Vuvuzelas, Jeremiah Wright, and the NBA draft

I need to give my props to Landon Donovan and team U.S.A. for advancing to the round of 16 yesterday. Hopefully, they have some magic up their sleeves and can make a deep run. If not, I'm rooting for Germany and my main man Bastian Schweinsteiger.

Speaking of the World Cup, a bunch has been made about those horns that all the fans in South Africa like to blow. A bunch of people find them to be irritating and obnoxious. Some people have gone as far to say that they are ruining the World Cup and to me thats a stretch. Now, I don't reallly see what fans fascinations with blowing large pipes have to do with the game of soccer, but thats another issue. Besides, fans have always had stupid, irritating things to keep them entertained, like those thunder sticks in Anaheim. Now as for them being irritating and obnoxious, I'd imagine they probably are. They strike me as one of those things that I can only hope Shouldice never gets a hold of, especially for little Elvis' sake.

I was passing through the Towson Cirle today and there was an elderly man protesting a fella named Barry and his ideas on political reform. The old geezer was claiming that we couldn't trust anyone who believed in wizardry and I couldn't agree more. The other side of his sign claimed that Barry was ruining the country with his ideas on taxes and healthcare. As I passed my fellow patriot, I couldn't help but to honk my horn, scream hell yeah, and give him a thumbs up.

Speaking of Barry and his belief in wizardry, my mother mentioned that Ross and I should visit the chief wizard's church when we go to Chicago with the Jacobys. And let me tell you, if Ross and I do visit Reverend Jeremiah Wright's chuch,well, it will certainly be interesting. I'd reccomend reading my blog post about that one.

Speaking of the Wizards, it seems all but inevitable that there going to select John Wall with the number one overall pick in tonight's draft. And I certainly can't fault them for that, because Johnny Wall can cetainly ball. As for the rest of the draft, well that's a bit of a mystery. That kid Turner from TOSU can flat out play and teams shouldn't worry about DeMarcus Cousin's attitude because the man's a beast. The Pacers select tenth overall and I wouldn't be surprised if they took Luke Babbit, Gordon Hayward, or Cole Aldrich. Larry Bird seems to have a thing for white guys. We can't forget former Terrapin Greivis Vasquez either. Personally, I don't think he has much hope in the NBA, unless the Spurs get a hold of him. Greg Poppovich knows how to get the best out of guys like Vasquez and for Vasquez' sake, I hope he goes to the Spurs.

I'm hoping to start blogging a bit more, this whole one post a month thing is just unacceptable.

A Return from the blogging DL....

After several years of becoming growingly annoyed with the website known as Facebook, I finally decided to do the reasonable thing and delete it completely. Upon my attempts to alleviate myself from Facebook, I quickly noticed one rather irritating fact. Deleting Facebook is far from the easiest thing to accomplish. Do yourself a favor and scroll through the options Facebook makes available to you and you will find that their is no option for deletion that is easily accessible. They do however offer an option where one can "deactivate" their Facebook account and this option serves about as much of as purpose as non-alcholic beer does. By "deactivating" a Facebook account, one is essientially doing nothing at all. All of your friends can still view your profile page and you can still log back in at anytime and all of your information is instantly retrieved. They than send you an email saying if you manage to go two weeks without logging in, you MAY have to create a new password and SOME of your information will be lost, but that is about as much hogwash as anything that typically comes out of Barack Obama's mouth. I waited the two weeks and logged back in, merely for the purpose of finding out what changes had been made and with very little surprise, I found their were none. I instantly received an email welcoming me back to Facebook with excessive exclamation and at this point, I was done with the program. I was forced to resort to googling how one deletes a Facebook account. The funny thing is once you have typed "how to delete" into a google search "how to delete your facebook account" is the most searched for option in all of google with over a million hits. It turned out that I was not the only one having difficutly deleting my Facebook. I selected the featured link, followed their directions, and once again had to go two weeks without logging into Facebook. Supposedly, though my Facebook account is now deleted. Although, I'm sure the damn place has still retained all my information but I've been informed that you can no longer find me through a basic search which I guess is good enough. Also, when you attempt to delete your account Facebook attempts to alter your leaving multiple times. First, they throw up pictures that you have been tagged in with your friends, claiming that so and so will miss me. Well, quite honestly, if they really do miss me they can resort to old fashioned ways of contacting me, such as a phone call and if you don't miss me enough to call me or text me, than I probably don't really care that much about you either. No offense. After the pathetic pictures, they ask you to select a reason for deleting Facebook from a short list, once you have selected your option, you are than forced to enter a textual reason, further explaining your decision. My initial selection was other. When I was forced to provide further information, I entered "wkd" or quite simply the first three letters I could hit on the keyboard. I did not need Facebook obtaining any more information as to why I wanted to delete my profile only so they could continue to make the process much harder than it really needs to be.

