Are There Any Really Good Scams Left Out There ?
Dude, I’m tellin’ ya………….
As the story continues to unfold about the jackass out in Colorado who (at this point) seems to have definitley staged his balloon taking off with his young son allegedly on-board, it put me to thinking.
I’m a guy that loves a good scam. I’ve participated in a number of them. Mostly as the perpetrator. And I have to admit, once or twice as the victim. My buddy and I were out in Vegas for a convention and some marketing company had a bunch of material printed up that looked exactly like $100 bills. We found ourselves at a wild party in a top floor suite at the Venetian. There was a mass humanity of people in the room and lots of crazy, loud entertainment going on. Bathtubs full of booze, etc.
Someone approached me and asked if I had $20’s in exchange for a hundred so he could “tip the bartender”. The bill looked extremely legit. I made the change for him and he disappeared into the sea of people. I noticed very quickly afterward that it was a fragazzi. I tried to hunt the guy down and was going to strangle him. Literally. But he was gone and I was out $100. My friend and I subsequently learned that more than a handful of people at the party got taken the same way.
I got over it by realizing that after having played so many others over the years for a lot more than $100, I finally got played myself. I tip my hat to that SOB. He got me. And I do appreciate a good scam.
But one of the things that amuses me is how it seems like every possible scam there is has been done already. I often tell friends when we’re discussing something like the Colorado balloon hoax that, “If there is a way on this Earth for man to make money….he has thought of it.”
Perhaps the masters of the craft are the mafia/syndicate. Many people think the mob has been crippled in recent years, but even if they are down to controlling the video poker machines in pubs and taverns, believe me—organized crime still has its hand in the cookie jar. I used to enjoy the scams they performed on The Sopranos. The “no-show” and the “no-work” jobs they dished out after landing a construction contract. I had a few of those over the years. They weren’t in construction and they weren’t always me being part of a scam.
They were just situations where an office was shutting down or a company was going out of business and there simply wasn’t any work to be done. I remember one that my buddy and I had. We’d show up at 8:30 in the morning with our thick novels in-hand. We’d shoot the shit for a while, surf the net and read our books, and then take a nice long lunch. We’d go back to the office and read until the end of the day and go home. Nice.
But getting back to the scams. I do believe we have thought of everything. There’s the well-known and celebrated scams like counting cards in Vegas or using loaded dice. And everyone fears being the next victim of identity theft. You could say that I was a victim of one of the oldest scams out there: counterfeiting. I got fooled by a counterfeit $100 bill. But the first guy to try and pass fake coins probably traces back to ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt. By the time of the Romans, it was “old hat” already.
Anybody ever play a game of 3 card monty?
Or just been the victim of a quick-change artist at their job? I was warned of them on my first day as a gas station cashier. And within a week, some guy tried to play me. But I simply followed the instructions I was given to leave the bill that I was given OUT of the register until the transaction was completely finished. Then they can’t tell you they gave you a $20 and you only gave change back for a $10. My guy tried the other option. He tried to have me give him change for a $20 just in general. Then he took some of that and wanted me to break it down further. I performed both requests for him. Then he tried to ask for a third exchange and I sent him on his way. He made a nice try though, God Bless him.
Since I’ve been out of work, I have donated plasma a few times for extra money. I was amused to see how stringent a system they have just to make sure you haven’t been to another facility recently. They have a number of checks-and-balances in place to make sure somebody isn’t going from donation center to donation center and donating 5 or 6 times per week. And obviously those tracers are in place because that’s exactly what people have tried to do!
I love that.
Whether somebody’s drugging racehorses, producing and selling fake jeans or watches, or bootlegging DVD movies on the street, I really think every trick in the book has been done.
I knew a guy in college who ran a weekly NFL football pool. It was the type where you place confidence points on the teams you like. Somehow or another, somebody in the pool that nobody else knew won it every single week. Not the same name, mind you. A different name every week……just a name nobody seemed to have a class with or know personally. As a dedicated scammer at that point, I approached the guy on this weird situation. He ‘fessed up on what he was doing and guess who won the pool a few times after that ? A guy that only I and my football buddy knew. And lo and behold, that generous guy gave the money to me! Nice.
One of my favorite scams is the one in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Classic. I’m talking about the scam where Clint Eastwood was partnered up with a real scumbag that every town was offering a reward for. Clint would bring the guy in to town and collect the reward. The villain would curse Clint out and vow to kill him if he ever got away. The next day when the town was ready to hang the villain, Clint would shoot down the hangman’s noose and send all the townspeople scattering. The villain would escape and he and Clint would split the reward money. Hilarious.
I like the ones where people reproduce masterpiece works of art and some rich asshole spends a fortune on it thinking it’s legit. Funny stuff.
So if you know of any really good scams that haven’t been done yet, let me know. Balloon boy out in Colorado wasn’t careful enough and now he’s been caught. But I’m always on the lookout for a great scam. Not to play them on somebody—-only to avoid being a victim of it myself. Wink wink.
Survivor cast-off not a huge surprise
Dude, I’m tellin ya…………
So another episode of Survivor aired last night. Call me a pig all you want, but fourteen days down….the last two in the pouring rain……and some of these women are still cute, goddamn it !
But the ranks of the cute girls is getting thin after Ashley was voted off. It wasn’t a big surprise as the only other candidate from the tribe who really had a chance to go was Liz. That was only because of the ‘tease’ footage they showed where she doubted pot-bellied Russell’s claim that he didn’t have the idol. He told her she was on thin ice and in his “asides” to the camera, he expressed his desire to jettison anyone who doesn’t fully trust him (even though she’s correct about the idol, of course).
However, Liz gave a really solid effort in the challenge and I found it pretty apparent that Ashley would be the one to go.
This was one of the episodes of Survivor that a lot of fans find very entertaining because they make the people eat the more exotic forms of local fuel in the reward challenge. Probst blended the raw sealife and other slimy snacks into what he termed Samoan Smoothies. He’s just so damn smug I’d like to smack him. Actually, I’m kidding. He really didn’t do anything this episode to rub me wrong.
After some teammates expressed doubt in Ashley’s stomach for this type of challenge, she proved them right by being the contestant who couldn’t hold it down. She basically sealed her fate there when the tribe later lost the immunity challenge.
