

I hope that Kofi Annan gets full blown AIDS - and not from a blood transfusion... I want him to get raped by a wild ape in the Congo. Then I want him to get caught sodomizing a little Russian boy who happens to be the child of a Russian political leader. Then I want the child's father to get so sick that he needs a blood transfusion, and they use the child to give the transfusion. Of course the child has contracted HIV from Kofi, and has now passed it on to his father. Then I want the German leader to read about this story in the paper and realize that he is at risk for AIDS because he is a pedophile. He gets so nervous that he has a heart attack and needs a heart transplant. Then the doctors mistakenly replace his heart with a baked potato instead of a heart like they do to Kenny in South Park. I don't care about the French because if they piss me off I'll just get a group of friends together and take over France.

I want to put them each in a room and flick their ears every 15 minutes for a week and see if they react in any way. I want to lob missiles at their families and blow up the restaurants where their friends eat, and then when they get mad, I will smile and ask them to show restraint. I want to make them watch videos of Israelis getting blown to bits while eating lunch with their children on their days off from school, and then give them copies of the leaflets the Israeli army always drops on civillians the day before they respond to an attack warning the civillians of the upcoming assault so they can avoid harm.

I want to plant little Hezbollah and Hamas cells in their countries and see how quickly their views change when it's their families, children and friends under attack. When it's there lives that are constantly at risk. When it's them who can't take a bus ride to town without fear or send their children to school not knowing 100% that they will get there and back without issue.

More than anything I guess I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them violently and yell at them, "What if it were you!?!?!?!?! Wouldn't you do exactly the same or more!?!?!"

Middle East Situation

2006-07-17T11:27:00.000-04:00

Israel agreed to the partition plan in 1947. The Arabs didnt. Therein lies the problem.

Instead of accepting a two-state solution, they declared immediate war which Israel miraculously won, very much due to U.S. help that came later on. Had the Arabs accepted the two-state plan, then any terrorist act following, to this day, could have been deemed an act of war by the international community, which is in effect what it should be. However, because they never became their own state, it is deemed acts of independent terror and not war, and the supporters are not enemies or soldiers, but freedom fighters and victims.

The moves have always been political and well thought out. Originally the Arabs rejected the two-state solution becasue they felt they were powerful enough to drive Israel into the sea and end it in 1947 before it started. Thanks to miraculous victories and evenentual U.S. help, Israel managed to hold on and form a state. Through years of war and attacks they have managed to build a powerful, sovereign and secure democracy amongst a region of tyranny, evil and terror.

Once the Arab nations were unsuccessful in their quest to drive the Jews out, they flipped the tables and no longer played the powerful role of aggressor ; they suddenly became the victims of the evil Zionist regime. This victim role hit its peak in 1967 (and continues on today). In 1967 Arab countries in the region simultaneously declared war on Israel. Israel got up in the air as they always do and ended the war on all fronts in 6 days and in fact annexed buffer zones in many areas (a legal move in a defensive war). However, due to international pressure, they gave back most of these lands.

After this defensive war, the PLO was created giving victim status to Jordanians and other Arabs who lived in what was now Israeli land. There had never before been such a thing as a Palestinian, however, the name was chosen to reflect the time when Britain controlled the land to make it seem as though it was originially a Palesitinian homeland. A quick check in any history book would explain that, but most don't bother to look it up. They had fought only months before to destroy Israel, but when they suddenly and surprisingly lost, they played the victim to the rest of the world and screamed for their land back. Land which they had put at risk in starting a war.

Where does it all feud from? Two places.
1. Anti-semitism. The stronger political leaders have bred a brainwashed society of poverty and terror. This society is noticeably the same in every Arab/Muslim led regime. It is consistent throughout the region. The political leaders stay rich and prosperous while keeping their countries in deep poverty. They use hatred and terror to unite the people and make them believe that the reason for their economic and societal depression is Israel and its allies.
2. The fact that the Arabs did indeed live there, and they do hold the land (specifcally Jerusalem) as the a holy place.

These two factors coupled together mean that they will never stop fighting EVEN THOUGH they have access to all their holy sites and, for the most part, control of them. Because of the first factor, the deep routed hatred they have always had for the Jewish people, they cannot stand to have a Jewish state in their midst (or anywhere for that matter) Look at any of their school textbooks or official government documents, they dont hide the fact that they hate the Jewish people and the State of Israel. It's surprising how far Europe can turn its cheek and pretend its not the case. Then again, nothing in Europe will ever be surprising after WWII and the Holocaust. It is downright scary.

That democratic leaders of civilized countries could even say the words "show restraint" with a straight face is despicable.
Whether Israel is overreacting or using too much force is a fair issue for debate. I'd concede that. I would not agree that it is the case, but I would agree it is a fair topic for conversation - HOWEVER, ONLY after it is recognized that war has been declared on that country and that Israel not only has the RIGHT to respond, but the DUTY to its citizens, and in fact to the world, to respond, and harshly. The first thing that must be recognized is that Hezbollah has been firing rockets, unprovoked, into Israel for many years. These attacks threaten hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens daily. It must first be recognized that these Hezbollah soldiers/terrorists are the responsibility of the Lebanese government as per a United Nations resolution 6 years ago by which Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon with the understanding that Hezbollah would be disarmed by the Lebanese army. It is clear that this has not been the case.

The U.N. cannot on one hand force Israeli withdrawal from enemy land with conditions on the terrorists, and then on the other hand slap Israel when the enemy country defies the resolution and Israel responds to protect itself. Every single member of that committee, as well as the Israelis, Lebanese, Syrians, Iranians and Hezbollah knew that resolution would be followed by only Israel. Yet, because they stuck to their word, they are dealing with a terrorist organization that has had six years to build resources and dig into locations that threaten Israeli civillians. Yet, somehow Israel is supposed to show restraint. This is the same attitude shown by European nations when one of their representatives stated that he did not understand what Israel was so upset about. "It's just three soldiers."

It must be recognized that Syria and Iran are the fuel for these terror groups. While Lebanon is technically responsible, it is a legit fact that they do not have the power to intervene in their own country. This allows Israel the right to intervene. However this fundamental lack of power clearly shows the power line directly from Iran and Syria to Hezbollah. Something that needs to be addressed, but probably never will be.

So while I would have no problem listening to people argue over the extent of Israel's response and actions in connection with Hezbollah attacks, I refuse to listen to the questioning of Israel's right to respond and right to protect its citizens.

At the time, back in 1947, the Arab decision to reject the world's two-state solution was an opportunity for them to continue the Holocaust in the Middle East and to rid the world of Zionism once and for all. That decision to fight in 1947 rather than to accept peace is the crucial turning point in modern-Israeli history. This left many Arabs with no real homeland, no government to control guerilla groups, and no civic pride in being able to call a land their home. This led to the breeding of a society of poverty, hatred and terror.

Had they agreed back then on the two-state solution, there might have been territorial wars, and even terrorist attacks, but because of the "state" status of each source of conflict, they might be well settled by now.

So while at the time, the Arab decision to reject the two-state solution seemed arrogant and violent, in retrospect, it was probably the best move they ever made, and it is a continuing nightmare for Israel. It has given the Arabs fuel, motivation and resources to fight Israel along with international pity; while it has given Israel another enemy to defend against, but no face or state to fight and confront.

TOUGH!

2006-06-30T07:54:00.000-04:00

by Steven Plaut
(Arutz Sheva - IsraelNationalNews.com)
June 29, 2006
Link To Article

Quick, take a fast current events quiz:

1. Since the start of the Palestinian intifada, how many innocent Palestinian civilians have been intentionally murdered by Israel?

2. Since the start of the Palestinian intifada, how many innocent Israeli civilians have been intentionally murdered by the PLO, the Hamas and their affiliates?