Speaking of Facebook, if you haven't seen the Southpark episode regarding Facebook, I highly reccomend checking it out. Even if you are the kind of person who gets offended by crappy cartoon characters excessively cursing, you will find it hillarious. It truly is one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Several weeks ago as it has been a long time since I last blogged, I stopped by a food and beverage establishment in the greater metropolitan area and was minding my own business, when I was approached by a rather old lady, most likely in her seventies. Her name was Barb and Barb was drinking a glass of Chardonnay by herself at two in the afternoon. Barb had overheard me complaining about my current job and said she could help. She advised me to go get a job at the Charred Pork Bucket, also known as the Charred Rib. According to Barb, who works there only on Saturday night, the majority of the employees at the place suck. Now, I've been to the Charred Pork Bucket a few times in my life and I don't think I want to work anywhere Dick and Dave hang out on a regular basis, especially if this ol' kooky broad named Barb works there as well. Barb began to tell me that her main form of income is as a traveling meat salesman, she sells meat all over the mid-atlantic area, primarily in northern Delaware, but the owner at Charred Rib has been one of her most consistent clients over the years, and they are absoulutely desperate to get "good-looking and hardworking young talent" in the place. Barb than slightly grazed my shoulder, handed me a business card, and assured me I could get a job anytime. At that point, I did the only thing reasonable, I threw a few bucks down on the bar, waved good-bye to the bartender, and hightailed it out of there in my lovely Yellow Bug.

As for the Yellow Bug, I eventually had to turn the car in and buy an automobile of my own. It certainly is a shame though because I can only imagine what would have happened if I packed Ross and the Jacoby's into the Yellow Bug and headed out to Wrigley.

I don't really know why, but in my mind, the playoff dissapointments of LeBron James have almost become comical. Perphaps it's because the media jumps all over him as if it's all his fault and perhaps it isn't. Either way I couldn't help to smirk when Rajon Rondo and the Celtics eliminated the Cavaliers.

It appears this weekend that I will be headed to Atlantic City to celebrate Ryan's retirement from the Armed Services and I've never been one to miss an opportunity to visit AC. I mentioned something about the trip to my buddy Rob and he handed me some great advice regarding AC. Rob simply said "Just stay away from roulette and the massage parlors and everything will turn out fine." Judging from some of my past trips up there, I couldn't agree more.

A Day Without Shoes

As I was working today, I heard some kid mention someting of an event that a bunch of students participated in at Towson. The event was titled "One Day Without Shoes" and it was designed so that people across the country could get a first-hand experience of what life would be like without shoes. The purpose of the event is for people to gain awareness on what those individuals in many 3rd world countries experience on a daily basis. The majority of people in 3rd world countries do not have enough money for shoes and as a result they are often on their barefeet. While, I do not have a problem with the overall goal of this organization, providing shoes for the poor, this one day event just seems obnoxious and insignificant. In my opinion there seems to be nothing to gain from this so-called "experience." First of all, come tommorow, everyone will be sporting their shoes once again. Secondly, I don't understand how not wearing shoes makes you relate to the troubles of a third world country. These activists are still not overwhelmed with poverty, have hope for a successful life, and have the luxury of knowing they can put their shoes back on tommorow. The people in third-world country have none of these luxuries. Not too mention, today was an absolutely beautiful day, it wasn't raining, or it wasn't excruiatingly hot to the point that the sidewalk would burn your feet. If this event really wanted people to feel sympathetic towards those without shoes,maybe they should host the event in mid August or perhaps host it on a day where it is pouring rain. Also, the majority of these kids still had the comforts of clothing, where as those people in third world countries do not. I'm not trying to shoot down the idea of helping out those in third-world countries but if your gonna help, do something worthwhile. Don't just take off your shoes for a day to in order to feel better about yourself. In no way are you "experiencing" what it is like to lack the money necessary for shoes by walking around Towson's campus shoeless. It's a nice gesture but quite frankly, it's a pointless one. Now, I don't really know how many kids participated in this event, I just heard something about it at work and the kid showed me a silly flyer. He had the same point of a view I did on the matter. I guess your wondering, wouldn't you notice if a bunch of kids were walking around without shoes? Well, no I most definitely did not. But I know I'm not the only who doesn't pay too much attention to a man's shoes. It was my main man, Red from the Shawshank prison who once said, "I mean, really, how often do you look at a man's shoes?"

And it begins.........

