Archive for December, 2011

Te-Bowned

December 21, 2011

ESPN has recently announced that they will be starting a new channel called ESPN-BOW. It will be a channel that is totally dedicated to Tim Tebow. Viewers will get to follow him into the locker room for behind the scenes footage. They will get to watch him practice intently. Trips to the grocery store with Tim will be miked up. When Tim attends church a transcript of his personal prayers will run across the screen in a feature called the Godly Line. If Tim Tebow shits, which Sportscenter is still investigating if he actually does something that vile, ESPN-BOW viewers will be sitting on the toilet right next to Timmy! That’s right for all the Tebow fans who believe the 23 hours regular ESPN spends on Tim Tebow isn’t enough now you get twenty-four hours of Tebow time!

Seriously, is anyone else sick of Tebow-mania? The bottom line is Tebow isn’t that good, nor is he as bad as some people might have led you to believe in the past. The truth is he is a second-year quarterback who plays more like a fullback. Tebow’s 6-2 record as a starter can mostly be attributed to a strong defense that does not give up a lot of points and a ferocious running game that leads the league in rushing, averaging 156 yards a game. Tebow, is of course a big part of that rushing game. He is ranked 32nd in the league in rushing. He averages 5.5 yards a carry and 47 yards a game. Unfortunately Tebow only averages 117 yards passing per game. That’s the lowest average of any starter in the league. Part of Tebow’s lack of aerial numbers can be attributed to the Broncos change of offensive scheme once Tebow took over. John Fox and offensive coordinator Mike McCoy have done an amazing job playing towards Tebow’s strength which is running the ball. The Broncos after getting off to a 1-4 start are now in the driver’s seat in the AFC West. Tim Tebow is absolutely a big part of that. He is a leader who seems to win everywhere he goes and that’s contagious. He has infected the locker room as well as the entire fan base with a sense that they will win no matter who they play. When the game needs to be won in the fourth quarter he always seems to step up and his teammates believe in him supremely.  Eventually though, Tebow will have to develop as a more complete player. This past weekend against the Patriots it was obvious that when faced with high-class offensive opposition the Broncos conservative offensive approach couldn’t compete for four quarters. Tebow went 11 of 22 for 194 yards and led Denver with 93 yards on 12 carries scoring two touchdowns with his feet. That’s a great stat line and Denver’s 23 points would have been enough to beat most of the mediocre teams in the NFL. However, the NFL has changed. It is now a score first play defense later league where big-time quarterbacks seem to complete passes at will. The former golden boy before Tebow arrived, Tom Brady, went 23 of 34 for 320 yards and 2 scores. That is the new NFL and if Tebow wants to be a part of it someone is going to have to teach him to throw. Despite what ESPN would have you believe being white and loving God aren’t enough to make someone a successful NFL quarterback.

Don’t worry Tebow freaks because ESPN owns the world and your Tebow-fix is about to be even more satiated with the new ESPN-BOW. Now you can have Tim Tebow at your fingertips for 24 hours a day 7 days a week and 365 days a year. Hallelujah and all hail ESPN’s saintly son the mighty Tim Tebow.

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GULP!!!

December 17, 2011

I’m going to create a website called Gulp. It is going to be modeled after Yelp, the evil website made originally with good intentions but which now specifically specializes in making business owners crazy. The difference for Gulp will be that instead of customers reviewing workers, Gulp will consist of reviews written by workers about their customers. Don’t get me wrong I’m not totally against Yelp. I believe that if someone goes to a restaurant several times and repeatedly receives bad food or service that it is their civil duty to let other people know. Yelp gives you a chance to voice your opinion. I have no problem with that concept. My problem is with some of the people who use Yelp. Instead of being constructive or rational they come off as biased and just plain stupid. It only seems fair that if customers get to write whatever they want about people trying to make a living that the working man should get their say too. Reading Yelp can at times be like repeatedly kicking yourself in the groin for an extended amount of time. If you have ever felt the dread of reading a one star review of the restaurant or bar you work at you understand exactly what I mean. Most of the people in the hospitality industry I know are very hard working people who truly believe that making the customer happy is one of the most important aspects of their job. That’s why coming home after an eight hour shift and getting a text message from a Yelp-addicted chef that some anonymous coward gave us a one star review because she couldn’t find a parking space at 8 o’clock on a Friday night and because she had to wait five minutes to use the restroom, and that her one star review has now dropped us to a 4-star as opposed to a 4.5 star restaurant is the last thing I want to hear about it. To Yelp reviewers like that I say I will not go play in traffic because you thought the ice cold beer I served to you was, in your opinion, tepid. Despite what you may believe those kids being loud at the table next to you are not mine, nor did I strategically seat you next to them just to ensure your dining experience would be ruined. I apologize if my not serving your friend who doesn’t have their ID makes you believe I am on a power trip. The fact that you have deemed my clientele to be snooty locals or fat bitchy chicks really has no bearing on the food or service. Also any restaurant employee talking shit on Yelp about another restaurant out of spite or envy or jealousy should be outcast from society and left to live in the woods eating only berries and deer shit. It’s idiotic comments like the ones referenced above that have inspired Gulp and once it is unleashed I cannot be held responsible for the consequences. Now, not just customers get to be irrational and hateful. Employees in customer service everywhere will now have an anonymous way to talk shit about the people they serve. Welcome to Gulp. But beware, or I might just Gulp the shit out of you.

