My First Hate Comment! Hooray!

May 1st, 2009 will go down as another big day in the meaningless, uneventful history of this blog. With the recent traffic generated (now dwindling) by the flukishly popular article that featured Lady Gaga, I got a number of comments which were mostly positive from random visitors to the site (except for one critiquing my use of “oh snap” – but I’ll let that slide). It’s entertaining and interesting, having folks other than your buddies from home comment on your posts. However, with that comes inevitable criticism, and I finally received one that wasn’t either via Facebook (because who cares?) or the product of my mockery of Derek Jeter worship. Take it away, Summer Johnson:

i cant seem to understand what your point is… pathetic.

I don’t even know how to react. I mean, for one, I assumed Summer Johnson wasn’t a real name, but the kind of name writers give to characters on The OC or some other dogshit show that’s about ridiculously wealthy teenagers and their daily struggles to survive a life of slacking and repeated sexual misadventures. Therefore, I’ll assume Summer Johnson isn’t your real name. I’ll also assume that since the IP address is from Texas that you might be something like this, although I submit that my worldview is significantly shaped by late night reruns. In all seriousness, am I surprised that somebody supposedly named Summer Johnson didn’t like what I wrote about? Not at all.

I’m also somewhat confused as to what you’re bemoaning – your own failure to grasp my point or, perhaps more likely, the fact that whatever you read doesn’t have a point. If it’s the latter, then congratulations! You’ve found out the dirty little secret of this blog: it has no real point. I’m actually proving as much by writing several paragraphs about an unspectacular, poorly written comment just because it marks some kind of meaningless milestone. Hey, I have people bitching at me in the comments section of my own blog! I’m marginally more relevant than I was a few hours ago!!!!!

Summer, I sincerely thank you for being the first negative comment on this site by somebody whose baseball writing I didn’t directly lampoon. I had to get it out of the way at some point. In fact, I encourage all comments, positive, negative, or whatever. I assure you if you have something bitchy to say I probably won’t give you the Summer Johnson treatment and immortalize it with its own post, unless it’s somehow especially hilarious.

In the meantime, I wish you all luck in understanding the point in your future reading endeavors.

Domestic Violence? More like Domestic Vi-LOL-ence!

Recently, 92.3 FM in New York changed it’s format from an all-rock station (K-ROCK, as it was formerly known) to Top 40 (Now FM). I have to say that if there’s one thing New York needed more of it was Top 40 radio, because it’s already impossible to turn on your FM receiver and not hear Flo Rida’s “Right Round” playing on four different stations at the same time. Why not have a fifth, right? I digress; this post isn’t written to be a rant about the saturation of the airwaves with terrible music.

This Thursday evening, I was sitting in my car and eating a burger while flipping through my car radio presets. Since 92.3 is still one of them, I happened to land on it for the last few moments of a song I actually liked and, since I didn’t immediately change the station, caught the two DJs having a conversation. It was the usual inane radio DJ fare, except this time it caught my attention because they were encouraging women to text message them with hilarious stories to see whose boyfriend had the worst temper.

The DJ’s were already very amused by the responses they had gotten, and one of them read the following text message they had received (this isn’t word for word, but I’m paraphrasing here):

“My boyfriend has the worst temper. One time, he threw a coffee table at me! Crazy European temper!”

Now, without getting into a big thing on the relationship that this girl (or the next girl I’m going to mention) has with her boyfriend: what the fuck? I’m pretty sure having a “European temper” doesn’t normally excuse throwing coffee tables at women, and I’m pretty sure that this makes your boyfriend a colossal fuck-up at life. It’s really not funny or cute that you date someone that does this (unless the person lied to get themselves on the radio, in which case they’re in dire need of attention). Of course, what I’m saying here would be the rational response to someone telling you that they’re dating someone that throws coffee tables at them, but the DJs didn’t seem to think so, no; they thought it was fucking hilarious. Yes, a woman practically told them that her boyfriend commits acts of domestic battery, and they encouraged other women to do the same for their amusement.

Amazing.

They weren’t done, though. As I mentioned earlier, there was another girl who texted in and got her text message read on the air as well. This one went something like this:

“My boyfriend has a really bad temper; he throws all sorts of things at me. One time, he threw his cellphone and broke it!”

