Kanye and Katrina

Just watched the clip of Kanye saying Bush doesn't care about black people for the first time and I must say it is entertaining if nothing else. It was kind of surprising to see how noticeably shaken Mike Myers was by the whole thing, considering all his past experience in live TV. Chris Tucker's face was pretty priceless too.

I was thinking hypothetically, the funniest possible reaction to his little rant would have been something like the guy on track 3 on Kanye's first CD (College Dropout): "What in the f--- was that??! Kannnnn-hyeeeh??! I told you to do some sh-- for the kids!!!" If only I had the power to make such things happen, those would've been the first words out of Mike Myers's mouth.

Seriously though, that was pretty bad. I mean I don't care so much about the things he had to say. Just don't do it on a program that's dedicated to raising money for the victims. There are plenty of other places to spout off your opinions, but this was clearly not one of them.

Think about it for a second, if I want my opinion on a subject to be heard, the most I can do is post it on this blog and hope people read it and link to it. I don't have the luxury of going on TV and complaining about stuff that pisses me off. Kanye West, meanwhile, has no shortage of media outlets to express his views. Because of his celebrity, any magazine, newspaper, or TV station would trip over themselves to interview him.

Yet instead of using any of those outlets to speak, he found a way to choose the most inappropriate moment and place to do it. On top of that he came off sounding like an incoherent idiot - if you are going to hijack a national broadcast to speak your mind, at least have something more meaningful to say than some pointless garbage about Iraq and "George Bush doesn't care about black people".

Believe me, I am not one of those people who thinks everything and everyone should be "politically correct" at all times. It didn't really bug me when Kanye went on his little ramble at that awards thing last year about how he was insulted that he didn't win. If he really felt like he was that much better than the other nominees, then fine, say how you feel (although it would've been funny if the other nominees were like Dr. Dre or 2Pac or something, and they got pissed and decided to cap his ass in the parking lot).

It just bugs me when people are so self absorbed and arrogant that they act like rules don't apply to them. You know those people who do whatever they want, act on emotion or impulse, with no regard for anybody else or whatever potential consequences might ensue. It shows how little you respect other people and how much you adore yourself. Sure, everybody's opinion is important, but what makes you feel like yours is so important that you can just decide on a whim to interrupt a charity event and preach your agenda? I though Michael Moore during the Academy Awards was bad, but at least in that case all he was interrupting was some meaningless entertainment show.

As far as the rest of the Hurricane Katrina stuff goes, I've kind of been trying to avoid watching the news too much, for the same reasons I tried to avoid coverage of the tsunami last year. But unless you live under a rock, it's nearly impossible to dodge the news entirely.

And I must say, seeing how all the people involved in the situation reacted is pretty depressing. How can anyone not be disillusioned with the human race after seeing all the ugliness that followed the disaster? You got politicians pointing fingers at each other, blaming everyone but themselves. You got chaos in the streets, people looting for plasma TVs of all things. And the ever present race issue was brought up almost right away.

I don't know whether the federal government or local government was more at fault for the utter lack of preparation, but as an admittedly uninformed outsider I'm leaning towards local. I mean if my basement is prone to flooding, it's my responsibility to make sure I have sump pumps and backup plans. Maybe my parents would help me pay for some of it or the neighborhood would even pitch in some money. But ultimately it's up to me to take care of my own shiznit you know?

In other words if your city is built below sea level, in a hurricane zone, and the only thing preventing your home from being a giant lake are these levies, then you better make sure you spent your money on the best levies money can buy, and dedicate a large chunk of your budget to maintaining and upgrading those suckers every year. And you better also have a contingency plan in case everything fails, something better than "let's shove everyone in the football stadium and wait for someone else to come bail us out". I don't know how much money they spend on Mardi Gras or whatever else they spend money on down there, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be holding one of the largest parties in the world every year until I'm 110% positive that my place is safe.

And say my place does flood and I need help. Do I call up my mom and yell at her for not calling all the Greyhound buses in the country to pick me up immediately? If my neighbor comes by to rescue me, would I shoot my gun at his helicopter or curse him for not coming sooner?

