TV Talk and More

Lots to write about lately, but haven't had time. A few things on my mind right now:

1. 2004 WSOP. Like everybody else I know, I'm a sucker for watching these every single time they show it. And between ESPN and ESPN2, they show them a lot. The thing is, the tournament is taped, edited to fit into exact one hour episodes, I already know who wins, one of the announcers is really annoying, yet I can't change the channel whenever I see it on. Too addicting I guess.

Watching some of the people in this tournament who are jackasses can be frustrating sometimes though. This kid Josh Arieh, for example. He's actually a really good player, I have no idea how he laid down his flush against John Murphy's full house, but man, what a jerk. Anytime someone calls his bet, or raises him without a hand that he deems worthy enough, he's scoffing and mocking their play. Worst was when he got pushed all in for all of his chips on the flop with a 10-high flush draw, hit it, and then talked smack to the other guy. I mean, considering the guy had the better hand, and made all the right moves, I don't think you deserve to act like a bigshot when you managed to put your own tournament life at stake with a draw and get lucky.

It's not just the amateurs, either. I don't even want to get started on that Mike Matusow guy. All I will say is, if you are going to call yourself a pro, you should act like one. Everyone has bad luck and good luck and you shouldn't be crying like a baby if you happen to lose, no matter how bad the beat is.

Anyways, for those of you who haven't seen the end yet, I won't ruin it for you. There's also a "Tournament of Champions" thing they are showing next week, that looks pretty cool. Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Lederer, Phil Hellmuth and more at the same table.

2. Pimp My Ride might just be the best show ever. Xzibit is hilarious, I don't think anybody could be a more entertaining host than him. It's also nice that for once, there's an MTV show where they don't just pick the people who are the best looking, or the ones who will stir up the most controversy. I actually feel happy for all the people who have their rides pimped, because they at least deserve it in some way.

3. Olivia says that I like all the most retarded commercials. This is true, I admit it. For example, one of my favorite commercials right now is the Old Navy jeans, where the kid is raving about mowing the lawn:

"Are you kidding me??!! I've only been waiting for it to grow!! It's like a haircut, for the lawn!! I can't believe it's legal! Mowing the lawn... is BLOWING MY MIND!!"

I like the one with the girl in history class too:

"History? I LOVE history!! Something happened... then, something else happened. So sequential! Thank you, First Guy, for writing things down!!"

Haha... too funny. Other commercials worth mentioning are:

- Starbucks, with a band singing "Eye of the Tiger" to some guy going to work.
- Toyota Tacoma, where they have the pickup truck in sports situations with Kenny Mayne doing commentary. I like the one when the truck gets caught stealing.
- Old Spice, with the guys being loud and obnoxious in the background while the girlfriend rolls her eyes. But when they hug, all the fond memories associated with the smell come back and it's all good. I like how their slogan is "Spice things up" too. That's a good phrase.

I'm just a sucker for stupid stuff like that, what can I say?

4. This might be the most exciting time of the year in terms of sports (and of course, fantasy sports). Football and baseball are overlapping for a few weeks, and college basketball is around the corner. For my fantasy teams, I had a good start in football, thanks to good days from Owens, Domanick Davis, and Tiki Barber. In baseball, though, I had my lead chopped down to 2.5 a few days ago, which made me nervous. I remember only a few weeks ago, my team was up by more than 15 points, and looked pretty strong. Right now I'm sitting on a 6 point lead, still uneasy. Those stupid Jobberz just won't go away. If I somehow end up losing this year, it may go down as the worst choke ever in the history of Dudo League Baseball.

5. When it comes to our crushes on celebrities, girls are much more shallow and fickle than guys. One minute it's Justin, next it's Eminem, then Ashton Kutcher for a while, or Brad Pitt when his movie happens to be out, maybe Michael Phelps or Andy Roddick when they win something big, and seems like right now Usher is all the rage. Maybe they'll go back and forth between them at times, but basically it's all about who's getting the exposure at the moment. Who has the hottest CD, TV show, movie, or who won the last big sporting event. Meanwhile, my #1 celebrity chick has been the same for the past 5 or 6 years, until she decided to cancel her concert and get engaged to some schmuck.

6. At this point, I wonder how many times they have "digitally remastered" or "digitally enhanced" the original Star Wars Trilogy, and what else is left for them to do to those movies so George Lucas can make even more money off of them. I'm seeing ads for the new DVD set and they might as well have been the same commercials I saw about 10 years ago when the VHS set came out. That said, I'll probably end up buying these DVDs anyways.