One of the more amusing parts of the show was when the winning tribe was about to enjoy a BBQ of steaks and brats, but had to send a member of the tribe on a “scouting mission” to the other side. That tribe member would miss the feast. Dread-locked Russell opted to send Shambo for the second time in a row. Right before he nominated her, I really thought he was going to say something like, “Jeff, I’m going to do the noble thing here and even though I could really use a steak right now, I’m going to send myself over on the scouting mission.”
I was off by a mile. He sent Shambo over and shot down her objections. And then he made a statement that really raised his stock in my mind. He said that she had to suffer some form of punishment for allowing one of the chickens to escape last week. In that line of thought, I totally agree. Screw being noble or sending someone else. Shambo lost the piece of fishing equipment, she lost the chicken, and she has been somewhat distant from many of her tribe mates. Dread-locked Russell showed me something there.
Later he had a little manhood challenge at camp with his own tribemate Dave. But Dave proved he is the only one who can start a damn fire in the tribe and established his value. I also gained further respect for Dave when he apologized to dread-locked Russell and offered his handshake. Dread-locked Russell snubbed him and lost some of the points he had just earned with me. He showed really good leadership in his decision to have Shambo miss the BBQ and even explained his decision to the rest of the group in a good way. Then he looked like a small, selfish child when he wouldn’t respectfully ask Dave for his help with the fire and spurned his apologetic handshake.
Then the rain started and didn’t stop. That’s some serious-ass rain they have over there. That was either one hell of a shower or the octo-mom’s water broke. The one tribe finally saw the logic in taking the rain tarp in a prior reward over the temporary comfort of blankets and such. Live and learn. Morons.
I do have to give props to the other Russell. I mean pot-bellied Russell with the hidden idol. He seems to really give it his all in the challenges and I can’t think of one instance in which he didn’t produce. In the sickening food eating contest, he stomached his smoothie and held up his end. In the immunity challenge, he held the full basket of coconuts as long as he could and finally had to give in. But his basket was full and I don’t think any other contestant would have held it much longer than pot-bellied Russell did.
Last week, he shimmied across the rope balance-beam that almost cost Monica her Survivor life. He was fast and didn’t hinder the tribe’s effort in any way. Of course he has done some things around camp that are pretty suspect. I don’t think burning anyone’s socks did any real harm to his tribemates. In fact, in the interview I read with ousted player bearded Ben, he revealed that everyone had at least two pair of socks and no one went without despite pot-bellied Russell’s sabotage.
When strictly looking at the challenges though, I haven’t seen pot-bellied Russell do anything dirty. He looks to be trying hard to avoid the tribe going to immunity. It makes sense. Hell yes, let the other tribe vote off a memeber. It helps him from having to play the idol before he truly wants to.
In the short preview for next week, it looks like someone gets hurt to the point where they have to summon the medical team. It’s unfortunate when someone gets hurt like that and has to remove themself from the game because the game is actually disrupted in that everyone typically gets a free pass that cycle. Pot-bellied Russell already has had his mind games and strategy interrupted because the torrential rain prevents a lot of private conversation. Now next week he may be hindered by someone else getting injured and automatically being the player removed from the game.
Unless of course, it is pot-bellied Russell himself. Maybe he pulls his pot-belly. Stay tuned………….
The Dick Ourada Band ready to rock out again
Dude, I’m tellin’ ya………
I’m moving a little slow this morning after having gone to the Blackhawks game last night. The team is looking freakin’ good. Every time I watch a game these days, it seems like the other team doesn’t even put twenty shots on goal. Our defensive effort has been pretty good despite the easy goals that our new starting goalie, Christobal Huet, allows like he’s throwing the damn game. But our back-up goaltender, Antti Niemi, was in the net last night. The Hawks won 4-3.
Even with the great season the Hawks had last year, one of my chief complaints was that they didn’t put the puck on the net enough. It always seemed like they were trying to make one pass too many. They would pass up a nice scoring opportunity to try and make that one last pass. This is certainly not the case this year. Every game I watch, there are long stretches where we are peppering the other team’s goalie with shots. I’m not sure what the final shot total was last night, but at one point the Hawks had a 37-17 advantage. The poor guy on the receiving end for Edmonton last night happened to be our own starting goalie from last year, Nikolai Khabibulin. He let up a goal 51 seconds into the game and was under fire all night.
So I’m off to a slow start today after enjoying the game last night with a friend and several beers and Mai Tai(s).
But…….I wanted to give an early shout out to everyone about another wild, raucous evening coming up with the legendary Dick Ourada Band.
They are playing their annual Thanksgiving extravaganza at Rolling Lanes in Countryside, IL on Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 9pm.
Dick and the boys were joined by several dozen loyal “Dickheads” recently for a benefit show they played for an animal shelter. The Rolling Lanes show is often their biggest gig of the year and the joint is usually packed for the boys. Last year, the line to get in looked like a Who concert from Cincinnati circa 1979. Thankfully, there were no injuries like in Cincy that year. Hopefully Rolling Lanes has the forethought this year to at least put another bartender on duty to handle the huge crowd.
Last year I had to go down to the nearby liquor store and buy a 6-pak because you just couldn’t seem to get a bartender’s attention. I would go out to my truck and smuggle two bottles back in at a time. It saved me mucho bucks and a TON of time to watch/listen to the band rather than hold my money out to a bartender and try to make eye contact for 20 minutes.
For those not too familiar with the Dick Ourada Band (DOB), it’s a group of guys who have been playing together since high school with a catalog of over 250 songs that they have played live. Known as “The Greatest Band in the Western Suburbs of Chicago” by their thousands of fans, the band is fronted by one of the true kings of entertainment, Dick Ourada. Ever the showman, Dick is a major Elvis fan, heavily influenced by Brian Wilson, and is known for his numerous costume changes over the course of a show. He adds rhythm guitar to his wide-ranging vocals. His brother Randy plays some thumping drums, and another set of brothers rock out on lead guitar and bass. Ron and Russ Rydin are a couple of virtuosos that keep the train on track while Dick is out in the audience thrilling the Dickheads.
