It's OKTO Ramble

Is it total BS that my wife proposed to me on Facebook, and I ignored the request? I just thought it would be a bit lame for a mass e-mail to go out to my 76 friends (of which only 15 are fake) declaring our life-long commitment to each other. I have had to declare that publicly once before, and I got a SWEET party out of it. I just didn't see the upside here.

There is though a bit of risk with just being Facebook Friends with my wife. I have already had one person note that my wife is "Facebook available", and he was saying he might make a move.

Here's another reason why Cricket is lame. Not only is it a slower version of baseball, but you also get weak news headlines like the recent: "England loses their sixth wicket just before tea on the first day of the third Test at Edgbaston." What the hell does that even mean? It sounds like someone is misplacing Ewoks before caffeinating up during finals week. Losing Wickets before tea on the first day of tests? It's excruciating.

Do you want to know just how excruciating Cricket is to me? OK, picture yourself after reading that last paragraph. Yes, I KNOW, THAT excruciating.

I don't easily get mad, but I purchased a lottery ticket the other day, and the pure complexity, and time it took to figure out, just really angered me. Why should I be forced to apply advanced chaos science to a lottery ticket to discover if I won the $5 or not? I seriously have no idea if this ticket has value. Please click on the picture to the right and tell me, I'll just send it to you.

It seems like every time I visit my grandparents in their sweet retirement complex I hear some total gem from one of the residents. Like my last visit I was in the elevator going down to dinner, and a nice old guy explained to me that the "computer was going to just change everything." It was a tough point to argue.

I am by no means in the know on music these days as I generally listen to such things "Dora's Music on the Go" and not so much the latest Ne-Yo track. That said, I hear by declare the most catchy song of 2009 to be "It's Love" by Chris Knox. Come on, you've seen the Heineken "Share the Good" commercial, right? And since this post may put my manliness in question, I'll just go with it and also declare Heineken Premium Light to be a damn fine beer too.

Clarifications

OK, I'm bagging the courier font (but that is not all I'm bagging these days). People tell me its hard to read, I don't like the way it looks, and I find I am far less funny when I write in courier. So, in a show of solidarity with our brothers in the former Soviet Union, I am switching to the Georgia font. Note that the switch has nothing to do with the formerly highly-regarded UGA football team, which was tragically bludgeoned to death by Nick Saban and the University of Alabama earlier today.

First, I note that The Wood Dog seems to be on to something with respect to the Mariners being crappy. In fact, one of their players, a fellow by the name of Ichiro Suzuki, noticed as much all the way back in May:

"Playing on this team and seeing what is happening around me, I feel that something is beginning to fall apart. But, if I was not in this situation, and I was objectively watching what just happened this week, I would probably be drinking a lot of beers and booing. Usually, I enjoy Japanese beer, but given the situation, if I was objectively watching the game, I wouldn't care if it was Japanese beer, American beer or beer from Papua New Guinea."

Ichiro was unable to offer further comment, as he had to immediately rush off in his tricked-out Honda Civic to the Seattle Waterfront Arcade to sing karaoke and play Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix, in order to get his mind off his complex about his smaller-than-average penis. They're Asian stereotypes, people. Work with me.

Secondly, I want to clarify that Erinn Hayes (from my Hump Island) is hot. It is hard to tell anything from the picture I posted last time, except that she might be a soccer mom, and she certainly pales in comparison to the lovely Miss Bibb. There aren't really any "hot" pictures of Erinn out there, probably because she is being marketed as a "funny" female lead and thus we are supposed to like her for her "talent." Her acting talent, that is. Alternatively, there might not be sexy photos of her out there because she is married and has a child and thus doesn't want to slut it up too much, but since I refuse to acknowledge the existence of said husband and child, this cannot be the reason. I suspect FHM or Maxim will eventually catch up to her once she becomes a little more famous; however, after watching part of the first episode of her current show "Worst Week," I doubt great fame and riches will come her way as a result of that show. Hopefully for Erinn, she won't have the same career arc as Andrea Bendewald, who NBC kept trying to ram down our throats by putting her in every show it had, but who never really found her niche. I wonder who Andrea Bendewald blew to get so many opportunities, and if that person is bisexual.

Having said the above, I enter into evidence the following Exhibit A, which should prove (a) that Erinn Hayes is indeed hot, and (b) that I'm not gay (with such evidence being sorely needed after the last sentence of the previous paragraph):

Glad we got that cleared up. Now, if I could only say the same thing about my bacne...

Speaking of hot chicks, I caught part of Leaving Las Vegas earlier this evening. Hadn't seen any of that movie before, but HOLY CRAP IS ELISABETH SHUE HOT IN THAT FILM. She didn't do that much for me in Karate Kid or Adventures in Babysitting or Cocktail or anything else I may have happened to see her in, maybe because she always seemed to be carrying about 10 extra pounds of baby fat, but not so in LLV. We're talking marathon shape here. We need to find out whatever she did to get into shape for that film and spread the word to the women of America, nay, The World. We owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves. Hell, I think she takes the title of "Miss Movie Hot Chick 1995" from Sandra Bullock in Speed.

