- Have you been asking yourself which area of the country has the highest percentage of morons per capita? For anyone pondering that very question, may I present as evidence the scene that unfolded Thursday in Northeast and Central Ohio. The situation was sparked during the first round NBA playoff series between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Washington Wizards when Papa John’s pizza franchises in the Washington D.C. area sponsored t-shirts to be given out to Wizards fans with the message “Crybaby 23” printed on the front, a clear poke at the tendency of Cavaliers forward LeBron James habit of whining after nearly every foul committed against him. When Cavs fans saw the shirts, many of them were pissed at Papa John’s for sponsoring the promotion and so in following the lead of their team’s whiny superstar, they threw a James-esque fit of their own. Papa John’s responded to that with a goodwill gesture of selling one-topping pizzas at the price of 23 cents per pie at locations in the Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and even Toledo areas on Thursday. For some reason, the Papa John’s restaurants in those area took far too little time preparing for or anticipating the sure-to-be overwhelming response to nearly-free pizzas because throughout the day Thursday, lines outside of Papa John’s all over the promotional area had lines out their doors and stretching hundreds of feet. Neighboring businesses had their operations affected, with Papa John’s customers taking up parking spots in nearby lots and preventing people from reaching those other businesses. Doors were blocked by pizza seekers as well, along with the predictable fights breaking out in line between people embracing their inner 5-year-old and accusing others of cutting in line and possibly being doody-heads. Some losers actually waited as long as three hours for a single pizza, which was all you were allowed to buy. These people apparently feel that their time is so worthless that it’s cool for them to throw away three hours for a 23-cent pizza. Personally I’m not waiting even one hour for food even if it’s free, not unless I am literally starving and it’s the only place I can be fed. So it was just an all-around sad scene, from the crybabies who caused the promotion with their whining to the brain-deads at Papa John’s who created the promotion but failed to sufficiently prepare for the onslaught to the biggest losers of all, anyone who waited more than half an hour for a discounted pie. Props all around, morons, this is one of the least proud days I’ve ever had as an Ohioan, does anyone know of some good real estate in Montana I might be able to buy? Moving on…..
- All of you Democratic Party superdelegates out there who are pretending to withhold your decision on which candidate to support at the party’s upcoming convention in Denver, I’d like to talk directly to you. As things now stand, Barack Obama holds a decent margin over the tyrannical femi-Nazi Hank Clinton in delegates. However, with only 217 delegates up for grabs in the remaining primaries in states (and territories) across the country and beyond, neither Barack nor Hank can earn the 2,075 delegates necessary to officially snag the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama will enter the convention with more overall delegates, but it’s looking more and more like the fate of the nomination will rest in the hands of you, the superdelegates. Many onlookers feel you will go along with the wishes of the voters, but those among your superdelegate ranks who have wisely chosen to support B.O. have given the following reasons for their decision, reasons you undecided superdelegates should consider. First, Obama is the front-runner and this prolonged, bitter race is quickly dividing your party and giving a major advantage to that W. sycophant John McCain. Second, Obama’s appeal to black voters that has born out through the primaries should appeal to you as a party, especially with minority voters playing an increasingly vital role. Thirdly, Obama possesses more of that intangible, immeasurable, indescribable, vague, ever-shifting quality known as “electability.” We may not know what it is, but B.O. has more of it than Hank, period. So to the 265 remaining party higher-ups and superdelegates who are at least claiming to be undecided need to make your decision soon and it needs to be Obama. You don’t need to announce it, just as long as you make it. Hopefully all of you are thinking along the same lines as one superdelegate from the Keystone State, Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Doyle. Doyle seemed to indicate that although Clinton has no chance in hell of getting his vote or the nomination, “most of us (superdelegates) out of respect for her are content to wait a little longer.” Reading between the lines, it would seem that what Doyle is waiting for, as are all of us sane, non-feminist Americans, is for Hank to concede this race. Do the right thing and bow out, Hank, lest me and the new superdelegate friends I’ve just made in this paragraph be forced to take your candidacy out behind the barn and put a shotgun shell in it come the convention.