Now, if you have been relying on the mainstream media, you will be forgiven for not knowing the correct answers to those two questions. The correct answer to the first question is: "Zero"; and the correct answer to the second question is: "All of them."

That's right. Not a single innocent Palestinian has been intentionally killed by Israel during the past two decades of intifada violence. But every single one of the hundreds of Jewish civilians killed was an intentional act of Palestinian murder. Sure, plenty of guilty Palestinians have been killed, and these include murderers, leaders in terror organizations, rank-and-file terrorists, and people setting up rocket launchers to fire at Jewish civilians. And sure, there have also been innocent Palestinian civilians who were killed or injured when the Jews shot back. These are people who were killed in the same Israeli anti-terror operations necessitated by Palestinian terrorist aggression and atrocities.

There is a fundamental difference, however, between Palestinian civilians getting killed in anti-terror operations and reprisals by Israel, and Israeli civilians who are killed by Palestinian Islamofascists. The Palestinian dead are unintended collateral damage from operations aimed at stopping rocket attacks and other terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. True, Israeli anti-terror operations are not so "surgically exact" that only guilty terrorists get killed in them. I am quite sure that if and when such a precise military technology is invented, for killing only guilty terrorists when they hide among innocent civilians, Israel will be the first country on earth to adopt it. However, until then, when Palestinians intentionally target and murder Jewish civilians, innocent Palestinian civilians may suffer the consequences of Arab terror.

Jewish civilians, however, are always the target of Palestinian terror. Israeli soldiers hurt by the terrorists are generally the unintended collateral damage.Israel suffers from a fundamental strategic problem, which damages its ability to defend itself; namely, the fact that modern Hebrew does not have a linguistic equivalent to the American slang expression, "Tough!" True, it has some words for "what a shame," but they do not quite convey the same meaning. As a result, Israeli politicians generally fail to respond to whines from the world about Palestinian civilians getting hurt in counter-terror operations by saying, "Tough!"

There has never been a war in which only soldiers get killed, and there does not exist a weapons technology that allows military strikes to take place in an exact manner where no civilians near military targets ever get hurt. Such surgical precision is all the more impossible when terrorists intentionally hide within and behind civilian populations. International law recognizes the rights of countries at war to attack terrorists and even soldiers when they are hiding among civilians, even when such attacks produce civilian deaths. International law assigns blame for those deaths to the belligerents who use the civilians as their "human shields". When Palestinian civilians are killed by an Israeli shell, then the moral responsibility for those deaths rests squarely on the shoulders of the Palestinian terrorists who necessitate Israeli return fire. These are the same terrorists who have fired thousands of rockets and mortar shells into Israeli civilian areas, even after Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip. These are the murdering Islamofascists who have turned the Negev town of Sderot, well inside Israel's pre-1967 borders, into the Israeli equivalent of Guernica, under daily bombardment. Sderot's low-income civilians live in bunkers, afraid for their lives.

Don't want Palestinian civilians killed when Israel shoots back? Simple. Stop the rocket attacks on Sderot.

Don't like Israeli reprisals? Simple. Stop the terror atrocities committed by Palestinians against Jews.

You want Palestinians to move about freely without being searched at checkpoints? Simple. Stop the campaign of bombings, suicide mass murders and atrocities by the Palestinians. When the Palestinians stop murdering Jews, no one will have to check their cars. When Palestinian ambulances no longer carry explosives and murderers, no one will stop them for inspection.

You want the Palestinians to earn decent wages, have a comfortable life? Simple. Suppress Palestinian terrorism. Stop Palestinian rocket aggression. Then, they can even hold day jobs in Israel if they want. They are welcome to shop in Israel and get Israeli medical treatment. But as long as the terror continues, don't expect Israel to respond by turning the other cheek and abandoning self-defense. Don't like it? Tough!

Don't like civilians getting hurt in wars? Then don't start wars of terror and aggression against Israel.The Bash-Israel lobby keeps coming up with new forms of political aggression against the Jewish state. The newest goes something like this: Until Israel is technologically capable of killing terrorists hiding in the middle of cities full of civilians without a single Palestinian civilian being injured as "collateral damage", then Israel should be coerced into adopting a policy of Quaker pacifism, under which it does not respond or retaliate at all to terror atrocities.

In other words, by demanding that Israel only implement 100% pure military tactics, which no other army on earth has ever adopted, the Bash-Israel lobby is, in effect, really insisting that Israel stop defending its own civilians altogether, that Israel should become the first nation on earth to adopt such pacifism as its military strategy. Israel must be disarmed, while terrorism must be rewarded. And if Israel dares to shoot back, then it becomes the aggressor. By the same logic, Britain and the US were the real aggressors against Germany in 1944.

Such disingenuous demands for utopian purity in military operations, even when they come from Israel's own Leftists, are little more than a demand for unconditional Israeli capitulation to terror. Indeed, the only permissible defensive strategy such people are willing to allow Israel to follow is such capitulation.Let us stop with the rhetorical pretenses and affectations. People who are "only" outraged when Palestinian civilians are unintentionally hurt by Israel, but have nothing to say against the mass rocket attacks on Sderot, are naked anti-Semites. They consider Jewish children legitimate targets of Arab aggression and Islamofascist terror because they hate Jews. In reality, they do not care a fig about Palestinian civilian casualties. Such casualties are merely delightful propaganda tools that can be exploited to demonize the Jews.

There is only one effective way to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties, and that is to stop Palestinian terrorist aggression against Israel. But that is the one solution to the problem that the modern day pogromchiki, including academic Brownshirts, will never support.

Admissions

2006-06-26T10:40:00.000-04:00

I have to admit a few things:

1. I've been working very hard the last few weeks. A lot of hours. It will likely continue throughout the summer. However, I admit, I have found time each and every day to sit back and thank god that I am not one of the 11,000 poor souls studying for the NY bar exam this summer. I think back to last summer with terror and relief that I am now past that stage in my life. I try to think of one person I know who will be sitting for the bar this year and chuckle to myself over the hell they must be going through in the bar review courses and hours and hours of personal studying. Occassionally, I will even pick up the phone and call one of these people just to hear their suffering first-hand. It's sick really, but makes me feel better.

2. I have started to use the A&D cream that you put on a baby's ass when they have a bad diaper rash. Nothing crazy here. You know how sometimes you play ball in extreme heat, or even spend a day walking around for an extended time in hot sticky weather. Your thighs start to stick together and rub. Then they get all raw and uncomfortable. You've all had this, most of you would be embarrassed to admit it. I'm not. I hate that feeling. It makes it so uncomfortable to walk, that you actually feel less like an idiot waddling like you are constipated in order to avoid touching thighs. Alpha males are reduced to whimpering faygeles in the shower when the hot water hits the reddened areas. Anyway, this happened to me last week and as I left the shower, I noticed the A&D tube that we will often use for my kid when they have a diaper rash. I thought to myself how amazing it is that the second that cream goes on, the kid stops complaining and crying about the diaper rash. So i gave it a shot. Within 10 seconds I felt great and within an hour or so I no longer felt any effects of the redness. It was amazing. This product is clearly not just for babies. Anyway, people laughed at me last night when I was playing ball and I announced that I had found a new use for the A&D cream, so I figured I'd simply explain its use and affect.

3. I like David Ortiz. Not like I like Derek Jeter, but I respect him as a player. I love the fact that he always looks like he's having a great time out there. Obviously, his ability to hit in the clutch at a ridiculous rate makes him easy to respect, but there are plenty of guys throughout history who have done that while being complete a-holes. Ortiz is not one of them.