In other news, over the past week The Wood Dog pissed away second place in our fantasy baseball league, and now is destined to finish third. I don't think the monetary difference is what's burning The Wood Dog's beans, but the fact that our friend Obnoxio is the one who is going to finish in second. Obnoxio pretty much finishes first or second every year, and he's become the guy we love to hate in that league. Add to that the thumping I'm about to lay on The Wood Dog in our fantasy football league tomorrow, and the guy just might give up fantasy sports altogether. I do suspect he'll keep playing fantasy NBA basketball though, since (a) our annual draft is always a good time, and (b) there is no longer an NBA team in Seattle.

A hundred (million?) reasons to hate the Mariners

Congratulations Seattle Mariners, you have just made history. With your 6-5 loss to the Angels of Anaheim last night, you have become a team to be logged in the annals of baseball history forever.

Last night our beloved M's recorded their 100th loss of the season, a metric used to identify the worst of the worst teams in the major leagues. But that's not all THAT impressive, right? Every year there is usually one, maybe two teams that achieve this impressive feat of losing over 61% of their games; an honor in recent times bestowed upon such storied franchises as the Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Since 1980, 27 teams have achieved this feat in fact, so no big deal, right?

However, what NO other team has done in history, not until September 24, 2008 that is, is to lose 100 games while spending over ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS (US$100,000,000) in player salaries on the season. Well done Seattle Mariners, you have REDEFINED the phrase "shitty team".

The M's have become the anti-money-ball franchise. Where Billy "Money Ball" Beane has made a career of maximizing the dollar return on a team's win-loss record for the Oakland A's, the Mariner executitves have found ways to spend more for much less than anyone has ever before in the business.

What people in other cities may not understand is that Seattle really is a baseball town. While we Seattle Baseball Fans KNOW that this season there is less than a 39% chance at seeing a Mariner win when we go to the ballpark, about 30,000 of us still show up to see the spectacle. Game after game. So there is absolutely no negative reinforcement to our ownership group for producing a losing team. They have a good cable contract in Seattle, international television revenues (every game is shown live in Japan), and great merchandise sales on top of the 30,000 fools buying tickets, hotdogs, and Ichi-Rolls (a sushi item only available in Safeco Field) 81 times a year. What's not to like for the owners?

This mentality of making money over winning ball games explains such things as signing up Kenji Johjima for another 3 years at the extraordinary price tag of $16.5 million. He keeps the Japanese fans watching. Kenji was one of the the worst hitting catchers in the majors this year, but almost worse is the fact that one of our only positions of strength in our minor league system is AT CATCHER. Jeff Clement is a minor league player of the year, and is dying to play full time catcher in the bigs. This was one of maybe ONE positions where we were fine going into next season.

The other man from Japan on the squad is superstar Ichiro. If you want to witness how huge this guy is, ust walk around the ballpark before or after a home game. Inevitably, you will see a 5-tourist-deep swarm of Japanese fans, taking their photo next to the lifesize PICTURE of Ichiro. Now I admit that Ichiro is a fantasic ballplayer, and the best player on the Mariners. Though he does contradict almost every single Billy Beane Money Ball theory in what attributes of a player you should be investing your money in. Fans though, especially in Japan, love this guys. Ichrio keeps the Tivos recording games in Tokyo, even if according to some critics "Ichiro doesn't walk enough" or "Ichiro doesn't hit for power" or "some of the other players on the team want to beat up Ichiro". (No seriously, per Seattle Times reporter Geoff Baker's Blog today, certain players wanted to beat up Ichiro earlier this year. He's not quite the clubhouse leader you usually get for $16 million a year)

So maybe, just maybe, our crack owners and exec staff aren't morons at all. They have created "Japan's Team" for the international revenue, and for the locals, we have a beautiful fan-friendly ballpark, and we have signed expensive, underperforming guys like Raul Ibanez and Yuniesky Betancourt (left picture) who fans LOVE. Look at how cute Yuni is in that picture! He's like a god damned stuffed animal. It's the only explanation for why Willie Bloomquist defies all odds and statistics and remains on the Mariner payroll. Fans LOVE him. My buddy Doug Miller who was briefly the MLB.com beat writer for the M's told me that he received more fan questions about Willie "F-ing" Bloomquist than almost all of the starters. He's that gritty overachieving, white "Baseball Player" that people want to see... don't mind that he owns the longest hitting streak without an extra-base hit in the majors.

I have read that Kids and Females are the target audience that the ownership group is trying to reach with their "product" in the Seattle Mariners. They wisely assume that actual "baseball fans" are going to show up anyway. Kids and females LOVE players like Yuni. They love their Ichi-rolls, the Mariner Moose, and apparently they could give a crap about winning baseball games.

Maybe the joke is really on guys like me. I am too dumb to realize that this team is EXACTLY what the owners want. It has NOTHING to do with the 100 losses. They spent $100 million on making a Disney Land in Seattle, and really there should be no expectations of anything changing.

But hey, the good news is that we kept pace with the Washington Nationals, who also lost last night, and who remain one game behind the Mariners for the coveted first pick of the draft next year granted to the worst team in baseball. Not that we'll do anything with it. Go M's.