In one night, Oriole fans unrealistic optimism has turned to extreme pessimism in Baltimore. Tonight, the Orioles blew a wonderful opportunity to start the season with a victory as Tampa Bay won in the ninth. Shortly after the game, I made the mistake of listening to local sports radio and boy was that stupid on my part. Several callers referred to the Orioles as a major league team with minor league talent and that phrase is just utterly obnoxious as there are few players on this Orioles team that do not belong in the major leagues. Garret Atkins is the only player in the starting lineup that would have a tough time finding a major league job and the bullpen has only a few glaring problems. The Orioles biggest problem lies in the strength of their division. They simply are not ready to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays and it showed last night. Even against good pitching-good teams capitalize when they have runners in scoring position- the Orioles hitters just simply aren't that good, at least not yet. There is plenty of potential in lineup, the rotation, and the bullpen, but there is still a whole lot that needs to come together. Ugh, the Orioles and sports radio- I should just stay away, they only bring forth frustration. Also, they need to find a closer. Mike Gonzalez is not the answer, although he could be a valuable asset in the bullpen.

However, if the Orioles do become desperate for bullpen help, they could always turn to Barack. Yesterday, he showed that he had one hell of an arm. Not even the menancing Joey Belle would want to step up to plate against that southpaw. His stuff was just knasty.

Anyways, on a more positive note, Friday marks the Orioles home opener and that usually brings forth good things. I'll have to check in with Stills sometime this week and figure out what his gameplan for the game is, I'm sure it has something to do with Natty Boh's and Sliders and that's certainly fine by me.

Shakespeare, A Shotgun, and A Yellow Bug

March Madness is bound to do certain things. It's bound to bring out the idiots, its bound to provide close thrilling games, and it's bound to bring together a bunch of degenrates with nothing better to do than drink and watch basketball all day. The latter recently happened as Andy, Damon, Ross, and I got together for the first time in way too long. St. Patrick's Day and Andy's birthday may also have had something to do with that, but regardless it didn't take up much time to catch up. I met up with the trio at Buffalo Wild Wing's last Thursday and the place was certainly anything but wild. Although, there were a group of Villanova fans who were high class douchebags. Throughout the course of the day, Ross mumbled numerous curse words in their direction but they never noticed. They just kept on sipping their ice-teas and cheering for Scottie Reynolds. Eventually, I had to catch the fellas up on the ever sexy automobile I am currently driving and I gotta hand it to Stills he called it from inside the wing joint. As for Ross and Damon they seemed more intrigued by the shotgun sitting in the back and the Shakesepeare book sitting on my passenger seat. That and my Rhode Island tags. Damon originally wanted to get a picture of Ross and I in the car together, so he could come up with some creative reference to our sexuality, but thankfully that never happened and we just proceeded into Towson. Our first pit stop was at the old Get Bent Lounge and that place really sucks. The bartenders seemed like decent guys but George still owns the place and there isn't much they can do. Plus, the walls are covered in crappy Irish antiques and pictures, designed to give the guest an authentic Irish feel, when in reality it just looks like a hole-in-the-wall bar with a weird obsession for the Irish. Eventually, we came to our senses and got the hell out of there.

Later that night, we went to Batemans for an inspiring game of trivia with some very nice old people and the Jacoby's. Prior to the start of the game though, the Jacoby's felt guilty because of the size of our team and started their own team. It was rather unfortunate because I don't really think Keith, the guy running the show, really cared and it's always good to have the Jacoby's on your side. Shortly after the start of the game, Mary showed up and as usual the two of us got into a heated debate, resulting in Mary calling me a sexist. Which to be honest, is probably partially true, but I still feel that I made my point. Mary was complaining that Andrew didn't invite her to participate in any bracket challenges this year and as any friend should I supported the man. I told Mary that he probably just didn't want her to waste her money because her chances of winning would be slim. She took my remarks to be highly critical and became offensive and the last thing I would ever want to do is insult Mary, so I came up with the idea that Andrew probably wouldn't fare too well in a doll bracket. At this point the term sexist was brought out and I continued to argue my point, I knew back in the day Mary used to read books about a certain doll and that's what I was referring too, but at the time I could not recall the name of the doll, which led me to Luke and Luke came through big. Immediately, Luke knew that I was referring to the American Doll collection and I think Mary may have been somewhat surprised that I remembered she was quite into the whole American Doll thing or she realized argueing with me is pointless. Either way we proceeded to be civil towards each other and she eventually gave me a potato skin and that was nice of her.


Over the course of the weekend I began discussing the possibility of a road trip this summer and it seems that it may actually pull through. I think I'm going to head to the Windy City and partake in America's pastime. Originally, I discussed the idea with Ross but on Andy's birthday, the Jacoby's said they were down. On Sunday, when I mentioned to Ross that the Jacoby's would be joining the two of us and possibly Andy, Ross had an interesting remark. He mentioned that it would be an interesting mix and when I implied further as to what me meant he simply said something along the lines of "Two drunk assholes and two perfectly good kids." After that comment, I could do nothing but nod in agreement and go about my business.

Anyways, I gotta jet. Basketball has begun and Kansas State is playing and they have Roberto Clemente's son and that kid can ball.