Sunday, March 01, 2015

NYC ID cards are a disaster, take that long-awaited flight from Sanaa to Tehran and how the Cleveland Browns suck


- What a week it was for the NFL’s quintessential tortured, disappointing franchise. First, Cleveland Browns fans were bullsh*tted with a lame-ass marketing ploy disguised as an image makeover when their team “overhauled” its identity by changing from one shade of orange to a slightly different shade of orange for its still-lame helmet logo, coupled with a cheesy dog caricature to represent the Browns’ famed Dawg Pound fan section. As the world chuckled and mocked the stupidity of that whole plan, the front office was busy with its next big swing and that came this weekend when the Browns announced they had come to terms with veteran quarterback Josh McCown. The incumbent at the position, Brian Hoyer, is headed to free agency, and last year's first-round pick, Johnny Manziel, is in rehab. In other words, the current options suck and the Browns being the Browns, they decided to replace one terrible signal caller with an older, even less competent one. "Josh is your consummate professional," Cleveland general manager Ray Farmer said. "He's known to be a great guy in the locker room and will be great for the quarterback room. He knows how to get an entire offense on the same page and get a team to rally behind him.” McCown’s method of getting his team to rally behind him last season in Tampa was throwing interceptions and letting the defense try to rally and stop the opposition from putting more points on the board. He completed 184 of 327 passes for 2,206 yards with 11 touchdowns and 14 interceptions for Tampa Bay before losing his starting job because of that pesky 1-10 record. "We are excited to get him and believe he will help continue to move us in the right direction and help us build the type of team that will bring winning football to Cleveland," Farmer said. Yes, 1-10 and never having been a starter for a full season screams winning football………


- Been waiting to take that ritzy flight from the capital of one country in turmoil to another country ruled by a tyrannical dictator trying to amass a nuclear arsenal while denying to the world that he’s trying to amass a nuclear arsenal? Now is the time. Thanks to informative news from Yemen’s unstable regime, we know that rebels who control the country's capital have signed an agreement with Iranian authorities in Tehran to set up direct flights between the two countries. You’ll probably end up sharing overhead bins and elbow room with militants, rebels and a terrorist or two, but the chance to take to the friendly, missile-filled skies ‘twixt Sanaa and Tehran is simply too good to pass up. According to Shiite rebels known as Houthis, the memorandum of understanding between aviation officials from the two countries calls for 14 flights per week from each side. Two flights per day may not seem like a lot, but when you have a great chance to be imprisoned, blown up or shot regardless of which of these two lovely towns is your final destination, two flights is actually more than though. Houthis bum-rushed Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, last September and reaching a deal with a regional Shiite power like Iran doesn’t come as a huge shocker. One has to wonder how all of this plays with Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, but he’s kind of laying low after managing to escape Sanaa and house arrest at the hands of the rebels and establishing a base in the southern city of Aden. With him gone, it’s time to grab the ol’ passport and take flight…….


- The real question is what Santa Monica police were doing for the first 18 hours. Sure, they stopped the attempted marathon mixing extravaganza publicity stunt by noise factories Skrillex and Diplo before the event could reach its goal of 24 hours of assaulting eardrums with a menagerie of electronic sounds, but 18 hours of those train wrecks is about 19 hours too many. The two DJs set up shop in Santa Monica in order to promote an album the pair worked on together and shockingly/conveniently, that new release was available to download just three hours into their set. Skrillex announced the release to the crowd and it promptly arrived on iTunes, at which point the police should have kicked down the door and pulled the plug on every mixing board and tuning device in sight. Instead, this disaster was streamed live online for another 15 hours and everyone in the immediate vicinity suffered because of it. Maybe the cops really wanted to hear news about the release of “Jack Ü,” or maybe they were holding out for a signed copy of it, but there really is no excuse for allowing Skrillex to keep cranking out whatever it is he calls music for an extended period of time. The album, by the way, features guests including Justin Bieber, 2 Chainz and AlunaGeorge, as well as a dual guest spot from Kiesza and Missy Elliott. One does have to wonder how much Ecstasy a person has to consume and how many glow sticks they can burn through over the course of 24 hours of quasi-music, but what no one needs to wonder is how a bunch of jobless slackers whose favorite music is made by a dubstep DJ finds time to detach from the world for a full day just to trip out and dance like a maniac……..


- Avoid the machine, New York City residents. At all costs. How has that message not sunk in yet? How are so many of you blindly flocking to sign up for your city’s new municipal ID cards, voluntarily inviting The Man further into your lives so you can have a piece of plastic that….does what a driver’s license or passport already does? The IDNYC card has become very popular in a very short amount of time, so much so that city residents have made more than 240,000 appointments in just the first month. The resulting long lines to sign up for the card made the first month of its availability as frustrating as any other bureaucratic endeavor, but even with the lines shortening, the wait for an appointment remains far longer than it should be given that NO ONE SHOULD BE SIGNING UP FOR THESE CARDS IN THE FIRST PLACE. When they first launched the cards, city officials were hopeful that they would get 250,000 to 300,000 people signed up in the first year. Yet some 30,000 people have already thrown their doors open to more government involvement in their lives and have either received their cards or are waiting for them to come in the mail. The cards made their debut in mid-January and after underestimating public response like the good civil servants they are, officials have scrambled to open more processing centers to cut wait times. In spite of those efforts, many of those who so desperately want their own picture stamped on a piece of plastic ‘neath a holographic surface with embedded security features will still be waiting several more months. Of course, they could always go to the nearest college or university and find the enterprising dude who’s selling bitchin’ fake IDs for $25 and get their card now, but where’s the fun in that………

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