I Was Born a Ramblin' Man

I used to think that these ramble posts were a bad idea, in that you are wasting fertile blog topics in one paragraph that could become entire posts. But after re-reading my post about seeing porn on my boss's computer, I realize that some topics are only worth a paragraph, if that, and you don't need to stretch them into thousand-word posts...

Movie Review Section, Part I: I recently watched "Cinderella Man" starring Russell Crowe and an actress who used to be Renee Zellweger. I think this was the only film directed by Ron Howard which wasn't nominated for a bunch of Oscars and didn't make wheelbarrows of cash ("Far and Away" might also fall into this category though). You may recall that this film did so badly at the box office that the studio offered a money-back guarantee for those who went to see the movie and didn't enjoy it. Do you think that guarantee is still in effect? Because I want back the 144 minutes I wasted watching that paint-by-the-numbers steaming pile of monkey crap. I'll be invoicing Ron Howard for... carry the one... 0.33% of my September cable bill. Wish me luck...

You will note that I have been posting in this Courier font, while The Wood Dog's blog entries are in Trebuchet or whatever that much more readable default font is. Therefore, there are now three ways to determine which of us wrote a particular blog post: (1) look at the font; (2) look at the bottom of the post; and (3) it was me, because The Wood Dog doesn't post any more. I now have a lot more sympathy for pregnant women than I used to. I mean, seeing as how hard it is to blog for two, I can imagine it is quite a chore to eat for two...

My Hump Island needs updating. For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept, you choose five people to be stranded with you on your Hump Island, the idea being that there is really nothing to do on the island except have sex with the other stranded people. In other words, it is a slightly more clever way of asking someone to name the five people they find most attractive. Some couples in relationships name five people besides their significant others with whom they are allowed to have sex without cratering the relationship. I guess that is kind of like Hump Island, except it doesn't involve an island. The catch is that people named in either instance must be famous people - this allows other people to judge your taste and precludes you from claiming immunity for boning the hot barista at the local Starbucks, which theoretically could happen. But if you somehow manage to nail Elisha Cuthbert, you should totally get away with it. Anyway, my Hump Island used to consist of Anna Kournikova, Charlize Theron, Kristy Swanson (see The Chase or click here before you kill me for that one), Katherine Heigl (anyone noticing a type?) and Jessica Alba. I haven't finished updating my Hump Island, but let's start with Leslie Bibb (Mrs. Ricky Bobby, and the reporter Iron Man boned) and, heading over to the dark side, Erinn Hayes (from some new CBS "comedy" called Worst Week; she looks to me like she's the love child of Jessica Alba and Jennifer Garner):
Oh what the hell, let's put Elisha on there too. Hubba, hubba...

What exactly does "hooking up" mean? I always thought it meant "heavy petting" or "making out" - basically, something more than a goodnight kiss. After hearing a couple of girls deny hooking up with me to my face (not that I blame them for lying about it, but I am pretty sure it happened; I mean, I was there and all), I finally asked what they thought it meant. Turns out girls (these girls at least) think "hooking up" means "having sex". Is it a generational thing (these girls were younger)? Is it a NorCal-SoCal thing? Is it a boy-girl thing?...

During the MLB All-Star break, ESPN had three of their "fantasy sports experts" on to make predictions for the second half of the season. First of all: Oh My God. These are the guys who weren't cool enough to get invited to play Dungeons & Dragons in junior high:
Secondly, does anyone keep track of whether these tools actually know what they are talking about? They sure tell you when they were right, but are they right more often than not? Near as I can tell, to be a fantasy expert for ESPN, all you have to do is have a podcast where you say "this is, uh, this is very true" a lot, you quit paying attention to baseball to focus on football and admit to this on your baseball podcast, and you often call in to work instead of actually going to work because you were out drinking the night before, which you also admit on-air. I'm pretty sure you get fired for that sort of thing at most other jobs - is ESPN hiring?...

Chronology of one of my recent relationships: Boy meets Girl. Boy attempts to date Girl. Girl refuses, as she doesn't trust Boy because she thinks Boy is a player because he rarely calls. Boy and Girl become friends. Girl realizes Boy isn't a player, he is just a little odd about calling and texting. Boy expresses no further interest in Girl, since they are friends. Girl starts to like Boy. Boy and Girl date for 48 hours. Girl breaks up with Boy because she realizes he will never be as attentive as she would like. Girl and Boy don't speak for several months. Girl e-mails Boy and says she wants to be friends. Boy and Girl become friends with benefits. What is the point (assuming there is one)? Well, mostly so I could throw in the "friends with benefits" line and piss off any married people who may be reading. But also, that it is useful to have chick friends, especially hot ones. They will tell you things that you need to change, things that other hot chicks will notice and be put off by. Like that you need to change what you're doing with your hair. That you need to buy different jeans or shoes. That you need to wear cologne. That you need to either look into penile enlargement surgery or make a ton of money. You know, the sorts of things that might not occur to you on your own. I would like to thank Girl for two specific recommendations. First, Girl made me switch to short socks. Used to be I would wear full-length tube socks at the gym, and would just push them down around my ankles. Girl informed me that this was Wrong and something that Old Guys do. Next time I was at the gym, I looked around and saw that no one was wearing socks. They weren't even wearing clothes, and there were only dudes in there. Then I realized I had somehow wandered into the San Francisco Gold's Gym. So I hightailed it out of there and headed to my local 24-Hour Fitness. Sure enough, guys who looked to be in their twenties were wearing short socks. Guys who looked to be in their fifties and sixties were wearing long socks, sometimes pushed down, sometimes not. There weren't really any guys in their thirties or forties; those poor sods were probably at home, wrangling toddlers and otherwise keeping busy not using the treadmill they bought for the home office. Seeing as how I'd rather be identified with guys in their twenties than with Old Guys, chest waxing be damned, I made the switch to short socks and I am a much happier man for it. Secondly, Girl informed me that my flannel boxers, which had things like dogs and plaid patterns on them, are not sexy. I thought they were cute and intriguing, like a Bugs Bunny tie I had in college, but then I thought further and realized that the Bugs Bunny tie wouldn't play in this day and age. Girl instructed me to acquire black boxer-briefs. After a few false starts (tip: don't buy Under Armour underwear - they feel and wear like compression shorts) I've acquired appropriate undergarments, including some black boxer-briefs:
Once again I can work out, and prance around the house afterwards, with confidence...

