We don’t give a damn for the Whole State of Michigan
Okay, so maybe its immoral…maybe karma will bite you in the ass for it later…but sometimes, I firmly believe it is okay to take pleasure in the misfortune of others. In fact, I think you have to love seeing the current state of Michigan Wolverine football. To not be excited to see Lloyd Carr on the verge of unemployment, a four-year starting QB benched, and 100,000+ in maize and blue with their hat in their hands…well, that just ain’t Christian.
Losing to Oregon 39-7 in Ann Arbor would be bad any year. It’s a million times worse having lose 34-32 to App State the week before. I’ll admit, I was so bandwagon about the whole deal I made a couple of phone calls trying to get my own Mountaineer gear this week. Strangely enough, unless you are a student, parent or alumni…the team shop down there refuses to sell to you. What a terrible business decision. If there is one thing we do in Columbus, its spend way too much time and money hating Michigan. How often does a University have the chance to fund their athletic department for the next decade based on a weeks worth of T Shirt sales? Smart money says…never.
But certainly, the last 8 days are a period I will not soon forget. Even if Michigan runs the table from this point on…they’ll still be the team who lost to a 1-AA joke. That’s something that Buckeye fans can hold on to forever…because no matter how bad Troy Smith looks in a National Championship game, no matter how many times Beanie fumbles…we were never that bad.
I’d like to close by sharing one of the great “Real Men of Genius” commercials I’ve ever come across…
“Bud Light presents Real Men of Genius” (Reaaaaal Men Of Genius) Today we salute you, Mr. Delusional Michigan Fan (Mr. Delusional Michigan Faaaaaan!) Season after season, year after year, you try to justify your absurdly high preseason ranking (clutching at straws!) Season after season, year after year, you scramble to make futile attempts at damage control when the Wolverines lose to a grossly inferior opponent (How’d Northwestern score fifty fouuuuuur?) Inevitably, you’ll bring up the past, and boast of National Championships won 40 years before you were born (those were the daaaaaays!) You will point out that you have more wins than any other program as though that is relevant to the current season (been playing since the 1870s!) Go on, ignore that home loss to your arch rivals in the regular season finale and continue to believe that you’ll defeat your bowl opponent with striking ease (we’ll win by thirteeeeeeey!) So crack open an ice cold Bud Light, oh Emperor of Excuses, and take comfort knowing that when you don’t finish in the top 25, you’ll be back to number three when the preseason polls come out next year (Mr.Delusional Michigan Fan!)”
Fuck a wolverine.
Dedication
It’s a rare thing, that which can take a group of 24 men, each of whom know about half of the others somewhere along the way and completely new to the other half, put them together to play a game most of them have never played before, and have them dedicate themselves for the better part of a decade to its success. It’s rare, but it can happen. That thing…is the Ted Williams Memorial League. Simulation baseball.I will go on the record of saying…I’m not nearly as much of a nerd as this is going to sound like. But honestly…there are not many ways to make it sound cool, at least at first glance. No one has ever signed a huge contract, landed a big endorsement deal, or even gotten laid by a drunk chick for winning at sim baseball. Still, a little over five years ago, this guy I know Adam Darowski decided to start this thing called the TWML. I won’t bore you any more with the details about the league…if you know me, chances are I’ve tried to explain it to you several times over. I’ll just say if you want to see the league Click Here and if you want more information on what sim baseball is (Think of playing XBox/PS2 Career Mode…only with 23 other people and for a couple of “decades”) Click Here
I tell you all this because of an interesting experience I had at work today. I began my lunch by posting “White Trash Babies, State Employees, and the Letter ‘S’.” I got back a little early, so I decide to use the end of my lunch to check my sim baseball league at:
To my surprise, it was blocked. I called a techy I know, since the web site has always worked. He said if it got added to the blocked list and no one complained about it because it was offensive, it was blocked because of the total usage on the server. They don’t typically monitor individual computer usage. When I told him the nature of the site and that I was probably the only of the 66,000 or so people who access the work off the various servers, his only response was, “Wow…so you really got it blocked all by yourself, huh?” Frankly, I think it is friggin impressive. An obscure site like http://www.darowski.com is up there on a list with espn.com, cnnsi.com, and rotten.com. Even MSNBC Sports is not blocked.
I’m proud.
Peace out.
