Remember when I posted about the free Dr Pepper the company was giving away if Guns ‘N Roses released Chinese Democracy this year? I got my coupon yesterday:
Thanks, Dr Pepper! I’ll be enjoying your deliciousness soon!
Monday Randomness…
– The (New York) Daily News stole the Empire State Building recently for an in-depth article about the growing problem of mortgage fraud. In mortgage fraud, scammers generally forge paperwork with local governments to transfer property to their aliases; they then use the property to apply for mortgages. They then take the money and split. In most cases, the genuine property owner has no idea the scam has even happened until a foreclosure crew shows up to seize property due to the unpaid, illicit mortgage. In the Daily News’ case, the newspaper’s forged documents contained several “tells” that should have tipped off the people in the NYC deeds office: star of the original King Kong film Fay Ray was listed as a witness, bank robber Willie Sutton was listed as notary, and the company purchasing the iconic New York building was “Nelots Properties LLC” (stolen spelled backwards). You should check out the article; it’s a good read!
– Watch out: Microsoft is planning to make their own version of WordPress.
– Shopping at a Circuit City liquidation sale? Be careful! The closing Circuit City stores are no longer owned by the company but by a liquidator who apparently has no qualms about doubling the MSRP on electronics and taking a discount off that absurdly high price. For example, one woman stopped by a closing Circuit City in Parker, Colorado looking for a deal on a Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray DVD player. She’d seen the player at Best Buy for $299 and Amazon for $249, and figured Circuit City’s “50% Off” offer might save her a few ducats. However, the liquidator’s “saleperson” assured the shopper that their price of $309 was a huge 50% discount over their “list price” of $618!
– Good karma and “get well” wishes to Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who is now on the heart transplant waiting list. I’m not a fan of your team sir, but you are, by all accounts, a good man and a swell NFL owner. Get well soon, and God Bless!
– With his win against the Ratbirds yesterday, Ben Roethlisberger became the first quarterback in NFL history to win 50 games in his first 5 seasons. Congrats, Ben! It’s been a hell of a ride so far!
– Epic Carnival – a website that’s half pictures of hot celebrity chicks and half snarky NFL news, a mash-up of The Superficial and a slightly more serious Kissing Suzy Kolber, if you will – has become one of my favorite new sites. Check out this list of Top 10 amazing but true NFL facts. Some excerpts: “There is, in fact, no NFL law on the books that prevents the Cardinals from hosting a playoff game”… “Minnesota actually trailed for most of its game against Detroit, and became the first professional football team ever to be concerned when Gus Frerotte got hurt”… and “Despite the fact that he’s been on the losing end of a great deal of football games, Terrell Owens still screams and cries like a little girl when it happens again.”
Steelers Win AFC North!
The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens by a score of 13-9 this afternoon, thus winning the AFC North championship and securing a first-round bye in the playoffs. The Steelers defense looked great as always, but their offense is making the few hairs I have left turn grey:
Yes, complain about that call all you want… I don’t care! My team is 11-3 and sitting pretty!
NASCAR in trouble?
I hate NASCAR. To me, driving a car is not a “sport”, whether it be NASCAR or Formula 1. Sure, many consider it an “entertaining pastime”… but a “sport”? No, not hardly.
But the fact is, I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, the birthplace of NASCAR and home to hundreds of companies that support the sport. Oh, and the future NASCAR Hall of Fame, too. NASCAR is huge here. In fact, the sports reporting on our local TV news usually goes Carolina Panthers > NASCAR > NCAA basketball > NCAA football > Charlotte Bobcats > Charlotte Checkers (and, if there’s time left in the broadcast) > Carolina Hurricanes. So whether I like it or not, I hear a lot about NASCAR. And what I’m hearing lately isn’t good.
You probably know that the Big Three automakers are in a world of trouble. You might not have followed through on that thought: the Big Three are huge supporters of NASCAR, to the tune of millions of dollars a year. As much as the automakers would like to keep their NASCAR sponsorships, they are at the point where it simply might not be feasible to keep pouring millions into the sport. And any government bailout of the industry might actually make things worse for NASCAR, since the government might question why they should give taxpayer money to NASCAR by way of the Big Three. After all, several Big Three executives recently appeared before Congress, and were given tounge lashings for using private jets to get there. What do you think Congress’ reaction would be to find out that the automakers gave $20 million of that supposed bailout money to NASCAR?
Just last night there was a bit on the local news about how Petty Enterprises cannot find a sponsor and thus might go under or be forced to merge with another team. Again, I’m not a NASCAR fan, but I know who Richard Petty is, and if he can’t get a deal, you have to wonder about the stability of the sport in general. And then there’s this bit where NASCAR president Mike Helton literally begs fans to support the “sport’s” sponsors.