George Takei (rhymes with "gay", not with "guy") got married recently. Takei is a gay man, and he married his longtime partner, a man by the name of Brad Altman. I have no problem with this - I think gay marriage is fine just so long as I don't wake up in Vegas one morning hung over as all get-out and married to a dude. You know, because why buy the cow. Takei is best known as Lieutenant Sulu on Star Trek (though he did attain higher ranks throughout his career - he was Captain Sulu in "Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country", and is known as the Rear Admiral at the San Francisco Gold's Gym). So Takei is boldly going where no man has gone before, except for himself, and he's been going there for years. Not my line, just passing it along...

I don't know what in the hell I am going to be for Halloween. So far my only idea is to be The Most Interesting Man in the World. Near as I can tell, this would require a tuxedo jacket, no tie, white hair and beard, and I would have to drink Dos Equis all night:
Not my cleverest, not by a long shot. Oh, I long for the heady days when I was Jared from Subway for Halloween. Now that was a costume with some sex appeal...

Is there a bigger asshole on the baseball diamond than the guy who makes two outs in the same inning when his team bats around?...

Suppose you're "manscaping". And I don't mean general manscaping, but in the area of the twig and berries. And suppose that while trimming the twig, you accidentally cut down a significant portion of the surrounding forest. And suppose that to that point the forest has never been a Brazilian forest. And further suppose you are expecting a female botanist who has previously visited that part of the world to return for further research. Should you just clear-cut the entire area, or wait until that portion of the forest re-grows naturally?...

Movie Review Section, Part II: I also recently watched the Oscar-nominated film "Michael Clayton", which is the story of a law firm "fixer" - Clayton doesn't actually practice law but instead supposedly comes up with practical solutions when things go wrong. Throughout the film Clayton is constantly praised by the partners in the firm for the value of the services he provides. However, HE NEVER ACTUALLY FIXES ANYTHING. Clayton is asked to help out a client who has just committed a hit-and-run on a pedestrian and fled the scene. How does he "fix" the situation? He tells the guy to hire an attorney. Gee, thanks. Clayton is also asked to take care of a firm partner who is defending one of the firm's major clients in a toxic tort suit. The partner has quit taking his medication and is acting erratically, and his behavior is compromising the case. Clayton's job is to bring the partner back home, and get him to take his medication again so he can win the case. How does that turn out? Well, after Clayton finds him, the partner ditches Clayton and puts together thousands of binders containing damaging evidence against the firm's client, and is murdered afterwards. Nice job again, Clayton. Aces, really. What would the firm do without you?...

Every now and again, people get all worked up over a sports team's name being offensive. You can't call your team the Redskins, because that's offensive to Native Americans. You can't call your team the Redmen, because that's offensive to Native Americans. You have to change your Chief Wahoo logo, because it's offensive to Native Americans. I'm personally not offended, but I probably don't have enough Native American in me (and no, I don't want a Native American in me, no matter which gym I happen to be in) to be offended. But what I'm wondering is, why don't people make a big deal about people's names being offensive? I don't mean names like Mike Hunt, Oliver Closeoff, Haywood Jablowme or former SF Giants pitching coach Dick Pole, but racially offensive names. Many people's surnames came about for practical reasons. If two guys were named John, and one was a tailor and the other was a bricklayer, they might be called John Taylor and John Mason. If two guys were named Steve, and one was a blacksmith and the other was born to a guy named Jack, they might be called Steve Smith and Steve Jackson. So what the hell happened with Rolando Blackman and his Caribbean cousin Will Blackmon? No one's pissed about those names? I guess if they were pissed they could just legally change their names, but I think name changing has kind of gotten out of hand recently...

The Orifice

I am not a terribly conventional creature. My actions and reactions are pretty much my actions and reactions, without considering the social or political consequences of such actions. Luckily, I've been able to get away with this for the most part, as people pretty much seem to find me funny and likable. They do throw in the occasional "get away from me you f*cking weirdo," but I feel I am, on balance, favorably received. Your mileage may (and probably does) vary.

