Month: April 2008 (Page 1 of 2)

I had a nice chat with our GM from our UK division last night, mostly about cricket, futbol (theirs, not ours) and baseball. He said he’s been to a couple of games and they nearly drove him mad because he didn’t really understand it. From his perspective, it was just pitch, catch, hit, run. I tried to explain the nuance of “the thinking mans game” and how the situation on the field changes with every pitch. He started to get it. I told him a true baseball fan can really enjoy a tight, 1-0 game, but that most fans today want home runs and pyrotechnics or they’re not sufficiently entertained.

This morning I discovered that last night while Keith and I were chatting, John Lester out dueled Toronto ace Roy Halladay in a 1-nil Sox win…

Oh, and here’s something very cool for those of you who can’t stand the 3:40 game…

Bonus Question: How long does a cricket match last?

Oh, one more thing. Roger… Jeez…

I’m going to keep this post short, but do women get spam promising a smaller vagina? I doubt it, because women aren’t hung up on their size. Well, that size anyway. I hear there’s a worldwide shortage of silicone impeding production of solar panels. Hey, I know where it all is. No wonder women have so much energy. Oh, that’s silicon they use in solar… Sorry for that little interruption.

It’s not easy to get large amounts of real data on “male enhancement” spending even for the legit ED drugs, but the marketer of “Enzyte,” a “natural male enhancement” formula was recently convicted “of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.” Prosecutors charged Steve Warshak with scamming thousands of diminutive men out of some $100 Million Dollars! I’m sure there’s a good joke involving prison and his product, but this is a classy blog…

If one company rang up a hundred mil on the penis promise, what must the total spending be? A billion? Ten? A hundred? The marketing effort is huge. Here are some of the tens of spam that swell my inbox each week:

• Size Matters
• Mine is Bigger
• Impress Your Girlfriend
• Gain up to 4+
• Gain up to 5+
• Gain up to 6+
• Be like Ron Jeremy
• Did you hear about how big he was?
• Extra inches to Shlong
• Super-Size It Today!
• Buy Cialis, Viagra Online – Save Up To 40%…

…and my personal favorite, “Get a bigger copulation organ today.” Copulation? That reminds of Dick Nixon asking David Frost pre-interview if he “did any fornicating over the weekend,” I guess those particular marketeers must be after the Napoleon segment of the Republican Party.

I don’t know. Someone, apparently not P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Steve Warshak is now snaking his way through the justice system for selling a dream that a minnow could grow into a Trouser Trout, and thousands of dopes bought it. They’re the biggest dicks of all.

This morning I consciously purchased my first carbon offsets. Yeah, as I was going through the obstacle course of online ticket purchasing for a Wilco show, this option was presented:

“Help the environment – Offset your CO2 emissions on the way to the show and plant a tree with your ticket purchase!

By donating to the cause, you can help plant trees in countries around the world and in the neediest tropical areas like Honduras, Belize, Senegal, Uganda, India and the Philippines.

When you drive your car to an event, it emits harmful doses of CO2 that pollute our environment and promotes global warming. By helping fund the purchase of renewable energy sources you can offset this pollution. To do so simply check the text box to the right and your credit card will automatically be deducted .55 cents (USD). Proceeds go to Trees for the Future and Native Energy and will be used to plant trees in some of the neediest places in the world, as well as help to purchase renewable energy sources.”

I’m not sure fifty-five cents will offset the carbon my car will emit driving to and from Tanglewood in Lenox, MA, but I’ve heard the venue is gorgeous and I know the band will bring it:

Starbucks has never been a habit of mine, just an occasional $4 latte treat. This week the company cut its earnings forecast citing the economy as, “worst in the company’s history.”

Last night I decompressed over a plate of chicken nachos and dueling martini’s with a buddy I’ll call Alan. Against the backdrop of glittering cold gin, I opened my wallet and pulled out a piece of paper with Andrew Jackson’s picture on it. “You see that,” I asked rhetorically. “That’s been in my wallet since Saturday.” I went on with a riveting description of breakfast at home and brown bag lunches. Old friend Quicken tells me I saved an average of $9.50 per day by not feeding at the bagel store or the company café. The echo chamber of a refrigerator I peered into this morning is also evidence we won’t be throwing any food away this week.

Let’s do the math… $9.50 x 5 days a week x 50 weeks = $2,375.00 and no wasted food. If I keep this going, that may be just enough to cover the rising price of gas.

Oh, Alan… President Jackson thanks you for picking up the check.

It takes courage to be the focus of a bright, circular light elevated for all to see and judge. For some, it’s a place too intimidating to step in time. For others, the brilliant round provides comfort like a rocking chair on a shady porch in summer, the microphone a tall, cool lemonade. For Kyle, singing is as natural as breathing, and it’s a pure heart that pumps the beat.

There were some talented kids up on that stage, and several were from Ms. Root’s class. Those special young people received some of the most boisterous ovations of the evening from their teenage peers. I’ve watched racism wither with the generation of my children, and it seems they’re rejecting meanness as well. The winning team sang “Colors of the Wind,” but in this judges opinion, a young lady who sang the comical “Taylor the Latte Boy,” was the best. There were also several capable guys rapping hip-hop songs, accessorized like gaudy gold bling with cliché bad boy “moves.” At one point I turned to Kyle’s Mom and asked, “Does our boy do a crotch grab in his song?” While that would have been hilarious, he didn’t, but thanks to Kyle, our hearts are blessed with the sound of music.