7. With every new season of Real World, I have to insert the obligatory complaints. I get tired of saying the same thing over and over about not ever having any Asian guys represent in the cast, but this time it's especially ridiculous. I mean, look at the 2 white guys, is it just me or are they not the same person? Light curly hair, pretty built, dress the same, act the same, even one of the girls said something like "they both look like they just stepped out of an Abercrombie catalog". One is taller, but carbon copies otherwise, am I wrong? Also, this time they have 2 gay guys, not just the normal token homosexual. Maybe they are trying to make up for not having any in the last season, fine. But let me get this straight, you have room for 2 of the exact same white guy, and 2 different types of gay guys, and 3 of the ugliest, skankiest girls I have ever seen, but not for one little yellow man? It's a tired argument by now but man, that's just poor.

Labor Day Weekend

Had a good weekend. Always a good weekend when you get an extra day. And it's nice that this work week is starting out one day shorter.

Went to the Sox game on Saturday, saw Ichiro go 5-5, rob Carlos Lee of extra bases with a leaping catch, and make some pretty throws. Man I wish he was on our team, I might just have to buy season tickets if we signed him.

Happy Birthday to Will and his cousin.

"My goodies... my goodies.... my goodies
not my goodies!

I bet you want the goodies
Bet you thought about it
Got you all hot and bothered
Maybe cuz I talk about it
Lookin for the goodies
Keep on lookin cuz they stay in the jar

ohhohhh ohhhohhh ohhhhohhh" - Ciara

I have no idea what she is talking about in this song. Maybe she's got a jar of really good Skittles or something. Such a catchy tune though.

About an hour ago I accidentally stabbed myself in the finger with a meat knife trying to pry open some frozen burger patties. It hurt. Lots of blood. Now my finger is wrapped in lots of gauze and I am finding it difficult to type.

Dear Mama

I think the person that cracks me up the most is my mom. I've written about her more than a few times in this blog, but not so much lately. Maybe that's because I don't think anyone else will understand why I think she's so hilarious.

One of the things that always makes me laugh is when my mom emails me. Most of the time it's one of those lame forwards, like an inspirational story, a poem about sunshine, or a slideshow of cute babies or puppies. For some reason she must think I like all that gayness, I don't know why.

Not that I'm complaining, cause I think it's hilarious and that's why I'm writing about it to begin with. Also, I mean "gayness" in the pejorative sense (flashback to Jesse Ventura skit on Conan O'Brien), not in the literal sense, especially as she is one of the most politically conservative people I know of. In fact, one of her more recent forwards to me was some petition to our local Congressman to Constitutionally ban same-sex marriage, so you know she won't stand for any real gayness.

My favorite part is her fobbiness. Her English isn't terrible, but she still does a lot of things that I find to be so amusing. In her writing, she tends to put quotes around phrases that don't really merit quotes. Or she will discover fun new ways to mispell words, like "I am eating too much lately, I notice I'm getting choppier" actually means she feels "chubbier".

Also, I have talked before about how pointless it is to explain stuff like wireless networks, MP3s, or the Internet to her. Teaching her how to use her cell phone was not easy to say the least. Yet sometimes, she will surprise me with flashes of technology-savviness. Such as recently, when I asked her if she had heard anything about Millenium Park, and then she sent me a link to the URL for the Millenium Park website. And when something like that happens, it cracks me up even more.

Like I said, many of you may not understand why I think these things are hilarious, but trust me, they are. Especially those of you who were not fortunate enough to be born with a fobby parent, you guys are seriously missing out.

* By the way, in case anyone is wondering, the word "fobby" is derived from the word FOB, actually an acronym for "Fresh Off Boat", which refers to people who were not born here but immigrated to this country. Thus "fobbiness" represents pretty much all the things you tend to associate with fobs, like a heavy accent, lack of fashion sense, etc. Prototypical example of a fob: William Hung.

Low Quality H2O

"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put it in a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot and it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee

I have always thought of water as being awesome. You can drink it, you can shower with it, you can swim in it, and you can even Chinese Water torture with it. Definitely something innate in human nature that draws us to water, something about water that fascinates people to the core. I think the first chapter of Moby Dick talks about this exact subject, but I'd rather not think about that book right now.

Anyways, some of you who are loyal readers of my page may already be thinking to yourselves, "Here we go again... another one of Dudo509 Blogspot's retarded tributes to some silly topic, like the Sun, Britney Spears, the town of Darien, the White Sox, or salads." Well, you would be wrong.

This time, I would like to take the time and effort to bash water, instead of praise it. The reason? It's Friday night. Actually Saturday morning, around 3 or 4 am, when my sister calls me up from Darien to tell me that the power went out and that our basement is flooded with 3 inches of water. Me, half asleep, tells her that there's nothing we can do about it right now, so go back to sleep and we'll take care of it in the morning.