In my prior life as an office monkey, I noticed that there are certain decorums that are followed. For instance, if one were hung over, one would call in with "food poisoning" and the other office members are not allowed to openly question the truth of that statement. If you enter the office of another person, and that person has just farted, you are supposed to just stand there and continue the conversation, and pretend you don't smell the fart. Which reminds me, I should take this opportunity to apologize to those poor bastards who have had and future bastards who will have the misfortune of having to follow that rule on my protein powder and banana days. Same rule applies when someone stinks up the bathroom. If you see that someone is using the stall you're supposed to finish your business as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there, to save that person the embarrassment of having to emerge from the stall and face someone after having just taken the Browns to the Super Bowl. However, sometimes you may be entering the bathroom just as the pooper is washing his or her hands. In that case, you know they stunk up the room, and they know they stunk up the room, but you're not allowed to say anything like "Whew! Mexican food last night, eh?" All you can do is not acknowledge it. And figure out that person's pooping schedule so you don't walk in there at the wrong time again.

I was once faced with a uniquely awkward situation at the office. Specifically, I went in to ask a question of my Superior. Superior is a bit more chronologically advanced than I - let's say late sixties (age, not date of birth). In any event, I strolled in to ask how a certain matter was going. Superior's computer is set up such that Superior would be using the computer while facing away from the door; in other words, people standing in the doorway to this office can clearly see the computer screen. I often set up my office this way, with the intention that I will be discouraged from checking my fantasy baseball team at work if I am concerned about getting busted for doing so. In reality, it just meant that I pressed Alt-Tab whenever I heard footsteps in the hall. Probably the worst possible solution, as it made me both paranoid and counter-productive. And so did the black helicopters hovering outside my office window at night.

In any event, I think you can see where this is going - I couldn't have telegraphed it any more if I were using Morse Code, or if I were a Jeff Tedford-coached quarterback trying to throw a pass in the NFL. When I walked in, Superior had porn on his computer screen.

There it was, basically a full-screen picture of an attractive and buxom young woman, on her knees and performing fellatio on a (mostly) off-screen gentleman. I use the term gentleman because everyone knows porn acting attracts only persons of the highest moral character and integrity. As does porn viewing, and blogging about finding porn on other people's work computers. I guess, in theory, I could have gone to HR with some sort of "hostile work environment" complaint. However, I feel like our society is entirely too sensitive and litigious already, and besides, this was my kind of porn. Now, Superior doesn't strike me as a "porn on the work computer"-type. I strike me as that type, so I know what I'm talking about here.

Superior used e-mail and Word and other basic applications, but I also had to help with certain computer issues (such as "making it make sound") when the IT people weren't available, so I know Superior isn't all that tech savvy. Superior may not even know about Alt-Tab to change to a more work-acceptable application, because Superior sure as sh!t didn't do that. The porn just sat there on the computer screen. Based on what I saw, Superior had clicked on the wrong web site or e-mail attachment some time before - likely some program installed itself on Superior's computer and hijacked it, generating porn pop-ups, and possibly of the type that couldn't be Alt-Tabbed out of.

I feel like I had a good relationship with Superior, and I knew I wouldn't be working there much longer. I mean, Superior gave me crap for my date's inappropriately short dress at our Holiday Party. So one of us could have acknowledged the porn on the computer. But office decorum held. I didn't say "Whoah! Look at the sweater puppies on that hose hound!" or "Looks like you could use an extra hand," or even "Oops" followed by an awkward departure. Any of these reactions would have let Superior know that I knew.

Rather, I strolled to the other side of Superior's office and continued my line of questioning while pretending to be interested in a picture of Superior with some pseudo-celebrity on the bookcase, a picture I had seen and been told the story behind several times before. And to Superior's credit, there was no panic. Superior's voice stayed level as my questions were answered, and I left after 30 seconds or so - just long enough to make it look like I wasn't trying to get out of there. I did turn to leave in such a way that I never faced the computer screen again, though.

To this day I don't know if the porn still resides on Superior's computer. In some respects I feel like I should have said something, because I feel like I might have been the best hope at getting it removed. Can you really contact IT to have them uninstall porn from your computer? I mean, I guess you can, but does anyone actually do that? And its not like you could just accidentally lose the computer, or arrange for it to be stolen - the computers were imaged and this just would have resulted in the porn popup program being restored along with the rest of the system. So maybe its still there. Hell, maybe its supposed to still be there, and Superior is just at the career point of not giving a crap anymore - keeping the Swingline stapler, finishing the coffee and surfing porn sites on the computer. Lucky bastard.

Free Parking?

Well, now we know where they park the Popemobile. The question is, are you supposed to tip Jesus when he brings your car around for you?

I kid God sometimes, because I believe He has a sense of hu

The little differences between Football, F*ing, and Frogs

In case you didn't know this, when you have kids, your life changes a little. Though sometimes when your life changes slowly over time, you don't really realize how much things have changed in total. It's like the ancient Chinese proverb about the frog in the boiling water. Roughly translated using the Mandarin I have learned from watching "Ni-hao Kai Lan":

When making frog soup, or boiled frog, or if you are just some sicko who likes to boil frogs, don't just throw ole green-face in the boiling water, because he'll hop right out. But if you put the frog in cool water, and then slowly heat it, he'll swim around and not notice the water getting hotter, and then he'll eventually fall asleep and WAKE UP ONE MORNING WITH A WIFE, TWO KIDS, A DOG, TWO MORTGAGES, AND A FUCKING MINI VAN.