4. I like a Dixie Chicks song. Just one song. Forget it. I'm joking. I didn't really mean that. They're gay.

John Sterling - How the Mighty Fall

2006-06-07T12:30:00.000-04:00

"It is high... it is farrrrr... it issssss........ CAUGHT in shallow left field. Now Susan, from where we are sitting that ball looked like it was gone."

"Yes, John. The wind must have kept that one in the park."

Growing up on Long Island, I was one of the few kids my age without cable television. This meant that from early April through September, and as I got to my teenage years October, I spent a good deal of my evenings with John Sterling and Michael Kay. These two, of course, were the radio play-by-play announcers for the Yankees during the part of my childhood that I remember. Yes, that puts me in my mid-20's and no, I will not be comparing them to the great Mel Allen.

I remember running back and forth from my room to my parents' room after a home run call or a great play in the field to re-live it with my Dad and brother (who usually had the same agenda as me). Whether it was Sterling's drawn out excitement, Kay's "see ya!" or either of the two of them making up a word ("Jeterian"), I felt like they really brought the game to me at home.

As I grew up, got married and - more importantly - got cable, I started to watch and follow a lot more baseball than just the Yankees. I learned of people such as Mel Allen, Jack Buck, Ernie Harwell and Vin Scully and phrases such as, "shot heard round the world," "I don't believe what I just saw," and "The Giants win the pennant," and began to realize that Sterling and Kay were far from the greatest of all time. However, they were the baseball voices of my youth and therefore will always rank up there with anyone else. There is something special about the guys who bring you baseball when you are a kid. It was always there, almost every night for 6 months - excitement, entertainment and most importantly a rooting interest. Sterling and Kay provided this to me for most of the years I lived in my parents' home.

Along came the creation of the YES network and Michael Kay bolts for TV. Probably a good move. The two personalities couldn't BOTH be the "voice of the Yankees." Now, in a way, with one on TV and one on Radio, they could be. Kay surrounded himself with great people - Singleton, Mercer, O'Neil - and has looked great because of it. Sterling, on the other hand, got stuck with Charlie Steiner and Suzyn Waldman. Sterling and Steiner had no chemistry and listening to them was not a good experience. Waldman, annoying as she is, at least seems to flow well with Sterling. Except there is a more important issue which I have eluded to with my two quotes to begin this post - Sterling is losing it and fast.

John Sterling still has the voice and the enthusiasm. It is still as exciting as ever to hear him call a home run or big play, BUT, he gets it wrong way too often. He can no longer read the field and see the play develop. There are noticeable delays after the crack of the bat as he tries to figure out where the ball will end up and the few times he is on time, he misjudges badly. He repeats himself way too often - "Now I challenge anyone to figure out baseball" is a phrase that surfaces at least once a night, if not more. It's like he's given up. It's the same shtick every game.

While I watch most games on TV these days, i will often get caught leaving work late and will listen to the radio play-by-play during my one hour plus commute home. I used to enjoy these broadcasts and actually experience the game through them. No more. I now feel like I tune in as I would to the internet game casts, just to see what's happening. It is sad really. Maybe it's time for some new blood and a new era in Yankee radio. The Yankees as a team have finally begun to bring in some youth and re-invent their personality as a team, maybe it's time for the same on the radio.

Then again, every once in a while I'll be driving over the Throgsneck Bridge on my way home from work and I'll hear a perfectly timed Sterling home run call - "Giambi has worked the count full. Schilling looks in. Schilling sets. It'll be a 3-2 to Giambi... CRACK! ... There it goes deeeeep to right. That ball is high, it is farrrrr, it issss GONNNE! [Roar of the Crowd]..... Upper Deck! .....[Stadium music kicks in].... And the Yankees take a 2 run lead on a 3 run Jason Giambi blast to right. The Giambino!"

I grab my cell phone from next to me and dial up my Dad too see if he heard the call.

The Famous Ego

2006-05-23T16:26:00.000-04:00

Barry Bonds is as lost as Joe Torre without Don Zimmer at his side. This is a guy who clearly has no idea what it means to be a human being. He thinks he is God's gift to mankind.

Barry, you play baseball! That's it!

You happen to be extremely talented and excel at this profession, but the bottomline is, you play baseball. You didn't discover electricity, bring peace to the Middle East or end world hunger. Ya know - stuff that Ms. America contestants think they can do. You just play baseball!

It has always bothered me that professional athletes and actors have somehow felt that because we watch them on TV and follow their careers in the newspaper, that somehow they are worth more as a human being than the rest of the people on the planet. I mean does Sean Penn really think I give a damn who he thinks does a good job or bad job as President. He has to be out of his mind to think that I would spend half a second of my busy day worrying about his opinion on an important matter. I care many times more about the decision he makes in Mystic River than I do about who he votes for come election day.

(By the way - when you stop traffic in midtown Manhattan in the middle of the day because you have to film a scene, and you take extra time to come outside thinking that everyone wants to see you... it makes us hate you more, not love you.)

Too many of these people think they impress us. They are so misguided. These people don't impress me. Yes, their talent and accomplishments often impress, but that doesn't make them impressive people. When people run into athletes or actors in the street, they are often taken aback and act as if they are in the presence of a person greater than them. Why? Why are we so intimidated? Why are we so excited? So the guy can swing a baseball bat, or dunk a basketball - be impressed at the stadium or in the arena not in the middle of the street.

Many athletes are very similar in this manner. They believe that since they are able to get endorsement deals, that people really look up to them outside their sport. Bonds epitomizes this idea. If your son or daughter wants to play baseball like Barry Bonds...OK. But if your son or daughter wants to BE like Barry Bonds... then you, my friend, have major issues as a parent and as a role model.

Notice I have not even touched on the steroid issue. Here is why: I don't care. What do I care if the guy cheated? If he did, he'll get what's coming. Clearly the negative publicity and expressions of disapproval by the fans over the last season have brought this man nothing but shame. As he continues to break records and grow his legend he simultaneously shrinks his credibility and likeability. He deserves it. He's worked hard at it.

I am still young thankfully, but in my short time in this world so far I have found that those who work hard at being a prick, generally succeed.

The bottomline is if we as a society didn't treat these people like deities, they wouldn't think they were all that. If that was the case, athletes would be more accessible. If they were more accessible, I'd be able to meet Derek Jeter for lunch one day and tell him how freaking amazing I think he is before anyone else realized how cool it is to worship famous people!

What a Lunatic...

2006-05-18T17:13:00.000-04:00

This freakin guy... makes it so easy to post a blog on a busy day where you have nothing to say, but haven't put up anything of substance in a long time and feel like you have to or the 4 people who read your blog per day will suddenly dwindle down to 2.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12851397/
Preacher: God told him about storms, tsunami
Robertson says warning was for this year; tsunami might hit Northwest

"...religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says God told him storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America's coastline this year."

"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, "There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest."

"Robertson has come under intense criticism in recent months for suggesting that American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip."

What a piece of work. I think I'm going to ask this guy to speak at my son's bar mitzvah when the time comes many years from now. I'm going to write that down. This guy is too precious. I smell a great Family Guy episode where Peter ends up being a preacher and claims to get messages from G-d. Then Brian could spend the episode trying to bring him back down to Earth , saying things like, "Are you sure you heard G-d speak? Are you sure it wasn't... nothing."

2006-05-18T16:41:00.000-04:00

I just stopped in to say, yo momma...

My Wife the Sports Analyst

2006-05-04T12:15:00.000-04:00

Just a quick one.

I was watching Lebron dominate last night and score 45 including a game-winner with .9 seconds left against Washington (Gilbert Arenas aint too bad either, but he still has two names as opposed to just Lebron).