Of course, now that I'm fully awake, I can't stop thinking about our flooded basement, so about another half hour later, I decide to just drive home and check on the basement myself. On the way back, I noticed that there's not a lot of cars on the highway at 4-5 in the morning, other than FedEx and UPS trucks.

As I drive into Darien, I notice that the entire place is dark. Stoplights and streetlights are completely off, store signs unlit, and my block looks like a scene out of a zombie movie. Then I get to my house and realize that with no electricity, the garage door won't open. Under my breath, I curse the state of Illinois for letting our most talented homegrown Power Engineers slip away to north of our borders. "I bet all of the 'Sconz is up and running right now," I say to myself.

With our storm door locked, I end up having to call and wake up my sister to open the door for me. We go down to the basement, and sure enough, there's at least 3 inches of water there, maybe 4 at this point. I hear a clicking noise in the corner, which was the backup sump pump futilely trying to start. Stupid thing wasn't working, only making stupid noises. Otherwise the basement wouldn't have flooded. Oh well.

So I figure that I better walk through the basement and unplug everything, and make sure to move anything valuable to higher ground. Since I didn't have rubber boots, I ended up getting an old pair of shoes and tying plastic bags around them, something I remember doing back from Camp Edwards in sixth grade. I think I looked pretty weird at that moment, with plastic bags around my ankles, jeans rolled up to the knees and everything. In fact, my sister decided to take some pictures of me to record exactly how stupid I looked.

The good thing was, there wasn't a lot to unplug, and nothing that valuable down there. The bad thing was that the "plastic bags around shoes" idea stopped being effective when I was about halfway to the other side of the basement.

Anyways, we went to sleep, and by the next morning, the power had come back on, and most of the water was pumped out. All was good again, except that the pieces of carpet were still soaked, there was dirty residue covering all the tiled areas, and the whole basement smelled disgusting, kind of like an old fish tank.

So as I alluded to earlier, this weekend's flooded basement experience caused me to become more aware of the uglier side of water. Yes, it is still a great beverage, and yes, I still think oceans are cool, but it is definitely not fun to clean up the mess left by dirty rainwater in one's basement. The worst parts about water I learned this weekend:

- Soaked pieces of carpet that reeked like a mother hugger. Trying to carry them from the basement to the garage to the driveway to the deck without messing up the rest of the house was not easy or fun.

- Soaked cardboard boxes. Like the silly aliens in Signs, water is like kryptonite to cardboard. Not only that, but if you have the corrugated cardboard, you get a nice surprise when you pick it up and all the water trapped inside rushes out. Fortunately, most of our stuff down there was in plastic bins or plastic bags, but there were still plenty of things stored in cardboard boxes to make life miserable during the cleanup process. I might have to write an "Ode to Plastic" sometime.

- Mopping up the dirty water that had collected all the dirt, dead bugs, rust juice, etc. in the basement. Squeezing out the concentrated filth into the bucket and dumping it out was not pleasant.

In the end, I realized that Bruce Lee was right. The worst enemy to deal with in a fight is water. Specifically, old nasty floodwater. Virtually impossible to catch and manage, with an overwhelmingly bad smell to boot. Definitely a battle I would just like to avoid in the future. Anyways, my body is so sore and blistered right now that I'm not sure I could fight a mouse (not my expression, one of my managers likes to say that).

*****

McNown League 2004

The weekend was not entirely without positives, however. The 2004 McNown League draft took place last night and I'm actually feeling pretty happy with the results. Didn't like being in the 4th spot, but a good start was having LaDainian Tomlinson fall to me somehow (Priest, Ahman, and Portis were taken 1-2-3). Starting lineup for my team looks like:

QB - Aaron Brooks
RB - LaDainian Tomlinson
WR - Terrell Owens
Flex - Domanick Davis
Flex - Tiki Barber
Flex - Peerless Price
TE - Boo Williams
K - Jason Elam
D - Ray Lewis
D - Keith Bulluck
D - Rodney Harrison

Not expecting a whole lot out of Owens this year, but I wouldn't mind seeing him prove me wrong by busting out. Also, I like having Aaron Brooks at QB, but maybe that's only because he's never been on my team to frustrate me personally. Other than that, the flex looks a little weak beyond Davis. I'm not that worried though, because I think everyone else's flex is kind of weak too. Just means we'll have to fight it out on the waiver wire is all.

September 9th is only 10 days away. LET THE NFL SEASON BEGIN...