I think I have Bubonic Plague, so there will be no reason (Insert your humorous comment below…) to this mornings post. The involuntary expulsion of a midnight phlegmball resulted in a four hour wad of insomnia that had me wondering if my current health crisis was somehow attributable to “King Corn.”

I also caught Bill Moyers interviewing journalist Leila Fadel. She’s been covering the war in Iraq and tells Mr. Moyers about the human side of the conflict. Ms. Fadel recently won a Polk Award for her work. Oh, and she’s only 26.

Speaking of women, I can’t see how John McCain is going to win any of their votes after news of his legendary temper and vulgarity toward his wife percolate in the Fall. Even without this history of bad form, Senator McCain will sink like Jack Dawson with a giant “Dubya” albatross around his neck.

As bad infomercials go…this one’s pretty bad…

I’ve written about Magritte’s La Voix du Silence before, but only recently did I discover the museum in which it hangs finally published an online image of it. I must have stared at that thing for 10 minutes when I first surrealed it. Half reminded me of my old apartment in Westminster. Actually, considering the darkness; the whole thing did.

While we’re on art, Barack Obama wants more of it exposed and taught to our children in school. The right will love this…

I was pretty critical of the Boston Bruins lack of offensive skill after game 4, but after their 4 goal third period barrage in Montreal in game 5, let’s hope I Was Wrong.

Sometimes things just happen this way…

“He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit.” – Bruce Springsteen, not talking about John McCain

Meet the Boss’s new Boss. Not the same as the old boss.

Like children chasing butterflies, last night the Bruins hounded the faster, more talented Montréal Canadians for sixty minutes of breathless playoff hockey. Yeah, it was a nice break from the plodding presidential pundits, but its outcome was from a dusty old blueprint, etched in the ice like a perfect figure eight. The Canadiens always beat the Bruins in the playoffs. Well, almost always. After losing four straight years (‘84-‘87), I was there when the home team finally ousted the bleu, blanc et rouge at the old Garden in 1988.

Just like when we used to bitch about the Yankees and a “curse,” the Habs were just better. The Bruins are a likable team, and hockey like last night will bring back fans to some extent, but until they’re willing to pay for talent that can “light the lamp,” the B’s will be golfing while other teams sip from the Cup.

“29 long years.” That’s what I recall the TV announcer saying after Bobby Orr potted a Cup winner in 1970. At 11 years old, 29 years seemed more than a lifetime, but the sad reality is it’s now been 36 years since their last Cup in 1972.

Since then it’s been one team after another with decent goaltending and defense, but a limited bunch of “muckers” up front who can’t score when it counts. Last night in a furious and scoreless game, Glen Murray had the Bruins’ best chance of the night at 10:55 of the second period, set up dead in the slot, but he shot the puck into the Montreal net minder. About nine minutes later, Montreal got their chance and buried it along with the Bruins, 1-0.

Murray said, “Got to put that in. Big time of the game.” Yeah, we know.

I’m saddened to think the blue collar workers and unemployed are going to buy this “Elitist” nonsense. In the last two elections, these “folks” were manipulated and pandered into voting for a guy “you could have a beer with” and he thanked them by shipping their kids off to Iraq with a lie and also engineered the biggest transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich in the history of the republic. The GOP executed Karl Rove’s blueprint for these votes with baiting issues like gun rights, gay bashing, immigration, and sickening religious pandering. A dead son or daughter in a flag draped box is a pretty harsh example of the neocons “Family Values.”

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Elitism as “The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.” Hmmm… Let’s look at our candidates:

• Barack Obama has spent much of the last 20 years working on the streets of some of Chicago’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Hillary Clinton has been a “First Lady” twice and with husband Bill, made $109M last year.
• John McCain, the son of a famous Naval Admiral father and grandfather, hopped on his second wife, a beer fortune heiress in 1979.

I’m confused. Who’s elitist?

Senator Obama’s “Elitist” transgression is uttering an honest opinion, and not pandering for the votes of people who are ignored after their votes are counted. Here are the clingons:

“But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Hillary Clinton and John McCain have pumped the pandering by saying these good folks aren’t “bitter.” Hmmm… Bruce Springsteen has been writing songs for more than these 25 years and has been praised for his honest representation of this blue collar working man. His words seem to agree with Senator Obama’s assessment…

End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
And you just better believe, boy,
somebody’s gonna get hurt tonight,
It’s the working, the working, just the working life.
Factory – Darkness on the Edge of Town – 1978

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain’t been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don’t remember
Mary acts like she don’t care
The River – The River – 1980

I had a job, I had a girl
I had something going mister in this world
I got laid off down at the lumber yard
Our love went bad, times got hard
Now I work down at the carwash
Where all it ever does is rain
Don’t you feel like you’re a rider on a downbound train
Downbound Train – Born in the USA – 1984

From the Monongaleh valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia
The story’s always the same
Seven-hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world’s changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name
Youngstown – The Ghost of Tom Joad – 1995

If people buy this latest Obama smearing, then they deserve the candidate they get.

You have to (well, you don’t have to, but I do…) wonder if Bill Clinton is subconsciously undermining his wife’s campaign.