Anyway, after I finished almost waking up my kids yelling at the combination of Lebron's strength and control getting to the rim like that, coupled with Antoine Jamisson and Washington's utter lack of defense, I was on the phone with my brother discussing the maturing that Lebron just did in that 3 seconds and what it could mean for his career. Why? Because we're basketball junkies, it's what we do. And we don't even love the NBA. Whatever.

Anyway, my brother commented how college would have been a complete waste of time for this kid. Which I totally agreed with. My justification was that he started at 18 and had about 10-12 years to keep improving. That means at this point in his career, where he is arguably the best all around player in the NBA at 21, he still has a good 8 or 9 years of getting better ahead of him. The conversation, as it always does, quickly turned to the Yankees. I said, "how is it, that Derek Jeter at age 32 (in June) is still getting better every year?" He has had his best start ever this year. In general baseball players seem to get better as they get older for longer than other athletes.

Here is where my wife made me very proud. She was sitting next to me watching the game (1st thing that makes me proud), and was listening to my conversation with my brother. She very quickly responded to my baseball players comment by saying, "well, baseball is a game of skill as opposed to athleticism like basketball."

Brilliant! Can you believe those words came out of a woman's mouth? Unbelievable.
And it's true. Think about it - basketball obviously is a game that possesses much skill and talent, however, athleticism is needed to enhance that talent and bring it to the right level. A guy who could make 50 set shots in a row, but cannot run or jump or move well cannot play competitive basketball - he can only play horse.
Baseball is a game of skill first. If you can hit the ball hard and far, you can play. You have slow guys running and fielding all the time. As long as they can get that ball in play, there is room for them. That skill can continue to be improved upon year after year, even while athleticism starts to dwindle. Look at Barry Bonds. He is not nearly as athletic or mobile as he was in his younger days, but he is still a dominant force in the game and still is the most feared hitter in baseball. He can barely walk to first, let alone run, but nobody wants any piece of him. (Leave out the steroid argument. It doesn't give you hand-eye coordination or skill of any kind. You still have to be able to hit the ball. Bonds sees maybe 1 or 2 good pitches a game - and he never misses them).

Anyway, I thought that was an interesting point.

2006-05-01T12:15:00.000-04:00

So you may or may not have noticed that I have not been posting much lately.

It seems spring and summer are annually busy times for me. I happen to be working on a couple of new projects and have had to devote my non-working time to those. I will get something up as soon as possible.

He's a FAAA-AAAG!

2006-04-25T11:41:00.000-04:00

Am I the only one who thinks The Sopranos has been awesome this season? Tony in particular - he's got the glare back and everything. I'm actually psyched up for Sunday nights again. I've been waiting like three weeks to make this quick stupid post because I wanted to make sure they didn't start strong and then fizzle midway through as they have the past few seasons. But, they are a good amount of episodes into the season now and as long as they tie stuff together at the end and give an ending to each story line (a problem they have had in the past), this will be a golden season.

There are few things funnier than the mafia dealing with homosexuality amongst their own. Mid-life crisis... HA!

Here we go again

2006-04-17T16:55:00.000-04:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12351695/

Read the whole thing through. Disturbing.

I'll give you the highlights:

The bomber, carrying a bag stuffed with 10 pounds of explosives, approached the guard at the restaurant’s entrance, witnesses said. As he was being checked, he detonated the explosives. Police said the guard was torn in half by the blast.
Witness Israel Yaakov said the blast killed a woman standing near her husband and children.
“The father was traumatized. He went into shock. He ran to the children to gather them up and the children were screaming, ’Mom! Mom!’ and she wasn’t answering. She was dead already ... It’s a shocking scene,” Yaakov said.
“I was about to get into my car, and boom! There was an explosion. A bit of human flesh landed on my car and I started to scream,” she said.
Her car was 50 yards from the explosion and its windshield was smeared with blood.
The wounded were treated on sidewalks. One man was lying on his side, his shirt pushed up and his back covered by bandages. A bleeding woman was wheeled away on a stretcher. A dazed-looking man walked near the site, his white T-shirt splattered with blood.
The ground was covered with glass shards and blood.

And these people claim to want to form a civilized state. I hope every last one of them contracts AIDS after being raped by wild donkeys.

I Have No Time For You

2006-04-11T11:38:00.000-04:00

I've been busy, so back off.

I. I just got back from a business trip. I hate flying. I've told you that already. I'm sure you will hear more about it in the future. Two things about my flight home:

a. There was a woman who got on the plane who was so freaking fat that she had to turn sideways to walk down the aisle. I swear to you, this woman was gigantic. I didn't turn around to look (I'll explain why in a minute in section b.) but I cannot imagine how she fit into a coach seat. It should be a law that if you are that fat you should have to pay for a first class seat. Better yet, they should just strap you to the outside of the aircraft. I pity the poor soul who had her overhanging blob stuffed in next to him.

b. I sat next to a young couple. Probably mid-20's or so. They spent the entire flight more than making out. I'm talking hands down the pants, etc... Now, a few years ago this would have made me uncomfortable and perhaps would have caused me to keep my head facing the opposite direction for the entire 2 and half hour flight. Not anymore. These things no longer bother me for a few reasons:

i. I'm older and more mature and know more
ii. I am married with 2 kids; Been there done that
iii. I'm always looking for entertainment value in things - even things like this

So anyway, this couple was literally all over each other the entire flight. It was quite exciting. I kept looking over to see how far the guy was getting because I wanted to make sure when I retold the story, that I didn't have to make any parts up. Needless to say, it got too dirty to write over. I know the bathrooms are small on these domestic flights, but please, I'm sitting right here. So of course, every few minutes I would look over and give them the "I'm sitting right F%&*ing here" look (note: I made sure before I started the process that I was bigger than the guy. I could kick his ass if necessary, so I proceeded).

This guy was working real hard. This wasn't you ordinary make-out session. This guy was pulling out (no pun intended) all the tricks. I'm going to spare my parents the embarrassment and not go into detail here, but he was doing the "lean over to look out the window" gimmick, the "hold my hand, which happens to be on my inner thigh" trick and even the old and overused "whisper in the ear" move. Pathetic. Apparently this guy is desperate.

II. Ok, this post is starting to look like a law school outline with all the letters and numbers. Screw this.

Bumper Stickers

2006-03-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

Eventually I have to post on this topic in general, as bumper stickers annoy the crap out of me.

Just wanted to share with you the 3 bumper stickers I saw on a woman's car this morning on my way to work:

1. "Planned Parenthood kills 90,000 babies per year"
2. "If Mary was pro-choice, there would be no Jesus"
3. "Pro Choice - Who's missing from your neighborhood?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! Silly ho.

Anyway, when I drove up next to her car to laugh at her, I couldn't help but notice the fact thjat it's people like her who are the poster-people for justifying abortion. This woman looked like the love-child of Hideki Matsui and Andre the Giant. UGGGGGGGLY!

Oops...

2006-03-23T17:00:00.000-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_on_re_us/baby_forgotten

So a couple of questions:

1. Was it take your daughter to work day?

Because if not, then why did this guy even have her in the car with him to go catch the train. I never once ended up in my Dad's car for the ride to the train station, unless I was freaking going to work with him.
If it was indeed 'Take your daughter to work' day, then this guy is not as dumb. Hey, he's not used to having his daughter in the car going to the train and it's not his fault that the femme-nazis started this stupid practice to further women's lib ideals. The whole thing is a bunch of crap anyway.

2. Commuters noticed the 7 and a half month old in the backseat and........ called the fire department? Do you even know the fire department's number? Why would you need a fire department? Was the kid on fire? It's a parked freakin car. You break a window (one that is not near the baby, retard) and take the baby out. This way when Danny Degenerate - who woke up hung-over from a long night of drinking after getting laid off from his job because he brought his daughter to work a day early, forgets that he is smoking a cigarette in bed and falls asleep - calls the fire station, the people at the station won't say to him, "sorry sir, the firefighters all went out to rescue a child from a parked car while dozens of commuters stand around and watch. Good luck with those third degree burns to your genitalia."