White Trash Babies, State Employees and the Letter “S”
I like to think of myself as a fairly easy going guy. It takes a lot to get my feathers good and ruffled. Shaken, maybe…plucked, perhaps…but not ruffled. With that being said, something in the air today made me notice how many little things people do from day to day that just absolutely drive me nuts. Call them quirks, call them pet peeves, call them Sally for all I care…but I think we’ve all got them. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t really a “me” problem, or if the problem should actually be owned by those who do the annoying things. After a lot of soul searching, a hard look in the mirror, and some deep thought…I’m completely convinced, it’s all them crazy fuckers. Don’t try pinning your inadequacies on me.
Here’s a good example. As many of you reading may know, I work for a Credit Union that services state employees. I’m not a scientist, but I’m pretty sure that State Employees could be classified as their own specific bread of people. I fully believe some jobs require you to only have 60% of the average person’s common sense to get a job for the state. Not surprisingly, this leads to some free on-the-job entertainment most days. Today, I answered a phone call for a woman who very promptly gave me her name, her birthday, and account number. As I’m typing this in, I start to reply, “What can I help you win today, ma’am?” Yeah…I got about three words in, and she had already cut me off to say, “Excuse me, there is a password on my account and you did NOT ask for it like you are supposed to.” First off…its times like this I really wish I had a chorus of ghetto teenagers recorded at my desk, so all I’d have to do is push a button and have “Oh no she didn’t” piped into the phone call. Second, I’m still typing. Give a guy a minute. Lastly, if your question does not relate to your account, I’m not going to ask you for your password. Why waste your time, and mine, asking you for an account password when your question is going to be about what time we open in the morning? This brings me to, “Things that Annoy Kearns #1”…People who have never done my job telling me how to do my job. Let’s be honest…most state employees only do their own jobs for about 2 hours a day anyway…who the hell made them God of mine? You trust your plumber to do your plumbing…you trust your landscaper to cut your grass…trust your Kearns to protect your money. I get paid very well to be very good at my job. I’m on it. I promise.
And just to get it out of my system…one more work story. “Things That Annoy Kearns #2”…unnecessary S’s on the end of words. Am I the only one who wants to punch people who constantly pluralize words which do not need pluralized? I was talking to a woman today about a transaction from her account from K-Mart. NEVER, EVER dispute a transaction at your financial institution from a place like K-Mart. In fact, don’t do anything to call attention to the fact that you have ever shopped, been inside, or even know the location of a K-Mart. All it does is confirm what I was probably already thinking…that you’re at least 80% white trash. It’s like calling in to say, “Those charges from that transvestite website…yeah, they charged me twice” and expecting me to still think your normal. But I digress…the woman said at least nine separate times “K-Marts.” Lady, there’s no frigging S on the end. It’s one store. So now not only are you dirty, you can’t speak properly. You are all reading my blog here, so you know I’m no grammatical genius…but at least when I talk I don’t sound like a devolved retard.
What makes it sad is…she had about four kids with her. You know none of those kids have a chance with a white trash mother who can’t speak properly. So there she is, having ruined at least five lives completely, all for some crooked little letter. And I bet she says things like “warsh” and “ya’ll” and doesn’t even mean them in a funny way. Mother of the year right there.
I didn’t mean to get into it here, but I guess I’ve sorta gotten off on “Things that Annoy Kearns # 3”…white trash who still think its ok to breed. I’m sorry but you should have to take a fucking test in this country to have a kid. You have to take a test to drive, carry a handgun, and even friggin swim in the deep end…but you don’t have to take a test to create life? We trust anyone with that responsibility. Yeah, obviously that’s gotten us far as a society. It’s time we started looking at White Trash people in this country as what they are…and epidemic. Take away their right to reproduce…and the problem is gone in one generation. I still don’t know why the fuck that’d have to be MY generation, but whatever…I’ll try anything twice. And, I have a dream. I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will have to judge others NOT by the dirt on their face or the cut of their mullet, but by how good looking they are and what they can suck out of the relationship.
But what do I know? I just work here.
That’s all, folks.
Did I say that?
