Afternoon Television

Today, I am home from work as I had a callback interview this AM for my job at Six Flags. Things are looking good, and I should know if I am going to be either Tweetie Bird or Yosemite Sam for the summer on Monday. Anyway, since I am not at work, I have been spending my afternoon surfing the web, and watching afternoon television. And as you would expect there is NOTHING on during the afternoon, I mean even On Demand is not working properly.

As a result, I have been in an endless channel flip since about 1:30, which led me to stumble on the MSNBC covering live a low speed chase through the streets of East LA, and as I watched, I realized that this chase did not involve anyone famous nor had the drivers of the car done anything terrible i.e. shoot up a bank or a hit and run. Instead, this was simply a stolen car that the police were looking for.

And yet, even knowing that this chase posed no significance to the future of human existence I could not turn the stupid thing off wondering if the occupants of the car would shoot at police, hit a pedestrian, or suddenly, accelerate their car off the highway into the ravine, then, exploding into a fireball of death and destruction. Of course, none of this happened as the occupants of the stolen car eventually pulled over to the middle of road and gave up. But I remained glued to my set watching the entire surrender including the post arrest commentary.

So while I wanted to write a little entry here blasting MSNBC for covering this crap in the afternoon, I now realize to do so would be a level of hypocrisy that even I cannot stoop to... cause really the answer to why they show this crap is for people like me... who get sucked in and thus cannot switch the channel.

And since I got sucked in, the least I can do, is to provide you with some screen shots from the chase just so you can get the flavor of what went down... enjoy..

Here are the police, who according to the commentator are in a textbook perfect formation. Who knew there was a textbook for police formations? A training guide sure, but a textbook?

A close up of the textbook formation, not suprisingly, the cars that the California police officers use today have not changed in terms of their appearance since the days of Chips.

Oscar De Le Hoya...

Yankees Baseball

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We Are Recover

Good to see that the Sox made a nice little bounce back tonight versus the Orioles, who have solidified their spot as the team to face when you are struggling in the AL East. Sure this is a team that once experienced record breaking crowds and some good seasons in the design changing park that is Camden Yards, but in their freefall as an organization over the last two decades, Baltimore have morphed themselves into the doormat of the American League... and yes, this is a tragedy, but then again, it also what happens when you predicate your success on a player like Cal Ripken who towards the end of his streak was nothing more than a cardboard cutout put out there to erase Lou Gehrig from the record books. When you bank on the past, you are going to have to pay for your loss of perspective on the future... So its good to see that the Sox with Schill found the way back to the win column, and hopefully, this will continue into this weekend's potential Bronx Bombers-sponsored revenge series at the Stadium.

Panic in the Bronx?

Last year, Theo Epstein pushed the panic button and made a trade to reacquire Doug Mirabelli from the Padres in order to bring back Tim Wakefield's personal catcher to the team. In doing so, he traded away Josh Bard and Cla Meredith, who proceeded to have rock solid seasons. After the way things ended up last year, Yankees fans constantly chided us Sox fans for having a GM who panicked and made an awful trade to bring back a backup catcher. And in hindsight, they are probably right... although there is NO WAY, anyone could have anticipated that Bard and Meredith would have the seasons they did.

So let's flash to today, with the Yankees currently in the middle of a five game losing streak after Mike Meyers gave up a grand slam to Carl Crawford in last night's game. Needless today on the FAN, fans and radio personalties alike are sounding the alarm and almost in unison seem to be chanting one thing, "BRING BACK BERNIE!!!"

No, this is not a cry to bring back that dead dude from Weekend at Bernies or that zany entertainment salesman from the Connecticut Home Entertainment stores. Instead, it is a cry to bring back Yankees old timer's day legend, Bernie Williams, who this year after year's of service with the club, was kindly told that his services were no longer needed and that in order to make the team, he would have to win a spot in Spring Training or spend some time in the minors. Not suprisingly, Mr. Williams took this as a giant shot at his pride and has not been heard from since the start of Spring Training. (Although the YES network was slobbering all over his nob on Opening Day, talking about how classy it was that Bernie called before the game to wish the team luck on the season. Hey guys, he's unemployed, he has NOTHING ELSE TO DO BUT MAKE PHONE CALLS AND DRINK!!!")