Another brilliant example of a winner (sarcasm, for the dense) and another story the DJs found uproarious. These weren’t shock jocks; they were just two no names on a Thursday evening in New York taking examples of spectacularly fucked up relationships and having a chuckle about it. It was mind boggling/

I’m aware there’s a market for these things, of course. There’s shock jocks, and we’ve all watched Jerry Springer before; there’s a certain train-wreck fascination people seem to have with the bottom of the barrell of society. I’m not always above that (who hasn’t watched an episode of Jerry?), and of course we all have tempers and all do stupid things; I’m not under the impression throwing things at your significant other is a normal thing, however, or something that should be made light of. There’s plenty of fail to go around here, from the relationships themselves to the no-name DJ’s that probably used it as an idea to get people to go “OMG!” (and the fools like me that probably took the bait), but I couldn’t help but have this feeling afterwards:

“What the fuck is wrong with you people? Throwing coffee tables? Funny? Acceptable? Fucking hell.”

Through my own experiences I’m starting to find that trying to explain or rationalize a lot of human behavior is a pretty fucking frustrating task, but it’s always great to get little reminders of just how screwed up we are. Sometimes, I think there really isn’t much hope. Sometimes, I just think things are kinda fucked. Thanks, NOW FM, for that sobering reminder of human failure. But hey, just put on some more Flo Rida, and let’s all keep pretending that it’s all good.

Dan’s Papers, Now With More Webpage-iness.

A while back I wrote a post about the inanity of Dan’s Papers, a “newspaper” dealing with the eastern part of Long Island. Dan’s Papers is a free publication, apparently subsisting entirely on advertising it gets from high end East End businesses as best as I can tell. It’s interesting and a tad puzzling to me that as the obituaries are being written for print media everywhere, a paper who’s mere publication is an affront to the existence of trees everywhere continues to succeed. Part of the problem for newspapers has been adapting to the internet era. However, if you’re looking for a reason why a lifestyle paper with no apparent redeeming qualities continues to be omnipresent in large parts of the Island, it certainly isn’t their not-so-cutting edge website. I discovered it after losing the most recent paper copy that a friend gave to me as some kind of gag, and it was more or less whatever I expected it to be: terrible.

Now, the website is functional. It appears to have been made in Microsoft Publisher by somebody who just got one of those introductory Microsoft Office CD’s that they sell to old people that have never touched a computer before, but it’s functional. Lucky for us, it contains the same quality material that you can find in the printed version of Dan’s Papers. I would say that this renders the newspaper essentially superfluous, but since it was superfluous to begin with, I can’t say that. What hard hitting journalism do we find in this edition? Let’s find out!

One of the charming things about Dan’s Papers is that it gives Dan Rattiner a platform to spew out brilliant ideas on pressing issues, like how the absurdly wealthy travel from their expensive midtown apartments to their expensive weekend homes in the Hamptons:

With the current economic downturn, even the rich are finding they need to cut costs on their day-to-day expenses. Last year’s 50-minute helicopter charter between 34th Street and the Hamptons could cost as much as $4,500 per charter if you were the only passenger. This year, with the price of gas down, it might be $3,900. It’s still a lot.

What if you could take the same trip for half the price, without all the noise on board, with much more comfort and still get there in the same 50 minutes?

I propose Hampton Zeppelin. This is not a joke.

Could’ve fooled me. And yes, even the rich have to cut down on their helicopter rides! How will they ever tough it out? Not mentioned is anything about how the FAA feels about zeppelins docking in the middle of Manhattan (we’re not talking the Gunga Diner thing from Watchmen here), but there is some mind paid to the potential downsides:

In Manhattan, choppers take off from the Wall Street helicopter pad and the 34th Street helicopter and seaplane pad on the East River. A zeppelin could be based at either of these, though I would agree that when searching for a Manhattan location there might be objections from neighbors who fear it might block their view. The zep is as large as a 25-story building on its side.

So you’re telling me people might have a problem with a massive fucking zeppelin flying by their windows? Crazy! Plebian concerns, I say. Also, note also the ZANY cartoon depicting a fictional zeppelin attendant who appears to be a World War I era German man. Take that, you krauts!

Another pressing issue to the life and well-being of Dan Rattiner? Space debris.

In all the years I have been writing this newspaper, I never have written about all the space junk thrown off by the various rockets and satellites. The first ones went up 40 years ago. That’s a long time. Since January, however, I have written about space junk twice, both times because of problems with it.

In all of the years writing this blog, I have never written about Dan’s Papers. It was written a long time ago. That’s a long time. Since last year, though, I have written about Dan’s Papers twice, both times because of problems with it.

