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Thursday, August 26, 2004Sometimes I wish my parents had been Sasquatches, or Iron Curtain Olympians Kruzchev forced to marry. I wish I were seven feet tall. Why? Because the Dallas Mavericks just completed a sign and trade deal for center Erick Dampier. I'm not a huge basketball fan, but I know this: Erick Dampier sucks. He had a career year last year (his contract year, of course) and got twelve points and twelve rebounds per game. Twelve-Twelve for an awful team where he was the go-to-guy. But, as Kenny Mayne was fond of pointing out, he is tall. And here's the punchline: TEN MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR for SEVEN years. For a guy who, at his best, is slightly better than mediocre. Erick Dampier now makes in a single game what I make in SIX YEARS. Where's the justice? I suppose its time to revisit plotting how to knock up Gabby Reese or one of those mutants from the WNBA, then live off the mad bank of our clumsy, gigantor offspring. Maybe I should become a women's basketball groupie, fueled by beer and Levitra and more beer until the players start looking good. It might take some Kareem-size Beer Goggles, but in twenty years I'll be In Like Flynt. posted by Nate on 10:29 PM link Wednesday, August 25, 2004I posted this earlier tonight on Slashdot as part of a thread on teenagers buying computer components online. True story. I work at an online computer parts seller. Just today we finally finished a lengthy e-mail correspondence with a thirteen year old customer (we didn't know his age until later.) He had ordered an OEM CPU that arrived with bent pins and he wanted to return it. We sent him our standard e-mail outlining our Return Merchandise procedure and instructions to fill out our online form to begin the return process. He responded with a filthy e-mail calling us all sorts of names, complaining that we were making it too f@#king hard to return his God@@mned processor. Again we explained that he needed to fill out the RMA form and that we would be happy to accept his return, but there were certain reasonable procedures that he needed to follow. Again more profanity. Another civilized response, and the pattern continued. At this point, after a few weeks, he was outside our warranty period. Since he contacted us within the warranty period but didn't fill out the form, we can usually bend the rules and help a customer out, but this guy was such a douchebag that the RMA Department decided not to. Then we get an e-mail from his mom, complaining that her little boy's RMA request had been ignored. (This was the first time we realized that we were dealing with a thirteen year old instead of a really immature adult.) So we sent her an e-mail of all the correspondence we'd had with the kid, which included him calling us c@@ksucking motherf@@kers and hoping we'd all "get bent." My friend then performed the coup de gras with a snarky comment about how this could serve as a learning experience about how to deal with people and influence others instead of cursing like a sailor. I can only imagine the ass-whoopin' this kid must have gotten. OEM CPU: $80. UPS Ground shipping: $4.90. Finding out your thirteen year old has a vocabulary that would make Richard Pryor blush: Priceless. posted by Nate on 12:46 AM link Tuesday, August 24, 2004While reading this college football article, I discovered that the University of Tennessee has a backup quarterback named Jim Bob Cooter. Perfect on so many levels; no further comment necessary. posted by Nate on 10:12 PM link Monday, August 23, 2004I saw Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson in concert last night. It was part of their summer tour of minor league baseball parks Finally, after fifteen years all that tax-payer money is good for something! The concert was both good and a disappointment, if you know what I mean. Willie was very good; like a lot of concert-goers I wasn't familiar with most of his material, but he blended country, folk, and blues very well throughout the set. And his voice still has that whiskey-and-cigarettes sound with a sweetness that surprises you, even after forty years of hearing it. By contrast, Dylan's voice lost "it" years ago. He can still belt it out, but has to use a raspier, flatter tone. As a result, he plays more of his recent (past twenty years, anyway) material, and has reworked his classics to a bluesier style. At points I felt like I was watching a fairly talented blues band cover Bob Dylan, not seeing the man in person. Also, Bob's days of "just a man and a guitar" are over. His hands are in such bad shape that he can barely play keyboards anymore, let alone guitar, and on the occasions he stepped up to the center stage mike he kept his arms locked at ninety degree angles at his sides. He looked vaguely like a T-Rex with puny gnarled, nigh unusable arms. Or, given his white cowboy hat, like an Australian Rules football ref signalling a goal. Sad. At least we can be reasonably sure that Willie has some "pain relief" waiting backstage. And that leads me to my next point (and unlike Ellen DeGeneres, I do not have one); everybody there was utterly baked, either by choice or by the secondhand smoke. In between sets the roadies lit some incense to clear the air near the stage. A guy next to me said that it must contain a chemical (I forget the name) that masks the scent. Those that were not smoking were drunk as hell. It was festival seating on the outfield grass, so many people had shown up hours ahead of time and passed the time by pounding four dollar ballpark beers. It was not uncommon to find someone tripping and falling, or passing out. And silly me, I came to listen to music. From my point of view, I can drink beer and stumble about at home without having to pay fifty bucks a ticket. In fact, that fifty bucks could go a long way toward paying for weeks more of drunken stumbling around time. And that's exactly waht I did after the concert; I tossed the Dylan box set on the CD player and took a few pulls of bourbon. At least this way I got to hear "Visions of Johanna" last night. posted by Nate on 8:53 PM link Sunday, August 22, 2004
Ice Ice Baby! (Click the pic for larger.) I found this on the Operation: Hammertime forums. There's just something amusing about 'Nilla supporting George W. Bush, yo. The Anti-Osama T-shirt is a nice touch; maybe he can grab his Nine and hunt down Al Qaeda agents with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Or he could do a world tour, performing in Syria and Iran, smuggling secret agents into those countries in his gigantic baggy sparkly pants. We kid because we care, of course. A true patriot, Mr. Ice lives in Florida, so his one vote may well decide the election. In other news, fellow Floridian Luke Campbell of 2Live Crew has accidentally endorsed Pat Buchanan. Okay, I just made that up. But Ice Ice Cheney? It's real as far as I can tell. I'm guessing someone in the Bush administration messed up the instructions to reach out to the African American community. The administration wanted to get the black vote; instead they get the "want to be black" vote. As of press time, Bubba Sparxx was unavailable for comment. posted by Nate on 2:10 PM link
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your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson. Questions or comments? Email nate@swankypimp.com |
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