The point of this little rant is this... Bernie Williams CANNOT PITCH... and for anyone that has watched the last five games, pitching has pretty much been the problem here... They currently have A-Rod having the sickest April of any player in the history of baseball, but have coughed up any leads that his hot bat has provided them because their pitching SUCKS. So hey, bring back Bernie Williams, who at last check was atleast 103 years old, and just keep ignoring the fact that you have a total of 2 pitchers who can give you six quality innings each start. Atleast, your manager is not known for over pitching his bullpen during the course of the season. I am sure all those arms should be nice and fresh for the stretch run. Atleast if they do bring back Bernie, Red Sox fans will know the exact moment this season that the panic button was pressed.

Some General News

Not going to be much funny stuff written here but I figure that I need to even start putting the mundane down just so I can have an excuse to write. So here in no particular order and in true lawyer number'd fashion is my week that was:

1. Red Sox swept the Yanks in a meaningless series in April and for the first time in 17 years. Last year, when the Sox were swept by the MFY's at the end of the season, I was kind of glad because for most of the summer, I saw the cracks that were expanding within the Red Sox team. The team of '06 no matter how we want to spin was at best a transitional year team, who got lucky early and then ran out of gas at the end. So it was with great joy that the Red Sox actually beat the Yankees during the first series of this year. True, these Yankees were utilizing minor league pitchers, but you have to beat the teams that you are supposed to and this version of the Yankees are a beatable team. So it's a good start to build on unless they continue to get destroyed by the Blue Jays like they have the last two games.

2. New Job on the horizon? I interviewed a couple of weeks ago and from the sound of things, the firm should let me know in a day or two if I got the job. Not really going to say much more, but I would love to have a sweet ass new job. (And by firm, I mean Six Flags, and by new job, I mean dressing up like Yosemite Sam for a summer at their Park in New Jersey.)

3. New computer on the scene... Hooked myself up with a fat new ride, Dell Inspiron 1505 with 2 GB of RAM. The Mind of Rain Delay, who replaced the Mind of Mary (my old Apple) is supa fast and supa cool and I put a password on it so my roommate can't nuke it by looking at porn.

So that's what I got... nothing flashy just the way things are....

P.S. Brooklyn Lou is on vacation in Florida. At least is that what his postcard says...

Imus

I know that i am late to this witchunt, but after reading this article regarding a poll conducted to figure out what people thought of his firing, I needed to add my two cents. In the interest of full disclosure, I have listened to Don Imus since I was in elementary school because my parents were fans of his from the days of WNBC and through to his times on WFAN. I personally enjoyed the morning rants with politicians where he skillfully made them look like the dumb asses that they really are. I thought, however, in recent years, his show became too much about his ranch and whatever cause his wife was championing with less of a focus on him conducting kick ass interviews.

And yes, I thought that he often said things that were horribly offensive just like Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Nancy Grace, and anyone else that makes their living by trying to out shock the American public. But after his recent comments, I thought that Imus had gone to far, and I think that punishment fit the crime although I thought that doing it while he was conducting his annual telethon for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and for his Ranch for kids with cancer, was pretty piss poor timing.

And finally, I would not even have bothered to write about it since I think that the media has done their usual tour de force shit storm of coverage leaving me with not much to add, but then i read this article. Now, nothing in the article actually surprises me except for the last sentence of this paragraph:

Among those Americans who had heard "a little" or "a lot" about the Imus story, 54 percent said the host's removal from the airwaves was about right. Thirty-two percent said it was too tough, and 8 percent said it was not tough enough, according to the survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for The People and The Press.

Now, the man got fired from his job and has been black balled for the time being from the airwaves. And yet, 8% of those people polled thought that the punishment was not "tough enough"? What exactly does that mean? What exactly would a person who answered the poll in that manner want to happen to Imus? A pound of flesh? A public stoning? Maybe we could just draw and quarter him... would that be enough for these people?