They actually have two drummers in the band—-much like the Dead had for so many years. They throw in a little saxophone to some of their songs and even have a jammin’ regular opening act. Andy “The Big Deal” Plzak is the youngest member of the traveling show, but probably has the brightest future. I mean……the other guys are spry, but they’re as old as me for Chrissakes and I’m wiped out from a damn Hawks game. Andy has been rumored to carry the band into the next century when Dick’s, Ron, and Russ’ bodies are in a cryonic freeze sitting next to Ted Williams battered head. {Did y’all hear about that travesty? Jesus freakin’ Christ ! What is this world coming to?}
If you have a chance on 11/28, come on out and see these guys. The show starts at 9pm and runs until the bar has to tell them to stop playing. Dick is the consummate showman with on-the-spot lyric deviations from classic songs and poignant original tunes. Don’t miss the slide show that they put up showing shots from prior gigs, some of their most rabid fans, and various pics of the band when they’re not on-stage. Great stuff.
They usually have a couple of VIP guests as well who sometimes join them on stage for a song or two. Rumor has it there will be at least one—-maybe even two this year.
Once again, the gig is at:
Rolling Lanes on Joliet Road in Countryside, IL
9:00pm on Saturday, November 28, 2009
Check out the band’s website at: www.thedickouradaband.com
Tomorrow when I am fully recovered physically and mentally………OK, probably just physically……I’ll review tonite’s episode of Survivor. We’ll see if ol’ Russell can make it thru another week without being voted off.
How many NFL football experts are there ??
Dude, I’m tellin’ ya……..
I’m just a little bit down on NFL football today. I joined in my buddy’s weekly confidence pool for the first time this year for the games played this past weekend (and last night). I hadn’t joined up to this point because money is so tight. I skipped all of the pools this year that I typically get into. But I was hanging out with him this past Friday night and he convinced me to play this week.
And as seems to be the case with me these days, I lost the $60 prize with exactly 7 seconds left in the Miami-NY Jets game on Monday night. I was in 2nd place entering last night’s game. If the Jets won the game, I won the pool. The Jets were leading until there were seven seconds left and Miami scored the winning touchdown to spoil my evening. It was like my recent luck in Texas Hold ‘Em on PokerStars. It doesn’t matter if I have an Aces/Kings full house, my opponent keeps getting four of a kind on the (final) river card. If I have an Ace high flush, the last card gives my opponent a full boat. No matter what, I just can’t seem to get the money. Last night, the Dolphins got the flush to beat me.
So the NFL is not exactly my favorite form of entertainment today. And it has me thinking again about something the boys and I were mocking once again this Sunday while watching the pre-game shows (and post-game). How many ex-players and ex-coaches are making a mint babbling about these games each week? It seems like there is ten times the number of expert analysts breaking down the games as compared to when I was a kid.
I don’t want to sound like one of those old men talking about how gas was a nickel or a loaf of bread was a penny when they were a child. I was 10-15 years old from the period 1980-1985 and pro football was already the humongous entity that it is today. Coaches had their own Sunday morning TV shows (The Mike Ditka show), there were national cable football shows (Inside the NFL on HBO), the Super Bowl was a global event, etc.
NFL Football was big-time dollars and already competing with baseball as the top sport in the US. But I don’t recall having 68 different people drawing Xs and Os out for me on the blackboard and spending ten minutes talking about how a team isn’t filling the blocking gaps. The saturation of analysis for these games has become downright comical. It seems like if you ever had a cup of coffee in the NFL, you are now qualified to tell us how to build a team and win your games.
When I was little, there was one single pre-game show that I remember. It was hosted by Brent Musburger and he was joined by Irv Cross, the drunken, racist prognosticator Jimmy “The Greek”, and Phyllis George. She would do the nice “slice of life” stories that they dump on Pam Oliver these days. Those four people would generally discuss the games to be played that day and Jimmy “The Greek” would even offer his picks against the spread—–something they don’t (have the guts to) do today. But that was it. A one hour pre-game show and then on to football.
Now we have half of the living Hall of Fame roster out there in their five-thousand dollar suits whooping it up and laughing like they’re at a Richard Pryor concert or something. My buddies and I used to have fun assigning a nickname to the panel…….
Mike Ditka (Mike Dickhead), Chris Collinsworth (Chris Cocksucker), Joe Gibbs (Joe Gibbs head), Ronnie Lott (Ronnie Snot) and then the host James Brown (the hardest working man in sports entertainment).
Now there are too many of these guys for us to even remember…….Howie Long (Howie Schlong), Jimmie Johnson, Michael Strahan, Curt Menafee, Shannon Sharpe, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason, Bill Cowher (Bill Coward), Keyshawn Johnson, Terry Bradshaw, along with all of the forementioned dudes. And lest we forget the weather tramp Jillian Barberie, the comedian Frank Caliendo, and any special guests they bring in for the week.
They josh around and disect every aspect of the shittiest game like it’s the Super Bowl. They even take positions on a synthetic field there in the actual TV studio (in their five thousand dollar suits and bling-bling) and diagram plays ! They go on-and-on about how the outside linebacker on the Cincinnati Bengals needs to start peeling off his pass coverage when the opposing team looks like they’re going to do a screen pass.
Jesus Christ already….just show the damn game ! But no….there’s more. After the studio guys send it out to the announcing team that will be calling the action, we have to get their analysis too. So there’s ten more minutes of Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and on-field stooge Tony Siragusa telling us what they think.
Then after we get to watch the actual 3 hour athletic contest that we tuned in for, the post-game recaps begin. NBC has even reunited the popular Sportscenter tandem of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. They then tell us what we have just seen in excruciating detail. And before we can watch the game they are fronting, we have to hear Al Michaels give his input.
Somewhere in this mix, I’m missing Tony Dungy, Bob Costas, Tiki Barber, Rodney Harrison, Jerome Bettis, Pam Oliver, Andrea Kremer, Jim Nantz, Lesley Visser, Greg Gumbel, Phil Simms, Jay Glazer, and anyone else who ever donned a uniform (or in the case of the women…wished they had).
