kkktookmybabyaway

Ahem.

Confirmed as a Lutheran. Don't go to church. As long as you're nice to others you'll be OK. Which, in that case, I'm in deep shit.

• A follow-up thought on the Dick Cheney shooting from yesterday. At least he got his victim to a hospital and didn’t drive into a river, leaving his unconscious passenger to die. I wonder if that would be a criminal offense in Texas? • I didn’t realize people up in Wyoming cared enough about the Super Bowl to bet on it. At least this guy had the gumption to plan his escape just in case his $40k bet didn’t turn out as planned. • So Paul Hackett, a Democrat Iraq vet who almost won a Congressional seat in a conservative district, has decided not to run for an Ohio Senate seat and retire from politics altogether? I thought the Democrat Leadership told us that even though he lost the election, the Party as a whole won because this showed how the voting public hated Bush’s policies. You would figure he could easily coast to a victory in a moderate swing state, especially when pitted against a weenie like Mike Dewine. • Looks like we finally found Andrea Yates a cellmate. If these psycho moms are so depressed, why don’t they just kill themselves instead of their children? Can’t wait to see the feminazis circle the wagons on this one; maybe Katie Couric will start a fund for her. • “Better than three in 10 New York students in recent classes failed to graduate from high school in four years, according to a study tracking students who entered the ninth grade in 2000 and 2001.” That’s the lead to an article titled “High School Graduation Rates ‘Disturbing.'” They’re disturbing all right. Disturbing in the sense that if you can’t graduate high school you deserve whatever shithole you end up in, especially since most of these dropouts weren’t taking AP classes. • I don’t want to sound like an evil conservative (oh who the hell am I kidding?) but just how long should we be housing Hurricane Katrinia evacuees in hotels with the taxpayer footing the bill? It’s been around six months since these people were evacuated and put up in these accommodations. Personally, I’m curious to know what these evacuees have been doing since the time they left New Orleans. If they were looking for a more permanent place to re-locate, or searching for employment, I would be sympathetic. However, if they stayed in and watched television, expecting to stay where they were rent-free, then check-out time is at noon. • Just in case you haven’t heard enough about the U.S. military torturing Arabs from Medium-Large Media, the overseas entertainment industry is getting in on the action. While "The Road to Guantanamo" is based on the true story of three friends who set off from Britain for a wedding overseas and end up as terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay for more than two years and ended up not being charged with anything might make for a good tear-jerker, I am not one for these hippie films. I want a movie with action, you know, something I can check my brain out at the door to watch. I think I found the perfect fit for the next summer blockbuster. Titled "Valley of the Wolves" this is the biggest-budget movie ever made in Turkey, and it stars American actors Billy Zane and Gary Busey. Here are some highlights from the article. Of course, because you know handcuffing and putting hood on a Turkish male is one of the worst things you can do to them. And here's my early vote for the Jihad Academy Award in the "Best Infidel" Category: I can’t wait to hear the commentary on this DVD when it comes out. Maybe there will be an Easter Egg giving us a list on what makes Allah mad.

The 40-Year Old Virgin wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but that was another one that went way too long. For some reason, when I was watching "Virgin" I was thinking it was like the "Office Space" of date movies, only not as funny. "Why should I have to change my name (to Michael Bolton)? He's the one who sucks." And as a kid I didn't like a lot of those movies you listed, Lushus, but now that I watch them I laugh. Another one I'd add to that list for me was "Uncle Buck."

Because I know you "don't read any of that stuff," here is what I was talking about:

• Well, I didn't win the Powerball jackpot, but I did learn something today. This one psycho bitch I work with is playing the lottery, but she is doing it herself and not taking part in the office pool. Now I want to win this thing more than ever. • Say, did you all know that not only has Dick Cheney worked at Halliburton but also he shot some guy while hunting quail? Gee, I knew Dan wasn’t one of the best vice presidents out there, but did he really deserve to get shot for misspelling potato? Lolz. I guess the place where Cheney was hunting at ran out of young black males or something. Lolz2. I guess now he finally knows what it’s like to shoot another person, seeing how he skipped out on doing it in Vietnam. Lolz3. Quail? They should have been hunting "duck." Lolz4. The guy he shot was a lawyer, so it's not all that bad. Lolz5 Well, that covers what the late-night talk shows are going to talk about tonight. You heard ‘em here first, folks. Maybe Hitlery will go with Cheney on his next hunting trip. No, that wasn't a joke. I really hope she does accompany him. Anyway, I was listening to Hannity’s show on the way home, and for the first time in a while it was actually somewhat interesting. Well, at least the part where he played the audio of what reporters were asking the White House press guy. While there were some funny ones like “Will he resign over this?” and one reporter comparing the delayed announcement to the Katrina relief efforts, my personal favorite was “Would it have been more serious if the person he shot died?” • Oh, and it appears that vice presidents aren’t the only ones who have hunting accidents. • Well we now know the terrorists are Republican. Maybe their next stop will be ACLU headquarters. • I finally got around to watching the “Wedding Crashers” yesterday. Eh. Comedies are tough for me to judge because I consider many of them to be unfunny. Comedy is a hard art to master, and it is so subjective. There were a few moments that got a chuckle out of me (Vince Vaughn's "quail hunting" bit now seems a little erie, given what just happened to Cheney), but did it have to be more than TWO HOURS long? Christ almighty, couldn’t they have wrapped up the story while at that post-wedding weekend retreat? I’m almost afraid to see the “UNCORKED” version, which will be painfully longer. I was also kind of disappointed the theatrical version didn’t include some “wedding crashers” at the end wedding. • So Bonnie Bernstein has left the CBS’ NFL coverage because she has hit the glass ceiling in regards to her football reporting/announcing career. Good. I despise female sideline reporters, and Bonnie was no exception. Now give the job to some ex-player who can’t properly pronounce half the words he’s saying. Oh, and if there are any ideas to have Terry Bradshaw host Fox's NFL Pre-Game show in place of the departing James Brown, please scrap them now for the love of God. • You know, I think I might like ESPN's Monday Night Football crew, what with Tirico being a perv and Kornheiser not being a total yes-man. All we need now is Joe Namath to replace Joe Theismann and bring Suzy Kolber up to the booth, and I'd watch this foursome even if the game they're announcing is the Cardinals at the 49ers.

I remember you showing me that. I'd find a way to blow up the house. I'm happy with my bagless vacuum cleaners (when they work), although with Max around the container fills up with fur every couple of minutes.

If memory serves, had we won it all, it would have been $100,000-150,000 per person, although I can't remember if that included splitting it with the other winning ticket. I remember hearing people saying "If we would have won I would have quit that day lol," I would have stayed on, worked really hard, got the projects done early and bring about the layoffs for all those that didn't play the lottery even sooner. Now that would have been funny.

Well yesterday was a joy. As I was finishing up the weeklong task of cleaning up the house, I went into the last carpeted room that wasn’t vacuumed yet. After I sprinkled some carpet deodorizer onto the floor, I noticed that the vacuum cleaner wasn’t picking up any debris. We bought this thing a few months ago and now it’s on the fritz, yippie. After spending 20 minutes trying to figure out how to open it up, I noticed some band was busted/burnt off, which is probably the reason for the machine’s malfunction. Fortunately, I have an extra vacuum cleaner I use for the basement. It’s designed for hardwood floors, so it didn’t work all too that well but it sucked up the carpet cleaning stuff, so now I at least don’t have to worry about the cats rolling around in this shit. After vacuuming (or at least attempting to vacuum), I went to use the digital camera and that didn’t work. My guess is it needs new batteries, but I don’t recall seeing the “battery low” being displayed the last time I used it. Hopefully, I just need to put in a new set of batteries and don’t have to replace it altogether. Of course there were no batteries in the house, so I had to drive to the Kmart down the street and buy some. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. When I got into my car, the damn thing wouldn’t start; hopefully this vehicle just needs a new battery as well, but who knows? When it rains it pours. After breaking these three appliances/electronic devices, I watched for the first time “Million Dollar Baby.” I remember when this film came out there was some controversy about its supposedly “pro euthanasia” theme. I didn’t really get that vibe from watching the movie. I consider myself a “pro-euthanasia” person, but only if that is the final wish of the person dying. In this movie dying was clearly the wish of Maggie Fitzgerald; it’s not like she had an ex-husband who was telling us 10 years ago she told him that she never wanted to live like she was in that hospital. The only two things I got “offended” at in this movie were Maggie’s white-trash family and that boxer who put her in the hospital bed with a cheap shot. It would have been nice to know what happened to her boxing career after committing that sucker punch, but at that point in the movie it really didn’t matter. I’m not sure if it deserved to win “Best Picture,” because I haven’t seen any of the other nominees for that year, but I don’t think it was filmed to have all of us go to nursing homes and start yanking away life support plugs After watching “Million Dollar Baby” I did some channel surfing and came across yet another hippie Vh1 Top 40 List. This time it was about the Top 40 Zany Concert Moments Of All Time. Seeing how I don’t go to music concerts, I stayed with this show just to find out what I have been missing all these years. Iggy Pop rubbed peanut butter on himself – wow. U2 got stuck in some huge stage prop – next. Someone dressed up as a frog, played a saxophone and fell in a moat – extreme. However, one entry got my attention, but it wasn’t for what happened at the event. Rather it was for what one person said about the fallout. The year was 2004 and Linda Ronstadt was doing a Las Vegas show. After going off on a political spiel, which included praising Mikey Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” some people in the audience started booing while others got up and left. Some even, allegedly, started throwing things at Ronstadt. When this was brought up on Vh1, we got to hear the expert testimony of Cindy Lauper compare these actions to a fascist state. *Sigh* Good one, Cindy. And these public figures wonder why many people don’t take them seriously when they try to go off from a script. I only caught the first 20 of this list of wacky concert moments, but I’m willing to bet that Alice Cooper throwing a chicken out to an audience to be dismembered or Ozzie biting the head off of something-or-other up near the top on this list. I’m sure this list will be televised at least 1,000 before the end of the year, so it’s a good bet I’ll see the Top 20 Zany Concert Moments of all time in the near future.