I mean I have no problem with him getting fired although I think it was less for the comments and more due to the collosal witchhunt that transpired, but I think the man has paid the price, apologized, and now, it's time to move on and start to worry about real like the price of cheese.

Lou? Lou? Where are You?

No he is not dead... but after two nights of virtually uninterrupted sleep, I think that the ultrasonic device that I bought has forced Brooklyn Lou to find other places to call home. (hopefully in my roommate's room.)

And it has been virtually uninterrupted as two nights ago, I got to hear a lovely drunk couple fight right out in front of my house at 4 AM... The conversation went something like this:

Drunken Girl: I am sorry, I cannot go fast I am really hurt from hitting my head on the pavement. I think i am really hurt.

Drunk Guy: What do you want me to do about it...

Dramatic Pause followed by the sound of Drunk Guy kicking the shit out of my plastic garbage can... (Not sure what the garbage can had to do with his dumb ass girlfriend falling and smacking her head, but I am thinking about filling the sucker with bricks in order to break the foot of the next mother fucker that kicks it.)

And then, silence, which leads me to believe that this drunk couple was then abducted by aliens and now reside on the planet, Zoon or possibly they just continued walking home...

Point of that matter is that Lou appears to be gone... I will be sure to let you know if he makes a comeback this weekend.

Update from the War

So way back when, I wrote about the ongoing battle that I have been having with my third roommate, Brooklyn Lou, a mouse who has setup his residence within the walls of my apartment. (Note: I am assuming it's one mouse when in reality, we are probably dealing with an entire fleet of mouse, rats, and several other of the mouse/rat family of rodents.) Recent cleaning revealed that Brooklyn Lou had been spending a lot of time in several places in my aparment like the corner of the kitchen, under the kitchen sink, and under the couch in the living room. AND by spending a lot of time, I mean that he was shitting like a crazy person in all three of those places. (Two points on that last sentence: Crazy people shit more than regular human beings and then smear their shit all over the place... it's science, don't argue with me about it....Further, per some interweb research, rodents shit so that they can figure out where they have been inside of a house or apartment the next time they go there... It's kind of like a fucked up version of Hanzel and Gretel.) So after some heavy duty cleaning along with the purchasing of several glue traps, my roommate (the human one) and I were confident that we had rid the abode of our friend, Lou.

Of course the story did not end there... because instead of Lou taking the hint that his presence was no longer wanted, he decided that since he was clearly not welcome in the kitchen or the living room that he would move into my room. So each night right around 3 AM, I get to hear my little furry friend participate in his version of Pants Off Dance Off while I attempt to catch the few ZZZZZZ's, I get each night. And while I understand that someday, I will hear the pitter patter of little feet in my own life, I am really not cool with my first experience in this realm being the sound of a friggin' mouse running wind sprints...

So after another night of constantly interrupted sleep, today, I decided to take matters into my own hands and went to the hardware store across from my work to stock up on a veritable arsenal of weapons to end the life of Sweet Lou. (Not Lou Pineilla, who by the looks of the Cubs season, is about two more outbursts from a major heart attack.) As such, I purchased 8 glue traps, 6 bags of poison, 1 enclosed trap, and finally, a nice little sound making device that is supposed to drive the mice completely nuts. As a result, tonight, I will methodically release all of my weapons on Brooklyn Lou and hope that I finally eradicate him from my apartment and the Earth. While I would love to say that I have confidence in this new approach, sadly, I think the more likely result is that Lou will take his battle for bedroom supremacy to my bed, and thus, I will wake up this evening to a close up shot of Lou's ass taking a mouse-size crap right on my forehead... At this point, I think I am just going to move to the couch and forget about the whole damn thing.

Here I am....

Well, alot has happened since the last time, I put finger to key and wrote for this little page. All I will say regarding that is that someone I care deeply for is going through a rough patch in terms of their health, but with prayer, support, and amazing strength, this person is going to be just fine. I, like this person, do not want to turn this blog into the type of thing that chronicles the ongoing battle that this person now faces... instead, I intend to keep the content light and the anger flowing... So other than the vague reference above that will be the last I talk about what i just wrote... You know the thing right up there that is vague... and contains no real detail.. No not that thing the other thing... exactly.