Perhaps the funniest part of this hodge-podge is when they bring in a jackass who failed miserably in their last NFL job—-like Matt Millen. Here is a man who single-handedly destroyed the Detroit Lions. They won about 9 out of 55 games under his tenure. But now he’s an in-studio expert who is supposed to tell us how to identify talent, juggle the depth chart, prepare for the draft, and build a winning team. The guys in my fantasy league are smarter than this buffoon.
Is it any wonder why the comedian has out-picked the panel of experts when they predict winners before the games? Frank Caliendo won the contest against Bradshaw, Long, and the rest of the gang last season. And after four weeks, he was leading it again this season. It just shows how much these guys really know. Not a lot.
What the hell ever happened to Irv Cross anyway? Here’s to yesteryear….and the $60 I lost last night.
Shove those sweepstakes somewhere, will ya ?
Dude, I’m tellin’ ya…………
I think I’ve had my fill of sweepstakes, alleged environmental donations by big-name brands, and “quick win” games by fast food joints.
I was watching the full slate of Sunday football with my usual group of fellow neanderthals and I couldn’t help but mention how many advertisers were pushing some contest or give-away at least as much as they were hawking their very product. And in support of my observation, there HAD to be a ton of it being plugged because we have four TVs hooked up to the DirectTV NFL Ticket. We get every game every single week. As a result, we don’t hang around much to watch commercials on any of the four TVs. We just move on to a game with live action going on. So for me to notice how much of this marketing crapola was being shoved down our throats, there had to be a bunch of it.
My observation actually led to a discussion amongst us. Really.
These huge brand names act like they’re throwing cash out of a hot-air ballon to a major metropolis at lunchtime when they’re simply giving away a trip for 2 to the Fiesta Bowl. Whether it’s Miller Lite or Nike or Tostitos, these companies spend millions marketing a raffle/sweepstakes where a handful of their loyal customers will win a prize worth around $10K or less. The commercial hardly focuses on their product at all. If you asked all of us in the room which beer company was sponsoring the trip to the Super Bowl in the ad that we just saw, you’d get at least 2……maybe 3 different answers.
Then there’s the alleged do-gooders who brag that for every purchase we make, a dime or a quarter will go directly to the Special Olympics or the Amazon rain forest. The thing that I’ve noticed almost all of my life is that conveniently, the product’s price tag is exactly a dime or a quarter higher than the last time I purchased it. Who’s really making the humanitarian donation here?
Here’s an idea. How about instead of raffles, sweepstakes, and lottery-type games—–how about they lower the cost of the product their loyal customers buy? Install a nationwide decree that the product is to be lowered by 5 cents wherever it is sold. Then they can help every single one of their loyal customers each-and-every time they buy the product for a while. Of course, the price will have to go up again eventually. But instead of sending 10 customers to the Grammys or the 2016 Olympics in Rio, create a reward that benefits all of their dedicated customers.
McDonalds is back to playing their big Monopoly game. Didn’t this one get exposed as a tainted scam just a few years back? But here we go again.
You can win a million dollars !!!
Or a free regular-sized order of our french fries instantly !!!
Hey McDonalds—-how about you save the consuming public the scam and just re-direct the millions and millions of dollars behind the campaign? Instead of all of the (alleged) cash prizes and trips and free food to just a select few, how about you lower the price of french fries nationwide by 10 cents for two months? With the advertising dollars that focus on nothing but the Monopoly promotion + the value of all the (alleged) prizes themselves, it has to be a $20 million dollar campaign. By trimming the price of an order of fries by 10 cents, you could sell your loyal customers 200 million orders of reduced-price fries. If I’m under-estimating the costs of marketing these days and it’s actually a 40 million dollar campaign, that equates to 400 million orders of reduced fries. {Even if that is only three days of typical sales…..WE’LL TAKE IT !!}
And then after 60 days when fries go back to their regular price, instead of your next lame-ass, nobody-gives-a-hoot promotion, you can lower the price of soft drinks by a dime for the following two months.
Or you can make regular hamburgers and cheeseburgers under 75 cents permanently—-the way they should be.
The same holds true for Miller Brewing Products and all the rest of these huge comglomerates. Instead of offering us “club points” so that we can get your supposed cool merchandise like gym bags, sweatpants, and throw blankets, why don’t you take the money that is spent on marketing the promotion + the expense of the shoddy prizes and lower the case of beer by 25 cents? If I need a pair of sweatpants, I’ll go to Wal-Mart. If I want to go to the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day, I’ll call a ticket broker.
What I truly want is for the price of the goods I buy from these companies to stop going up. The price of goods and services in the US is seemingly triple or quadruple the size of the pay raises people are receiving. Back in the day, people used to get somewhere between a 2%–7% pay raise if they were doing a good job. That was to keep up with “the cost of living”.
Well allow me to let American industry in on a little secret. Not only do most people not receive a 2-7 % pay hike annually anymore, but a great many of us are out of work completely. Those that are working aren’t seeing pay raises at all….they’re seeing pay cuts to keep their job. Yet the cost of living keeps skyrocketing at exponential rates never seen before.
When I was a kid, gas was 57-62 cents per gallon. Oh, it would go up regularly. A few cents here….a few cents there. It was only in the last ten years or so that prices started fluctuating in nickels, dimes, and quarters on a weekly basis. But it doesn’t stop with gas. The same holds true for bread, milk, shoes, eggs, coffee, and most other household basics.
A year ago when I was working, and for many years prior to that, I used to purchase a can of Pringles potato chips as a favored snack. Almost anywhere I went….Wal-Mart, Jewel, Walgreens, Dominicks, etc. the cost was 99 cents. It was somewhere between 79 cents and 99 cents for about five years. I haven’t bought a can of Pringles in several months now. Everywhere I now shop, they are $1.79 per can. The price has just come up short of doubling in the last 12-15 months !! Pringles and about a thousand other products.
How are we possibly supposed to keep up with this? Gee, I can’t figure out why people are filing so many bankruptcies and defaulting on their mortgages. Let’s blame the bankruptcies on credit cards and the mortgages on the jobless rate. Note to government leaders: while some people do abuse their credit cards with frivolous purchases, a great many more are actually buying their groceries or even paying their mortgages on them. The basic truth of the matter is that our wages simply do not keep up with the price gouging that became part of the accepted economic model in the last decade. Three percent pay cuts don’t allow the consuming public to keep up with 33% price increases.