From what I have been told, there are now millions and millions of pieces of junk circling the earth every day. It looks like a junkyard up there. And unless somebody goes up there leading a team of Cub Scouts armed with sharp sticks and plastic garbage bags, it’s only going to get worse.

Remember that this gets printed. And distributed. Widely.

Good news? Well, space aliens will be deterred. Who the hell wants to try to get through all that junk. What? To bang up this very expensive intergalactic flying saucer? And for what? To land down there and meet the idiots who did that?

Fire all thrusters. We’re doing a 180. And we’re heading home, Axoxxheh.

“Actually,” Axoxxheh noted in his journal, “the real reason we left was because we tapped into some kind of intellectual wasteland called ‘the internet’ and found some crazy man talking about me in his paper. We assumed the planet was populated by self-indulgent morons who wanted to fly zeppelins between these places called ‘Manhattan’ and ‘the Hamptons’, so we returned to our utopia on Tyxhamannoax. Also, there were bad jokes about us.”

You’re getting the jist of this by now. There’s one last article that caught my attention, and it proves that Dan’s Paper isn’t afraid to TAKE ON THE MAN YEAH:

Used to be you just went down to the ocean and went swimming, fishing or surfing without worrying about interference from bureaucrats. The air, water, sky and beach were free. You can still do those things for free if you want. But if you do, afterwards, you’ll go to jail.

Not to fear. I imagine a jailbreak would be easy, given some space debris to distract the guards and a zeppelin to make a steady, highly visible escape. I was down at the beach last month and, interestingly, was not arrested and thrown into the county jail. I even breathed air and made footprints in the sand! Surely I fought the law and won? Actually, no; the first paragraph just has nothing to do with what he’s actually talking about:

For example, the State of New York last week passed a law that will prohibit you going fishing for fluke aboard a boat from a harbor in this state from June 15 to July 3. That’s right. If a captain takes you out, you get the ticket if it’s you who caught the flounder and it’s he who gets the ticket for being an accessory to the crime of catching a flounder between June 15 and July 3.

First paragraph: you will go to jail for using the beach. Second paragraph: you actually only go to jail for fishing during a very particular time period. Also, replace “go to jail” with “get a ticket.” That’s close enough though, right? The rest of it is kind of a confusing commentary on a confusing law that doesn’t really make sense:

One expects that the beaches will be swarming with ticket issuing employees on the lookout for surfers surfing when they are not suppose to or for surfcasters surfcasting when they are not supposed to, or surfers surfcasting when they are allowed to, but without a license.

These lucky State employees, probably laid off from their paper pushing jobs in the downturn, are now back in business, and out on the beach getting some rays while doing it. How about that! We wish them the best. Thus does the State use its stimulus money for new shovel ready jobs.

Fuck me in the ear, does that last sentence even make sense? I guess they don’t do well enough to afford an editor. This one also ends on a hilarious and somewhat ironic note; after complaining about the threat of tickets the entire article, Dan offers this sage tongue-in-cheek advice: shoot people.

Anyway, the good news is that there are still a whole lot of things you can still do for free. You can breathe the air in and out. You can lie in the sun. You can go hang gliding at Napeague. You can go rowing in Lake Montauk and out in the Pecocnic Bay, you can … wait a minute. I forgot to say this. If you see anybody who works for the State of New York reading this last paragraph over your shoulder, shoot him.

Of course, you’ll need a license for that gun.

You’ll also need a defense attorney, because “murder” is, I believe, another one of those pesky laws New York State tends to frown upon. You could even plead insanity after reading Dan’s Papers! Zinger!

Speaking of insanity, I don’t think I want to do this ever again, so please don’t encourage me. Dan Rattiner: master of the helicopter-flying demographic, crack journalist, and apparently immune to the decline of print publications. If there isn’t a better example of the ridiculous fantasy world mystique surrounding the Hamptons than his publication, I don’t know what it is.

The Day I Became Popular On The Internet

The above is a line chart showing this blog’s daily hits for the past few weeks; it is not doctored in any way. As you may notice, it is almost completely pointless to look at, as most line charts are when one set of data points is in the 10’s and another set is in the 1,000’s. Also, as you may imagine, I became very confused when logging into my blog and seeing this. I was also briefly excited; had my audience of ten of so somewhat regular (meaning annual) readers blossomed overnight? Why the hell would my visitors jump overnight from a whopping 4 on April 5th to 3,904 the next day, and 7,805 the day after that? I hadn’t suddenly become more interesting, that much is for sure. Take another look:

Over half of the visitors to this blog, ever, have come here in the past three days. Depressing, yes, but also hilarious. What did I have to credit for this sudden success? The reason why became evident very quickly:

Lady Gaga.

