Race to win

Last night we were watching the season finale of Dancing with the has-beens Stars.

Yes. That's a good question? Why indeed was I watching this show?

I think it was a confluence of several factors, 1) our Time Warner DVR had shot craps the day before and left us with none of the recorded decent programming to fall back on, 2) it was less obnoxious than any other ChickTV programming which, to my primitive male brain, seems to consist of a single show aired seven nights a week under the title Brothers and Grey's Private October Murder Club in Trees, and 3) my head is so congested with my twice-yearly cold that I didn't really give two shits about what was on the teevee.

Anycrap, if your not familiar with the show, they take a professional dancer (WTF?) and pair them with a so-called celebrity and have a dance-off. It's kind of like Michael Jackson's Beat It video, but with lots more latent homosexuality (not that there's anything wrong with that).

So last night, they were down to the final two teams. In one corner, a Russian professional dancer I've never heard of and Melanie Brown, a.k.a. Mel B, a.k.a. Scary Spice.

In the other corner was Indy Car racing champ Helio Castroneves and All-American California girl Julianne Hough.

So with a Russian, a Brazilian and black Brit and a blond-haired, blue-eyed American on the stage, who do you thing the viewing public would vote for.

That's right, the pretty little white girl. Good job USA! Way to vote for the white girl just because she's white! Everybody knows that black people are far superior to white people in dancing. It was clear throughout the night with all of the highlight clips Scary Spice shakin' her money maker.

So here's the American viewing public, keeping it racist since 1789.

tagged: TV, television, Dancing with the Stars, race, Scary Spice, pop culture, Helio Castroneves

My latest Michael Scott moment

So my Supermodel Wife and I were meeting with a lawyer recently, getting "our affairs" in order (revocable trust, living wills, custody plans for our kid, you know all that rot that adults are supposed to do).

Well, it so happened that the lawyer was a woman, not that there's anything wrong with that. She was looking over some of our paperwork, explaining certain legal terms and concepts and she mentioned that we have a "sizable estate."

Well, of course I couldn't let that go by without remarking "That's what she said."

I received both a look of embarrassment from my Supermodel Wife (not a new thing) and a look of abject derision (also not a new thing) from the lady lawyer.

But it was totally worth it.

PS - Before you go kissing my ass to get me to buy drinks and pay for your dinner, you should know that our "sizable estate" is predicated upon both my Supermodel Wife and I being dead. Otherwise, all we have is big mortgage, a car payment and several credit card bills.

tagged: The Office, Michael Scott, lawyer, affairs, That's what she said

YouTube Tuesday: Pranksgiving

One of my favorite traditions at Thanksgiving was the playing of pranks on the new guy.

It could be a friend from college, a new boyfriend (of my sister, sister-in-law, niece, whoever), but we always tried to haze the new guy a little just to make him feel part of the family.

My brother and I used to pull this one regularly. Yes it's an oldie, but still a goodie.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, wooden spoon, prank, funny, humor

Friday Blogthing: Travelin man, love when I can

Today's Friday Blogthing comes from R. Sherman at Musings From The Hinterland who discovered this neato geography quiz.

My first-time results are:

Final Score: 281,988
Final Level: 8 (I started missing terribly on the small African cities)
Traveler IQ: 102

But I think I can do better with a little practice and a few thousand frequent flyer miles.

PS- I just notices the embedded version of this looks like complete shite, so click this link if you want to take the quiz and match geographical wits with me.

This Traveler IQ
challenge is brought to you by the Web's Original Travel Blog

tagged: Friday, test, world, geography, travel, quiz, meme, blog

The real winner

So by now everyone has been severely exposed to all the hype surrounding this weekend's game between the universities of Missouri and Kansas.

There's a lot of made up media buzz around how this is a continuation of a "border war" that has been going on since before the American Civil War, and how for the first time in history the game has "significance" on the national college football scene (the significance of which is highly questionable in and of itself).

But for those of you looking for a clue as to who is going to win this weekend, let me give you a hint: The winner has already been decided.

Oh sure, the score on the field is still to-be-determined. But in the real contest, the contest that matters, the winner was decided months ago when the two schools agreed to play the game in Kansas City, rather than Lawrence where it was originally scheduled.

You can't really blame KU. At the time I'm sure school officials figured the Jayhawks would lived down to everyone's expectations and the best hope for a bigger payday would be to sell out and move the game to Arrowhead Stadium.

This of course leaves the businesses of Lawrence out in the cold. Unfortunately for them, the huge potential payday that has resulted from the Jayhawks amazing failure to live down to expectations will go to Jackson County, Mo., rather than Douglas County, Kan.

Kansas City is raking in millions in taxes from ticket sales from the 78,000-plus sellout of the game at Arrowhead. And area businesses and hotels are taking in even more in revenue and sales tax.

The businesses of Lawrence can look forward to a huge drop in sales revenues as crowds of KU faithful head to KC for the game. Can you imagine the financial devastation that will hit Lawrence when hundreds of KU alumni take all the cash they've been hoarding from their McDonald's jobs and spend in KC?

On the biggest shopping weekend of the year no less?

So here's to Kansas City, Mo. No matter the final score of Saturday's game, KC is the real winner.*

*Of course, all of the additional tax revenue will go into the pockets of real estate developers, but that's another story.

tagged: Lawrence, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, KU, football, Arrowhead Stadium

YouTube Tuesday: Know your place

As I arrived at my palatial upper-west side cube this morning, the two businesswomen who occupy neighboring cubes were discussing the upcoming MU-KU football tilt this weekend*.