Honestly if I were part of the rescue team, and the people I were rescuing were reacting that way to my arrival, I would probably kick them in the face and just leave them to die (yes I realize I should be more compassionate and it's a good thing I am not in the National Guard). If you want to be mad at the government that's one thing, but get a freaking clue and don't take your frustration out on people who are trying to help you and had absolutely no control over when they got sent on their mission.

It might sound like I'm defending President Bush, but I'm not. I'm sure he has his share of blame in the lack of preparation and slow response. What bothers me, though, is that it seems like more and more people in this country find it convenient to blame the President for every last thing that goes wrong. It's certainly your right to hate the guy and the things he does or stands for, but show some sense please and don't go overboard.

I'm listening to some of these people calling into radio stations, and it's as if our President stirred up these winds to make a hurricane, because he likes to destroy part of his own country like that. Or if you listen to someone like Cindy Sheehan, it almost sounds like George W. Bush is the one who is planting roadside bombs in Iraq, firing rocket propelled grenades, or running suicide missions to kill her son.

It's like nobody realizes anymore that whether you like it or not, bad stuff happens in this world and it's not always up to someone else to deal with it for you. Everyone's reaction to these things is to shove the blame or responsibility elsewhere, let someone else worry about it. "Hey look there's a mess, shouldn't someone be cleaning it up? Shouldn't someone be doing something about that? Oh, not me of course!"

Anyways, I think I've written enough for now. I knew I shouldn't have started writing about Katrina.

The Answers

I'm sure you have all been anxiously awaiting the answers to my little quiz. Well most of them have already been answered correctly by those of you who left comments, congrats to you guys. Very impressive. The ones that were not answered were definitely obscure, but I threw them in anyways just for some added challenge.

1. Garth - Wayne's World
2. Weird Al Yankovic - "It's All About the Pentiums"
3. Michael Corleone - The Godfather Part I
4. Happy Gilmore - Happy Gilmore
5. Chubbs - Happy Gilmore
6. Kristin - Laguna Beach Season 1
7. Brad to the Miz - RW/RR Challenge: The Inferno II
8. Dave Chappelle - Killing Them Softly
9. The President - Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Love the Bomb and Stop Worrying
10. Michelle - Full House

*****

By the way in #5, someone told me that this is not true. Supposedly when putting, it is all in the shoulders. Any golfers out there care to verify? Maybe learning golf technique from Happy Gilmore is not the best idea after all. And here I was all along, thinking that I should putt with a hockey stick.

As I have mentioned before in this blog, one of the things I miss most about college is reading the DI (student newspaper at U of Illinois), and in particular the Police Blotter. The stories are usually short and lack much detail, but the fun part is reading between the lines and trying to figure out and picture what happened.

"19 year old man arrested for underage alcohol consumption and battery at 300 block of John, resists arrest" - Hmm let's run that through the translator: "Drunken frat boy gets into fight on way back to the house from bars". I think we've all seen the story before.

And then sometimes there's just a story that flat out cracks me up:

DI Police Blotter 9-2-05

Check out the first item under Urbana, it's priceless. It could easily be one of those joke headlines on The Onion: "8 year old boy steals a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, flees from police".

*****

Sometimes I feel like I am the only person who

- doesn't think Family Guy is a very funny show
- thinks Black Eyed Peas sucks
- doesn't think Anna Kournikova is very hot

*****

Since I'm bored, let's play a game. Name the quote and who said it:

1. "If she were a President, she would be Baberaham Lincoln"
2. "If I ever meet you, I'll CTRL-ALT-DELETE you"
3. "It's not personal Sonny, strictly business."
4. "What? Friends listen to Endless Love in the dark!"
5. "It's all in the hips. All in the hips."
6. "My car is DONE-zo!"
7. "Congratulations, you're a meathead son. But don't you EVER touch my underwear again"
8. "All right, a Cheeto!"
9. "The 'Baby on the Corner' trick, eh? I'm not falling for that s**t!"
10. "Gentlemen, you can't fight here! This is the War Room!"

