Not Everyone Should Have a Blog

Here is Shaquille O'neal's reaction to Manny Ramirez' suspension for testing positive to PED's, which he posted on his Twitter account yesterday:

"Dam manny ramirez, come on man Agggggggggh, agggggggh,agggggh." [sic, obviously]

Wow. You know, I certainly appreciate the man's candor and his attempt to put his frustrations down in what is an obviously difficult medium in which to convey emotion, but...did he really have to type, "Agggggggggh" three times?

Stick to being 7'-million and being in commercials with Ben Stine. Leave the blooging to su pofessunals.

Commenta non Grata

So I learned yesterday that I had the ol' settin's on my settin's page set to have it that only registered users could post comments on my ol' blog-o-spherical page. Well, it has never been my intention to stifle creativity or constructive criticism - every one knows I take criticism extremely well - so rest easy tonight with the knowledge that as of 8:18 this morning anyone can post anything in the comments section.

Seriously, it's not even moderated. For now. Until you start criticizing me too much.

Enjoy.

An Update

Hi, all. So I've heard recently that there are actually people who read this thing, so I figure I'd give everyone an update on the goings-on in my interesting little existence. A State-of-the-Blog, if you will.

- I recently went against my self-imposed edict and bought a nice, new cell phone. I always told myself that I would only buy the cheapest, most utilitarian phones possible, because no one ever calls me, and I don't want to worry about losing something that cost me a pretty penny. Well, I threw all that out of the window and bought a brand f-ing new LG Incite. Its a touchscreen phone - kinda their version of the iPhone. I've since spent the last two weeks trying my hardest to modify it to look and act like an iPhone. Why didn't you just buy an iPhone, you ask? Well, shut up.

Seriously, though. It bugs the hell out of me that no other company on this planet apparently has half of the brains and ingenuity of Apple. I want to believe that other companies can make a comparable product to the iPod and iPhone, but every time I act on that assumption, it comes back to bite me in the ass. My LG phone's screen is touch sensitive, but not reliable or consistent. It's not pretty, at least until I put some skins on it to make it pretty like an iPhone. Its slow. It has actually frozen up on me. I have to fuck around with the settings at least once a day. Now, remember, I love to do these things, but goddman no wonder Apple is selling iPhones like they are liquid sex, you fucking idiots. Your products are pieces of trash!!! All they have to do to beat you is to make a phone that doesn't lock up and actually respond in a coherent way to what people want it to do!!!

Okay, sorry for the rant. Back to work.

- I'm finishing up my very first "solo" album. It will have six songs on it that have all been recorded by my friends and me. I'm fairly proud of it, and I'm happy about the fact that I created a project for myself to work on out of thin air and have followed through on it. Good for me. Gold star.

- The Orioles are 4-1. They beat the defending AL champion Rays last night 6-0. Awesome.

- I went to my friend's bachelor party last night at a strip club downtown. While I did enjoy seeing the naked ladies, I just couldn't get into it the same way I used to when I was 18 and we would drive down to West Virginia and drink beers in the back of our cars in the parking lot and then try to wash off the X's on our hands and get caught trying to buy drinks at the bar. It just seemed to be a pretty big waste of money and time. Hmm. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, however, so it might just be me. I'm pretty sure it's just me.

- My girlfriend and I just got ourselves new helmets for the upcoming scooter season, so look forward to actual blog posts about scootering, which is, after all, what this whole blog was supposed to be about when I started it a year ago. Now, you all just listen to me bitch about iPhones. Shame on you for letting me stray so far from my vision!

Now to bring it all home, a picture of a duck with George Bush's head on it:























Shame on you all.

And on and on and on

So here we are, a full six days after my last blog post wherein I stated my jubilation that the red sox were out of the bidding for Mark Teixiera. Turns out, they aren't. Turns out, they are still the favorites. That is, if you are willing to believe Buster Olney.

I used to like Buster Olney's writing - a bit dry, but he seemed to have a pretty good grip on things. Plus, he spent two years as a beat writer following the Orioles. But the last two weeks have really made me reconsider my opinion on him; and to be frank, most reporters for the major news outlets.

It has been a kind of perfect storm around here for the last two weeks - things have been slow at work, I am enthralled by the whole Teixiera pursuit, and rumors are flying around everywhere. I have an add-on to my Firefox browser that allows me to see every update to MLB Trade Rumors as it is posted. I am following every link. I am reading every forum. For the first time, I'm putting the pieces together.

And what I've found is that none of these reporters know dick.

And yet, they will all take the same half-second blurb or soundbite or e-mail snippet and spin it in the direction that their sports editor wants them to spin it, and while they're at it, add a paragraph or two that expounds on this statement based on...well, based on horseshit, basically.

The Olney column that I linked to above is a perfect example of this. The Orioles have not made one single statement about their offer to Tex since the beginning of last week, when MacPhail said that their offer was "flexible". That's it. No leaks, no rumors, no statements, nothing. And yet, Bad-boy Buster has been making the absolute clear statement that the Orioles are completely out of the bidding. Based on what, exactly? Similarly, he has been repeating and repeating that the red sox are the 'clear' front-runners. Again, based on what, Buster? If you have inside knowledge that no one else is privy to, I'm sure that your ass would be putting in bold print at the top of your page, "according to an inside source...". But you really haven't made a statement like that.

You're going off of the same bullshit, third-hand, expired information that everyone on the Intro-net has been hashing and re-hashing for the last week. The only difference is that you work for ESPN and you have the balls to report your gut feelings and opinions as fact.

This would typically be the kind of thing to really disappoint me, but I feel as though I'm not alone in feeling this way. Baseball and sports fans in general now have access to exponentially more information than was ever available in the past, and I don't think I'm alone in coming to the realization that some of these reporters are bullshit artists of the highest order.

So anyway, don't take these reporters at their word just because they work for a big newspaper or magazine or gigantoid sports media outlet. They can be just as lazy and full of bullshit opinions as the rest of us - its just now that we can call them out on it.

A Meta-Blog

I've been doing this blog thing for about two months now...I know I don't write every day, but I've been pretty consistent and I think I'm getting better at working within the confines of the blog medium. I tend to get pretty positive comments from the 4 or 5 people who have checked out my site so far, and I happen to be of the opinion that perhaps many more people might have good things to say about my blog.

However, the only way that I can spread the word about my blog is to advertise. I've been doing some guerrilla marketing the last month or so...I have a link to the site at the bottom of all of my personal e-mails, and I try to mention it to people who might give a shit, etc. But if I really try to market it or push it on people I don't know, doesn't that shift my motivation for having this blog? I started it just to do it, write about my awesome scooter, and give myself an excuse to write. I told myself I didn't care if no one reads it.

Except, I do.

I want people to come to my blog from all over the internet and post comments and have me post back and start flame wars and have people accuse me of not knowing what the hell I'm talking about and parlay all of this buzz into a regular paid column at ESPN. Is that too much to ask?

So, who knows? In another month or so, all of my loyal fans may be forsaken for the great unwashed rabble of the general internet population. Such is the way of a crappy personal blog about anything I feel like. Time marches on. Or not. Probably not.

/wantonly self-promotes through other peoples' blogs