It wasn't enough that I had to suffer through the over-coverage of this event on all the local so-called news channels, now I have to deal with this inanity at work, from the ladies no less.

So, in another public service announcement, this one goes out to the women out there who would be better off discussing fuzzy kittens...



*Yes, as a K-State fan I do have sour grapes about how this football season has turned out and all the hype around this game in particular makes me feel like the only kid NOT invited to the party. It's petty and immature I know, but then so is college football in general.

tagged: movie, YouTube, video, women, football, KU, Kansas, Missouri

Nutritional secrets of New York City cabbies

So I'm riding shotgun in a Jeep Liberty cab inbound to Manhattan from La Guardia.

Three of my colleagues are crowded into the backseat, discussing the latest work gossip. I'm hanging on for dear life while the Philippine cabby nonchalantly executes acts of automotive daring that would make Jack Bauer carsick.

We end up stuck in slow traffic near the Midtown Tunnel. The driver, seemingly oblivious to the relieved silence that had befallen the passenger compartment while we were catching our collective breaths, went rummaging through the depths of a large lunch sack sitting between us on the console.

He pulls out an avocado and holds it up like a magician producing a rabbit from a top hat.

"You know what this is?" he asks in his best broken English.

"Yeah. I like avocados," I answer.

"You eat one of these every day for 45 days," he said. "It will make you head come up."

"Whatsthatyousay?" was my reply. "I think my head is up as far as I want it."

"No. It will make your head come up," he repeated, pantomiming a pinching movement with his fingers, as if he were pulling strings out of the top of his head.

Through a combination guesswork and charades (which had the added affect allowing the cabby to demonstrate his skill at driving without the use of his hands), my colleagues and I learned that the he was telling me to eat avocados to make my hair grow.

"Makes small hair grow big and strong," he said. "If have no hair, not work. But like you, weak hair will be strong.

"One each day for 45 days."

Now granted, I'm aware (to paraphrase Dennis Miller) that as I've pushed on into my mid- to late-30s, much of the population of the once bustling downtown of my scalp has fled to the more desirable neighborhoods of my nose, ears and back.

And granted, the cabby seemed very sincere. He was grappling with a "molting" problem of his own and was eager to share with me what he thought was the solution. His theory, as I was able to decipher, was that the oil in the avocado would work as a sort of follicle fertilizer, strengthening the puny hairs so that they become big, strong hairs. Kind of like an organic Rogaine.

Frankly, looking at the cabby's locks, I wasn't convinced.

But you tell me. Is this worth trying? Has anyone else ever heard of this? Is it healthy to eat an avocado a day for a month and a half?

And more importantly, has anyone ever gotten any bad advice from a cabby?

tagged: New York, taxi, cabby, hair loss, avocado, travel, health

Friday Blogthing: Relatively speaking

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

tagged: Friday, test, world, leader, personality, Albert Einstein, meme, blog

Hotel Review: The W Times Square

Just got back from a whirlwind two-day trip to NYC where I became very familiar with the inside of a 12x25 conference room and the other occupants therein.

But I did have a chance to stay at the famous W Hotel on Times Square, so I figured I'd relay my thoughts to my loyal reader.

Like the majority of my colleagues, I voted for W as the place to stay. And like many of my colleagues, I regret choosing W.

In our defense, there aren't many good choices for hotels when you're choosing at the last minute. Ideally, we would have known in advance where we'd be going and could have used that knowledge to choose a better hotel candidate.

Several of my colleagues had chosen W only four weeks ago, and were willing to give W a second chance. So since it was a last-minute trip, we made the best decision from the options available. To be fair, W talked a good game.

On the surface W looks like a good hotel. You're greeted in the foyer by water flowing in the glass riverbed above your head. The welcome desk on the seventh floor features minimalist post-modern decor with thumping nouveau electronica club music piped in to compliment the constantly moving groovy lighting.

So the initial impression is the W is pretty cool, and you'll be happy choosing W as your hotel. But it doesn't take long to figure out that all the loud music, groovy décor and weirdo lighting is as much a distraction as anything.

My room was on the 43rd floor. Stepping out of the elevator, the lighting was very dim, the walls painted black and the floors covered with a dark gray Berber. As I neared my room, there was a distinct aroma of old, rotten water damage.

Inside my room, it was the same story. Everything seemed pretty good on the surface, but when you looked at the details you saw the lack of quality. There was mold on the bottom of the shower curtain. The handles on the plumbing fixtures were loose and seemed to do their own thing sometimes without my authorization.

W also insisted on ignoring my wishes with regards to the thermostat. It insisted on heating things up, even though I specifically wanted my room cooled off. I suspect there was some kind of hidden agenda behind W's actions, probably related to money and cooling costs.

In the end, W is responsible for the poor quality of the accommodations, though I suspect they got some bad advice from people claiming to be hotel experts. The advisers are probably the one's who suggested the night club The Whiskey in the basement of the building (The last thing W needs is whiskey).

So in conclusion, I'm not really happy with my decision to go with W, and I hope there will be a better hotel candidate available for future trips. I just hope the high-cost of the stay ($600 per night) hasn't done irreparable harm to my company.

tagged: travel, New York City, Times Square, The W, hotel, Whiskey, review

YouTube Tuesday: Is he havin' a laugh?!!

Yes, it is too early to be talking about Christmas. But in the case of the funniest guy to come out of the UK since Monty Python, I'm willing to make an exception.

I can't wait for this to air.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, Extras, Christmas, Ricky Gervais, humor