- Ever been to the deli or BMV and taken a number from the dispenser to get a spot in line? If so, you probably know the feeling of pulling a number waaaaay down the line and realizing that you're going to be waiting a long, long time for service. Now multiply that feeling several hundred times over and you know what the people who have applied for U.S. citizenship within the past few months feel like. That’s because these unfortunate individuals will have to wait a year before becoming American citizens due to a huge onslaught of applications received by Citizen and Immigration Services after June 1 of this year. The reason for the sudden deluge of applications? Money, of course. Upcoming fee increases for naturalization, legal residency, work permits, international adoptions and other immigration services “inspired” a whole bunch of applicants. Now, the delay will prevent many of them from being able to vote in next November’s elections, but hey, if you’re gate crashing in a new country, you can’t be too choosy on how fast things go.
- I have no problem saying I told you so, LSU, so I told you so. I said back while LSU was still just another one-loss team trying to climb back into the college football national title hunt that I didn’t think they were title-worthy or the best of the one-loss teams. Well, through the attrition of the schedule and other teams ahead of them falling, the Tigers found their way back into the #1 spot in the BCS….only to fall today at the hands of unranked Arkansas, 50-48 in 3 OT. It was a back-and-forth battle all game long, a game that spanned nearly five hours from start to finish. Arkansas sealed the win with an interception of Matt Flynn’s two-point conversion pass attempt in the third overtime, setting off a jubilant celebration on the exhausted-but-exhilarated Arkansas sideline. With the loss, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise, LSU is done in terms of having a chance to play for the national championship. Ohio State has already finished their regular season with only one loss, so LSU won’t leap over them. With Kansas, Missouri and West Virginia all with zero or one in the loss column, the likelihood of LSU sneaking back up from wherever they fall in the BCS is nada. But don’t sweat it, LSU fan, because you lost something you didn’t deserve it the first place.
- College athletic directors, swing your axes early and often today. Not that I need to tell several AD’s that, because clearly the lead administrators in the athletic departments at the University of Mississippi, University of Nebraska and Texas A&M University already got the message. At Nebraska, interim AD Tom Osborne went out of his way to say in the days leading up to the Huskers’ final game that no decision had been made on the fate of coach Bill Callahan. Of course, we all knew that was a lie and that Osborne had his hand poised over the eject button, ready to jettison Callahan the second the Huskers’ brutal season ended with that 65-51 loss to Colorado to drop to 5-7. Osborne was never a good fit in Nebraska and any relationship he has with Osborne is negative, so after leading his team to some of the worst home losses in the program’s history and not going to a bowl game, clearly he had to go. Ditto for Ed Orgeron at Mississippi, canned after only 2/3 years at the helm. Then again, a 3-9 season and an 0-8 conference record tend to work against you no matter how many seasons you’ve been at a school. At Texas A&M, Dennis Franchione may have technically resigned, but make no mistake about it, he was gone one way or the other. If he hadn’t resigned, the school would have fired him in a heartbeat. The Aggies’ pedestrian 7-5 record, coupled with the mini-scandal Franchione created with his pay-for-inside-info newsletter to boosters, were more than enough ammo to light a fire under his a** and shoot him straight out of town. Of the three programs, Nebraska has the best chance for success soon, but only because they play in a weak division of the Big 12 and because they have a lot of former Cornhuskers out there who are good head coaches and would be eager to come home and rebuild the program. Then again, after this season, all three of these programs can’t go much of anywhere but up.
- You’re going soft, New York City. If you don’t watch out, pretty soon other major cities will be picking on you, knocking you off the monkey bars at recess, stealing your lunch money, pushing you down in mud puddles, etc. Of course, you could look at the murder rate in NYC dropping to its lowest in more than four decades and be proud, but personally I’ve always though of New York as a city with and edge and that was part of what made it cool. Now, though, the city has had only 428 murders in the past twelve months, just more than one per day. Yes, millions of people on one small island and only about 1.17 per day (and no, I don’t know how you murder 0.17 people, whether killing a midget or dwarf counts, etc., so don’t ask) being murdered. It’s a far cry from 1990, when a national-high 2,245 people were murdered in the city, making it the murder capital of the nation. Now, you can buy a hot dog from a street vendor or a knockoff purse or DVD in some tiny corner shop without having to worry about whether or not you’ll make it home that night to enjoy your new purchase. You’ve become a shell of your former self, NYC, and now I worry you’ll never make it back to your top form…..
- What the hell did I just spend an hour every (insert whatever night or nights this insipid show airs here) watching? That’s what fans, i.e. middle-aged women, of The Bachelor have to be asking themselves after the season came to an end with whatever metrosexual tool they picked to be this season’s bachelor decided not to have a relationship with either of the final two contestants on the show. All right, hold on….my crack research staff informs me that the name of the metrosexual tool this season is Brad Womack. But back to more important things – this idiot goes through an entire season of fake drama, fake dates, contrived “getting to know you” sessions, hot tub sessions with the surgically-enhanced skanks on the show, and he basically decides to make the hole thing an even bigger waste than it already was by choosing none of them? Great show, ABC, really quality programming there. It’s bad enough that contrived crap like this even makes it on the air in the first place, but at least make your metrosexual tool of choice pick one of the women to be his girlfriend for a few weeks. They’re going to break up anyhow, no matter how in love they profess to be, so pick one, go to a few red-carpet events and then break up with the usual clichéd excuses. As insulting and worthless as your show is, going through the whole thing and basically admitting that you wasted everyone’s time and money is even more insulting. You suck, anyone and everyone who has even appeared on or been affiliated with The Bachelor in any way.
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