Student loans, or the interest from your student loans?

I wonder why Buckner wasn't playing first base?

Well, the Powerball jackpot has reached the $250 million mark, which of course means now that businesses across America are now engaged in office pools in hopes of getting the ultimate workplace bonus. Naturally my place of employment engages in this behavior whenever a lottery reaches the $150+ million mark, and I participate in my office lottery pool. Do I think I’ll win a share of this prize? Not at all. But I do know that if I don’t chip in my $5 it’s assured that my co-workers will win, and lord knows I don’t want that to happen. A few jobs I worked at over the years have done these lottery pools, and I have always suggested the following in hopes of getting an easy win: Always have one person that regularly partakes in the office lottery not put in any money. The reason I say this is because nearly every office pool that wins these mega-lottery winnings always has some disgruntled employee suing because they weren’t offered a chance to put in a few dollars. Of course, this idea always gets shot down, but if I won part of a $100 million jackpot, I’d gladly skim a few million off the top to the person who didn’t put money in because the karma that helped us get this money was worth much more than any monetary contribution the “stiffed” person would have given. Anyway, I know playing the lottery is like flushing your money down the toilet, but there’s no way I want to be left out of an office pool. Would you want to be that one schmoe the day after the winning numbers are called watching everyone else turn in their resignations because they each won several million? Of course you wouldn’t. And believe it or not, but the main reason I’d want to win the lottery is so when the several co-workers at my job who never participate in these pools ask to get a cut of the proceeds (and believe me they will), I can tell them to kiss my ass. Also, it would feel so great to tell any family members who I haven’t seen in at least a decade approach me with their hands out so I can say “fuck off.” The seven-digit bank account is a mere afterthought when compared to the glory of telling people you hate to jump off a bridge. Even though I don’t regularly play the lottery, there have been two instances where I came close to winning. The first time took place years ago. I was no older than seven or eight, and I was in downtown Shittsburgh with my dad for some reason. We walked by a store that had a lottery machine, and he told me to pick three numbers for the Pennsylvania Daily Number. Not really wanting to do this, I just blurted out “804.” The old man bought the $1 ticket and gave it to me for safekeeping. When 7 p.m. came around, it was time for the Daily Numbers to be drawn. The first number was “8.” The second was “0.” I was now up on my feet in my grandma’s living room shouting, “Come on 4! Come on 4!” It was “5.” Sure the jackpot wouldn’t have been that big with the drawing being only three numbers between 0 and 9, but that wasn’t the point. I had aunts and uncles play this stupid game every night, and the looks of disgust I would have gotten for picking three correct numbers one night would have caused a rift in the family that probably would still go on to this very day. The second time I came close to winning a lottery was a few years ago when I lived in the Cincinnati area. Some lottery called Mega Millions was up to an extraordinary high amount, and I became the person in charge of getting lottery entries together. (Swift Terror may remember this, seeing how we were employed there at the same time.) I didn’t mind coordinating this office pool, because that meant not having to do any real work for a day or two. After a few days of getting the word out to the several hundred people in our building, I got entries from 57 people who chipped in $5 each. I walked down to the local Quickie-Mart and got 285 tickets. I came back, made copies of each ticket and passed them out to everyone. The Friday drawing was that night, and I didn’t stay up for it because I knew we had no chance of winning. Or did we? The next day I woke up and began to compare all the tickets with the winning numbers. I remember the drawn numbers had a funky order to them, like “1, 5, 6, 32 and 49” with some special colored ball being a different “25.” This unique order of numbers made it easy for me to go through the tickets, because the first several numbers were close to each other. Oops, this ticket’s low number is 24 -- loser. This one starts out with 12 -- next. Going through the tickets was smooth sailing until I stumbled across one ticket that read, “1, 5, 6, 32.” For an instant my heart stopped beating, and I think I was just seconds away from peeing myself. Naturally, the next number was off, as well as that hippie colored ball. The rest of my tickets weren’t even close to matching the winning numbers. When I looked to see what I had won for picking four correct numbers, it was $150. What really made my heart sink was that if there was one more number correct, we would have gotten a $175,000 prize, which when split up would have been a few grand per person. (If you are getting a sense of déjà vu over this story, I made a thread about this subject when it actually happened.) Anyway, those are the two times I have come close to winning the lottery. Will tonight’s drawing be any different? The odds are 1-in-God-Knows-How-Many that it won’t be, but you never know. Somebody has to win this tax on the stupid.