How about the credit cards and their cash-back rewards and other nonsense programs? The public has been screaming for years for lesser penalties and better interest rates. It is now a matter of discussion in our legislature. But do they offer us better, permanent rates? Or have they slashed their ridiculous late fees? Nope. They spend millions of dollars promoting their cash-back programs that earn most card holders about $20 per year or less. Hey vultures, keep the $20 and lower everybody’s interest rate by one-half of one percent.
So to Miller Lite, Budweiser, McDonalds, Publisher’s Clearing House, Discover Card, Visa, MasterCard, Pepsi, Coke, Marlboro, and all you other bloodsucking corporations, shove those sweepstakes somewhere, will ya?
Nobody gives a rat’s ass about your contests—-we’re too busy slipping into poverty buying your over-priced bullshit.
Survivor eliminates another yahoo
Dude, I’m tellin’ ya………………….
This week’s episode of Survivor finally saw the weaker tribe win a challenge and send the dominant tribe to tribal council for the first time. In the end, they voted off lazy Yasmine over the cute law student Monica.
Which put me to thinking……..how do so many of these women on Survivor look so good after (allegedly) roughing it in the bush for 10 days? Yes, I’m a man (i.e. an often thoughtless, crude, pig). But I think I can speak for most of the guys here {right now most of the guys reading this are thinking, “Oh shit”} when I say that there a lot of very cute women on the show this season. These girls have (allegedly) been deprived of food, water, decent sleep, and just about all of the creature comforts that make them beautiful in real life. I hate to say it, but after ten days of sleeping in a shack in Samoa, half of this season’s women look better than many of the pretty girls I know here at home.
Don’t get me wrong—-the women I know here at home are beautiful and intelligent and mostly out of my league. I have to travel a few towns over to get a date these days because the women close to me are too good for me. They don’t have to say it……I know it. They’re incredible.
But there just seems to be NO WAY these women they put on the show can stay so clean and attractive after the first few days. Even the guys look somewhat sanitary. I know that if I or my buddies were on the show, we’d be the most grotesque people out there. After the first night, we’d have “bed-head” hair that would never look proper the rest of the way. My eyes would be red with dark bags under them from the lack of sleep. I’d look like a zombie after 4 or 5 days. These comely contestants look like they’re ready to shoot a cover of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People.
I’ve always read and heard that a handful of every season’s contestants are actually wanna-be actresses and models. I read that on the season where ex-NFL quarterback Gary Hogeboom was on the show, at least four of the other contestants were “hired” pretty people. Just last week, I read an interview with the ousted player Ben from this season. One of the questions was, “How many times did you apply for Survivor before getting the call”?
His reply was that he has never applied to be on Survivor and that he was approached as he was walking along the beach one day. I’ve read many other similar stories of how people were “approached” and most of them are the female contestants. People like me and my buddy who have sent in tapes and filled out the questionnaire are kidding ourselves to some degree. Like every other reality show, a great deal of Survivor is fake and scripted. I’ve read how they have a person lugging water back from the tribe’s drinking water source numerous times to “get the right shot”. The person is struggling to carry a 40 lb. container that they have filled and producers have them keep going back down the beach to re-shoot their approach (back to camp) from several different angles.
I’ve also read how tribal council takes 2-3 hours to actually shoot. They take the votes and look at them in advance before they reveal them to the tribe so that they can line them up in the most suspenseful way possible. If one person gets the great majority of votes, then it’s easy, obviously. But isn’t it funny how when two people are sharing the vote, somehow Probst always pulls out the ballots so that the two people have an equal number and then the decisive vote sends one of them packing?
Anyway, let’s take a closer look at this week’s episode.
They had a challenge where the participants showed up and nobody else was there. No Probst. Seemingly no instructions. Just a wooden chest and a small wooden cage of live chickens. After a few minutes, Russell’s team figured they would grab the chickens and (I’m thinking) just leave the challenge. They did snare a few of the birds while the other team opened up the wooden chest. It turned out that there were instructions in the chest for the players to compete in a game of bocce ball.
This is where the dickhead in me comes out again. I would’ve just taken the chickens and left. Hey——Probst wasn’t around to issue rules and instructions. What if the other team said to each other, “Well they’re taking the chickens, but I don’t think we’re supposed to be messing around with these things. I’m sure Probst will show up any minute and tell us what to do.”
What if the other team just stood there and never opened up the wooden chest with the instructions? I don’t see how the producers or Probst could penalize the one team for taking the chickens and leaving. They showed up for a challenge……there was no authority from the show present…….there was a food source just sitting there…….take the birds and get the hell out of there! Don’t even wait for instructions. If the producers are dumb enough to put the players in that situation and leave the door open for a “snatch-and-grab”………
But the other team did open the wooden chest and found the instructions for the challenge. So I have no problem with how it actually played out.
It was yet another win for the stronger tribe and now they had 3 chickens for eggs and later on…meat. That is, they had 3 chickens until they put the self-described “country girl” Shambo in charge of the flock. Now they’re down to 2 after one of the birds escaped.
When the tribe finally lost an immunity challenge and had to vote a person off, it looked like Shambo’s fumble and her semi-isolation from most of the tribe would be her downfall. But it turned out that Monica’s weak performance in the challenge and Jasmine’s general laziness around camp out-trumped Shambo’s error. They ended up voting off Jasmine.
Which was entirely OK by me because I can stand to ogle cutie-pie Monica for a couple of more weeks. Along with the rest of the hired actresses and models on the show.
So what’s up in the news lately ?
Dude, I’m tellin’ ya…………
There’s been some fairly interesting things going on in the news the last week or so. Let’s take a quick look….
* While I was watching the Hawks game at one of my favorite watering holes on Friday, the news came out that Chicago was the first city rejected in the 2016 Olympics host city competition. I have to admit—and embarrasingly so—–that I was rather surprised at that outcome. And I was embarrrased because I was surprised. I had allowed myself to believe something that the US media had been preaching; that if Chicago did not win the bid, they would at least be in the final 2. I’d been hearing the hype and the overkill for months and months. And with the IOC being such a cesspool for so many years under Juan Antonio Samaranch, how could the backroom dealing, corrupt, seedy city of Chicago not be able to steal the games? Samaranch is more of a retired figurehead now as the current IOC president is Jacques Rogge. Apparently things don’t run quite the way they used to under Samaranch where a bunch of cash and some nice payola gifts earned you the host city rights. So I was a little embarassed to believe the media (one of my staunchest enemies) that the Daley political machine and the presence/backing of Oprah and the Obamas would guarantee Chicago the verdict. I feel like a chump.
