Qatar to Host 2022 World Cup

If thats not the face of pure evil then I dont know what is.  Literally 30 seconds after his country was announced hosts of the 2022 World Cup this guy began devising his evil genius plan.  I have no idea what they have in store for the rest of the world, but judging by that sleaze ball grin its going to make the whole vuvuzella crisis of this past summer feel like a dream.

PS: What did this guy have on the FIFA organization? Look at that FIFA reps face.  Can't even believe he had to hand over the trophy to this slime ball.  I'm seriously afraid for 2022.

Enough with the Bell Ringing

Damnit, I tried real hard this year, but we're only one week past Thanksgiving and I'm already ready to rip that goddamn bell out of the next persons hand and shove it up their ass.  Before I get too far, understand that I know what you're doing is for a good cause, but that doesn't mean you're not annoying the shit out of me.  

Starts innocently enough, outside a mall, maybe a department store, couple days later they're posted up right in front of every supermarket, and then finally outside busy subway stations.  I literally can't leave the house with out $.50 in change in my pocket in fear feeling guilty the rest of my day if I don't have anything to drop in the bucket.  Except there are so many of these guys this year that I'm carrying around about $1.75 in nickels and dimes just to try and keep up. 

And is it just me or are the bell ringers getting a bit aggressive this year?  Hey asshole, you don't have to ring the bell louder as people approach, we're not frigen sensory deprived, I can hear you, and believe it or not I can see you in that bright red smock.  If I have some change you'll get it.  

And then there are the truly greedy SOB's of the bell ringing community.  The ones that hit you going in and coming out.  Just as unethical as it gets.  Everyone who's ever solicited outside a store knows you pick either the entering customers or the exiting customers to pitch too and that's it.  Fourth grade kids selling candy bars have a tighter game than these people.  If one person this season tries to hit me up on the way out after they already whacked me on the way in I'm going to demand a refund.  I'm all for charitable giving but the Salvation Army may want to screen their ringers for douches and pricks before they let any old person grab a bell and smock.  

PS: Does anyone know if they tally how much individuals collect at the end of the day?  That would be a fun bet, get a few people to go ringing, person who collects the most wins, the rest of the players owe him in sum the same amount that he collected for the day (and yes I realize that it may be a problem if I have to equate gambling into charitable giving to get me off the couch).  I'm pretty sure I'd set some kind of Salvation Army single day record, just turn on that boyish charm and dress slightly hobo-ish.  Pure gold.

Guy Almost Dies Falling Down Empty Bleachers

You'd think the band would cut and the Spirit Finger Gals would break to recoil in horror or even, and I know this may be crazy, go see if the guy needs help.  But no, they kept right on playing, and the dancers carried on.

Didn't matter to them that the stands were empty and, in all likelihood, even if people were there no one would care about them, probably too busy taking a piss break or waiting in line for beer.  Just a bunch of professionals, rocking their shit and carrying on as if this were the big time.  And I respect the hell out of them for that.  Can't be distracted by a guy plummeting to his likely death, how many people are maimed and injured during a normal sporting event? At least 10 right?  You've got to prepare like you've already made it. 

Just like the Alt-Tab.  Sure we only get like 75 hits a day on a good day, like 4 comments a week, and 1 reader e-mail in the history of reader e-mails.  But none of that shit is distracting me.  I'm just going to keep going about my business, cursing the bastards among you under my breath that lame me without having the courtesy to make fun of me in the comments section, and blog my ass of a couple hours a day while I'm not at my real job (as well as a couple hours while I'm at my real job). 

New Gimmick: Tweet Teasing

Have you ever decided to follow someone on Twitter, assuming that they'd be a good source of interesting, if not useful information, only to find out that they tweet the most nonsensical/un-important observations possible (its a hypothetical question, it obviously applies to 90% of Twitters members)?  Starting this week I'm going to address this problem.  Occasionally I'm going to pick a Tweeter that I've chose to follow (you can follow me, @TheAltTab, or by clicking the link in the sidebar) who for whatever reason either isn't living up to expectations, or is annoying the piss out of me with a steady stream of useless tweets.