Interesting. So Alfonso Soriano couldn't pimp his wares on the open market. Is the reason MLB does this hippie arbitration so a team has the chance to keep a good player for several years before they head off to the Yankees or Red Sox?

Pretty much so, unless of course you suck as a writer. Yeah. Many times it just depends on the editor's style or preference. Other times they just might not like you. For example, when I worked as a copy editor at a weather service agency, the bitch I had to work with would ALWAYS change things I'd consider to be "OK." However, when I would make changes to her material, she would go apeshit. The only times I would change her stuff was when it was in direct "violation" of the AP book. For example, AP style tells you never to use "towards" but instead use "toward." One time I had the nerve to make this change and she threw a fucking fit. And the reason she hated me? Because I replaced someone who replaced someone she liked. Yes, that was the reason. Currently I produce our organization's montly publication, and despite being constantly told by my readership that this publication under my direction has been the best it has ever been, my one dickhead boss always makes it seem that I'm one mistake away from losing my job (He did my job for years before getting a promotion, and then the guy I replaced was on the job for seven years). The last issue I did he threw a fit about how I had the bylines and went on to say how horrible they were and needed to be redone. I think the reason he did this was to because he wanted "payback" regarding a different incident that took place between us before that (basically I had worked for 1-2 months on a project and sent it out without letting him take all the credit for it). I then presented to him more than seven examples of "inconsistent" by-lines (bolded, unbolded, different font sizes, etc.) that were in an issue back in 2003 (before I started working at this place) which were in the span of just several pages. That shut him up (for about two days).

OK, I had always thought arbitration was for players under contract that felt they deserved more. Clear this up for me. Source for arbitration rules. I looked at Soriano's stats and he's played at least 145 games for a team since 2001 (he's played for two seasons before that but one was for 9 games and the other 22, so I'm guessing those don't count). This means he's got one more year before being allowed to become an unrestricted free agent. So basically a team can keep a player for six years and either pay them what they both agree to, or if one side disagrees (or is it the players only who decided this?) with the contract amount they go to an arbitrator. After six years they become an unrestricted free agent and can go anywhere and do anything. Because he hasn't been in the league for 6 years, he can't become an unrestricted free agent and has had to stay on the same team, or wherever he got traded to (Yanks-Texans-Nats). So he was without a contract, couldn't go anywhere and had to deal with the Nationals, didn't like what they were offereing and went to arbitration. Is this correct? I figure why not try to create some sort of community where someone who might not know you sees the kinds of things you write about at another place and gives your blog a shot -- it could be interesting, and might encourage other people to start blogging, too. I'd be willing to do this with anyone here, although I don't read much of the wrestling-related material, which seems to be what is most talked about here (makes sense though, considering this place was created due to pro wrestling). And it must have been a warm night out for Racist Dusty to be able to make the final out of a game.