So I’m checking out the ESPN.com corrections page…mostly because, well, I didn’t realize they had a corrections page. Currently, its link is sandwiched towards the bottom of the front page in 10 point type between a Le Anne Schreiber blog link (Yeah, I don’t know who she is either. I also don’t know who decided women should be talking about sports anyway. Wasn’t the right to vote and wear pants suits enough? I kid, I kid. But Seriously.) and sponsored links currently directing me to both a low interest credit card and a poker website to max it out on.This experience left me thinking about two key things. First off, I am absolutely enamored with the idea. Correcting everything in life should be this easy. Have one of those “not so sober” nights? No problem…the next day, you could simply say, “Last night, I drank too much. I did not intend to say what I said, do what I did, or leave with who I left with. Also, that cash I dropped, we’re going to have to take that back.” and then have all of your problems just disappear. Man, that’d be dope.
But I digress…the thing that really got me was four spots down on the correction page. I’ll go ahead and copy the correction listed here for you to enjoy/pity as appropriate. For legal purposes, I am referencing this from the following:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/corrections
Joe Morgan’s major league debutJuly 19, 2007 12:54 PM
During the eighth inning of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball game between the Cardinals and Phillies on July 15, commentator Joe Morgan said he was called up by Houston in 1964, had his first hit in his first major-league at-bat against Philadelphia and that it caused the Phillies to lose one of their 10 straight down the stretch, helping ruin their chances for the pennant. In fact, Morgan was called up in 1963. His first hit was a walk-off against Philadelphia, but it was his second big league at-bat.
Editor’s note: In an earlier version of this correction, it was incorrectly reported that the game in which the on-air mistake occurred was the Braves-Phillies contest.
Now, I know Joe’s old…I know this…but didn’t you really think Jon Miller would be the one to go senile first? Granted, Ole Joe is not quite “pushing a shopping cart naked up Dan Patrick’s Driveway” crazy yet, but this is disturbing. It’s not like he thought he got a hit to left and he actually got a hit to right…my dude got the game, year, and situation wrong for his first major league at bat. First one. Ever. You only get one of those. I recently saw Tim Robbins commentating on the Intelligence Officers who all kept their jobs after falsely reporting data about WMD’s in Iraq and Saddam’s links to Bin Laden. He said, “Shouldn’t there be a rule where if you fuck something up that badly, you don’t get to be considered an expert anymore?” And they even had to correct the correction. Couldn’t make that up.
What makes it even funnier is…it’s fucking Joe Morgan. There is no commentator ever who loves to talk about his playing days more than Joe Morgan. I swear the man can somehow find a way to make Paul Lo Duca’s shoelaces relate to a play Pete Rose made in 1976. I wonder if his memory has always sucked, and he really is just the greatest bullshitter ever. Somebody should get the dude from Around the Horn fact checking his shit full time.
This was posted a few weeks ago, and I can tell you Joe hasn’t stopped with the flashbacks. I guess you can lead a horse to water…but you can’t make him realize he’s an old, repetitive idiot who shouldn’t have to be heard by people. My favorite Sunday Night Baseball drinking game involves taking a shot every time he reminisces. Try it out…you’ll be trashed by the third inning. And the next day…perfect opportunity to set up your own correction page. Gotta love how that comes full circle. You’d think I was actually planning this shit out or something.
You kids have fun.
The Crux of the Situation
Isn’t it kind of funny that people always feel the need to make their first blog post an explanation of the purpose of the blog itself? I mean aren’t all blogs really out there to serve the same purpose…to allow nameless, faceless, and as oft is the case ball-less people express their opinion on politics, sports, religion, life and God knows what else? Now, one would think that once someone realizes such a cliched and mundane pattern, he or she would opt to not fall into line. Nope, not me. Not this fucking guy.
To be completely honest, my motivation behind doing this is at the moment pretty much just to leave my friends fewer random voicemails. This isn’t because I feel any less inclined to burden them with my ramblings, however. Really I’m just trying to use fewer words. I figure why waste my valuable time talking to several people, when I can just cover all my bases with one broad stroke. See, look at me…all about the productivity.
In short, there really is no telling what I’ll find to write about from one blog to the next. Like now for example, I just sorta sat down and started typing and this is the piece we’re left with. Sometimes I’m sure I’ll end up sharing funny stories, which for some reason seem to happen upon me more than most. Sometimes I’ll let out whatever random thought is eating away at me at a given moment. If you’re lucky, I’ll occasionally find time to solve all the worlds problems. And if you’re asking yourself, “why hasn’t the world called to ask your opinion on all it’s problems, Kearns?”…all I can say is, I’ve been wondering the same fucking thing all day. Glad you brought it up. Really kills any awkward overtones. Stay Tuned.