I was surprised that Rio won only in the sense of Chicago had not been awarded the games. When I wasn’t listening to the US media and was thinking with my own mind, I asked myself, “where was the best place in the world to hold a gala global party”? Among the four finalists, the obvious answer was Rio de Janiero. I’ve never been there personally, but I would still have to believe that it is one of the most exciting, fun-filled, adventurous places there is. I’ve read plenty of books and have seen plenty of shows on the Travel Channel, MTV, Discovery, the Food Network, etc. to identify Rio as a place I’d really like to see before I die. So when Chicago was eliminated in the first round, almost everyone in the bar that I was at agreed that Rio would win the decision.
I would have liked to have seen Chicago get the games simply for the industry and jobs it would have provided my hometown. As a person who is currently in-between jobs and actually knows more people out-of-work than I know people that are working, the games would have been a great coup for the city. I’m not a big fan of the whole Olympics thing and how they try to portray the whole spectacle as clean and wholesome. Free of ill will and corruption. Just like Notre Dame football has always tried to portray itself in a similar way, it is a complete myth. Both entities are as dirty as Pigpen on the old Peanuts cartoons.
* Then there is the case of funnyman and gazillionaire David Letterman finally getting a little come-uppance. Apparently after someone attempted to blackmail him by exposing various affairs Letterman has had with female staff on his show over the years, the comedian used his priviliged television platform to ‘fess up. He acknowledged on the air that he had indeed participated in a few affairs over the years while maintaining his relationship with his long-time girlfriend (now his wife). He then used his air-time on a different evening to apologize to his wife and others for his behavior and poor judgement.
Isn’t it nice to have a TV show on every night where you can address such matters? Taking as much time as you want to spend on the matter doing spin control and then moving on to interview Gwyneth Paltrow? Without having a deluge of reporters peppering you with questions and pointing out any contradictory statements you may have made? Without the glare of hundreds of flashbulbs and cameras as you try to explain yourself? Too bad some of the other public figures that have used poor judgement in their relationships don’t have the same platform to do damage control like Dave does.
Here’s a guy who has made a living for 25 years pointing out the personal flaws and having fun with the struggles other famous people go thru. It would be interesting to see how many Kobe Bryant jokes Letterman made when the NBA star was caught in a fidelity scandel. Or even better, how many jokes about Bill Clinton and his indiscretions over his entire eight years as President? More recently, Dave has had a lot of fun with the various members of the House and Congress who have been caught having affairs with personal assistants and mistressses. Letterman has had a blast lampooning disgraced NY Governor Eliot Spitzer for over a year now.
Finally the shoe is on the other foot. Now Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, and all the other jokesters can pile on ol’ Dave. And they are in some cases. I’m curious to see how he handles it. Can he take it like he dishes it out? Or will he pout to People magazine or Barbara Walters about the invasion of his privacy and his desire to handle such issues away from the spotlight without everyone ranking on him?
* Last but not least, I’m always fascinated when long-ago abducted kids reappear again. We hear about kids going missing at least once per week on the news. And it seems like about 50% of the time, they unfortunately find the kid dead (example: Caylee Anthony). The other 50% of the time, we just never see or hear from the kid again (example: Natalee Holloway).
But a few weeks ago, missing person Jaycee Lee Dugard was found being held hostage by a demented twist out in California. And last week, former child captive Elizabeth Smart testified in court against her abductor. It’s just really amazing when one of these people turns up again. You can’t help but think of what kind of nightmare these poor kids have been going thru for however long they’ve been gone. Living in tiny spaces. Enduring sexual, physical, and mental assault. Being away from their family and loved ones. Missing out on their innocent childhoods.
After the initial all-out searches, the candlelight vigils, and even the endless Nancy Grace coverage ends, you basically write these kids off and move on to a fresher case. Months and years go by and all of a sudden…….one of them pops up again! We hear lurid stories of how they were kept in a haven in the woods or a backyard bunker compound. We wonder about the kid’s mental psyche now and how they can possibly reinsert themselves back into society.
But take a look at Elizabeth Smart. In every interview I have seen with this young woman, she is just seemingly a bright, attractive, woman of faith who definitley does NOT take her family for granted. She looks like she is going to college somewhere—or could be if she has those plans. She reminds me of my oldest niece……..pretty smile, a little modest, friendly.
It just goes to show all of us. Until a child is found—alive or deceased—-none of us should ever give up on the case. Especially the parents of a missing child. It may be years, but they just very well might see their loved one again. Keep the faith.
Updates: Survivor, Hawks, Bears ………
Dude, I’m tellin’ ya………….
Let’s see here…where to begin? I’ve been unexpectedly out of town for the weekend and a lot happened since I left on Friday after the Blackhawks game. But we’ll start with Survivor from this past Thursday night.
The guy I was initially defending during the prior week’s show and shortly afterward, bearded Ben, ended up getting ousted this week for just generally being a dick. I had been questioning his ejection from a challenge in episode 2, but he survived that week’s vote when Russell bullied the woman cop off of the show. As a viewer, I figured the ejection issue was over with and the tribe would all find a new reason to dislike someone else. But Ben just couldn’t help being a real stroke around camp and to literally everyone he dealt with. I even grew to turn on him and dislike him about 20 minutes into this episode. You simply can’t be condescending to everyone else you live with and throw racial inneuendo around and expect to stick around long. You have to show some sign of humanity and humility and friendship to someone.
I did wish I could insert one extra line into the show though before Ben was voted off. After the rough-housing and ejection of a contestant on the prior week’s episode, the next challenge they have these people do is to run out into the water to retrieve boxes of puzzle pieces. They invite the opposing team to try and physically stop the person from getting to the boxes. They showed a quick shot of Ben as the challenge was being described. In real life, he was simply listening and didn’t say anything. I was just hoping he would raise his hand and say,
“Ummmm, Jeff ?????? Can you please confirm for me if we are playing by your cissy-ass, pansy rules or are we allowed to actually try and stop the other player? How long can I hold a person’s head under water? Am I allowed to strike a person with the old NFL “head slap” or is this just the usual tickling and fondling thing you guys want us to do?”