• Oh how the mighty have fallen. At one time the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders were the envy of the league. Now Al Davis can't even find a head coach to take the helm of his built-for-offense team. It looks like former coach Art Shell is now the front-runner, after Steelers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt and Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino both pulled out of consideration. • After giving their starting quarterback a contract extension, it looks like the Houston Texans will stick with David Carr rather than go with Vince Young or Matt Leinhart in the upcoming NFL Draft. Now the stage is set for the Texans to take running back Reggie Bush with the first overall pick, but I’m not sold on Houston making Bush their top choice. Of course Bush has all the tools to be a NFL star, but Houston already has a solid halfback in Dominack Davis. There might not be any offensive linemen in this year’s draft with superstar potential (I don’t pay much attention to college football or draft prospects), but if there were I’d trade this top pick and draft down a few spots to get a top offensive lineman or three, which would help Carr out much more than another running back. Look at what having a good offensive line did for Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who has progressed from wide-eyed rookie to Super Bowl champion in just two years. Hines Ward may catch Ben’s passes, but Alan Faneca and his fellow line mates are the ones who allow Ben to toss the ball to his receivers. • Even if the Texans pull off a draft-day trade, the most interesting swap this year in the NFL has just taken place. Oddly enough, it didn’t involve any active players. NBC sent “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” to ABC for broadcaster Al Michaels, so he can announce next season's Sunday Night Football games. For those that weren’t around at the time, Oswald was created in the 1920s by Walt Disney in the days before Mickey Mouse. So an award-winning 30-year broadcasting career is worth a few dozen silent cartoons? Think about that the next time you feel undervalued at your job. Actually, there were some other transactions in this deal. From the article: “As part of the deal, NBC sold ESPN cable rights to Friday coverage of the next four Ryder Cups through 2014. NBC also granted ESPN increased usage of Olympic highlights through 2012 and other NBC properties through 2011. NBC, in turn, gets expanded highlight rights to ABC and ESPN events.” So who got the better of this deal? I'd say ABC, unless Michaels stays in the booth through 2014. And even then Oswald will still outlast Al if properly preserved. • Speaking of being undervalued, how would it feel to lose your request for a pay increase but still get a raise worth more than $2 million? Alfonso Soriano knows. I still don’t get baseball arbitration. You signed a contract for $7.5 million/year – that’s the amount of money you get. Case closed. It’s not like you’re going to get cut by a baseball team and lose all that money. Just wait until your contract expires and seek your value on the open market. • I don’t know much of this case, but I’m not going to cast judgment on Busta Rhymes for missing the wake of his slain bodyguard. While some might think he’s being inconsiderate, it’s possible Mr. Rhymes just doesn’t want to attract media attention to the bodyguard's family in this time of mourning. If he would have been in attendance during this somber occasion, the place would have been overrun by photographers and reporters. However, if Mr. Rhymes isn’t cooperating with police regarding this shooting, then he truly is a busta. Blog Plugs Since we’re all a happy community here, I figure why not plug my fellow bloggers? • Bored fells like an old-timer when it comes to observing sports, and he opens up the vault to reminisce about his first baseball game. But like I said there, what depresses me is when I see players I remember watching retire and become managers, or, worse yet, advance up the corporate ladder from coach to general manager to president of a sports franchise. • Alfdogg was pretty much spot-on in his guessing of the 2006 NBA All-Stars. While I can’t comment much on the NBA during the regular season, I don’t like having an All-Star game take place during the regular season. Say what you want about the Pro Bowl, but at least when that game is played, the athletes there put in a full season to deserve being called an All-Star, not half of a season.

If your boss likes it, that's all that matters. This is coming from personal experience.

Bah. That's what the copy editor is for. Not sure if that was meant for me, but it was always funny hearing students next to me talk about how much they love to write and want to be journalists, then when called on by the prof to give their opinion on a current event they would say, "oh, I don't follow the news." The profs feared calling on me.

When I was in school it amazed me how many students didn't read newspapers/magazines.

Well if that's the case, then it's time to start drilling. Oh, remember that bridesmaid with the kid at my wedding? Well, she's about two weeks from popping out another one, and that baby's daddy said to her last night as she was walking out of the kitchen, "I'm surprised you don't have any food in your mouth." And from what I heard, it wasn't said in a joking manner.

How strong? Like I'm-going-in-raw-and-not-pulling-out strong, or She-missed-her-time-of-the-month-and-barfs-three-times-a-day strong?

Sure there are more male good guys, but I'm sure there are just as many male bad guys in these films. Of course, if there were more female villains, there'd be problems with that, too, because then we'd be seeing women/girl characters in a negative light. Don't forget, girls need self-esteem.

One thing that makes me feel old is when I see players that I grew up with become managers (Ozzie Guillen, Mike Mularkey, Ed Olczyk and Larry Bird, to name a few).

I hear you. When I was in school, I went the print route and dabbled in radio and broadcast. And when it comes to the journalism field, clips are more important than A's, so you and bob are on the right track (much moreso than I was when your age). Make sure to also fiddle with Web publishing and design, although by now that should be required learning in any journalism department. When you graduate, do you plan on staying in the area or moving out to whoever offers you a job?. Also, have you read any more of that book I sent you?

Why did you take broadcast then and not print? Print people hate the purty TV folk.