My Mandarin is a bit rough, but I think that's close.

The point of the story is this. I was comparing various stages of life the other weekend when talking to two friends and then looking in the mirror. One friend lives as a single bachelor in San Diego, the other has a serious girlfriend but is still living the dream in San Francisco without the weight of the kids, etc, and then there's me, who wakes up each morning like that frog in the water approaching 212 degrees. We are all about 35 years old, so how different could our lives be at this point?

It was a Cal game day, and Friend 1 had just called to explain to me the difficulties of having sex on the beach with a hot 22 year old he had just met the previous night. It's very overrated you know, piling a hot 22 year old outside, in the sand. It's uncomfortable, and that sand... so sandy. And he was tired after such a long night with such a nice girl. Yeah, it sounded like torture.

Friend number two was calling me from Raleighs five hours before kickoff in Berkeley, explaining the intricacies of the drinking game he was engaged in with another buddy. You see, whoever finished their pitcher of beer last had to stay and hold the table while the winner got to go take a leak. It had the supreme simplicity and utter genius of such famous drinking games as "Beer an Inning" or "Pass the Pitcher" or the popular variant of this game, "Pass Titash's Beer". To a guy with kids, this sounded like a dream day. OK, maybe the night with the 22-year old did too, but the beer drinking and football gameing did sound pretty damn nice.

And then there was Friend #3, who we'll call "me". At that point of the day, I had been up for about 7 hours, awaken by our dog who had some type of bowel issue. I was standing outside in my PJ's with our dog who was just poised like a damn statue in the "crapping" position, apparently unable to do the deed, but continuing to try. I was just standing there in the yard, trying to hide behind my newspaper, while my dog was apparently trying to break the modern day Crapping Time Record for Canines. Of course that's when my neighborhood arch nemesis "Nick" walked out of his house with his golf clubs, looking like he had already run a half-tri, showered, and was ready to hit the links with the boys. I said hi to Nick, and he helpfully explained that he was in fact going golfing, in case the golf clubs weren't clue enough, all the while ole Barkley kept trying to crap in various locations in my lawn. That's when I realized that there are only 2 types of guys who are up and outside at 6:15am on a Saturday: the guys about to attack 18 holes with the fellas, or the guys with the sick dog shitting all over the yard. I gave Nick my typical knowing nod, and then retreated back into the house.

Over the next several hours that morning I had the pleasure of being taught from the woman I love the finer points of safely packing crystal glasses in boxes for our imminent move to the burbs.

When 1pm rolled around and I got the updates from the boys about how their days were going and I noticed how damn hot the water had gotten in my pot. And just to be clear, I love my life and where it is... I mean who doesn't like a nice warm bath, right? It just makes you a little sleepy is all. Sooo sleepy.

Transetiquitte

First things first: This post is not about the sex change operation I'm currently saving up for.

San Francisco is probably the public transit capital of the West Coast. It is possible to take public transit elsewhere, but the other cities are just too spread out and the transit systems too unreliable to really count on doing so. San Francisco's public transit system also sucks, but there are so many buses and underground trains that the failure of one doesn't screw up the system quite as much; there is probably another bus or train coming in 5 or 10 minutes, whereas in LA or San Diego you're looking at a 30-minute wait at a minimum if something goes wrong. And something usually goes wrong.

I used to be a bus commuter in San Francisco, and I expect I will be again soon. Seeing as how I lived near the beginning of the bus line, I generally got a seat on the bus, and usually a window seat. In those days, I was generally wearing a suit and tie and reading the SF Chronicle, which was a rag of a paper but it only cost $0.25. It was well worth the money for the sports page on the way in and the crossword and jumble on the way home. This is especially important for me, as I don't talk on cell phones in public. Don't get me wrong, I would love to talk on my cell phone in a public place if only someone would call me.

In my years of riding the bus (generally the 41, which was a great bus if you were looking for hot chicks in business suits with still-damp hair) I noticed that about 90% of the time, the available seat next to me was the last available seat that was taken before people had to stand. And I kept the newspaper in my lap, rather than try the old "lay it on the seat next to me so no one will sit down" trick. Further, when someone did sit down it was generally a guy, although the bus was usually pretty evenly split between males and females. I never did figure out why this was, but I do have a theory. Four theories, actually, if you count the Baldwin Dick Theory, which has no application here.

Theory One (The Southwest Airlines Theory): If people are given a choice of seats, the last seat to be taken will be the middle seat between two fat guys. As applied here, I am kind of a big dude. Not gigantic, but larger than average and fairly broad. Call it 6'2" and 210lbs, and (at the moment) not at all chubby. The point being that I am broad enough to protrude sideways into the seat next to me a bit. Even when wearing pants. So, when someone is walking down the aisle looking for a seat, unless they are a small person chances are if they sit next to me they'll either have to sit partially in the aisle, or they will have to sit and be touching me. I'm pretty against being leaned against or touched in public by strangers (unless by a hot stranger, or by The Stranger), and I assume others feel the same way. This theory might not entirely hold water though, because I am by no means way larger than all other guys on the 41. That is, unless I happen to be heading back to the Marina in the evening and the bus is also carrying R2D2 and a bunch of Ewoks for a late meeting at LucasArts. I am probably in the Top 3 or so on any given trip, but it still doesn't explain why my seat fills up last. Could it be something about me, specifically? Well, that brings us to...