But…….nobody said anything and I just chuckled to myself for finding yet another way to bring Probst down a notch. Even if it was just in my silly, little head.
I also have to give a little credit this week to Shambo. She may have over-reacted a little bit to her own tribe doing yoga. She distanced herself and in doing so, brought un-do attention to herself. She works hard around camp so that is probably the initial impression people had of her in her tribe. She has now replaced that with a distinct impression of not being “part of the group”. I don’t know why people get their panties out of whack……or in her case, her BVDs…..when people do yoga or martial arts exercises, etc. People have done that on the show before and explained how it helps them to unwind or keep their spirit up. But whenever someone does it on a new season, another person always has to shake their head and object to it. Open up your mind, Shambo. And cut that mullet.
But on the positive side, she went over to the other tribe’s side and really endeared herself to them. Inevitably, there will be a trading of teammates between the tribes. There always is. And if she is the one to be traded, she has a chance to turn a few of her new friends and survive for a little while. If she is NOT the one traded, she will at least have 1 or 2 new allies that come over from the other tribe to her own. Either way, she’ll have more friends than she currently has in her own, original tribe. She is irritating them with her distance and disapproval.
In the end, Ben was voted off after a lengthy and entertaining tribal debate. The one tribe is getting so decimated, they’re going to have to do something soon to transfer a player. I’ve never really liked that direction……if one tribe can systematically wipe out another one, then let them complete the job. Several seasons ago, the one tribe did get down to just the one adorable girl. She was tough as nails and spent a few nights entirely on her own ( I forget her name). But the producers/scripters don’t seem to want that to happen anymore. They always find a way to make the sides more even again. What’s the point of dominating another tribe if you will be replacing their members with your own?
We’ll see what happens next week with Russell. He’s getting by fairly easy despite his transparent manipulations thanks to more prominent goofballs like Ben. But I have a feeling his time is running out real soon. He’s the type who’ll be blindsided without ever even using the idol he has.
It turned out that after investing 3 solid hours of my life with the Blackhawks season opener on Friday morning, they let the game slip away and lost on a shootout. They still got one point for the standings out of it, but I’m sure they were as disappointed in letting it slip away as I was. However, they rebounded very nicely in the rematch on Saturday morning and shut out Florida out 4-0. They took 3 of a possible 4 standings points on the overseas trip.
The hometown boy, our back-up Finnish goalie, got the shutout. We dominated most of the game and things look pretty good. My buddies and I agreed that the Patrick Sharps and the Patrick Kanes, etc. had to personally get off to decent starts this year until Marian Hossa gets back healthy. We don’t want to struggle and be a .500 club until late November or so when he returns. Sharp and Kane both scored over the weekend and are indeed off to nice starts. So that bodes well for the first 6-8 weeks without Hossa.
And then the Bears continued to make me look like an asshole by whipping up on the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Believe me, after predicting an 8-8 season out of this team, I do hope they make me look like an asshole all season long. I feared they might start off 0-2 having to play the Packers in Green Bay and then the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers. But they are now 3-1 after the first four games. Usually ten wins is enough to get into the playoffs in the NFC. So even if we go 7-5 the rest of the way, that could get us in to the party.
It helps when you are playing the Lions. They were matching score for score in the first half, but you could see what a crap-ass team they are in every series. At one point, their center took a false start penalty on one of their drives. This is the man that is holding the ball and snaps it to start the play ! For those that aren’t too familiar with the deeper points of the game, the center might only get a false start penalty once or twice per season. He is in control. But if he wiggles the ball, he gets a penalty. You learn NOT to wiggle the ball in pee-wee league.
Then there was the kickoff return for the touchdown they surrendered to us.
Then there was the penalty on our field goal attempt that allowed us to skip the field goal and go right ahead and punch it in for the touchdown.
Luckily we get to play these guys once more this year. So that should be one of the 7 more wins we need to make the playoffs.
Now if somehow we could just get the NFL to schedule in a couple of games against the Cubs and WhiteSox………….since they can’t sniff the playoffs, maybe they could help out a fellow Chicago team ??
Puck drops at 11AM on Friday 10/2/09 !
Dude, I’m tellin ya………….
I know exactly where I will be tomorrow, Friday 10/2/09, at 11AM.
I’ll be at that favorite wings bar I’ve touted here previously when they open at 11:00 to watch the Blackhawks season opener live from Finland. If anyone wants to join me, that’s Time Out West sports bar in Hanover Park, IL. Of course, it’s a little easier for me than most since I still find myself in-between jobs at the moment. So I have some freetime to do things like that. No money….but freetime.
But honestly, I’m really excited because the truth of the matter is that the Chicago Blackhawks are the best team in Chicago. In two short years since that old bastard Bill Wirtz kicked it, they have made just about every move correctly. And the result is that they are better than the Sox, Cubs, Bears, and even the young Derrick Rose-led Bulls. This is the team from Chicago most likely to contend for the championship of their sport. Plain and simple.
They hired a great head man when they swooped in and lured John McDonough away from the Cubs. And although when I first heard the news that they fired coach Denis Savard and replaced him with Joel Quenneville, I was against it and wondered why? But it was a great move that I fully appreciate now as one beyond my hockey expertise. They made nice with ex-Hawk legends Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito, and Bobby Hull. And Denis Savard is still a respected and valued man in the organization.
Most of all, they put their home games on TV for the first time in my life and brought back the best play-by-play man in hockey in Pat Foley.
So then it boils down to the team itself. And we have the best young team in hockey along with the Pittsburgh Penguins. While I have mentioned the double-standard that celebrities get in our justice system and railed against Patrick Kane’s recent assault on a cab driver—and his subsequent kid-glove treatment ——I am glad he is available to take the ice tomorrow morning. That’s where I get a little two-faced.