- I have written about my disdain for weather reports more than once in the past, but I don't care. Weather forecasts are a sham and a waste of time and I'll keep saying it unless they someday improve and make me change my mind. It pisses me off that given all the technology available today, they still can't do any better than the weak sauce they feed us.

I hate the ambiguity of their reports. What's the difference between "partly cloudy" and "partly sunny"? Other than the occasional day when the sky is completely clear or completely covered, isn't every day "partly sunny" or "partly cloudy"? What does "40% chance of rain" mean to me? Should I bring 40% of an umbrella, wash 40% of my car, or shut my windows 40% of the way? I don't need some hyped-up meteorologist telling me that it might rain or it might not rain, or that there's probably going to be some clouds in the sky along with some sunlight. I knew that already.

And even though they never commit to anything, they still get it wrong. For the past few days up through this morning, all I see is rain in their "forecasts". Rain, rain, more rain tonight, thunderstorms the rest of the week. Then I open up the same weather report a couple hours later and what do I see? Big happy sunny icons representing today's conditions. That's great that you can tell me it's sunny right now. I can look out the window and do just as well. Did you really need your fancy Doppler radar to tell you that one? Still, they make sure to cover their butts in case it ends up raining: "Some clouds. A stray thunderstorm is possible." Now, if you can't accurately predict what's going to happen later this same day, how can you expect anyone to believe what's in your 7-day forecasts?

- While getting my hair cut a few days ago, the lady asked me if I was going back to school soon. I said no, I graduated a couple years ago and now I'm working. Her response: "Oh that's great, my daughter graduated last year and she's working now too. So how old are you, like 19, 20...?"

- Olympics are cool, but I think I'm glad they are only once every 4 years. For a lot of these events, I can see why they aren't more popular outside of the Olympics. I'm not just talking about obscure stuff like archery, walking, fencing, trampoline, etc. I'm getting sick of the swimming, gymnastics, track & field too. So much politics and subjectivity to these sports that it just becomes too much to handle. Someone wins a medal and then you have all this bickering about tenths and hundredths of points in scoring, judging bias, illegal "dolphin kicks", doping, all this extra garbage that just turns off fans. Then they wonder why nobody wants to follow their sport more regularly.

- My current guilty pleasure in life is listening to the Jim Rome show when I'm driving home and back for lunch. Not because it's awesome, but because it is so awful that it's entertaining in a train-wreck kind of way. If it's not long uncomfortable pauses ("dead air", if you will), it's Rome harping on one subject for 20 minutes. And not like he's making new points, just saying the same thing over and over, with different phrasing until he's completely beaten the subject to death:

"Team USA loses in beach volleyball to Switzerland, a land-locked country. We lost to a country that has no oceans on any of its borders! They're land-locked! How sad is that, we can't win against the Swiss, who have zero beaches! They're a land-locked country! It's BEACH-volleyball. We invented the sport, we have beaches all over the place. You go to Switzerland, there's no oceans around!

[10 minutes later]

Simply pathetic, losing in beach volleyball to Switzerland. What a JOKE. I can see us losing to them in Alpine skiing, they have that. Not beach volleyball. We oughta be ashamed. Simply UNACCEPTABLE. We invent the sport, now we lose to a land-locked country.

I think what we need is to invent more Olympic events. How about 'shopping at the GAP'? I bet we could win gold in that pretty easily. How about 'eating fast food" and "being lazy'? That's something Americans are definitely good at. I think we should compete to see who has the worst reality shows. Guaranteed gold medal for USA there. I know, let's do Olympic 'shopping at the GAP'! Who's going to beat us in that? I'm sure Lithuania would have no chance. Or maybe 'starting wars', that's something our country is good at too.

[10 more minutes pass]

Since we can't win in the sports that we invented ourselves, that's what we need to do, just invent new ones. Olympic 'shopping at the GAP' - we'll sweep in that event. Not like beach volleyball. Losing at a sport you invented, to a country that has no beaches. Switzerland, a land-locked country. What a JOKE."

But my favorite thing about the Jim Rome show is his loyal followers, "clones" as they are called. They're all part of the "jungle". I don't normally use this phrase, but LOLZ. ROTFLMAO. Basically, they're all guys who call up or email trying to be clever enough to impress their grand master Jim Rome. They try to talk like him, using the same tone of voice and as many of his lame catchphrases. Which reminds me, I remember he used to have on his website a whole dictionary of those phrases. I'm sure it's still there, for anyone who feels like a dose of unintentional comedy I encourage you to look up his site yourself.

The funniest part is, no matter how bad the show is, I can't force myself to change the station. It's just too entertaining.