Deaf... NOT Blind!

2006-03-14T12:05:00.000-05:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11822960/

You don't see these words in the same sentence too often...

2006-03-13T15:30:00.000-05:00

"USA opens Round 2 with win on A-Rod's clutch hit"

"Striker, listen, and you listen close: flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes"

2006-03-09T13:41:00.000-05:00

I freakin hate flying. Hate it. It scares me bigtime. Here is why: It doesn't make any sense!!!

You plow down the runway in a huge hunk of metal carrying 50-150 people (many of them overweight), luggage and all types of machines and other devices. The hunk of metal somehow lifts into the air - and STAYS THERE!

Every single time we get up in the air, I'm waiting for gravity to kick in. The plane seems to kind of hang there for a second, like OJ probably did before he knocked on Nicole's door that sunny Los Angeles afternoon, deciding whether to stay up or to plummet back down into the earth.

So you get on the plane. All is well. Check the little pocket on the back of the seat in front of you to see if your puke bag is in there. Take an extra second to check if perhaps the guy who was on the plane before you left a porno in there by accident (come on, you all check for it). If you are Jewish, you probably check to see if there is any change in there (or in the crack between the seats, or in the overhead compartment, or in the other person's luggage in the overhead compartment).

Then you take your seat. Here is where things begin to stop being logical. "Fasten your seatbelts." OK - this one makes sense for about 12 seconds. But once you hit 160 miles per hour and the nose of the plane is sticking up in the air, the logic behind this safety precaution pretty much goes out the window for a couple of reasons:
a. Seatbelt aint gonna help you if you crash at this point
b. If you have problems and need to jump out of the plane so that you can die from the impact of the plane rolling at 160 miles per hour, you will be stuck in your seat.

"Turn off all electronic devices, they might interfere with whatever..." - I'm supposed to trust the technology of a flying machine that weighs hundreds of tons and flies thousands of miles at incredible speeds, but can be brought down by an Ipod Nano? For real?
And really, what would happen if I took out my cell phone and made a call? Would all the radars at once stop working, and hundreds of planes all of a sudden collide? Makes me really glad they made me take my shoes off at airport security while Mohhamed walked past talking on his cell phone, typing on his blackberry and using his two-way pager. Those are like weapons of mass destruction from the way they warn you on the plane.

"Life vest in case of a 'Water Landing', and your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device" - Anybody else remember the story that Quint tells in Jaws about the trip back from delivering the A-bomb to Japan? Those people used flotation devices to stay on top of the water too and something like 600 of them got torn to pieces by sharks.
But forget the sharks for a second. To me, one would be lucky to survive long enough to be eaten by sharks. If I remember correctly, they make special planes with a different kind of bottom to land on water. Yes I believe they FLOAT!
747 's DO NOT MAKE "WATER LANDINGS!!!"
I was on a plane once where the flight attendant was giving the usual faggy demonstration of all the "safety" materials and devices aboard the aircraft. At one point after he described the floating seat cushion and water slide that comes out of the emergency exit, someone actually asked him to repeat where the floating seat cushion was. To which he sharply responded, "Ma'am, if people have to start going for the seat cushions, it's not going to matter much, I promise."

Turbulence - This always scares me. People always like to say, "it's normal, it's normal."
IT'S NOT F*%&in NORMAL!!!!
You are 30,000 feet above the sea and being thrown around uncontrollably by gusts of wind. The wing is shaking and looks like it's about to fall off, all the luggage above you is shifting around reminding you how much weight this flying tin can is holding up in the air, and you're nauseous as hell because the freakin seatbelt that they are making you wear 30,000 feet in the air is ripping into your stomach as you get shaken around. That's not freakin normal!

Landing - This is an easy one - People clap when the plane lands safely. Any form of transportation that requires clapping and celebrating upon safe arrival is not for me. I don't clap after I parallel park. Sailors don't clap after the Captain docks the ship. Subway riders don't clap everytime they pull into a station. LIRR riders don't clap when they finally hit Penn Station. Yet, people feel it necessary to clap everytime a plane lands. They are so happy to be alive. There is something inherently wrong and sick about this concept.

Side question - Has anyone ever had to use the Oxygen things they have on the plane. I don't think they even exist. I look up there everytime and don't even see a real space for them to pop out of. I don't know of anyone whose ever had to use one. And if they do exist, they've probably only been used while the plane is plummeting 500 miles per hour from 30,000 feet causing a slight change in air pressure. And as everyone's eardrums are exploding into their brains, and their hearts stop pumping blood, these oxygen masks pop out to accomodate the 3 people who have not passed out or died yet, so that they could breathe a little bit longer before they ultimately explode into a fiery ball as they meet the earth at high speeds. Of course, had they been wearing their seatbelts even while the seatbelt light was off, as they suggest you do if you are not moving about the cabin, they probably would have been fine.

Bottomline - I hate flying. I do recognize how convenient it is in terms of saving 24-48 hours on travel time, but it still sucks. I'm still sitting up there in the plane waiting for it to be that one time where something goes wrong. They say flying is safer than driving. Now you and I both know that is some hard core BS. I've been in a few minor car accidents. Poll question - how many people you know who have been in a minor plane accident? What? None? Oh OK. That's what I thought. Because a bumper to bumper at 24,000 feet and 600 miles per hour is not quite so minor! There might be many more car accidents per year than plane accidents - but people survive car accidents pretty often. They get to tell the story. You know any good plane crash stories? (and I don't count the people who called relatives from cell phones on the way down. Those f--ers weren't supposed to be using cell phones on the plane). No you don't, because all the people with good plane crash stories are dead. And the ones with REALLY good plane crash stories don't even get a proper burial because they're missing multiple body parts, or have completely disintegrated.

Nothing Important...

2006-02-28T09:34:00.000-05:00

Having absolutely nothing to do with anything or each other, a few quick things to note:

I don't like the billboard that I see on my drive to work everyday with the old, bald shirtless guy. I honestly am not sure what the ad is even for. All I know is there is a bald, old guy with way too much chest hair and wrinkly skin running on a beach and smiling at me. This makes me a little uncomfortable. Not altar boy uncomfortable, but uncomfortable nonetheless.
The GM of the White Sox, Kenny Williams, blasted Frank Thomas yesterday. I mean blasted him!
"He's an idiot. He's selfish. That's why we don't miss him," Williams said.
"We don't miss his attitude. We don't miss the whining. We don't miss it. Good riddance. See you later."
"He brought us to this point. So, OK, you want to play this game? You've got it. You got it. He's the Oakland A's problem right now. ... He better stay out of our business. He better stay out of White Sox business."
If that's not entertaining offseason stuff, I don't know what is...
We need more of that in sports. Raw emotion, pure passion and unfiltered hatred of individuals...
I heard this one on the radio - I swear - you couldn't make this up. No, not even I could make this up:
Some guy in Middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania went into a convenience store and asked to use the microwave. The clerk acquiesced and the man put his item in the microwave and went to the bathroom. After a minute a funny smell started to fill the store causing the clerk to immediately think to herself - "hmm, I wonder what that strange man put in the microwave. I better go check." Which of course she did.
Ok... you want to know what was in there... You only want to know because you don't know... If you knew you'd be upset...
I had 3 immediate questions once I found out what the clerk discovered upon opening the microwave.
a. Whose was it? Did it belong to the man who entered the store (who immediately fled and was not captured)?
b. What would be the purpose of microwaving it? Was he merely warming it up or was he trying to make it explode or shrink or something else?
c. Was he going to eat it or did he have another use in mind for this now heated up item?
Ok, you want to know what it is... The woman opened the microwave to find a severed human penis. HOLY SH**!!!!!!! That sounds just as bad when I write it as when I heard it! Good luck keeping your lunch down.
The last couple of days have been very cold in New York. Particularly yesterday was about 17 degrees below mother frikkin freezing. Yet for some reason people are willing to sacrifice their health and limbs driving 50 mph in this weather just to be able to smoke out the window of their car.
A couple of quick points on this:
a. Is it necessary to have the window open if nobody else is in the car? I'm not a smoker. Never have been, so I just don't know. But it would seem to me, that in such frigid temperatures - either don't smoke, or suck it up and close the windows. It's not like the cancer gets blown out with the wind, it's still building its home in your throat and lungs.
b. Can you smoke with gloves? Again, I don't know if this is a viable option, but I had to reach my hand out my window for 1.28 seconds to swipe my card and open the gate at the garage in my work building and I thought I was going to die. That was with a stopped car. Imagine these people driving 55-65 mph with their arms hanging out the window. After that experience you could probably give a high five and shatter your hand into pieces.
Maybe I'm naive, but the whole thing just doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, that's my thoughts for this morning. Back to work...

