Workin' At The Car Wash

Car wash owners charged with mistreating, harassing employees

This story doesn't say, but it makes me wonder what the immigration status of the employees in this story was. I'm not saying that the owners aren't scumbags, or don't deserve to go to jail if the allegations are true, but people who are in the country illegally and working "off the books" make themselves targets for this type of predatory boss. That type of thinking probably makes me some sort of evil victim-blamer in some people's eyes, but I don't care. I think of it as taking one's fair share of the responsibility when bad things happen.

A-Hole

Headline blatantly swiped from yesterday's New York Post. Because it's true.

I was defending A-Rod--once again--to friends over the weekend. My side of the conversation went something like, "Well, you know, it is possible to have a false positive in these tests. You don't see any of the other telltale signs, such as becoming injury-prone, or suddenly, mysteriously, gaining 50 pounds of muscle in the offseason. I'm going to be on his side until he confesses."

Which lasted until Monday afternoon. Whoops.

I'm so tired of having to stick up for this douche. He's made an ass of himself and his family right on the front page of the papers, he's caused nothing but distraction year after year since coming to the Bronx, and he's done nothing but fail down the stretch and into the postseason. And still, I've rooted for him, for the good of the team. No more. I'm done. I'm out. The Yankees don't need him anymore. There are other third basemen out there. We've added Mark Teixeira--he can replace A-Rod's offensive contributions easily. Oh, I'll still be rooting for the Yankees--I'll just be hoping they win while A-Rod falls to the bottom of the lineup, eventually getting benched and traded for a couple of long-shot pitching prospects. The worst part about all of this? A-Rod was the best shot to have a "clean" player break Barry Bonds's tainted home run record. Now it looks like the most revered record in sports is going to be in the hands of a juicer for at least another generation.

Post-Super Bowl Thoughts, XLIII Edition

• The commercials sucked this year, just like the last couple of years. I blame the whiny noodges like the PTC that give bad press to any company that dares to try anything edgy or outrageous (remember the flack over Budweiser's farting horse ad?) and scares the advertisers away from taking any chances.

• I feel bad for Larry Fitzgerald. He played a great game, and it's going to be completely lost to history. He's the best receiver in the game today, and non-diehard football fans don't know him because he doesn't do prop celebrations in the end zone, doesn't shoot himself in nightclubs, and doesn't do cocaine off a credit card in parked cars.

• That said, Santonio Holmes's game-winning TD catch was one of the greatest Super Bowl plays I've ever seen. Maybe not quite as good as Tyree's helmet catch last year, but I'm definitely biased.

• Parity is a good thing. We've had a bunch of good, close Super Bowl games over the past several years. Remember when the 49ers or Cowboys could be counted on to blow out their Super Bowl opponent, year in and year out? Those games were boring to watch. Dynasties are great for the history books, but boring to live through, unless you root for the team that's on top.

• If New England is the team of the 'aughts, Pittsburgh is a close second. 2 wins and no losses in the Super Bowl, and two more AFC championship appearances...that's not too shabby.

Finally, in tribute to the champs--an updated video version of their fight song!



Is it as good as the original? You be the judge. There's definitely more "shoehorning" of the lyrics to fit the original song, but to me, that's just comedy gold.

Photoblivious

Check out this story on MSNBC about Mickey Rourke, star of the hit indie film The Wrestler.

Specifically, check out the picture. This picture, to be exact (it's the one used in virtually every Wrestler news story I've seen--MSNBC, CNN, you name it:

Yep, the mainstream media--the same companies who complain about "nappy headed hos" and other "insensitive" speech--has been plastering a photo all over their sites with a sign clearly visible in the background that reads "Necrobutcher sucks a fat dick." Not that I'm complaining--just laughing.

Update, two days after the original post: MSNBC has removed the photo from the story. I wonder who the tattletale was who clued them in.

They Do WHAT?!

More than you ever wanted to know about the love life of our new President and First Lady.

Best. Losers. Ever.

We're in the first of the two magic weeks of hype leading up to Super Bowl XLIII, and MSN has their top 10 list of the best Super Bowl teams ever. This year's Arizona Cardinals squad isn't on it, but last year's Patriots are on there at #10. So last year's Giants are up there at #1, right? Well...no. #5? Nope. Not even #9. Last year's championship team is still regarded as not on the same level as the team they beat for the title. I really do root for the Rodney Dangerfields of the NFL.

5 Hour Injury Drink

5 Hour Energy has maybe the worst collection of spokesmen ever assembled:

• New York Giants DE Osi Umenyiora: Missed the entire '08 season with a preseason ligament tear.
• Cleveland Browns WR Braylon Edwards: Had a near-terminal case of the dropsies during the '08 season. Had his second-lowest total receiving yards ever and only 3 touchdowns for the whole year.
• Some loser NASCAR driver I've never heard of: I had to look this guy up, and it turns out he's Rusty Wallace's son. He's never won a race and is still in the NASCAR minor leagues. Oh yeah, and he also has Tourette's. Twitching, energy drinks, and racecars: it's a winning combination!

Goodbye, Paycheck...

...it was nice knowing you. No, I'm not getting fired (and no, it's not because I called in gay.) My problem going forward isn't going to be with receiving a paycheck--it's going to be with keeping it. You see, yesterday, I went to a meeting of my fellow network admins from the various departments at work, and one my colleagues had a cool site to show everyone--a techie site called DealExtreme, and more specifically, their "gadgets under $2 section". It's like iTunes--I start out just after one or two things, but the more I look, the more I want, greedy bastard that I am. Who wouldn't want a double-LED keychain flashlight shaped like a pig? Or a butane lighter shaped like a cigarette? The cigar snobs would FREAK if they saw me light a cigar with that! A 2-in-1 laser pointer and LED flashlight? Two ways to blind people! An iPod cable for $2 and change? I paid over $20 the last time I needed one! And the best part--all of these little toys ship for free. No "$10 shipping on a $5 purchase" nonsense here. So thanks a lot for showing me this site, Steve...maybe I'll come move in with you when my mortgage payment is spent on yet another shipment of cheapo gadgets.