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CP3 Catastrophe

December 9, 2011

Late last night David Stern the commissioner of the NBA vetoed a three-way trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers. In my thirty one years of following sports the only other trade I ever saw vetoed was in my fantasy football league this year. To get Paul the Lakers were set to give up a four time all star in Pau Gasol and the reigning sixth man of the year in Lamar Odom. In addition to Odom New Orleans would receive three strong players from the Houston Rockets as well as a draft pick. Gasol would then end up in Houston. Shortly after the trade was accepted David Stern vetoed it. New Orleans now has two options left. They could try to work out another trade for Paul, but will be hard pressed to find a deal that compensates them as much as this one did. They can do nothing and Paul will play this year with them and then leave in the off-season as a free agent. In that scenario the Hornets would receive nothing. The league, which currently owns the Hornets, will say they had the Hornets best interest in mind. Based on those options I would disagree with that notion. The real reason Stern vetoed this trade is because the 29 other owners in the league, namely Dan Gilbert, forced him to. Gilbert, who is owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, wrote a very angry email to Commissioner Stern demanding something be done. Gilbert is also the putz who couldn’t keep Lebron James in his hometown and then proceeded to whine about his leaving like a bitter ex-girlfriend who James barely dated. Gilbert refers to the trade as a “travesty” and ended his email by saying, “When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals.” The Generals are most famous for being the chumps the Harlem Globetrotters always beat. If that’s what Gilbert thinks of his team every Cleveland Cavalier season ticket holder, if there are any, should give up their seats and receive a full refund. Gilbert is a moron of the most dangerous kind, a rich one. The scary part is Gilbert did not act alone. For this trade to be vetoed by Stern the majority of the league’s owners must have felt the same way Gilbert did. That is a lot of moronic millionaires in the same room. In reality, outside the idiotic world view of million dollar babies, the team this trade made the most sense to was the Hornets. They were set to receive four quality players plus a draft pick as opposed to nothing. The Rockets dished out three good players and a draft pick and all they were getting was Pau Gasol. The Lakers lost two staples of a team that won a championship just two seasons ago. Sure, Paul is a magnificent player but to lose two front line players like Gasol and Odom would have weakened them. Dan Gilbert believed that the Lakers were then going to land Dwight Howard because they still had other assets they could deal to Orlando. The fact that the Lakers were going to try that was true, but there was no guarantee Howard would become a Laker. It was a risky move for the Lakers to lose so much size when Howard was never a sure thing. Gilbert doesn’t get that though. To him Paul going to L.A. is like Lebron going to Miami. He thinks players should be forced to play where they are told like good little employees. For him the league is a chessboard for crybaby millionaires too weak to build a fine franchise like the Los Angeles Lakers. I hope Chris Paul has an MVP year and then goes and gets paid by the highest bidder of his choice. I guarantee that won’t be Cleveland. Dan Gilbert is way too busy flipping through old photo books of him and Lebron to care about improving his team.