Zeke!!!

2006-02-24T13:37:00.000-05:00

For the love of God... Isiah is at it again... Here are some responses to the most recent trade made by the Knicks GM courtesy of Bill Simmons' fan mail:

"Sadly, I am an ex-New Yorker who is still a huge Yanks and Knicks fan. How long before Stephon is throwing bullet passes at Stevie's head for taking 15 shots in a row, followed by Stephon taking 16 shots in a row, followed by Eddy Curry walking off the court to grab some slices of pizza followed by Jerome James just laughing hysterically at the far end of the bench as he realizes for the umpteenth time he is making $8 million a year for the next 4 years. Dude, this might be "Lost" on a basketball court. There is something deeper behind this madness."
-Jermaine, Eugene, OR

"You have to write something about Steve Francis to the Knicks. I'm absolutely dumbfounded. I've got nothing. The stupidity of this is just mind-blowing. I'm not a big conspiracy guy, but something is just not right about this. No legitimate GM thinks, 'My team is crap, and my only hope is to shed these albatross contracts that have been killing us for the better part of a decade. I know, I'll trade an expiring contract so I can lock up a total headcase WHO PLAYS THE SAME POSITION AS ANOTHER HEADCASE WHO'S ALREADY ON MY TEAM.' And by the way, we're locked into Stevie Cancer's contract for four years. How does some person in the organization not drug this guy and stuff him in a broom closet in MSG until the trading deadline passes?"
-Joel T., San Diego, CA

The following one is just funny because this poor guy actually says he has no one else to turn to... Pathetic freaking loser...

"OK, I'm officially on suicide watch at this point. I'm e-mailing you because I have no one else to turn to. I'm a lifelong Knicks fan. I remember being thrilled that we got Rory Sparrow to significantly upgrade the point guard position! Where, exactly, would you say Isiah falls on the list of incompetent sports executives? Should he get the Ted Stepien Award? And what would that award look like? Would they actually give you an Oscar or a Heisman trophy and offer to trade you a People's Choice Award, an Arena League MVP trophy and the rights to Bode Miller's next ESPY, knowing that you could never turn it down?"
-Fred, New York, NY

"Please tell me that Isiah Thomas has plans to trade for Antoine Walker. Please, for the sake of my amusement …
-Chris Juvinall, Sacramento, CA

"My name is Josh and I'm 29 years old. I was a Knicks fan. Tell my parents that I love them and please make sure my cat finds a good home."
-Josh R., Jersey City, NJ

The Olympics...

2006-02-21T16:35:00.000-05:00

...suck

Maybe it's just me, but I just think it's very silly that people get a reward for finishing 2nd or 3rd. For Christ sake - you lost! You suck! There is someone (or two) better than you... Yet you smile and wave like you won something of value???

This whole concept of Silver and Bronze medals irritates me. "Oh, I tried so hard and prepared like crazy - it was a thrill just to medal" - You are a loser!!! You did not win! You are not good enough! You need to make yourself throw up, lose a few more pounds and come back in four years and try again. Nobody cares about second or third place.

This is really not the biggest deal I guess, but it just bothers me that people work that hard to accomplish a goal and then get this patronizing second or third place medal and have to pretend they are happy with this accomplishment. Anyone who says they are happy to have finished with a medal other than gold is full of crap! If they were happy losing, they wouldn't be competing on this high a level of their sport.

Oh - and we need more injuries in the ice events - speedskating, figure skating, curling. With that hard a surface hosting the sport, there has to be a few more cracked skulls and broken limbs occurring in order for me to watch these lame winter games.

Here's to Bode Miller not medaling and returning home only to kill a cop while driving under the influence... Booyakesha... I hope we see him in a reality show with Flava Flav real soon...

OK, I'm jumping in on this story...

2006-02-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

Dick Cheney shot a man ...

... in the face ...

... with a shotgun ...

... and today, the man he shot had a heart-attack ...

... the heart attack was caused by "birdshot in or touching his heart" ...

Stay tuned, this story seems to be getting better every single day. Well not for the guy who got shot; but for us, the easily entertained American public, this has "HIT" written all over it...

In case you missed the previous few statements:

Our nation's Vice President, Dick Cheney, shot a man in the face with a shotgun. The man he shot has now suffered a heart attack as a result of some of the birdshot being lodged in or touching his heart!!!

Oh Canada...

2006-02-10T12:04:00.000-05:00

Things that annoyed me about Montreal:

Canadians
The French language
14 year old Moroccan kids in the pizza store who like to pick fights with 18-25 year olds (actually, this one doesn't annoy me as much as entertain me, but whatever)
It pretends to be America, but has many different and more annoying rules.
The weather
French people
The "Shopping Mall" is smaller than a Costco in New York
People are too nice (and don't tell me that's not possible. it's true in Minnesota as well. When a complete stranger walks up to you and tells you all about himself and his family and asks you about yours and then invites you home for dinner simply because you happen to be at the urinal next to him, it's a little bit too much nice for me).
All the sports channels show nothing but hockey
All the news shows talk about Canadian current events (I guess this makes total sense, but it still annoyed me. The egocentrical New Yorker that I am, I honestly felt that the news stations should be covering the news in New York and the U.S. and not Canada).
If it's not 10 degrees below zero (farenheit) and snowing like mad, it's for damn sure raining like mad.
The flight is only 55 minutes (which is good), but it's windy and bumpy as hell (which is really really bad - I hate flying to start with, which maybe is a good topic for another day, but turbulence is killer...especially when you can see the frozen ground thousands of feet below you during the entire experience of being bounced around the skies).

Bottomline is - there is porn on basic cable in Montreal - so it can't be all that bad a place.

Chicken Gets Lucky

2006-02-08T12:18:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know I'm taking the easy way out... But I was away last weekend in Montreal and have not had a chance yet to formulate my thoughts about Canadians into a blog... Patience...

Besides, this woman used CPR as an excuse to french kiss a chicken...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11234002/

Too Easy

2006-01-31T11:04:00.000-05:00

They don't make posts any easier than this. So I will not even comment.

Click Here

Peek-A-Boo, I See You!

2006-01-30T11:05:00.000-05:00

I drive to work everyday. My commute is about an hour and a quarter, sometimes more sometimes less. I happen to enjoy my drive each day. It gives me time to gear up and wind down with my music, radio, phone calls, whatever. I very much prefer driving to taking public transportation because I feel in control of my destiny when I drive. I don't have to rush for a train. I can make stops if I need to. I can go anywhere I want to and not just set destinations. Overall, driving to work is definitely a good thing.