- Could we be in for round two of the major Hollywood strike that cripples the entertainment world? If you believe the Screen Actors Guild and their opponents in the current contract showdown, producers of television and film, the answer is no. With the SAG’s contract for films and prime-time shows set to expire on June 30, the two sides have been negotiating a new deal that has gotten hung up on the same issues that caused the three-month-plus writers’ strike that all but crippled the current TV season: revenues from the sales of DVDs and online media. In a move right out of the Negotiation 101 handbook, the a statement from the producers called the union’s demands on those issues “unreasonable.” Good move, producers. First, make it seem like your opponent is beign totally irrational and asking for way too much, it’s a solid start. “With the SAG’s adherence to unreasonable demands in both new and traditional media, continuing negotiations at this point does not make sense,” the statement declared. The union fired back with a predictable response of regret at the choice to end negotiations, so off we got on another frivolous battle of people with good jobs and making a whole lot of money squabbling over how to make even more money for themselves. Although both sides are vowing to do everything possible to avoid the same kind of train wreck that led to the writers’ strike, I’d been significantly less than surprised if we ended up with yet another strike this time around….
- From time to time, I’ve wondered what the collective IQ is among members of the NBA league office. Theoretically, with a lawyer as commissioner in David Stern and a lot of well-educated people working under him, you should have a pretty high number in terms of IQ, but the more I watch the NBA playoffs, the more I’m coming to question that logic. I’m thinking that rather than ranking high in the triple digits, the combined IQ of the Association’s top decision-makers is somewhere around 42. My basis for this estimate can be seen clearly in the scheduling of playoff series, for example the ongoing Eastern Conference semifinals matchup between the Detroit Pistons and Orlando Magic. Wednesday night, the two teams played Game 3 of their series in Orlando, with the home standing Magic winning 111-86 to close the series to 2-1. With Game 4 also slated for Orlando, you’d think the two teams would have a maximum of one night off and then get back on the court, right? Wrong! For some inexplicable reason, the morons in the NBA office have given the two teams two freaking days off between games. For what? The grueling travel schedule demanding that the Pistons go all the way back to their team hotel a few blocks from the arena and the Magic to drive a few minutes to their respective homes? For fans to fully digest Game 3 and recover from the hangover of the scintillating action? Sadly, the explanation is no less idiotic than those lines of thought. The reality is that the league is constantly trying to bend, contort and manipulate the schedule to maximize revenue from TV coverage and advertising, flow of the series and getting things moving in a smooth fashion be damned, Why make the smart, reasonable decision and have only one night off between games in the same damn city when you can draw things out with two nights in between? Just so you know, NBA, you’re not keeping your sport in the spotlight of the sports world longer by doing this, you’re just looking like ginormous ass clowns. Everyone is sitting around ripping you for having two nights between games when no travel is involved, not building their anticipation for the next game. This is just another reason (along with playing crappy arena music during the action, cheerleaders who look like they just finished a shift at the local strip club, being able to advance the ball to the other end of the court just by calling a timeout, idiotic rules like illegal defense) why your league will always be third banana behind the NFL and Major League Baseball, because you run your operation like a freaking amateur hour.
- For the second time in a single week, it’s America’s favorite outlook on social dissidence around the world….Riot Watch! Today’s RW zips us to two very different, very distant spots around the globe. These are places where the culture could not be more different, but rioting is a universal language, one that unites all mankind, so no worries there. Our first protest/demonstration is very near, near as in Brooklyn, N.Y. That’s where crackpot activist and avid player of the race card Rev. Al Sharpton was arrested on Wednesday as he and hundreds of demonstrators blocked traffic to protest the acquittal of three detectives in the 50-bullet shooting of an unarmed black man on his wedding day. Sharpton was arrested along with two survivors of the shooting and the victim’s fiancée, with other supporters arrested at various bridges and tunnels around the city. On the one hand, I do love my acts of social protest, but Sharpton’s act has worn thin. This guy would protest painting a park bench white if given the chance and argue that not painting it black shows racism. So everyone else involved in this protest gets a thumbs up, but Sharpton I’m choosing to ignore. Our second act of social dissidence zooms us across the globe to northern India, where angry mobs (a truly beautiful phrase) angered by soaring temperatures (let the Almighty hear from you on that one, angry mobs of India) and power cuts (which you actually can talk to someone here on Earth about) employed the exact same tactic and Sharpton and his supporters, blocking highways as a means to demand action for their cause. Can’t say as your government is doing a super job of supplying power to its citizens, India, so taking it to the streets is your best option. That being said, maybe you want to take it to the streets in a better location, maybe in Calcutta or one of India’s other major cities and centers of government where your efforts would have a bigger impact on those you’re trying to communicate to. But a good effort nonetheless, disrupting traffic and creating havoc to make your voice heard. Now if you had only overturned a few of those cars you were blocking the path of and set them on fire…..
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