This weeks target? SI's Seth Davis, who just last night shared with his followers these gems:

"Now Fraschilla is on the laptop, fresh off the Ohio State game. How did he get back to Bristol so fast?"

"Doug Gottlieb is on my laptop for halftime seg on UTEP-NMex St, and he's doing color on Gtown-Mizzou on my TV. The man is everywhere."

"Kemba Walker had 30 again tonight in UConn's win over New Hampshire. Right on his average."

"Illinois is really hard to watch sometimes. Lots of talent, but not enough mud in their blood. Stop settling for jump shots and DRIVE."

And several other occasions where he is just commenting on time and score like a radio play-by-play announcer.

Seth- The reason people follow you is for your perceived inside information, not casual insights that anyone watching these games on their couch can deliver.  Follow me this week as I reply to Seth's posts in a sarcastic and taunting manner, at least until he blocks me. 

FBI Targeting Spam King

No, sadly not that spam...

NOVEMBER 30--An FBI investigation has identified the young Russian man behind the notorious “Mega-D” botnet, the malicious network of more than 500,000 infected computers that was capable of sending ten billion spam e-mails a day and, until late last year, reportedly accounted for nearly a third of the spam clogging the Internet, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Why are we wasting our time with this? If anything Mega-D (sick name by the way) should be recognized for his accomplishments.  1/3 of all the Spam on the internet? That's one of the more impressive stats I've heard in a while.  

But really what is the harm in spam? At this point the only people falling for these things are willingly getting involved or are so dumb they're beyond help.  I mean have you checked your spam folder lately?  These things are hilarious, porn and male enhancer offers, discounted luxury items, tales of foreign royalty in need of your help, a ridiculous amount of foreign bride offers, and apparently, I've won approximately 12 different lotteries in Europe and the UK within the last month.  Each either containing infinite grammatical and spelling errors, or impossible promises of riches from absolute strangers (not to mention there would seem to be a very large amount of millionaire heirs in some of these African countries which are supposedly impoverished).  

How are these anymore dangerous than actual junk mail and credit card offers that come through regular mail?  I'm going to say on average I receive 7 credit card offers a week, despite the on-going debt crisis and credit reform.  In addition, who hasn't received these ludicrous pyramid scheme letters, if I send $1 out to twelve different people and then tell 10 myself I'll somehow make $130k this year.  People are far more likely to fall for that than spam which is largely filtered (unless it actually works? Does it actually work? excuse me, I'm going to go get 12 stamps).

Tom Brady, Ugg Endorsement

God damnit Tom, couldn't you just be cool?  Yea you're an MVP, super bowl winning qb, with a super model wife, but shit, you're queer as hell these days.

Is it wrong of me to say that? I've held back for quite some time now, the Stetson modeling, all the GQ appearances, that dicked up photo shoot he did with sheep or goat thing, this whole Justin Bieber hair thing, Giselle just shitting all over your manhood whenever I open the Boston Herald.  Most of that I could laugh off and pretend it was his James Bond-ish suave side. But I have to draw the line somewhere and lash out and this is it.  The only men (hardly) I've seen wearing uggs were eating brunch together at a cafe during my time in the North End.

Sure he's still at the top of his game and I still believe he's the guy you want with 2 minutes remaining in a game.  At the same time is it so wrong for me to want to root for a QB who's comfortable in his wranglers (and apparently too comfortable in his Crocs), or wears the pants in his relationships (and puts his women in their place once in a while), or has bad ass pets more fitting of a QB (and punishes them when they disappoint him, instead of coddling)?  

I guess as long as the Pats continue on their quest for Title No. 4 this Monday against the Jets I'll settle for rooting for our Goody Two Uggs QB, even if he's a little lighter in those loafers than I care to think about.  But could you at least pick up a taunting flag or something? 