Oh, the irony. My one paragraph blurb on Lady Gaga in my last article, along with the accompanying picture, apparently took hold in some search engines and became a top search result. In particular, the image of Lady Gaga I used has now become the 4th result on any Google Image Search of her. Google Image Search happens to be the same way I found the photo, in case you cared to know. I assure you it’s not a Tino Exclusive (TM).

You may also notice that while I now have in excess of 16,000 hits, I (hilariously) still have only 85 comments (and about 82 of those are from two different people). I’m thinking people are just searching for images of Lady Gaga in one of her trademark CRAZY outfits and don’t care much for the context it’s in, and certainly wouldn’t take the time to write a comment scolding me for what I wrote. In that case, whatever Lady Gaga is doing is working, because she’s clearly a big deal right now, and in some weird way I’m playing into it by making light of her CRAZY CRAZY act.

I’m actually somewhat relieved that my nightmare scenario of hundreds of angry Jason Mraz and Lady Gaga fans flooding my comments or e-mailing me or whatever to tell me what a horrible person I am for badmouthing their crappy musical heroes hasn’t come to pass. Should I be surprised Lady Gaga is blowing up? I guess not, certainly not at a time when Fast And Furious is the biggest movie in the country, but still, I feel this place is sort of tainted by all of these hits. The message was lost; an image of Lada Gaga in a blue one-piece, however, was not.

Oh well.

It’s Always Sunny In Medford #11

Hello reader(s)! This time I’m just going to do a point-by-point discussion of whatever comes to my mind. Think of it as the McLaughlan Group, except with fewer old white guys. Also, no Pat Buchanan. We can all agree that this is a good thing.

Let’s get right to it.

Jason Mraz

Yes, I know. The “Jason Mraz is a terrible musician” horse has been beaten to death, resurrected in a zombie apocalypse, and then shot in the head for good measure. However, this story bears sharing: I had a half-day substitute teaching assignment last week and walked into the school’s office to sign in. After much confusion, however, I found that out my assignment had been canceled that same morning and my services were no longer needed. I woke up after a terrible night’s sleep, dressed up, and rushed out the door to school, all for nothing. Guess what song was playing in the office when my error became apparent?

Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”, of course.

Beyond proving my long-held belief that any background music played in a room full of 50 year old secretaries has a 0% chance of being any good, it was completely and totally appropriate. I wasn’t done, though! On the way home, I stopped to pick up a couple of things at the supermarket, and I dropped a bottle of tomato juice in the one of the aisles. It exploded all over the place, making an ass of myself and continuing my shit morning, but at least Jason Mraz was still happy with his millions of dollars and LEGIONS OF FANS AND GOD DAMN IT ALL.

I believe there is only one rational and realistic explanation for my unfortunate Thursday morning: Jason Mraz and his satanic army of 15 year old girl fans (Oh snap!) have begun to put a hex on me. The song was an omen. This laptop may explode before I finish this posting. If it does, you know why.

Lady Gaga

I’m going to quickly break down every Lady Gaga video I’ve ever seen for you, all two of them. Ready? Go!

1) Introducing Lady Gaga, wearing some CRAZY outfit. What a CRAZY gal!
2) Here come Lady Gaga’s CRAZY friends. What a CRAZY group!
3) Lady Gaga and her CRAZY  friends are having a party. A CRAZY DANCE party.
4) DANCING DANCING DANCING DANCING CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY.

Directing her videos must be an astoundingly easy job. All you need is a couple of rooms, some Cristal, and a ridiculous outfit for Lady Gaga to wear. Also, throw Akon into your first single, because he’s already in every song on top 40 radio and he gives you instant cred, amirite?

Team USA Baseball

If there’s one thing that’s become obvious about American team sports, it’s that it takes repeated embarrassment and disappointment for us to start giving a shit about how our teams do in international competition (see: 2001-2007 men’s basketball). That means we’ll be ready to win the World Baseball Classic just in time for the 2017 tournament, assuming the incredible amount of indifference towards it in the United States hasn’t torpedoed the entire thing by then. Then what, Japan?!

And finally…

Facebook

The new look sucks, yes, I think we can all agree on that. However, I find it infinitely amusing that anytime there’s a change to Facebook there’s literally thousands of outraged status updates about it. I’m tempted to say there’d be less anger if Mark Zuckerberg went around the world and personally crotch-kicked everybody on Facebook. Every day there are literally a million fucked up outrage-worthy things that happen in the world that don’t get noticed*, but they decide to change the Facebook home page and suddenly THIS IS WAR MOTHERFUCKERS!

Here are all of the relevant facts on the matter:

1. Mark Zuckerberg does not care about what you or I think.

The truth is, I won’t stop using Facebook. You won’t stop using Facebook. It’ll slowly become more of a tool for commerce to the point where it will make Zuckerberg more money than even he could imagine. And no, he’s not going to sell it to people that will start charging for its use, stop inviting me to that stupid group. Paying billions of dollars to buy Facebook and then charging the millions of already existing users for its continued use would be proximate to lighting those same billions of dollars on fire for shits and giggles (insert topical and snarky economic commentary here).

The real downside of the faux-twitter interface is that you see literally everything your friends post. Every inane quiz or application, for example, spams your news feed which is very important because you’ll be the first to know which one of your friends is most comparable to President Martin Van Buren (hint: whichever one has mutton chops). It’s not like I want everything on my profile to get vomited out onto the news feed, either; I’m well aware most people will not be interested in what my favorite video games are.

On the bright side, the Facebook home page changed after this meme craze passed:

What the fuck? I didn’t get tagged in one of these, but that’s okay. I don’t know how I’d feel about getting compared to an apparently asexual two-dimensional creature only capable of one emotion (but if I did I’d totally be the grumpy one LOL). I got tired of looking at this stupid-ass thing in my newsfeed. It’s not funny and it’s not cute. Enough.

Unfortunately, there’s an entire blog dedicated to these stupid things, but luckily none of the others have caught on…yet. I would say that anyone who tags me in one of these risks getting de-friended (oooh snap!), but let’s face it, I’m too lazy to follow through with any kind of threat like that. Just don’t do it.

* I realize the irony of complaining about Facebook users complaining about a relatively insignificant event. Don’t bother pointing it out to me.

That’s more of less all I could think of for this edition. Baseball season starts next week, which for Mets fans means this is the part of the year where we talk ourselves into believing that we’re not embarking on a months-long trek to Disappointmentville. Sports Illustrated even decided to get in on the joke this year and picked the Mets to win the World Series, almost certainly ensuring that it won’t happen. But hey, baseball! Enjoy.

A Running Diary of Sci Fi Network Commercials at 4AM

This morning’s movie is “Decoys 2: Alien Seduction.” A couple of friends and I watched the first “Decoys” movie and it was…objectively terrible. The movies are about aliens that come to Earth disguised as beautiful women in order to breed with human men. When their mating act freezes their victims from the inside-out, hilarity ensues. If you ever want to watch a terrible, campy Canadian horror movie, give it a shot. The “Decoys” movies really deserve their own post.

To keep myself alert I’ve decided to keep track of a few of the commercials to see what (other) kind of person watches the Sci Fi network at 4 AM on a Sunday morning. I omitted commercials for Sci Fi network shows, even the really terrible ones.

Commercial break one:

Pokerstars.net – This seems pretty appropriate for our demographic.

ShamWow – What can I say that hasn’t been said? Did you know Vince hates Scientologists?

NetZero – Meh. This was an interesting idea in 1999.

eSurance – Fact: People actually have drawn up pornographic images of Erin, the eSurance girl. No, I’m not going to link to them. Yes, we’re doomed.

Commercial break two:

ExtenZe – These commercials are so creepy and uncomfortable. I don’t like watching weird middle aged people talk about their sex lives. It’s funny to me that these commercials almost always have to air at times when the only people watching TV are almost certainly not the people with sex lives to worry about.

FinallyFast.com – Frustrated people and their crappy computers. It promises to remove spyware and speed your computer up, but – whoops! – it’s spyware.

USA Medical diabetes test - Wilford Brimley is not in this commercial. Boring.

LiveLinks - How do these “singles chat lines” stay in business? Haven’t they been replaced by internet chatrooms as the province of desperate people that need a quick lay, real or fake?

AlienThink.com - A 43 hour training course on how to draw the human figure. I would rather spend 43 hours playing Ninja Gaiden II for the NES over and over, but then again, I’m also unmotivated and a terrible artist.

So, what does the average Sci Fi watcher at 4 AM buy? Well, he’s a prospective single diabetic poker-playing artist with a slow computer and a need to clean up messy spills. He also wants his internet and car insurance on the cheap, and may or may not have a fetish for animated characters. Oh, and he wants a bigger penis.*

(I say “he” for the sake of simplicity.)

That doesn’t sound like me, and I’m not too upset about that. Then again, it’s a bit ridiculous for me to spend time writing this and thumb my nose at anybody, so…

It’s Always Sunny In Medford #10

Three years ago, I wrote an article on my old website (now residing only on an external hard drive) about Hot or Not. The entire idea of Hot or Not amused me. It basically is the one online matchmaking service that was ahead of the curve in saying “Fuck it, we most of you are superficial anyway – let’s cut the crap” and celebrated that fact by asking you to “rate” pictures of members and choose whether or not you wanted to meet them based almost entirely on that criteria alone. I guess in that one sense, it’s sort of admirable, if still completely terrible and repulsive.

Earlier that year, I had written something about the “camera whore” nature of MySpace (I was on the cutting edge back then, I know) and took a ridiculous picture of myself to parody it. Hot or Not is basically the home for the whoriest of the camera whores, so it seemed a natural fit that I post a profile there with said picture. Keep in mind, I neither consider myself attractive or take black and white pictures of myself that aren’t for ironic, self-deprecating, or otherwise comedic purposes. My hypothesis was that anyone willing to take a ridiculous, partially clothed, toolsy picture of themselves could attain a decent rating:

Success! I had proof that there’s a very simple relationship between how much of a tool you look like in your picture on Hot or Not and how highly you get rated, assuming looks are equal:

Hotness vs. Douchiness - A Study

A couple of days back I was rummaging through my old bookmarks and, lo and behold, came across my old Hot or Not profile. So I thought, well, why not update it for 2009 and see how this year’s douchey version of me performs?

Sometimes, I hate myself. Regardless, I will update it, and see how it does for shits and giggles.

It says something about this that if I wore a Mets jersey and a baseball cap I wouldn’t do nearly as well, even though that’s way more “me” than not wearing a shirt and having some contrived expression on my face. Oh well. I also neglected to write some snazzy self-aggrandizing paragraph to describe myself and what I want:

I’m a lover of the world. Literature, history, and lively debate all serve to awaken me from the feeling that I’m sailing through life aimlessly, a feeling I think too many of my fellow humans share. I speak two languages, can play two instruments, and find the scent of the ocean a far better drug than anything I could buy at the liquor store or from the corner dealer. Find something, whatever it is, that leaves you vulnerable – that leaves you wanting more, that leaves you wanting to be alive; that is my mission in life.

Also, I hit .511 last summer batting cleanup for my slow-pitch softball team, but I’m ready to hit 1.000 batting leadoff…for your heart.

That would’ve just been too much. I’m pretty sure that no matter how this turns out, I won’t be proud of myself.

While I find ways to waste time by using Hot or Not as an experiment on human attraction, I will also anxiously be following spring training updates for the New York Mets. This is the time of year when I talk myself into being overly optimistic based entirely on prognostications or fluffy spring training reports. PECOTA says we”re going to win the East? John Maine’s working on a curveball? J.J. Putz is as filthy as advertised? Ryan Church is no longer woozy? I’m excited! By April 1st, I will have the Mets in the World Series sweeping the Yankees (after a July trade for Roy Halladay, of course).

In reality, there’s a way better chance that five months down the road that they will once again find a way to disappoint me and question why I became a baseball fan in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle. I’ve never done this, but I imagine it’s like talking yourself into giving your ex “one more chance” again and again, only to have them throw your Nintendo Wii out the window of their second story apartment in a few months time. Yeah, I imagine it’s just like that. Being a baseball fan is a committment though; you either get it or you don’t.

With the Knicks not going anywhere this year and the Rangers collapsing in a hurry (can Sean Avery really save them?), the timing seems pretty good, just like the timing for football season always seems pretty good once the Mets implode in the fall. Right now, though, I’m talking myself into New York Mets baseball again. Help me.

_

It’s Always Sunny In Medford #9

Hey everyone! I thought it was high time we brought a fresh new attitude to this series, one that better represents what the people out there want to see. To that effect, I’ve decide to rename this blog to Captain Feelgood’s Happy-Go-Lucky Blog of Merriment, Sunshine, and Unicorns That Poop Skittles. I hope you enjoy the new, upbeat flavor we’ve bought to the program.

For my first feature, which I’ve entitled Things That Don’t Make Me Want To Funnel Battery Acid Down My Throat, I’ve decided to focus on that which is great about this world. Things I really like. Things that make it worth it to get up in the morning and say “Hallelujah!” to the beautiful ladybugs that climb onto your bedroom window, or something.

First, I was going to talk about baseball, but the Mets don’t win every single game, so that’s no good. Then I was going to mention The Clash, but they just whined a lot about how much work sucks or how unfairly people get treated (lazy commies amirite?). Nirvana? Kurt Cobain blew his head off. No good. I went down the list and everything seemed to have something that a cynic could pounce upon. Peanuts? Anaphylactic shock. Pets? They die eventually. Stargazing? Beautiful, but too reminiscent of how ultimately trivial our planet is in the grand scheme of things. The music of Raffi? At some point, listening to Bananaphone becomes considered “socially unacceptable.” Phooey.

Wow, the world’s really an atrocious place huh? There’s something to complain about everywhere! Like, take for example eggplants.

Eggplants: Terrible.

Eggplants are absolutely the worst vegetable in the history of vegetables. I don’t understand why people like them. My father grows about 16,000 of the fucking things in our garden every year, to the delight of the rest of my family, and then carts them in and proudly boasts about the crop.”Look at these eggplants!” Yeah, great job Dad, now get that devil vegetable away from me.

Eggplants suck no matter the preparation involved. Can you eat it raw? No. That’s the first warning sign. If you can’t eat something out of the ground raw without it being disgusting or poisonous, warning flags go up. Call it the Caveman’s Trial and Error Principle. Tastes good? Keep it. Tastes bad/kills you? Chuck it. While I’m at it, squash and zucchini suck too (the only time I tried eating zucchini I immediately vomited), but let’s stick to eggplants for now.

Have you ever seen an eggplant dish that didn’t call for the eggplant to be smothered in tomato sauce or fried to hell? I’m going to ignore whatever your answer is and say no. Do you know why that is? Because eggplants taste terrible. I’m sure if the Italians had a choice they would have picked something other than eggplant for eggplant parmesan, but them’s the breaks, you know? Just like people in olden times eating cow brains. It’s not that they wanted to eat them. They were just there, sort of like eggplants. Why should I kid myself into thinking that by default makes something a delicacy? Now, I have a choice, and I will certainly not eat this purple abomination. Or cow brains, because, you know, I don’t want to get mad cow disease.

Now, broccoli? That’s a respectable vegetable. I don’t get why people complain about it so much. All of my favorite Chinese take-out dishes favor broccoli, and if it’s good enough for General Tso, it’s good enough for me. Ba-zing!

Speaking of vegetables, idiots that smash my side-view mirror off my car for shits and giggles are scumbags and should be sent to Guantanamo. Except now, Obama’s closing it, so maybe we can just lock them in a room and make them listen to hipsters argue about whose shitty favorite band is better instead. Do you believe a piece of plastic and a tiny little mirror costs $250? I didn’t either, until I paid the people at Nissan that much to replace the damned thing. It’s bullshit that I had to do that because of some bored shithead from Medford, but that’s Long Island for you. It’s literally so boring people commit felonies not for food or money, but to occupy five minutes of their time. YEAH, LET’S SMASH THAT DUDE’S NISSAN, BUT JUST THE MIRROR! STICK IT TO THE MAN! Dipshits. If I ever snap and start running around in a Rorschach outfit, you know why.

In other fun news, we’re a little less than three weeks away from Valentine’s Day, that beloved celebration of love, depressed single people, and shameless commercialism. K-Y is getting a jump on everyone else by advertising their “Yours + Mine” line of sexual lubricants, at least on the We network (Editors note: Not my decision, and I immediately followed it up by watching Clint Eastwood scowl at people for two hours – lay off). At the end of the commercial, K-Y reminds me to have a “Happy Valentine’s Day!”. How sweet. Unless, of course, you’re single, in which case get lost because this is NOT FOR YOU. You know what? Bite me, you fascists. You know who is getting my business in the coming weeks? Whoever I’m buying beer from, not you. Take your lube and, uh, shove…it? That sounds wrong. Fuck.

Anyway, back to the theme of this article, which was being more upbeat. I’ll wrap this up with something I like: that Coach McGuirk fellow on Home Movies.

Yes, he’s objectively a huge loser, but he owns everyone else on that show and tells it like it is. Part of the fun of Adult Swim is staying up to see what sort of hilarious zaniness McGuirk is up to, or at least, it was before they started airing that Superjail bullshit every night instead of something watchable. “Life sucks. There’s your lesson, Brendon. Go enjoy it.” Damn straight, McGuirk.

And on that note, I think it’s appropriate to bring this one to an end. Take care, reader(s).

Advice Dog, again?

It has come to my attention that a lot of people only seem to visit this site for the one time I used advice dog. I thought my now the internet would’ve swallowed this meme by now, but, apparently it’s got a shelf life. Curious, I discovered that there’s now such a thing as an “Advice Dog Generator“, making it easy to make topical sports-related advice dogs for any major sporting event of the past few months! You can make the same horrible decisions your favorite athletes do, all at the counsel of an adorable puppy! Take a look!

Going from surefire Hall of Fame pitcher to national pariah? Not even Suzyn Waldman will want anything to do with you after that sort of debacle!

Interested in sinking your team’s chances at repeating as Super Bowl champions? You’ve got it!

Whoa! Don’t read this one aloud to a reporter, or Gary Bettman will send you to anger management right quick!

Do I find it odd that of all of the posts I’ve written the most popular one appears to be a short, ridiculous, and not-terribly-interesting tribute to an internet meme? Of course. Do I find it depressing? I’m not sure yet, but I’m leaning towards yes for a number of reasons. I suppose it’s better than becoming some cracked Ann Coulter wannabe to get attention, but hey, whatever works. That said, if I ever begin rambling about how I’m an unfiltered gladiator of truth, fighting the good fight against the liberal/conservative/alien demons of the MSM, please, euthanize me.

The NFC East is better than your division.

Admittedly, it’s an odd time to whip this argument out after my 12-4 Giants were eliminated by the 10-5-1 Eagles, who were consequently defeated by the 9-7 Cardinals for the NFC Championship, but, what the hell. I threw this simple chart together after a Jets fan recently derided the NFC East (I’m not going to comment further on the inherent absurdity of that statement) and a discussion last week with a friend about which division had the most successful franchises in the Super Bowl era.

Keep in mind, in putting this tally together, I’m counting the total from each franchise. This does not affect the Ravens or Browns, since the Baltimore Ravens left behind their records after moving to be inherited by the expansion Browns. I’m also well aware there’s been realignment and blah blah blah, but for now, it’s a fun little excercise.

Here is the breakdown:

NFC East (11) – Cowboys 5, Giants 3, Redskins 3, Eagles 0 (haha losers!!!!!)

NFC North (4) – Packers 3, Bears 1, Vikings 0, Lions 0

NFC South (1) – Buccaneers 1, Panthers 0,, Saints 0, Falcons 0

NFC West (6) – 49ers 5, Rams 1, Cardinals 0 (?), Seahawks 0

AFC East (6) - Patriots 3, Dolphins 2, Jets 1, Bills 0

AFC North (6) – Steelers 5 (?), Ravens 1, Browns 0, Bengals 0

AFC South (2) - Colts 2, Oilers/Titans 0, Texans 0, Jaguars 0

AFC West (5) – Broncos 2, Raiders 2, Chiefs 1, Chargers 0

There have been 41 Super Bowl champions. The NFC East has won 11 times with the NFC West, AFC East and AFC North having won 6 times each. The AFC West has won 5 times, the NFC North 4 times, and the AFC South and NFC South have won only twice and once, respectively.

As you can see, the NFC East is obviously the best division in football. It has won nearly twice as many times as any other division. An NFC East team has won the Super Bowl at a pace of better than once every four years. Aside from the Eagles, the other three teams have won at least three times, and all four teams have been relatively healthy, successful, contending franchises in the recent past (there are no Browns or Lions here). The Giants and Redskins, with 3 wins each, have won as many Super Bowls as the AFC and NFC South have combined, and with 6 wins combined would tie any other division alone for the most in the league (unless the Steelers win their 6th and give the AFC North a total of 7).

In conclusion, the NFC East is pretty good, none of this really means anything, and the Eagles still suck.