What happened to NASCAR? My grandfather was big into NASCAR starting in the late 80s, so I heard about it all the time from him. It seemed for a while in the mid 90s that NASCAR would eclipse the NHL or MLB as one of the “Big Three” sports. And now the wheels are falling off (punny!). What the hell happened?
Quote of the Day
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
– C. S. Lewis
Friday Fun Random Post
It’s Friday! Woo-hoo! That means the weekend is upon us… better yet, that means only two days until football comes back! Rejoice and kick back with these random images!
First, we have Gemma Atkinson! Pardon me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard:
Hey, does anyone remember this “video game” from the late 70s or early 80s:
I saw a picture of the game online, and it brought back a flood of memories. I had that game, and I used to play it for hours. I love pointless nostalgia!
Here’s a picture of Jenna Fischer looking cute as a button on the set of The Office:
And lastly… because it never gets old, here’s one more pic from the Cowboys\Steelers game last Sunday, at the point of the Steelers’ victory:
Fighting back against Monster
Monster Cable Products is a company which makes a brand of cables called Monster Cable. You’ve probably seen their products at big box retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City. Hell, you’ve probably gotten the hard-sell about them from a Best Buy salesman. And no wonder – the cables are a quality product, but are outrageously overpriced for what they are. The big box retailers make an obscene amount of profit from them, and thus will resort to scare tactics to sell them: “Oh yeah, those Sony HDTVs will explode on you if you don’t use a Monster brand cable!”
I personally hate Monster cables, and it’s not just because they have the nerve to sell a $2 cable for $150. No, I hate Monster because the company will seemingly sue anyone that uses the word “Monster” in their name. I could understand the legal action if a company was in the cable or electronics accessory business, but Monster Cable has threatened legal action against anyone with Monster in their name, such as:
Monster Garage (a car show on the Discovery Channel)
Monster Energy Drink
Snow Monsters (a children’s skiing group)
MonsterVintage (a small used clothing store)
Monsters, Inc., a Disney animated film
“Monsters of the Midway”, a nickname of the Chicago Bears that dates to the 1940s.
The “Monster seats” at Boston’s Fenway Park
Monster.com, an employment website
Monster Mini Golf
Look, I understand how trademarks work. You have to defend their use, or else you’d lose the rights to that trademark. That’s why the legal departments at Xerox and Kimberley-Clark send letters to DJs and TV reporters reminding them to use the terms “photocopy” and “tissue” instead of “Xerox” or “Kleenex”. But Monster is a company gone mad. And now you can do something about it! This post at Consumerist.com has contact links for Monster’s CEO where you can tell him to stop wasting his time (and taxpayer money in the court system) by ending Monster’s ridiculous trademark campaign!
R.I.P. Bettie Page
From the L.A. Times:
Bettie Page, the brunet pinup queen with a shoulder-length pageboy hairdo and kitschy bangs whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, has died. She was 85.
Page, whose later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, died Thursday night at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering a heart attack Dec. 2, according to her agent, Mark Roesler.
It’s a sad day. 🙁
The Year We Almost Died
The “Cold War” was a state of undeclared war that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union from the end of World War II until the collapse of Russia’s Communist government in the early 1990s. Unlike a “hot” war, where two sides are actively shooting at each other, the “cold” war was all about readiness, posturing, and brinksmanship. If the Soviets came out with a new tank, the US would develop a missile that could pierce its armor. If the US came out with a submarine that was much quieter than its predecessors, the Soviet Union would develop better sonar for detecting it. If the Soviets sent $10 million worth of arms to a tribe in Africa, the US would send $20 million worth of arms to a competing tribe.
The Cold War was breathtakingly expensive and affected almost every country on earth. Although the US and Soviets never directly went to war, the Cold War did get awfully “warm” at times. In 1983, in fact, the world came to the very brink of a nuclear holocaust. Twice. And for that, you can blame Able Archer.
It all started with the 1980 US presidential election. President Carter (and Presidents Ford and Nixon before him) had pursued a policy of détente – a relaxing of tensions – between the US and the Soviet Union. Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan actively rejected détente. Reagan felt that the previous administrations – Carter’s, especially – had used détente as an excuse to cut military spending. He felt that the United States could not negotiate with the Soviets with a weakened military. He called it “Peace Through Strength”, and it terrified the Soviets.
Steelers Stomp Cowgirls!
What did I tell you about the Steelers’ defense?
Thanks for knocking the smug off Tony Romo’s face, guys!
You Cowboy fans are priceless! Don’t ever change, OK?