One of the things I notice everybody seems to do when they drive to work is look over at the person in the car next to them while they drive. I've noticed this because I do it all the time, and 99% of the time, the person has either already been looking over at me, or is about to. I don't know the psychological reasons for this human behavior of curiosity while driving, but I felt it was worth sharing some aspects I find interesting.

I have noticed that there are certain given groups of people who have certain similar characteristics while driving on their way to work. It's an interesting thing, but you can often group people on the road into these classifications. And I'm not talking about racially motivated classifications like black guy driving too fast, old white lady driving too slow, hispanic guy driving barefoot with 3 friends in the front seat and nobody in the back, Asian woman driving poorly, white woman driving poorly, hispanic woman driving poorly. I'm talking about certain actions and mannerisms that people have as I make my "look over" that perhaps can tell us a little bit about that individual's personal life.

Allow me to share some examples:

The Fat Lady Putting on Makeup:
This is an interesting breed of hippo. This is a woman who is too lazy in her everyday activity to exercise, dress nicely, eat healthy or wake up 5 minutes earlier to put on makeup in the morning. This woman's time is clearly very important and therefore she must put on makeup on her drive to work. She figures that this is a totally safe way of managing her time properly and getting to work looking her best.

However, there are a number of inherent problems with this tactic:
First of all, the makeup never seems to look right when she puts it on while swerving in and out of traffic on the Cross Island, so that she ends up looking like Mimi Bobeck - and the only people attracted to the likes of Mimi Bobeck are cross-dressing, bi-sexuals with low self esteem and a shattered image of self worth.
Second, she takes twice as long to get to work, because instead of driving straight, she is often swaying in and out of lanes killing mileage and time.
Third and finally, she is still fat. All the makeup in the world will not change her daily habits of ingesting cheese burgers and french fries at lunch and turning to co-workers to say, "guess I'll have to eat a light dinner tonight to make up for this big lunch. I usually don't eat like this."

The fat woman is not only wasting her time with the makeup, she is presenting a danger factor by being on the road for a few reasons. First, she is obviously not paying attention to the road as she applies gallons of paint to the beefy folds in her face. Second, she is fat. And third, she is a woman. Not a good combination.

This look-over is usually a quick one of disgust and disapproval. The only reason for a second look-back is to hope to catch her eye so that she sees your look of disgust and gets embarrassed.

Hot Chick (or not) Who Thinks You're a Stalker:
Every guy knows what I'm talking about on this one. Even if you don't drive to work, you've encountered this woman somewhere in life. Often it will be an attractive female, though many times it will not. Therefore, we break it up into two categories.

Attractive Female Who Thinks You're a Stalker:
This glance over is usually followed by another quick look, and another, and another. Usually the woman will catch your eye as well (even if she is in the 1% of non-looker-overs, she will have noticed the ridiculous amount of head motioning coming from your vehicle and will look over because she thinks someone is having a seizure in your car - which is exactly the effect you were going for). She will catch your eye and immediately shift her head back straight ahead. Then she will look back and give a "you're a stalker, stop staring at me" look. Now the interesting part here is that she gives that look because she knows she hot and thinks she's cool by doing that. In truth she loves the attention. As she speeds away, if you look carefully you will see her smile ear to ear. Congratualtions, you just made that broad's day and didn't even get her name.

Not So Attractive Female Who Thinks You're A Stalker:
An interesting species. These ladies will give you the "you're a stalker look" on the first look-over. This is completely uncalled for (you could simply have been looking to change lanes on the first look-over, yet she assumes you are looking at her). It is her way of acknowledging that she will likely not even get the second, third or fourth look from you, and therefore she wants to feel "hot" before you throw your "look of disgust" her way (see Fat Woman Makeup scenario). Often this unattractive woman will break into her smile long before she is able to get out of close range sight and sometimes she will even do the second, third and fourth look-back at you, because she is so excited that someone even looked her way.

There are two ways to handle her. Either you can not make eye-contact again and drive off, leaving her realizing she is doomed to a life of mediocrity and plainness. Or you can make her day and give her a smile. The only problem with option 2 is that she may follow you home and in fact become the "stalker".

Hot Chick's Boyfriend:
Dangerous situation here. You look over and see a female driving. She is attractive so you give the second look as well. On the second or third look, you realize there are a second pair of eyes looking back at you and they are not quite as attractive. That's right, you failed to notice her boyfriend sitting a little bit reclined in the passenger seat. He has by the third look noticed your head jolting back and forth. This situation is dangerous if you don't react quickly, but a quick reaction can avoid any harm. Simply jolt your head the full way around to the opposite side and make it look as if you were checking both lanes over and over again as if you were going to change lanes.

The obvious question here is what if you are in the left most lane? Well, not to worry, you still look left as if to check traffic, even though there is no lane to the left of you. But, you may ask, how will this diffuse the situation? Ah, easy... Any dolt of of boyfriend who is letting his woman drive him around doesn't have enough brain cell capacity to calculate and process enough information into his head at that particular moment. Therefore, you will be free from his "I'll kill you" look very quickly with the "traffic-check-head-jolt motion." No worries - I got you taken care of.

Exception: Where an old man (probably rich, driving a BMW or Mercedes) is driving the car and has a significantly younger and attractive companion in the passenger seat, it is OK to continue the lookover. She will very much enjoy seeing an unwrinkled young face and will probably smile back. It is also OK in this situation to give the old man the "what're you going to do about it tough guy" look in between your third and fourth look-over at his date (she will think you are tough and strong and may even exit his vehicle into yours at high and dangerous speeds - this has never happened to me, but you never know).

Guy Who Looks Like A Hot Girl:
This category is uncomfortable for all parties involved and therefore needs very little discussion. To be short, it usually ends with the "look of disgust" given by both parties. Basically, this situation arises from a few possible characteristics. I will simply list them and not discuss them to avoid any further awkardness on this topic:
- Long Hair
- Girly Hands
- Hairless Arms
- Girly Wrist Watch
- Driving a Jetta

Person Eating Breakfast While Driving:
This is often a female because she is embarrassed to eat at work in front of people she knows. So she figures she'll eat on the road where nobody will be watching here. Little does she realize that you and every other person giving the look-over will catch her nauseously inhaling an egg sandwich on her way to work.

This is a precious look-over. It is rare that this species will look back at you because she is so concentrated on her food and steering wheel that the risk of looking over to see who is peeking is too great. However, on the rare occassion that she does "look back," there are great things that can happen. She will be mortified, obviously, but even better yet - because she is so embarrassed that you caught her eating, and because she is limited in the amount of things she can concentrate on at once, she will likely slam into the car in front of her. If she's lucky, she will not have removed her seatbelt yet to wipe ketchup off her skirt and therefore will not smash through the front windshield and into the rear window of the car she just hit. That's if she's lucky. If you're lucky - she will.

Random Others:

Nosepicker - this person feels so privacy-protected in his or her car that he/she is oblivious to the fact that his/her, and every other car around him/her, has windows. Or, and this applies to many people - they just don't care. They figure the chance of someone they know seeing them is so little that it is worth the risk of leveraging out the pesky little bugger before they can hit the safe confines of home.

Cell Phone User: This person is aware of the law, and usually has a hands-free device in his vehicle. BUT, this person's time is so valuable - more valuable in fact than your life or the lives of his children in the back seat, that he does not take the 12 seconds to plug it in. Rather he speaks on the phone while constantly looking in his rearview and sideview mirrors for cops. It is in these cases where a person can set a record for looks of disgust. It is also in these cases where many people would hope he took the time to buckle his kids in, but not to buckle himself.