Sorry I have no prizes to offer so there's no need to respond. I will post the answers in a few days.

Now that I think of it, whatever happened to Stork's blog and quizzes? I miss those.

*****

Oh, and once again for those of you who love pictures, here's one of my Love Sac (don't worry it's work safe):

Went to the 3rd wedding of the summer this weekend, with possibly 2 more to attend next weekend. As you all know, weddings aren't my thing, but I don't mind going as long as:

1) I know and like the bride and/or groom
2) It's not too long

Thankfully, this one met both requirements. The ceremony was short and sweet and I was definitely happy to see the two lovers get hitched. However I had to leave a little early from the reception, because of some important business to attend to.

On a related note, the McNown league draft took place last night and I think I did alright. At the 6th spot I wasn't expecting much anyways. I doubt people outside of our league care about seeing my whole team but here were my first 5 picks anyhow (10 team league):

1. (6) E. James
2. (15) K. Jones
3. (26) A. Gates
4. (35) A. Johnson
5. (46) T. Green

For those of you who like to see pictures, here are a couple:

Generic wedding picture


Pride of Taiwan (the Chen Family)


On a sad note, I just saw Sportscenter highlights of Serena Williams beating Taiwanese 16 year old Yung-Jan Chan. But watch out for her in the future!

Waiter Rant

Over my many years of eating out, I have had probably hundreds of waiters/waitresses, but I have always wondered what it's like to be on the other side. I don't know if any of you out there have worked as waiters before, but I have not. Other than a brief one-night charity thing which doesn't count, my expeence has always been from the perspective of the one being served, not the server.

From my view of the situation, it's pretty simple. Just don't be rude to me, serve me the food I ordered, refill my drinks in a timely manner, and maybe check on my table now and then to see if we need anything. Almost regardless of how dinner is, I will generally leave between 15-20% as tip.

Beyond that, there's not much more to it. Rarely do I talk to waiters or waitresses about anything beyond the most superficial of small talk. I almost never make special requests, like changing ingredients in a certain dish, or ask to be seated in a booth vs. table or whatever. If they completely mess up my order, I might send it back, but even then, I sometimes just eat what they gave me anyways.

When I leave the restaurant, my short experience with the waiter or waitress is usually over and done with for good (unless I happen to get the same person the next time I'm at a restaurant). At most, if he was really rude, I'll say to myself, "wow, our waiter was a real jerk", or if she was really cute, I might say "wow, our waitress was really cute". But I don't go home thinking about what the person is like outside of work, what he/she does for fun, what his/her family situation is like.

Anyways, like I was saying, I've never been a waiter but I've wondered what the view is like from their side. And recently, I came across this blog that has given me a some insight into that very subject. The site is called Waiter Rant, basically a blog written by an anonymous guy who works as a waiter at some NY restaurant.

Before you dismiss the thought of reading some random guy writing about his experiences as a waiter, let me just say that this blog is actually very well written and, at least in my opinion, worth reading. I've spent a good amount of time in the past few days going through his archives, and I do recommend it to anyone out there who has any amount of interest in what it's like to be a waiter (if you have none, then skip it). I would say that if you don't mind wasting your time reading this blog, then you will probably find his stuff pretty interesting. Just something to consider.

He's got some pretty entertaining stories about customers and behind the scenes stuff at restaurants that people like us don't normally see or know about. Also shares a lot of thoughts that you wouldn't typically expect your waiter/waitress to be thinking about, but they obviously do. You'll have to read those for yourself though.

If you don't feel like reading through his stuff, I have picked out a few pieces of knowledge I garnered from my reading that I will summarize here:

1. Waiters/Waitresses prefer tips in cash, not credit cards

2. If you want your server to like you, don't order tea

3. The amount you tip your waiter/waitress means much more to him/her than it does to you

4. There are a lot of really bad restaurant customers out there

5. If you make a really bad impression, there are many ways your waiter/waitress can get revenge. They also have long memories when it comes to that stuff.

Have a nice day everyone.