Theory Two (The Evil Eye Theory): Some people have told me I should smile more. In this context, "some people" means everyone I know, plus a fair number of strangers on the street. Granted, I do smile more now that I have started bleaching my teeth (and I highly recommend you do this - the Whitestrips in the store work fine, but be prepared to have to keep using them), but I am also apparently a bit of a scowler. I know I do it when I am concentrating on something, like when a problem is being explained to me and I am trying to follow it (I am a visual person - I can't look at the person while they are explaining the problem to me or I will stop listening and start concentrating on things on their face). So it is possible that I am scowling while reading about how crappy the A's, Giants, Niners or Raiders are, or when I am trying to come up with a four-letter word for "Internet Collection of Useless Posts About Trivial Subjects." Maybe this scowl communicates "American Psycho" to those around me, which would explain why it is usually a dude who bites the bullet and sits next to me.

Theory Three (The Intimidation Factor): Let's just face it - I am so damned good looking that people are afraid to sit next to me. The hottest girl in the room is the loneliest girl in the room - other chicks think she's a bitch and don't like being her friend because they don't want to compete with her, and dudes think she is out of their league. Similarly, I am the loneliest dude on the bus. Men want to be me, and women want to be with me. Now, I am approached by women fairly frequently, but it is usually at a bar after they have had a few cups of the Liquid Courage (or if you prefer, the Loudmouth Soup or Social Lubricant), and are not in such an enclosed space where their neighbors, co-workers and co-commuters will be able to hear everything as I reject them, and will go on to discuss that at the water cooler all day instead of the latest episode of The Hills or Dancing with the D-List Pseudo-Celebrities.

I've given the above theories considerable thought, created a spreadsheet and analyzed the raw data, and I don't see how the answer could be anything but Theory Three. Some would say that my score of 4.7 on "Hot or Not" argues against Theory Three being correct, but everyone knows that only ugly, petty and jealous people visit that website. So, in a bit of Schadenfreude those ugly, jealous, petty bitches gave me a low score that doesn't at all reflect reality. I'm going with Theory Three and I think its perfectly reasonable to do so. I know what you're thinking, and no, the "Maybe It's Because You Stink" Postulate doesn't apply here - this happens to me on the morning "just showered and brushed my teeth" ride as well as the evening "maybe the caesar salad for lunch and raw onion for a 3pm snack weren't such a hot idea" ride home.

Wow, that was quite a sidetrack, as none of the above was even the point of this post. Here is the point: Suppose you are riding the bus, all the seats are full, and you are sitting in the aisle seat. You have no relationship with the person you are sitting next to; following Standard Operating Procedure you both ignored each other when you sat down and just read whatever you had with you, continued sending text messages to someone else, or kept on listening to your iPod, much as you would on an airplane. Now, you live at the end of the bus line, so gradually the bus empties out as you go along. When a seat comes completely empty and you are still doubled up, are you supposed to get up and move to that seat? Are you being rude in doing so, tacitly making some sort of unspoken but disapproving statement about the person you were sitting next to? Or are you actually being courteous in doing so by giving the other person more space?

It seems like moving is the thing to do; strangers don't really talk to each other in public any more. Everyone is busy doing something else that doesn't involve the person next to them - it is either "leave me alone" (iPod or book) or "someone who isn't here is more important than you are" (cell phone or Blackberry). Both cases would seem to favor moving. Maybe this doesn't apply when people are faced with a common enemy and weren't expecting to have to wait - maybe their friends are there with them and they didn't bring a book or iPod - like when waiting in line to get in somewhere, or when attending a sporting event. I think people pretty much talk to those around them in these situations, but in general they do not engage other people.

I guess this leads to a bigger question - if a stranger says hello on the street, are we as a society generally happy for the sentiment, or are we suspicious of the person? I would think people would generally be suspicious, and especially so if a guy is saying hello to a girl (but if it is a girl saying hello to a guy, the guy will assume, correctly, that the girl wants to have sex with him). Is the media to blame? "Seven Bodies Found in Neighbor's Freezer" tends to make the news a heck of a lot more often than "Stranger Smiles, Says Hello and Goes On His Way." Used to be children could go door-to-door on Halloween and collect candy, and then actually eat that candy. Now we've got sanctioned trick-or-treat events at malls, and even these now occur in daylight. People just don't trust people any more. It's too bad, but it seems to be the way of the world. And now I have more apples and razor blades than I know what to do with.

Lately, I've been throwing a small wrench into this idea; I've been intentionally making small talk in semi-social situations, such as elevators and supermarket lines. I've also been intentionally farting in those situations, but that is a whole other social experiment and we've already run long here. In any event, I've found that people are generally OK with interacting, if only because it is a change from everyone ignoring everyone else. I even know a few married people whose relationships started this way: A guy starting chatting up his seat-mate after a few drinks on a Southwest flight and went on to marry her, and a girl married a guy who asked her directions on the BART train (turns out the guy knew where he was going and just wanted to chat her up, but that is another issue altogether). So these instances can have a happy result. That is, if you consider marriage to be a happy result, a conclusion about which I am still undecided.