Tired of Holiday Car Commercials

So tired of these "Buy your spouse or significant other a luxury vehicle this holiday season" commercials.  Every frigen year, how do these ridiculous gift wrapped cars manage to live on each Christmas, yet a classic like the Salad Shooter hasn't been seen in years? Its just not right, because I can guarantee more Salad Shooters get sold during the Thanksgiving-Christmas shopping marathon than cars as Christmas presents, that's just unrealistic.  Give us a break will ya? Guys have a hard enough time measuring up to the expectations of woman without advertising execs promising them a $60,000 car, damn.  

PS: What is funny though, is companies like Hyundai getting in on the Christmas spirit.  Could there be a worse gift?  Your wife walks out blindfolded to find a compact economy car for Christmas, and looks next door to see Mrs. Jones' ribbon wrapped BMW?   The ink on the divorce papers would be dry by New Years Eve, because the odds are the only schmucks buying their women cars for Christmas are doing it as a last ditch effort to save the marriage, or because they're dating a gold digger wayyy younger than they are, either way a Hyundai aint cutting it..  Here's a hint Hyundai, if I'm going to do something ridiculous like sign up for a 5 year payment plan for a Christmas gift, I'm not springing for the practical car with good gas mileage.

Password Day At Work

Password day, the antithesis of pay day at work.  Just a miserable day of trying to synchronize all 83 or so of your log-on's you've accumulated on one single day per month (or in my case every 45 days, which makes no sense).  Perils abound at every turn.  

What if you forgot to change one of your passwords the previous month? That access is probably now locked, big decision to make there.  Do you call the help desk (India) and wait an hour to have your account unlocked? Or do you decide to go on with out it, you obviously didn't need it for the last month, maybe you won't this month either?

Then there is always that one access point that changed their security parameters on you to something ridiculous like "need two upper case, one lower case, three symbols, and a six digit number."  This always throws me off, especially when this happens after you've already changed a couple of passwords.  Now I've got to go back and change all of those again to match this phrase that I have no chance of remembering and will undoubtedly tack onto my cube wall, thus defeating the purpose.

Password day also leads to more lockouts than any other day.  Once I change my desktop's password for the day I'm guaranteed to lock myself out a minimum 2.6 times.  No one remembers on the first day.  I'll sit there punching in my old password a couple times then it'll dawn on me that I changed it, except I had to change it to some overly complicated Morse code like sequence and I miss type it on the third frigen time.  

Now I'm stuck calling India again, answering things like "what street did I grow up on" and "who was your childhood best friend."  Who came up with these standard security questions a pedophile?  Why not "do you like candy little boy?" or "do you want a ride in my windowless van"?  Before you know it I've wasted an entire day on the phone with Mumbai and haven't gotten to type one blog, never mind do my real work.  Exhausting. 

Color Terror Alerts Going Away?

WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department is proposing to discontinue the color-coded terror alert system that became a symbol of the country's post-9/11 jitters and the butt of late-night talk show jokes. The 8-year-old system, with its rainbow of five colors -- from green, signifying a low threat, to red, meaning severe -- became a fixture in airports, government buildings and on newscasts.

Finally. We've been stuck at yellow for like a decade, yet every time I step in an airport they sound an alert letting us know the status and to be on the look out.  And every time there is that one jittery flier who starts freaking out in the terminal because they don't realize we've been living at threat level yellow basically since September 12th.  Causes more havoc and concern than anything.  

How about a new system, no colors, because really, unless you're trying to appeal to kindergarten teachers and their pupils there was never a need to color code this thing, just tell us the level and we're good.  And we can skip the basement level "low threat." I'm pretty sure we won't be needing that any time soon, with two wars on going and one about to break out.  Just three levels, A) Be on alert, B) Shit might be going down, C)GTFUG (Get The Fuck Underground).  Simple, to the point, no one will ever be confused.  Just another case of The Alt-Tab solving our countries problems.