Archive for August, 2008

Gilbert strikes again, and in the same article for that matter.  The following is the first article I’ve read dealing with politics since I was forced to in high school.  I hate politics.  I hate hearing people talk (argue) about politics.  But, for once it was broken down by someone I respect and he actually pulled me in.  Quite impressive I must say.  I repeat I HATE POLITICS.

The Election
I’m not into politics, but I see what’s going on in the presidential race and I’m seeing rappers make songs for Obama and Mr. McCain doing all his stuff and I’m thinking, this is getting out of control, people. Whatever happened to Democrats and Republicans? You vote for who’s who.

It’s hard for me to vote, because since I’ve been in the NBA I’ve been in the upper class so I’ve been a Republican. If you have any type of money, you’re a Republican, period. So, it’s hard because you see a better looking president in Obama – I don’t even want to say because he’s black, but he just looks the part – and then you have McCain who is Republican and I’m like, man. I know Obama is going to raise taxes on the upper class from 20-60 percent, that’s what I’m looking at. To be honest, I stopped paying attention a long time ago when it was Bush and Gore when Gore won the popular vote, but Bush was the president.

Basically, what that told me was that everybody in America voted for Gore, but somehow, Bush became president. I am confused. Obviously, our vote doesn’t really mean anything. Then you have this thing called the delegate, then you got the super delegate and then you got the hidden delegate that nobody knows about. If you’ve never heard of the hidden delegate, that’s like when you’re buying a car and they say the taxes on the car are 20 percent, and then when you look at your statement, they charge you an extra three, that’s the same thing. It’s the hidden fee delegate that nobody knows about who has all this power. They actually get to pick who they want for president. So when I start looking at it like that, that’s when I stop paying attention because at the end of the day, our votes really don’t matter. I don’t mean to be rude about it, but it seems like it doesn’t matter. If Gore wins by thousands of votes and Bush is president eight years later … come on.

There’s another reason I don’t vote – I don’t want jury duty. If you’re not registered to vote, you can’t get jury duty. I know that campaign Diddy had a couple years ago, “Vote or Die,” yeah if the alternative is jury duty, I’m going to die. I’m not going to get in one of these cases where they blow the jury members’ houses up to get out of the trial, I’m cool. I’ve seen too many movies.

For whatever president that wins, what can I tell you? Do a good job. Change the world. I remember when we were voting for class president in high school, the guy who won was the guy who said he’s going to put the vending machines in the school cafeteria. That’s who I voted for. So until I hear vending machines or lower gas prices, I’m not voting. As soon as I hear, “Yeah, I’m going to lower gas prices,” then you got me, I’ll sit in jury duty.

I do not vote and I did not know that I wouldn’t be called for jury duty because of this.  I couldn’t be happier with my decision now knowing this.

Going into this episode my expectations were pretty low as most season premiere’s just touch on all the stuff the tabloids cover.  Thankfully, this episode was much more than that and quite entertaining.  Here’s my standard follow along blog.

1) D texted me, “LC’s dress (from the live interview)…ew…she doesn’t have the boobs for it.”  Um, I completely disagree any cleavage is good cleavage. 

2) Scripted conversation between LC and Whitney.  Standard stuff to catch us up on what’s going on.  I agree with Whitney Doug is kind of a lame name.

3) They follow the show’s theme song up with my favorite chick song right now.  Pussycat Doll’s…When I grow up.

4) Heidi’s fake work friend got uglier and I didn’t think she was halfway attractive in the first place.

5) Audrina’s first comment about Schmo of the season, “Lo is always super bitchy, that’s just how she is.”  Love that that is her first line, hope drama unfolds there, it no doubt should.

6) Spencer is sitting there playing vids.  Get out of here with that, I would work you son.  Yes, that was a CT line for those die hard MTV fans.

7) That’s a weak reason to pout Spencer, it’s just her sister.  And what does Heidi’s sister’s tat on her inner wrist say?

So, Schmo and Audrina are openly disliking each other this season.  That’s a different twist, but one I definately like, it can only end badly.

9) Red Pearl Kitchen…you can thank The Hills for that free advertising. 

10) LC, “I think your drink says a lot about you.  Beer says you’re a guys guy.”  What does jack and coke say I am LC?  And LC ordered a Fuzzy Dragon?  That sounds delicious, but I think that says to me, that you don’t trim your bush. 

11) Doug just asked who Audrina is.  Get serious Dougy, you have clearly watched the show before or season her in the tabloids with LC.

12) Back to back amazing previews.  Real excited for Making the Band to come back tomorrow.  The crop of summer shows had been horrible.  I had been delegated to watching I Love Money (which is fantastic actually) and Million Dollar Listing.  Now I’ve got The Hills, Making the Band and Sunset Tan all returning.  Not to mention the next preview and a new show I’m quite excited for, the new version of Beverly Hills, “90210″ featuring Eden.

13) Jesus Christ, these commercials just won’t stop.  What is the run time on this episode?  12 minutes?  Just rewinded my TiVo to see if I was overreacting.  No joke 8 minutes of the Hills playtime followed by 9 minutes of advertising.  That is pathetic, especially for a season premiere. 

14) Spencer is hilarious.  He is intentionally over the top Spencer haters, everything he does is intentional and thought out, stop taking him seriously.

15) Whoa Whoa.  How are Doug and Frankie already friends? Did anyone else catch that they went to Audrina’s party together and without Brody.

16) All of Audrina’s crazy friends are showing up to the party.  Over/Under on S.T.D.’s at that party I’m setting at 14.5.  No joke, I’d take the over, there are so many dirtballs.

17) Schmo is bitching in the kitchen.  “We are just gonna have to enjoy the company that comes.”  Thank you, captain obvious.  And finally Lauren gives her a frustrated look.

18) Heidi, “I don’t always want my family in my relationship like that.”  Honestly shut up.  You are on a reality show about your relationship, of course you want everyone to know.  You and Spencer go out in public begging people to give you attention (which I’m not mocking, it’s impressive how much attention you get).

19) SCHMO SUCKS.

20) Speaking of Schmo sucking, BooYaKaShaw just texted me his best analysis to date of this show, “Smiegel thinks that Audrina is taking her precious.”  Hilarious.

21) Heidi’s sister looks a lot hotter in the live interview. 

22) 6 minutes of run time there and only 2 minutes of commercials, much better.  For those with poor math skills, that’s 14 minutes of the show and 11 minutes of advertising.  Still a horrible rate.

23) Heidi’s sister leaves and before leaving casually asks to move in.  Haha, that’s gonna irk Spencer.

24) Spencer looks like Grizzly Adams.

25) Schmo and Audrina are going to talk? What? Wait and it’s happening now, excellent.  My mom has always claimed Schmo looks like a witch.  She couldn’t be more right, I keep seeing it more and more.

26) Schmo you should receive the blame for Audrina and LC seperating so much.  Both parts of this argument are so well rehearsed that it’s difficult to critique, this conversation was clearly planned out.  Audrina with the evil dagger to end the discussion, “we will never be friends.”  Nice.

27) My mother called me after the show to predict that Heidi’s sister will move into the house after Audrina moves out.  A bold prediction but I love it and could see it happening.

Previews: AMAZING.  They set up the whole season, so much stuff:

28) Spencer disowning ShePratt for hanging out with LC.

29) ShePratt going on a date with Dougy.  Drama, Drama, Drama.  ShePratt, “she can’t dictate all of our lives.”

30) Doug and Brody are best buds.  Huh, Doug wants Brody’s leftovers?

31) Audrina takes her top off in the pool.  That wouldn’t be anything new. 

32) LC and Audrina actually trying to patch things up.

33) Audrina’s tatted up sister from the tabloids making an appearance.

34) Heidi’s sister moving out there.  And then the sister trying to help Heidi and LC patch up their long lost friendship. 

Wow great previews and a solid episode.  Looking forward to this season.

I’m a big fan of Arenas and a bigger fan of his blog.  He is hilarious and you never know what he is going to write next.  I wish he wrote more often.

Anyway, I was reading his most recent article and he said something that was so right on.  He said:

My Fans
I don’t know where I first heard this from, but it’s actually stuck with me: They say whenever you’re in the public eye, you got to always have a smile on your face, you got to always be approachable. Everybody has bad days, but if you’re a professional athlete or a movie star and people notice you, you can’t ever have a bad day in the public because to somebody who’s never met you, if that’s the one time they come in contact with you and you brush them off because you’re having a bad day, they’re going to think you’re a bad guy. You’re not going to remember them, you’re going to keep it moving, but they’re going to remember that for the rest of their lives and they’ll tell their friends you’re mean and then their friends will blog to their friends that you’re mean, and boom, that’s how it starts.

That is so accurate.  I met Jeremy Piven in Las Vegas a few weeks back.  And based upon that one interaction, I’ve created the impression in my mind that he is a pompous d-bag.  He seriously acts like Ari Gold in real life as well.

My dad was taking a picture of Piven and myself, and to say he is technologically challenged is an understatement.  My dad made him stand there and hold the smile for too long, which could have been frustrating, but instead of bitching or making a smart ass joke (which would have won me over) he instead decided to whip out his cell phone and start texting someone.  I would post this picture that I got with him, but my idiot ass managed to delete them before uploading them to my computer.  Seriously, there should be a way to retrieve those pictures.  Why can’t phones store pictures as small zipped files on them?

P.S. Taking a few laid back weeks on the blog was good for me.  I actually enjoyed writing again, the idea of posting something new every day had become a little too mundane for me.  So, now I’m randomly posting this on a Saturday and it’ll probably stay up for a few days.  Who knows, maybe this mini Vegas story will lead me to write the long winded analysis.

Sorry guys, but I’m going to be sporadically posting for the rest of August, just too much shit going on right now.

This was just e-mailed to me today, by TwinKidMan and I couldn’t stop laughing.  The guys laugh telling the story is pretty priceless as well.

Here It Is

The teams above are listed in order from left to right in terms of importance to me.  I will be sending the actual excel file to most of you in e-mail as well.  My favorite part of the picture above is the fact that you can see the Milwaukee Brewers/Cincinnati Reds boxscore as I was clearly tracking that last night with money being layed on the Reds.

August 30th-31st: This is the weekend before I move into my new apartment, so I won’t be traveling.  All of these games are garbage anyway.

September 6th-7th-8th: Heading to Lambeau for the Monday night Vikes game with Kermit, Version4.0 and BennyWilliams.  Should be an absolute blast and will definately feature website material stories.  I am completely against the idea of Favre in a Vikes jersey, but would gladly buy a Favre Vikes jersey just for this game.

September 13th-14th: Going to the Colts/Vikes game with Bomber.  It’s really too bad these had to fall on the same weekend as I would have loved to be in Iowa City for all the crazyness.  I’m still considering going for tailgating and the game and passing out after the game, so that I could get up early and drive back to MN for the Vikes game.

September 20th - 21st: Possibly headed to Vegas, but that would be my fourth time in the past year already.  Still I like where my Cyclone friends heads’ are at, using this game as an excuse to head down there.  This would be the second year I tagged along for an UNLV game, last year it was with Madison friends, which is when the infamous Hussy Hooker story took place.

September 27th - 28th: Maybe a trip to Iowa, but more than likely my first week off.

October 4th - 5th - 6th: Going to see TheOhioState in Madison for a night game and visit my little sister.  MiniMiz has already confirmed for this weekend and I expect many others to do so as well.  Vikes play another Monday night game this week.

October 11th - 12th: Back to back night games in Madison is very tempting, especially considering it would be another game with two top 25 teams.  But, I probably can’t get every weekend I want off work.  Plus, I will definately be going to the Detroit game if I don’t head to Madison.  Dr. Shhh, do you live nearby the Indiana campus if for some reason we wanted to head out that way?

October 18th - 19th:  Might end up being my only trip back to Iowa City for the fall (which would be unfortunate).  MiniMiz and almost every single one of my college friends have decided to make this a reuinion of sorts.  I really wanted to go to this Bears game in Chicago this year, it just fell on the wrong weekend.

October 25th - 26th: My work trip to North Carolina could not have fallen on a better weekend as my favorite teams are on byes.

November 1st - 2nd: Boring opponent, but it’s a Vikes game nonetheless.  Otherwise, this would be another good time to attempt to make it back to Iowa City.

November 8th - 9th: Will be trying my hardest to get tickets to this Vikes game.  This is the only game a year I’m not guaranteed to find a ticket.

November 15th - 16th: Might have to make it back to Madison for the Gophers game.  This is a good time to point out how sweet the Madison schedule is for a Badger student from MN.  All of their MN friends will be coming up this weekend and they have two nationally televised night games on back to back weekends.

November 22nd - 23rd: Iowa plays up here in MN this year, which means any and all of my Iowa City friends are welcome to come up and have a place to stay.  Should be an awesome time.

November 29th - 30th: My best seats of the year, 2nd row 50 yard line at the Vikes/Bears game, going with my brother.

December 7th - College football season will be over with the exception of the bowl games.  Lame.

December 14th - Two away games in a row.  I might have to work back to back weekends.  Lame.

December 21st - Atlanta playing in the Dome, brings me back to the site of one of the worst days of my entire life.  Might choose not to go out of spite.

December 28th - Will be in Denmark with the family for the holidays.

Want to hear everyone’s thoughts on which ones they can attend and so forth.