My biggest concerns are that we are without the services of free-agent signee Marian Hossa….who is one of my favorite players in hockey……as well as Adam Burish, for several weeks each. Burish is actually out for several months. That will hurt big-time. When Hossa was in Atlanta teaming with (my favorite player) Ilya Kovalchuk, they were the best offensive tandem in the league. Now Hossa gets to elevate the game of our younger guys.
I expect this team to be in the conference finals at a minimum. This team takes me back to the early 1990s when I was in my early 20s and my friends, all of our girlfriends, and I would meet at some local watering holes and watch as many games as they would televise back then. We had guys like Jeremy Roenick, Eddie Belfour, and Chris Chelios in their primes and a bunch of other cool players that did exactly what their roles demanded of them. Players like Bryan Marchment, Jocelyn Lemieux, and Dirk Graham. Hell, we even had a young goalie fighting for playing time named Dominik Hasek. You know…..the future Hall of Famer?
It was a sweet time to be surrounded by your buddies throwing down coldies and watching the Hawks run over people. If we lost back then, we usually started a nasty little brawl in the 3rd period or after the game to make sure the other team remembered us. Pure Chicago.
Today’s team doesn’t get into fights as much as we did back then or in the Bob Probert days…but these guys are FAST !!!! That’s perhaps the most exciting element of this year’s team versus 1992. In the finals that year, we lost to a Pittsburgh team that had dazzling skaters/players like Mario Lemieux and a young Jaromir Jagr. Some of the goals those guys scored were so unbelievable that all you could do was shake your head and come to the realization that Pittsburgh just might be the only team in the league better than us.
Now today’s Blackhawks team has similar players. Our skaters are so fast and so talented that they win without pounding the shit out of the opponent. We do still have some scrappers—-you have to. But Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, Jonathon Toews, and Hossa are a nice group of high-flyers. The ironic thing is that after a down period of their own, the Pittsburgh Penguins are back with the same formula they had in 1992. They are the defending champs and led by elite studs like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Incredible talent over there.
I can see a Blackhawks vs Penguins finals match-up just like in 1992. But this time, our boys will come out on top. We don’t rely on brawn as much as we used to as a franchise. Now we have a lot more skill players. That will be the difference.
I’ve seen a SuperBowl champ (’85 Bears), several NBA Chamionships (da Bulls), and even a deceptive World Series title (2005 WhiteSox).
This is the year that I believe the Blackhawks might deliver the long-awaited Stanley Cup to make my sporting life complete. Even if they don’t do it this year, this team will be really good for the next 6-8 years with the youth that we have.
It’s the best damn team in Chicago.
Yet another institution goes out of business
Dude, I’m tellin ya…………
Despite the Bears comeback victory, Sunday was still a sad day for many in the Chicagoland area.
Yet another decades-old business and a sentimental landmark for many had to shut its doors. Kiddieland, the family-run amusement park for children in the suburb of Melrose Park celebrated its last day this past Sunday.
At least in this case, it was more of a family squabble than the economy per se. Apparently the decendants of the owners have a rather odd inheritance structure wherein one faction owns the land (and subsequently the lease on it), while the other faction owns the business itself. The group that owns the land does not want to re-new the lease for the Kiddieland group. Whether it is a matter of the property owners wanting to sell the land outright and liquidate their holdings……I don’t know. If that was the case, I would think that the Kiddieland owners would make a hardcore effort to purchase the land from (I assume) their own relatives. Perhaps they did pursue that option, but it was just not economically feasible in these times.
Perhaps there is just pure animosity between these two family factions and the property owners simply refuse to sell the land to the business owners.
Whatever the case, the sad part is that another institution of my youth—-and a source of joy and entertainment for tens of thousands of others——is now gone.
The place had been around since 1929. As co-owner Tom Norini put it, “It’s as simple as we lost the lease. Our time is up.”
So now Kiddieland has gone the way of Riverview (Chicago), Old Chicago (Bolingbrook), Santa’s Village (West Dundee), Dispensa’s Kiddie Kingdom (OakBrook Terrace), Playland (Justice), and Adventureland (Addison). Local, less-expensive amusement parks geared toward children have gone the way of the traveling circus. Sure, Six Flags Great America in Gurnee is still open just as Ringling Brothers Circus still makes the rounds.
But as one of the guys in my football-watching circle put it on Sunday, “all that’s left is the gang-controlled Great America. And I’m practically scared to go there”. {Keep in mind, this is a 42 year old man saying this} He got a few laughs from the group out of that one.
There used to be dozens of traveling circus companies who went from city-to-city by train and were a staple of every kid’s childhood. But the advent of vaudeville, baseball games, motion pictures, and other forms of entertainment eroded the audience base. There’s only so many dollars in a family’s entertainment budget. The only circus troupes I can name these days are Ringling Brothers and Cirque de Soleil. And now the same fate has now swallowed up the local, children’s theme parks.
My grandma used to take me, my brother, and our two cousins out to all of these former amusement parks (except Riverview, of course). I remember riding the Mighty Mouse and the Chicago Loop roller coasters. Another buddy at the football gathering started singing the Kiddie Kingdom song from memory….
“Every ride a quarterrrr….six for a dollar!”
So it seems that another fond memory from my generation’s youth is now history. These days, I felt most of my nostalgic remorse when one of my favorite bars shut down. And there has been a lot of those closures in the last 5-10 years. But this particular venue shutting down—even for apparent reasons other than the economy—–tugged at the heart strings a little bit.
All is not lost though if you have a few bucks. The owner, Tom Norini, said that all of the rides and equipment are for sale. This includes a vintage carousel dating back to 1925. He said he hopes to sell all of it to a single owner who will continue to use it.
It’s just too bad that Michael Jackson checked out recently. He could have mad some inexpensive additions to Neverland. Even though he allegedly didn’t like to be around the property as much after the allegations that took place there. But maybe some local outfit will buy the stuff and open up a new place. If Kiddieland is only closing because of what Norini said was basically “a lost lease” on the land, then they must have been turning an acceptable profit to have kept going. And there certainly isn’t a lot of competition out there anymore for kids-oriented amusement parks. Someone should look into it……….
Maybe the Latin Kings, the Gangster Disciples, the El Rukns (are they still even around?), or one of the other decision-makers at Great America can explore diversifying their empire. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?