- So the iPhone from Apple will become available to the public on Friday, and from where I sit, the real story isn't going to be the mad rush and mob scenes at stores with people looking to get their hands on the new gadget, nor will it be all the cool features available from a single piece of technology. No, the real story here is the absolutely absurd rates on iPhone plans, ranging from a minimum of $59.99 to a high $99.99, plus a whopping $499 for 4 GB model of the phone, or $599 for the 8 GB model. So theoretically you could spend at much as $3,000 on your freakin’ cell phone over a two-year period. A good rule of thumb for buying a new cell phone would be that if you can buy any of the following for less than the cost of your phone and a two-year service plan, you’re paying too much: a solid used car to get you to and fro, a fully-loaded Mac Book Pro laptop with 17” monitor, a 60” LCD plasma TV, season tickets for your favorite pro sports franchise, two round trip airline tickets to Paris, etc. I’m as much of a tech dork as anybody, but there’s not a snowball-in-Death-Valley’s chance that I would make that kind of commitment to a cell phone, especially the first edition of one, which means it’s sure to be plagued by several unforeseen bugs and problems. Plus, that screen on the iPhone had better be made of some super-magical, space-age material, because if all of the phone’s functions revolve around touching the screen with your fingers and/or holding it up to your head, there’s gonna be all kinds of dirt and oily residue building up on that thing. So while it may put me behind the times, I’m gonna skip the riots and the $3,000 splurge and go without an iPhone for now.
- Two activities that appeal to a wide majority of guys are golf and going to strip clubs. As someone who enjoys one of the two (umm, if you have to pay to see women take their clothes off and can’t get a woman to give you that kind of pleasure of your own efforts, then that’s just sad), I understand the appeal of combining the two, but I didn’t actually think anyone would take up the cause. The Cherry Valley Golf Club in Wilson, Pa. has done just that, dropping strippers disrobing and giving out lap dances at an outing benefiting disabled veterans. A total of 10 strippers from a local club were out at the course, doing their thing during the event, and needless to say the local government wasn’t down. “I think it was inappropriate,” said Edward C. Cramer, vice chairman of the township supervisors. “And I think it really discredits the game of golf, and in some ways may put a stigma on legitimate golf outings, which are used as fundraisers.” True, but had a little foresight been used, this whole mishap could have been averted. Had you cut out the middle man and hired the strippers to perform for the disabled vets, I’m sure the vets would have appreciated it and you wouldn’t have created all of this drama. Next time, use a little forethought when planning stripper-centric fundraisers, that’s all I ask.
- The hostilities between former NFL players and the NFL Players Association have been escalating rapidly in recent months, with nearly all of the tension arising from the fact that these former players allege that the NFL and NFLPA don’t do nearly enough to meet the needs of ex-NFLers who have suffered physical disabilities, mental damage and financial hardships during their careers. A group of these former players testified before Congress at a hearing on Tuesday, and thankfully it looks like the committee members were sympathetic to the concerns these retired players expressed and may even join in the fight to pressure the NFLPA into doing more for them. Before you go and try to point out that, “Hey, these guys make millions of dollars to play a game, if they blow it all, that’s their fault,” realize that you are oh, so wrong on so many levels. For one, the guys most in need of help played pro football back in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, when salaries were nowhere near what they are now. Second, the average NFL career lasts three to four years, meaning these guys aren't earning big money for a decade and a half and then blowing it all. What pisses me off, as it likely does Mike Ditka, Harry Carson and the other former players acting as spokesmen for this cause, is that Gene Upshaw, director of the NFLPA, earns f’ing $4 million a year while at the same time giving the shaft to hurting, downtrodden former players who could desperately use a small chunk of the excessive salary Upshaw earns. The sooner someone, Congress or otherwise, steps in and forces the NFLPA to own up to its responsibilities, the better.
- For a sport that is referred to be many as the dirtiest or one of the dirtiest around, professional cycling hasn’t done much to combat that image up to this point. Testing and penalties in the sport haven't been as strict or publicized as other professional sports, but cycling’s biggest race is doing something to change that trend. The Tour de France will reject riders who don’t sign new anti-doping charter. With last year’s Tour winner Floyd Landis still embroiled in a bitter dispute over testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, race officials are demanding that all riders put their signature on the charter, which basically denounces the use of performance-enhancing drugs and by signing, the riders promise not to use said drugs. If necessary, the event’s organizers will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the international governing body for cycling and other like sports, to keep any rider that won't sign the charter out of the Tour. Though I’m not sure how much of an influence the process of signing your name to this document will have on any rider who intends to cheat, it’s a good step. Cheaters, one would guess, would also be willing to lie and promise that they will race clean, what with the fact that they are already lying by using steroids in the first place. The penalties they could face are already strict and they continue to cheat, so the impact of this new rule will likely be minimal. Still, any effect at all in the direction of removing steroids from sports is a good step, no matter how small.
- It’s a proud day to be an Ohioan. When one of your state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate is among the first two to break Republican ranks and actively endorse the withdrawal of American troops from the Mess O’Potamia in Iraq, that’s cause for celebration. Sen. George Voinovich, a former governor in Ohio, became the second Senate Republican to openly call on W. to get our troops out of a place they never should have gone in the first place. Voinovich said Tuesday that he was writing the W. to urge him to embrace a plan for troop withdrawal. I’ll give him the same advice I give anyone speaking or writing directly to our Dimwit in Chief: Use small words, short sentences and mix in lots of pictures. Think of it more as an educational children’s book for someone with the intellect of a four-year-old with ADD. To be fair, I should give props to Sen. Richard Luger, R-Ind. for being the first GOP senator to step out and urge the pullout of our troops from Iraq. Luger is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he bluntly declared Monday that W.’s plan for Iraq isn't working (shocker!) and that it’s time to bring our soldiers home. There normally isn't a lot to praise politicians for, what with the pork-barrel legislation, wasting of time, tax dollars and general lack of responsiveness to the actual wants and needs of the people these sleazebags are elected to represent, but on this occasion I salute Sen. Voinovich and Sen. Luger for having the courage to say what everyone outside the Republican party has been screaming at the top of our collective lungs for a couple of years now.
- Hello I’m a Mac. Hello, I’m one of the stars in a subpar action movie that isn't worth the price of a ticket. Normally, Justin Long is splitting lines with John Hodgman as part of the popular ads for Apple computers and after Long utters the, “Hello, I’m a Mac” line, Hodgman chimes in and informs us that he is a PC. This time, though, Long could utter both lines and be completely correct, because along with Bruce Willis, Long stars in the latest installment of the Die Hard movie franchise, entitled Live Free or Die Hard. In truth, the movie sucks hard instead of dying hard, but I digress. Live Free or Die Hard is filled with a continual recycling of material from earlier incarnations of the series, even though this is the first new one in more than a decade. Long plays a computer hacker who is the only one able to save the country from an all-out attack on its computer systems (ironic parallel with him being the Mac guy, I know). Predictably, Willis’ John McLane character kills with guns, fire extinguishers and sometimes with his own hands, each time dispensing of an adversary with a clever quip to supplement the whole killing thing. The problem is that these quips are neither fresh nor original, and you basically are left to wonder if the writers sat down, watched the previous Die Hard movies and agreed to rehash all of the old killing quips in this film. If you’re debating between seeing this picture or going back for second helpings of Ocean’s Thirteen or Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, allow me to make that decision for you. See either of those movies for a second (or third, or fourth) time before you see Live Free or Die Hard even once.
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