So what does all this mean? Heck if I know. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means that only good-looking single people should talk to strangers in public. For me, it means that if I end up sitting next to a hot chick on the bus and she's not wearing an engagement ring, I'm going to chat her up. When the extra seat opens up, she's not going to want me to leave because she'll be engrossed in stimulating conversation about which Batman actor was the hottest, or whether Michael Phelps is attractive. If we aren't deep in conversation then I'll get up and move to the empty seat. Because that clearly means that she is a lipstick Lesbian, or that she doesn't speak English, or my version of Spanish. Or that she stinks.

Standing Pat

The quarterback, widely considered to be the best in New England Patriots history, is knocked out for the season with a devastating injury. A lightly-regarded backup, who was a late-round draft pick and who has almost no live game experience, is pressed into service. The Patriots go on to win the game, but the outlook for the rest of the season appears bleak. The team will almost certainly have to rely heavily on its running game, but the running game leaves much to be desired - in the prior year, no running back approached 1,000 yards rushing or scored more than 6 TDs.

The year, of course, is 2001, and Drew Bledsoe has just suffered internal injuries from a hit by New York Jets linebacker Mo Lewis. Tom Brady took over the team and efficiently executed conservative game plans week after week. The team won 11 regular-season games and made an improbable run through the playoffs to defeat the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl.

Can the Patriots hope to catch lightning in a bottle again? It is true that Matt Cassel hasn't started a non-exhibition game since high school. At USC, he backed up two Heisman trophy winners, first Carson Palmer then Matt Leinart, so as far as we know he was the third best college quarterback in the country and was just stuck behind the only two players better than he was. In any event, Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels should be able to adjust their game plan from week-to-week to play to Matt Cassel's strengths, assuming Belichick and McDaniels are able to identify any such strengths. The rest of the team is solid, though the defense may be a little suspect. Sure would be nice to have an Aaron Rodgers ready to step in, but the Pats have focused on developing other areas of the team and have pretty much neglected the backup quarterback position. One the one hand, that makes sense, as Tom Brady hadn't missed a start in something like 7 years. However, I consider that streak to be somewhat fluky, as Brady was listed as "Probable" to play each week on the team's injury report; apparently Brady has been nursing a right shoulder injury for his entire career. In NFL parlance, if a player is listed as Probable he has only a 75% chance of playing that week, so it is pretty lucky that the other 25% never happened and Brady was always able to play.
What can we really expect from Matt Cassel? Well, according to the Madden 2009 player ratings, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are the two best QBs in the game, each with a rating of 99/100. Brady also scores a 99/100 in a stat called "Importance." I don't own the game so I don't know what that means, but I'm guessing it would be a bad thing to lose a player with an Importance rating of 99 to a major knee injury. Matt Cassel's overall Madden rating is a 76/100, so he is equally as "good" as Andrew Walter, and not as good as John Beck, who rates a 78/100. Not a whole hell of a lot to hang your hat on.

I expect the Pats will remain competitive all year, and that they will make the playoffs, perhaps with a 10-6 record. Tony Kornheiser is on record as saying the Pats without Tom Brady are the Kansas City Chiefs. Maybe that is accurate, seeing as how the Chiefs were in a position to tie Sunday's game late in the 4th quarter. But as we all know, Tony Kornheiser is an idiot who spends way too much time talking about his fantasy team. He is so bad and annoying as an announcer that I watched tonight's MNF contest between the Packers and the Vikings with the sound muted. I wish he'd go back to his day job, as co-host of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, and then I wish he'd get fired from his day job, and then I wish he'd get hit by a bus as he is walking out of the TV studio carrying his fern and paperweights.

This news more or less ruins the NFL season for me. I am much more interested in the NFL than in any other sport, and much more interested in the Pats than in any other team. I even got a new Pats shirt for the season. I'll still root for the Pats, and will still watch them while wearing the new shirt, but it will be hard to get as emotionally invested in this season, especially since I was a little tentative after attending last season's shocking Super Bowl loss. And I can take no solace in my primary fantasy football team this year. Not only did I draft a terrible team, but I drafted a terrible team full of players I dislike. My team in my brother's league is much better, but my first round draft pick in that league was one Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, so you can imagine how that season is going to go.

Some vaguely interesting ideas have been floated about, such as Daunte Culpepper signing with the Patriots. However, we need to think a little more outside the box here. The Patriots need to re-sign Drew Bledsoe and name him the starter. Drew's only been out of the league for a year and he's only 36, so he's probably not in terrible physical shape. Then, Belichick and McDaniels will call only passing plays and will instruct the offensive linemen not to actually block anyone (i.e. the coaches should tell all the offensive linemen whatever they told Matt Light before the Super Bowl last year). When Drew Bledsoe gets hurt, Matt Cassel will become a star. After all, it worked for Tom Brady and Tony Romo.

P.S. I'm guessing this guy is having second thoughts, or if he's really hardcore he's scheduling elective reconstructive knee surgery: