Silly Season Approaches…

Posted: November 29, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

It’s been awhile since I last posted, even with good intentions to post at least weekly, but I keep getting side tracked with different things and now Thanksgiving has passed us by and we are getting into the silly season.

Well I was going to list a few cynical thanks here that I considered over Thanksgiving, like to the financial institution that lost 90% of my retirement fund, or the company that closed at the start of the year making me spend 9 months searching for a new job, to the companies I applied that think I’m either over qualified or of course they want young inexperienced cheap labor, but most of all to the Yankees because this isn’t a perfect world.

And now as we move into that silly season, a time of year that used to be, (for me anyway) a joy to see that smile on someone’s face just because you did or said something nice, almost everyone was in a good mood and would do things for others just because it was that special time of year when everyone had a little Christmas spirit (non alcoholic that is) inside of them. It wasn’t about the giving or the receiving, it was about just being nice to everyone. Yes in the perfect world it would be like that all year round and not just at Christmas time, but in a perfect world the Phillies would be World Champions again.

So nowadays instead of Christmastime it’s become the silly season, the true essence of Christmas has gone and it’s all thanks to commercialization that has become the normality for every season and those moments between each season too. It’s now a time where every company that has something to sell, fights to get you to spend your hard earned money with them, even mlb.com pounds you with emails of great gift ideas and special offers of super discounts.

What has this become, a time when more often than not people spend more than they can afford on useless gifts to earn the love and affection of others, and what’s worse is people expect to receive something from others and will categorize those givers based on what has been given. If you must venture out into those over crowded shopping malls and department stores to seek out the perfect gift for those people you are seeking to impress with your lavish present then here’s some guidelines….

Woman buying for a man – 

1 – Power tools, Computers, Electronic gadgets,  are not all made equal, guys will prefer certain brands and models

2 – Those infomercial gadgets, really suck

3 – Socks, ties, underwear, are best left to the wife or mother

4 – Cologne, gift cards or alcohol, are fairly safe

Man buying for woman – 

1 – Sexy lingerie, face it guys that’s for you not her

2 – A day at the spa, exercise clothes or equipment – says you think she’s fat or ugly or both

3 – Cell phones, PDA’s, electronic tracking devices – not cool says your a freaky, jealous maniac

4 – Gift cards – say you were too lazy to think of something

5 – Perfume – know the exact brand that she likes and you are safe

 

To those companies fighting for everyone’s money consider these song suggestions from  Eric O’Shea….

 

 

What’s up with that – Universal

Posted: November 19, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

There are some things that I
see, hear or sometimes just notice in general that can ‘irk me’,
really ‘p*ss me off’, even ‘amuse me’, and then there are those
things that I just sit back and say to myself ‘What’s up with that?‘

This week I saw this article
about the movie ‘Couples
Retreat’, the movie itself looks as though it maybe fairly
humorous, (although the critics rated it below par), but that wasn’t what the article was about. It seems in
someone’s infinite wisdom they removed two of the characters from the
poster promoting the movie in the U.K. (United Kingdom).

 

The two actors
removed were Faizon Love and Kali Hawk, both happen to be black actors.
– In response to outrage over the move, a Universal spokesman said
the altered poster aimed "to simplify the poster to actors who are
most [recognizable] in international markets." –

If you continue to read the
article they quote a NY
Times article from 2007, like a child caught
with their hand in the cookie jar, they attempt to pass the
blame for this onto the international viewing audiences, and since this
was about the poster for the U.K. (United Kingdom) I can only assume
that for the most part it is directed at the viewing public in the U.K.
(United Kingdom). The New York Times article that is quoted references a
James Ulmer statement "The international marketplace is still
fairly racist."

It seems they came to this
conclusion because certain movies with black actors didn’t generate
enough revenue from the international market, however having read the
article, the movies that are actually used as examples that didn’t meet
expectations, some of them I hadn’t heard of and others just simply
sucked in my opinion. But the NY Times article is not what this is
about, it’s about Universal’s need to pass the buck for there misgivings.

The article
in question is nothing more than a media outlet to pass blame from
Universal and attach a racist label on the international viewing
audience, in this case the U.K. (United Kingdom). I’m guessing the
arrogance of another large American organization, Universal, would not
even consider the fact that some of their movies just suck and aren’t
appealing to the majority of international viewers, regardless of the
color of the actors skin.

Should we not classify the
American public as racists towards the British, since the infinite
wisdom of TV and Film producers in America are constantly remaking
British sitcoms etc. with American actors, since they feel the British
dialogue is not fully understood in America or should we just sit back
and classify the TV and Film industry as total idiots that have no idea
about the viewing public anywhere in the world. They would rather blame
the viewers for the mistakes they make instead of accepting
responsibility for their own actions.

Baseball’s – ‘What’s
up with that’

Well done baseball’s
ingenious methodology in giving out awards, lets reward a dope smoker
with a Cy Young, obviously Cardinals fans are going to be really p*ssed
off, and you can’t blame them. Next you’ll be giving the MVP award to
Manny Ramirez.

images are courtesy of
Universal (I think)

Health and Safety in Play…

Posted: November 12, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

There are a number of ways
to become famous in sports, you can even become an international sport
star given the right circumstances.

For example you could be an
over egotistical jerk like TO, you could just be the very best at
what you do like Tiger Woods, there is even the chance that you
can have a great career that may or may not be destroyed by the alleged
use of enhancements like Barry Bonds, you could also have a
famous wife and play in a number of different countries yet still be one
the very best in your home country like David Beckham.

It has been some time since
I saw this type of behavior  that made a person famous in multiple
countries over night, or at least a couple of days.

What the hell was she
thinking… not a lot apparently…

I guess we can think
ourselves lucky baseball isn’t a contact sport, unless you get hit by a
wayward baseball…. or a player charging the mound, or the now famous
glass of beer…

Junk Mail can make you Millions

Posted: November 8, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

This week, as normal I
received my regular volume of Junk Mail, ordinarily it ends up in
the trash can along with the chain letter style emails family and
friends seem to enthusiastically send out, I can only assume in fear
that the punch line of said emails will come true. For me however more
bad luck can only transform itself into good luck, plus the knowledge
that emails do not have any power over the universe and the fact that if
emails could render anybody rich and shameless just by forwarding
it to 10 people then we would receive them under the same pretence as we
do the  ‘Make Millions from Google‘ emails.

There seems to be a new resurgence
of emails relating to money that you don’t even have to do anything to
obtain this wealth, you just have to be you. I refer to the ‘inheritance‘,
‘email lottery’ or the ‘you’ve been selected‘ type emails.
Sometimes boredom gets in the way of common sense and the lack of
baseball induced excitement invariably increases the boredom I decided
to look at some of these emails.

‘Inheritance’

It seems that I, along with
all the other ‘undisclosed recipients’ have an Aunt or some other
relative, who believes I am the sole heir to her fortunes. It doesn’t
matter that I have older siblings, I am still the sole survivor of her
millions, and all I have to do is send my information to the attorney
listed to have the 340 million US dollars transferred to my bank
account.

So there you have it, I am
now rich and shameless and can purchase box seats behind home
plate for every game at home and away that the Phillies will play
in the 2010 season.

’email lottery’

It also seems that this week
my email address along with all those ‘undisclosed recipients’ have
won the ’email lottery’ in Australia and Europe. I won 2 email
lotteries that I didn’t enter, how cool is that, and all I have to do is
respond with my personal and banking information to collect the millions
of dollars in foreign currency, which after a quick conversion would
give me another 680 million US dollars

What more could I ask for, I
am more than just ‘rich and shameless’ I am now a billionaire and
all I have done is open 3 emails.

‘you’ve been selected’

How much more money could I
make this week, it seems quite a bit actually because my email address
is very popular. I received from 4 different people telling that I
personally, along with all the other ‘undisclosed recipients’
were people of good nature and would be able to benefit from the 137
million US dollars stuck in an account in Nigeria, and that the person
controlling that account needs my help and I can get to keep 10% of the
funds, if I just give them my personal information and banking details.

I figured 10% of 137 million
US dollars, is peanuts compared to the billion or so I already had, but
greed being the ultimate evil I wanted everything, so I added the 4 lots
of 14 million US dollars to my total income this week.

Of course on top of all this
money I could have also made millions from Google.

What amazes me about the
stupidity of the people that send these emails is they believe that
people are stupid enough to respond to them.

1 – The email addresses they
send them from in no way reflect the content of the email as most come
from the new spam email service supplied by ‘gmail’. I know a lot
of normal people use ‘gmail‘ accounts, but eventually ‘gmail‘
will get the same bad name as ‘msn‘, ‘hotmail’, ‘yahoo‘
and ‘aol‘. Although all but ‘aol‘ has managed a recovery
from there email servers being branded as spam accounts by many.

2- The IP addresses of the
mail servers which send these emails is not even close to the location
they claim to be sending them from and most times is being used as a
mirror server.

3- The return email address
can never be found as it is cancelled moments after the mass email is
sent out.

4 – If you are going to
personalize an email and hope someone takes the bait, DON’T
send it to ‘undisclosed recipients’

To all those people that
have being irresponsible and fallen for one of these types of emails,
you really shouldn’t be allowed to have an email address, and to all
those people that find it a requirement to harass us with these spam
emails, do me a favor and TAKE MY EMAIL ADDRESS OFF YOUR F*CKING LIST

Back to baseball – It seems Brad
Lidge wants us to feel sorry for him because he may have an
injury which he didn’t disclose, he felt it was better to blow a save in
the World Series than go on the DL. Well Brad, now you have to put up
2008 type numbers in 2010 for any normal person to take you seriously
again….

Finally bye bye Brett
Myers….

If you stuck around long
enough to read this babbling piece of crap then your as bored as me
without baseball….

GO EAGLES….for now

The Phillies get a well earned rest…

Posted: November 5, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The New York Yankees are the new World Series Champions, after defeating the Philadelphia Phillies in 6 games. It’s not easy to win the World Series, and is a great accomplishment each time. For that I give a congratulatory nod to the Yankees.

The Phillies will get a well deserved rest and return in 2010 with all the other teams, with their eye on the ultimate goal once more. During this time we will be able to speculate on who will be back, who will move on, and who will just simply be released.

It would be too easy to write about the money the Yankees spent to achieve the prize, or to speculate on the tax burden residents will be facing to pay for the new stadium. I could also stoop to the levels of the NY Post and make a half-hearted, but tackey attempt at poking fun at players, especially since a DH won the MVP award, but at this point I will refrain from drawing anymore attention to a group of individuals who believe the world revolves around them and that they are the largest sports franchise in the world, of which the majority probably didn’t even know where Philadelphia was until this past week or that any other sport even exists.

I am at peace with all this, knowing that next year things will be different. So during the off season I will as often as possible write about things that have no relevance to anything whatsoever, but will, I am sure from time to time irritate the sh!t out of people.

~peter