That concludes today's conversation. Feel free to add to the list, especially if you are reading this on your blackberry while driving 65 mph on the highway.

My New Friend

2006-01-27T09:36:00.000-05:00

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's look back at some old posts. I actually did not like that post when I wrote it and considered removing it. However, once I read through it and began clicking on some of the old posts, it reminded me of how funny and cynical I used to be when I was in law school and pretty much hated everyone around me (bar 3 or 4 friends). Now that I am working, and actually am happy at work, perhaps my cynicism has faded slightly along with the disappearance of hate and frustration. However, not to worry - a new and intriguing friend has entered my life and I have a feeling this could be a winner. Readers, I want you to meet Stress. That's right - growing family, long work hours, no time off. This could possibly be a very good thing for blog purposes. With the amount of time Stress and I hang out, coupled with his intriguing and somewhat eccentric and neurotic personality, some good stories could be ahead.

Stress is an interesting friend. I know him from work. We actually share an office. We work on many of the same projects and will often have conversations regarding our careers and clients. What makes Stress a little weird is that he has no family. He views me as his only friend and therefore will often come stay at my house on weekends. My family doesn't like him much because he has a little bit of an attitude problem, curses a lot and is often distant. But being that they are extremely understanding, they know he has nowhere else to go and allow him to keep popping in out of pity.

Truth is, I don't mind Stress that much. I think without Stress work would be pretty boring. Plus, he doesn't really bother me much when I need time to myself. For example, he does not follow me to go play ball on Monday nights, nor does he shadow me when I am trying to spend time with my kids on Friday nights. So I guess to some extent he is understanding that I need to have SOME free time. And the bottomline is, if I didn't have him with me at work, I'd probably just be talking to myself (and wouldn't that be weird).

Now from what I understand a lot of people have friends like Stress. For most people though, they are usually stuck with some S.O.B. office mate who is miserable at a dead end job with a nagging family and no time to themselves. That's not what Stress is like to me. I guess if I had to give a defined explanation for what Stress is like to me I'd say he is constantly reminding me of the "importance, significance, or emphasis placed on something" or he will put me in "a state of extreme difficulty, pressure, or strain." He does not make me miserable. Many people's office mates will drive them insane and even to suicide. Stress simply gives me that extra kick in the butt - even when it's not necessarily needed.

So, in light of this new and wonderful friend, Stress, I believe that good times and stories could be ahead... stay tuned.

I Have Nothing To Say To You...

2006-01-26T14:10:00.000-05:00

So there's this guy I know who has been blogging for quite some time now.

Side Point - I hate the term "blogging." It makes it sound like there is some close-knit fraternity of people who blog, and they all do gay things like get together and have blogging parties and posting conventions. Whatever. Truth is, there probably are people like that out there. I am not one of them. The only gay thing about me is that I have a man-crush on Derek Jeter - but he doesn't love me back, so that's not really so gay.

Anyway, there's this guy I know who has been blogging for quite some time now.

Side point - Is it really necessary in a written form of communication to repeat the last thing you were saying before going off-topic? A lot of people do this. They will make a point, interrupt this point with some off-topic, though sometimes interesting piece of information, and then they will repeat the sentence before the disruption. When you are talking this is sometimes necessary to keep order of the conversation at hand. But when writing, the reader can always refer back a couple of lines and get the needed information. Whatever.

Anyway, back to the point - see above if you forgot the point.
So this guy has been asking friends for topics to blog about lately because, well... frankly because nothing has pissed him off enough recently to incite a post. And as I'm sure people have figured out a happy person has nothing to complain about.

Now I myself, don't usually run out of topics as you can clearly see from all the mature, emotional and well thought-out posts that I have shared with you over the last year. There are usually a number of places where I will draw ideas from.

- Personal Experiences - This is probably the best one. Usually there are not much funnier and entertaining things than those things that we experience ourselves. Something bothers us, amuses us, affects us - we can turn it into a creative piece. Lately, I've been working, just working. Nothing interesting has happened to me in weeks. But there have been road incidents that have laid way for some interesting rants.

-News - Often a news story will catch our eye and immediately spark thought and criticism. This is often a great way to look like you care about what is going on in the world and at the same time poke fun at unfortunate souls and bash Arabs. Terry Schiavo was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me as a blogger. The whole saga surrounding her and her family was just priceless. That coupled with her medical condition was almost too perfect.

- Natural Disasters - It is a lucky day when we get one of these to write about. Hurricane Katrina, the only openly racist weather outburst in the history of the world (besides the Red Sea opening for the Jews and closing on the Egyptians - but come on, the Jews deserved that one after all the crap they'd taken as slaves). This storm literally wiped out just ---- people. White people were safe and gone. ---- people were drowning in the streets. Another classic moment.

- Random Thoughts - Often while watching TV or listening to the radio a random thought will occur to me as a reaction to something I have heard or seen. Sometimes I will be able to formulate this idea into a post with some entertainment value. Other times I will just waste a good 3 minutes thinking about the idea before dismissing it as idiotic. Either way, this is the source that probably gives way to the most topics of all, but not always the best topics.

So I relayed this information to my buddy and told him to try and draw his inspiration from one of these sources.

Anyway - as for me? Clearly, I could not come up with a meaningful topic today, so instead I threw a bunch of BS and old post links at you. Enjoy!

I have a couple of topics that I do intend to get to, but groups like Hamas and individuals like Ron Artest require a lot more time and thought than a stupid post like this one does.

He's a Family Guy and Some Other Random Sports Stuff

2006-01-24T10:52:00.000-05:00

Antonio Davis. Tony. Ant. Tone. Tonio. I've heard his teammates make up more nicknames for him in the past week than excuses for sucking as a basketball team. And they've made a ton of excuses for sucking.

Interesting situation here. The guy gets 5 games for going into the stands to "protect his wife." Now, from the looks of his wife, she doesn't need much protection. She's, ah... feisty to say the least. That said, if you are standing on the court and you see a family member in trouble, if you have any semblance of a sack of manhood you're over the table into the stands, no questions asked. That's why I disagree with the suspension. That said, I still think it is worth noting that Antonio had a "here she goes again" look on his face the whole time. That man needs to say something to his woman. Whatever. Unimportant. You got me, I can't think of anything to write about, so I figured I'd go sports today...

Kobe had 81 points. Eighty-one points. An eight followed by a one. 81!!!! That is ridiculous. That's four great games for some players. That's two-and-a-half good games for Iverson. That's a good game for the Knicks for Christ sake! I just am not sure people truly understand how many points that is. This guy scored 26 in the first half - THAT'S amazing. He scored more than that in both the third and fourth quarters alone - THAT'S ridiculous. He had 55 total points in the second half. Under 20 guys in the history of the league have scored 55 points in a game! This guy did it in a half.

Seattle vs. Pittsburgh. Have two teams ever made it more clear that they deserve to be playing for the Superbowl than these two did on Sunday? I don't think so.
Now, I'm far from an expert on any geographic regions west of the Hudson, but is Seattle really THAT freakin out there that we have no idea who these guys are?

Johnnies. Red Storm beat Louisville and Pittsburgh this past week. Sign of good things to come under Coach Norm Roberts. Now just stay away from the 40 year old hookers boys.

Barry Bonds. Barry decided rather than risk injury he will stay off the World Baseball Classic USA team. Perhaps someone saw the NHL player get suspended from the Olympics because international steroid testing is not a complete and utter joke. Or maybe his knee really still hurts. Oh wait, if his knee was really hurting he probably wouldn't have signed up in the first place. The NHL player's steroid issue just surfaced last week. Even if this is NOT the reason - who handles this guy? Can you pick worse timing to conjure up doubt? Morons.

I'll be back with some real stuff shortly...