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Greed Monster

December 4, 2011

Urban Meyer just signed a six year contract worth 24 million dollars to teach college students how to play football. Perhaps that might be an oversimplification of his job title but at the end of the day isn’t that what he is doing? In addition to receiving such a healthy income, if he wins Meyer will become the most powerful person on the Ohio State campus. That’s how it works. If your University is a major player in either college football or basketball that’s what you do when you find a winning coach. Why? Winning brings money and at the end of the day that’s all these schools care about. Money makes the NCAA go around. They will claim that they do things to protect the reputation of the school, but truly they don’t care. Money is more tangible, it’s more immediate. You can’t cash tradition or reputation in at the bank so those words no longer have any place in the world of major college athletics. To see the truth one must look no further then Penn State. There was no football coach who fit the profile of a powerful, almost god-like sports figure more than Joe Paterno. He was Penn State, the face of the university. In 2002 when Mike McQueary informed him that he witnessed long-time defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky abusing a young boy in the shower all Joe Paterno did was call his boss. Here’s the problem, Joe was the boss. There was no one more powerful on the campus of Penn State than Joe. When times were good I’m sure he used his power for whatever means he deemed necessary. However, in the face of a horrific crisis he relinquished his power and wanted to just be a football coach. It doesn’t work like that Joe. True leaders lead in good times and bad. To try to pass the buck off on your so-called bosses is a sick joke. Of course they covered it up. To admit that a pillar of Joe’s Penn State community was a monster would put a serious stop to the amount of money the Penn State football program would produce. God forbid those millions of dollars be lost over the well-being of a few young boys. Not only is anyone involved in this sick mess greedy and immoral, they are stupid. If they had done the right thing the money would have returned, eventually. The reputation of Penn State would have taken a hit but would have returned, eventually. Joe, well he would have been a bigger hero than ever. He would have been the savior of many innocent young boys and an advocate to stomp out sexual abuse. Instead he enabled that monster to continue doing evil. That seems to be the motto in major college sports these days. Money over evil.  As long as you win you can sin as freely as your heart desires.

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ID’s Please

December 2, 2011

If you walk into a bar and you are under the age of 40 you should be prepared to be ID’ed, perhaps even multiple times. I don’t care what you look like, who you’re with or how old you are. If I don’t know you I’m going to ID you. The penalties a bartender faces for serving a minor are serious fines, termination and possible jail time. You think I am going to risk any of those because your girlfriend who looks 19 left her ID at home? Women make a living off trying to either look younger or older. When they are young they want to look old. When they are old they want to look young. This prospect makes it very difficult for one to determine if a girl is 19 or 35. That’s why when a 30 year old who is trying her damnedest to look 21 walks into my bar I ID her. She doesn’t like it, which doesn’t coincide with the whole looking younger routine. She states her age. I thank her but insist on seeing her ID. She states her age this time with a huff of disgust. I thank her again and point out that the three half dressed skanks drowning in makeup that she walked in with all happily showed me their ID’s. She tells me her ID is at home and states her age before adding that it’s okay for me to serve her. I thank her for her permission but inform her that the word of a stranger is not an acceptable form of ID. After a five minute temper tantrum her and her friends skank away into a dark corner to plot how to trick young, dumb drunks into taking them home. Five minutes later when my barback catches her sipping her friends drink I kick her out. They never go quietly though. As embarrassing as it is to get kicked out of a bar why do people always insist on causing a scene on their way out? She finally leaves after promising to “yelp” the shit out of me and her nasty friends flick me off as they follow her to the next bar. This sort of thing happens all the time. A guy walks up and orders two beers and two jager bombs. I look around. He is by himself. I request two ID’s. “They’re both for me, Bro.” My skin crawls as he slides his ID over. I grab the drinks. As he walks away I set my barback on him who intercepts the second beer before the other idiot can sip it. I kick them both out. They want to fight. I decline and offer a tussle with the police. They walk off amidst a mix of threats and curses. People just don’t understand. I have been bartending a long time and drinking even longer so I know when I am being scammed. I’ve seen more invalid ID’s than I care to remember and they all look different. Your expired driver’s license is not a valid ID. Your permission is not a valid ID. The fact that you have a beard is not a valid ID. The fact that you were in my bar at some point over the last month is not a valid ID. The fact that the guy who is getting you drunk and taking advantage of you later is 45 is not a valid ID. The fact that the woman you are getting drunk who is taking advantage of you later is 45 is not a valid ID. Your college ID is not a valid ID. Your library card is not a valid ID. Your medical marijuana card is not a valid ID. Either get it or prepare to be thirsty and sober for a very long time.

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