3 Sixes

I've been tagged--challenged by Squidly to post the 6th photo from the 6th page of my Flickr stream. So here it is--an action shot of a Rangers game I was at nearly a year ago.



According to the way the game works, I'm supposed to tag six more bloggers to do the same, but like Squidly, I don't know that many, and the ones I do know don't use Flickr. Nonetheless, if you guys ever get it, I tag the Brooklyn Blowhard and the Outhouse Times-Picayune to post some pictures.

No, Wait, I'm Here

I have to make a post today--I wouldn't want anyone to think I called in sick. I'd've been at work today if I'd contracted a case of the Ebola virus. I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Heck, even the indicted soon-to-be-ex-governor of Illinois made sure to bail himself out of jail and get his ass into the office.

Not that I have anything against the gays. As far as I'm concerned, whatever anyone wants to do behind closed doors is their own business. As long as you don't hit my nose, you just go ahead and swing your arms in big, giant windmills. But Prop 8 is a different story entirely. That was a referendum--perhaps the purest form of democracy there is in this country; the ultimate in majority rule. And in this case, the majority decided they didn't want gay marriage, by a 6% margin--in a state the size of California, that's a lot of people! This protest is all about using the courts and/or legislature to overrule the direct, stated will of the majority of the people. And no matter what the issue, that's just un-American.

Party Like It's 1999 (or 1993)

I had a longer drive than usual to my family's Thanksgiving dinner this past weekend, due to the fact that my parents are now happy retirees living in Tioga County, PA rather than Berks County, PA. Fortunately, I had good company for the ride--new albums by bands I used to listen to growing up: Guns 'N Roses, AC/DC, and Metallica. The latter two were and still are two of my favorite bands ever (Metallica's godawful "St. Anger" notwithstanding), and although I wouldn't count G'n'R in the "favorite" category, I usually don't turn the radio off when their songs come on. The results--well, they were pretty much as I thought they'd be before giving them a listen.

Best Overall Album: Metallica - Death Magnetic
Wow, these guys are back in a big, big way. Following the aforementioned piece of crap St. Anger with this is reminiscent of the New York Football Giants winning the Super Bowl last year after losing their first two games in embarassing fashion. This album has a retro thrash-metal feel, getting back to the long, epic songs Metallica was famous for in the '80s. There's even an instrumental composition--they haven't had one of those since "...And Justice For All" (not counting "Ecstasy of Gold" on "S&M"). Even the song I expected to suck (The Unforgiven III--songs don't need sequels, and they definitely don't need second sequels) didn't.

Best Songs: AC/DC - Black Ice
This one was exactly what I expected: fifteen new AC/DC songs with the same great sound this band has always had. You could take any one of these tracks, tack it onto the end of a copy of Back in Black, hand it to a non-AC/DC fan, and they wouldn't know it didn't belong. Great car songs that will be staying on my iPod for a long time to come.

Most Improved: Guns 'N Roses - Chinese Democracy
This group really shouldn't be called Guns 'N Roses anymore--more like "Axl and Friends", since he's the only member left. That aside, there were a lot of songs here that I really dug. Certainly not good enough to justify 15 years of production, but not bad. A very "modern" sound compared to a lot of early G'n'R stuff that hasn't aged particularly well. (Can anyone make it through a complete listening of "Patience" without changing the dial or hitting fast-forward? Didn't think so.)

These are all worth a listen, but ranking them is more a matter of personal preference than anything else. For me, I'll stick with the new Metallica, but would recommend any of these people like me who were fans of these bands in the '80s and '90s.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: November Edition

Since I've been neglecting the blog updates lately, I figured now was as good a time as any to unveil a new feature that'd catch everybody up on what I've been doing and thinking lately. Of course there's two sections of bitching for every one of positivity, because that's just how I roll.

The Good: Fallout 3 I've been playing obsessively in between drinking binges, work, and drinking binges at work. I'm not going to give it a full-length review (there's a good one over at Squidly.com), but suffice to say that this is the best game I've played in several years. Great story, great voice acting, great graphics (even on a midrange system), and most importantly good gameplay that makes it feel like part of the Fallout family, despite being made by a new development house. Bonus points for moving the setting away from the West Coast (where I haven't been in about 15 years) to the Washington, D.C. area (where I was this past weekend). It's a cliche at this point, but if you only play one game this year.....yeah.

The Bad: Ben Folds - Way To Normal It breaks my heart to have to do this, but one of my all-time favorites has had this coming for a while now. His last album (Songs for Silverman) fell into that category of "OK-but-not-my-favorite", but this one sinks to a whole different level of suck. I committed to listening to the whole thing, but found myself wanting to just turn it off halfway through. Most of the songs are lyrically unrelatable (at least to me) and Folds's normally melodic piano rock is overlaid with obnoxious synthesized sounds through most of the album. I just hope this album is a one-time aberration and not a shift in direction.

The Ugly: The 2008 Election I sure hope I'm wrong about our president-elect. I hope so, but I don't think so. He's vowed to "share the wealth" and his standard of what defines "wealth" gets lower and lower with every press conference. You can't legislate charity, folks. America is the land of opportunity, but it seems like the Obammunists are confusing the definition of "opportunity" with that of "guarantee". And his promises to stop President Bush's new drilling and "bankrupt" the coal industry? Yeah, that's really going to help the economy turn around. I'm praying that I'm wrong and that the next four years go smoothly and successfully...but I think I'm right.