Saturday, July 19, 2008

Tales of Great Quarterbacks

OK, now that we've gotten our buddy Zac Sunderland out of the way, let's get back to Brett Favre. There is a camp of people that feels sorry for Favre. They say all he wants to do is play football and the Packers are preventing him from doing that. They say, just release him from his contract, or let him come back with the promise that they will trade him to another team. It's just not fair to Brett!

Listen, Brett Favre seems like a nice guy. But he wasn't too worried about what was fair in 2001 when he signed a $100 MILLION DOLLAR LIFETIME CONTRACT. That is not a misprint. Favre agreed to play out his career in Green Bay, and the Packers agreed to pay him more money than you or I or 90% of those Packer fans that feel so bad for him will probably ever see in a lifetime. Brett, you had a charmed career and are rich beyond belief. Either go out on top or go hold a clipboard for Aaron Rodgers but don't make the Packers the bad guy here. I am generally a labor guy and I am telling you the Brett boosters are wrong on this one.

Just for fun, take this little quiz. Which of the following were actually said by Brett Favre?

A) "I don't want to move. I enjoy the fans. I just want to stay. I couldn't envision myself playing for another team."

B) "If (playing for another team) would ever come up, I'd probably just retire. I've made enough money that I don't need to jump ship and go somewhere else."

C) "I know it shouldn’t feel unsuccessful, but the only way to come back and make that be the right decision would be to come back and win a Super Bowl. And honestly, the odds of that, they’re tough. Those are big shoes for me to fill, and I guess it was a challenge I wasn’t up for."

D) All of the Above


If you said D, you deserve $100 million dollars!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Tales of Great Teenagers

It seems that some people may take offense to my suggestion that the Zac Sunderland story is overblown, that in fact this is a young man who is really doing something great with his life and should be admired. Here is a link to the story of Ateqeh Rajabi. Like Zac, she was 16. Like Zac, she stood up for what she believed in, in his case, sailing the ocean blue, in her case, protesting the "misogyny and injustice" of Islamic Fundamentalism. Zac got a shiny sailboat and a nice puff piece on CNN.

Ateqeh was hanged to death in the city square and then had her grave defiled. There was a report on it in the Iranian Press Service. As far as I know Wolf Blitzer had no comment.

Sail on, Zac! TEEN POWER!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Sometimes I Just Hate People....


Brett Favre, who"retired" last year, is asking for his release from the Green Bay Packers so he can go try to hook up with another team. The Packers have refused. And I say: Good for them! I'm so sick of these fake retirements by athletes that it makes me want to puke. They have their tearful press conference, they accept commemoration and adulation from their adoring fans, while all the while they're planning their next move. The repugnant Roger Clemens tried this routine a couple of times and it's just sickening. Retirement should not be a backdoor way to get out of your contract and try to get a better deal. Either retire, or stick it out, but don't fake it, screw with the emotions of your fans, and completely ruin their image of you and your team loyalty by jumping to a new ship at the first good opportunity. Stick to your guns, Packers! Favre was a great player, but he made his choice and now he needs to either hold Aaron Rodgers clip board or go back to mowing the lawn and playing catch with the dog.

Someone else I hate is Zac Sunderland. This little 16 year old punk is getting all sort of publicity because he's going to try to sail around the world. Big F-ing Deal. He's got a state of the art sailboat with full Internet and phone access and he can stop whenever and for as long as he wants. He's not doing it to raise awareness for any cause except himself. As far as I know this will not prove anything except that his parents have way too much money and he has way too much time. Go do an internship somewhere! Get a paper route! I'm hard pressed to see why we should be impressed if he succeeds. As far as I know, no one is going to try to stop him. That actually might make it interesting, if there were people out there whose goal was to thwart Sunderland in his mission by any means necessary (short of severe physical injury or death of course). Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay for such an assignment but if anyone wants to give it a shot, his route can be found here.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Shuffle Up and Deal!


The 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event is underway, and the tenure of "Ambassador of Poker" Jerry Yang, who as far as I can tell did not do a thing for or with poker during his reign, is almost over. A friend and I have a gentleman's wager, a "last longer" bet for which name player will go deepest in the tournament.

My Team:

Men Nguyen
Phil Hellmuth
Chris Ferguson
Phil Ivey
Mike Matusow

His Team:

Greg Raymer
Johnny Chan
Allen Cunningham
Daniel Negreanu
Gus Hansen

I've taken an early lead as Raymer and Negreanu both made swift exits, but anything can happen. That's poker!

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Free Gas

Well, not quite free, but while we're on the subject of cool websites, another one to check out is GasPriceWatch.com. There are a number of gas pricing sites popping up on the web but I've found this one to be both fairly comprehensive and easy to use. It's a peer contributor website, where "spotters" (and anyone can be a spotter) input gas prices they have seen around the nation.

You simply put in your address or area of interest and you will get reports of gas prices in your area, color coded to indicate how recently the prices have been updated. It couldn't be easier, and the only way we're going to get these gas prices down is by consistently going to the cheapest pumps, so let's get cracking.