Pretty Sure Someone Found a Way To Dig the MBTA Out of Debt

Simple and to the point. I know the MBTA launched their own store at some point last year, selling subway memorabilia and ludicrously overpriced, subway branded jeans, but I really feel they're missing their market here. 

I mean, they pay attention to #MBTA tweets, right? They see that most of their customers are A) Perturbed if not outright angry, and B) Love ironic humor, right? That's what makes this shirt gold, they should be kicking themselves that they didn't come up with this first. 

They completely missed their target demographic, these shirts are going to sell like hotcakes*. And spare me the idea that you can't sell something making fun of your service, you guys are facing a massive debt, and again, you're attempting to sell subway branded designer jeans for $159 a-pop, you should be open to anything and everything, including self-depreciating humor. You may have found a nice niche market buying vintage subway signs and train models, but this here shirt has mass appeal, that's what you gotta be going for in a time like this. 

*This is an interesting saying as I have no idea what a hotcake is, nor have I ever seen a hoard of people lining up to buy one. What gives here?

Deion Sanders Assaulted By Ex-Wife, Followed By Hilarious Real Time Tweets

Quality Family Time in the Sanders' Household

Yahoo - Deion Sanders' contentious divorce took another ugly turn on Monday, when the Pro Football Hall of Famer posted a photograph of him and his two sons filling out a police report against their mother, Pilar Sanders. He captioned the photograph with the message, "filling out police reports now! Thank God for this platform to issue the Truth." Last month, Pilar Sanders filed a $200 million defamation lawsuit against her husband. She was responding to a tweet from Deion's daughter, Deiondra, which said Pilar was a "gold-digging [expletive]." Deion later explained that the statement couldn't be defamation because it's true.

This whole thing was hilarious to follow yesterday afternoon. Apparently the whole thing stems from Deions daughter slamming his ex-wife (presumably not the children's mother? I don't know I can't figure that part out) for being a gold digging hoe (her words, not mine). Apparently, the wife took offense to this, as one would, and decided to sue Deion for a perfectly reasonable sum of $200 million (insert pinky in mouth Dr. Evil style). Because that seems like a fair amount for libel, it did after all unfairly defame her character, she went from someone I'd never heard of before to... well, someone I still haven't really heard of, but I hear she's a gold digger, and I'll probably forget about her next week. 

But here's where it gets good...instead of coming out and apologizing, or saying he can't control what his daughter tweets, or just dismissing a $200 million lawsuit as a joke, or even just saying "No Comment," Deion comes out and says:

 Any statements made by any defendants were true, did not create a false impression...Deion also claims the "h*e" insult didn't actually hurt Pilar's reputation -- especially not to the tune of $200 million.

Hilarious. Not only is he not backing down, not only is he confirming it is true, that his ex-wife is a gold digging hoe, but he's also claiming that being known as a hoe doesn't even hurt her reputation. That's gold, you can't ask for a better response. Do you know how low a person's standing and reputation has to be that being publicly branded a "hoe" doesn't even move the needle as to how they're perceived?  Who the hell did Deion marry? Some local hooker in an attempt to have a real life black version of Pretty Woman? 

Also, for the record, I'm on Deion's side here...the fact that she's asking for $200 mm for an innocuous tweet that largely would have been ignored if she hadn't make a lawsuit out of it to begin with, kinda proves that she is in fact, a gold digging hoe. Pretty sure that's all the evidence a judge will need. 

Saints Wire Tapping: At Least Someone At ESPN Gets It (And it's not Schlereth)

ESPN - Wait: The allegations against Mickey Loomis make no sense? How on earth is that? How is the notion of no value that Loomis, the GM of the New Orleans Saints, had electronic access to the real-time, in-game conversations of rival coaching staffs? Ask the NFL why it has rules to prevent that kind of stuff in the first place. It is because such access would be of incredible value. How is it that so many rush forward so quickly to explain that Loomis wouldn't understand the lexicon of coaching well enough to help the Saints gain an edge in a game? The Saints play their divisional opponents twice a season, every season. Every scrap of information is critical. The edge is so obvious, you'd have to be willfully ignorant not to see it. Of course the Saints would benefit from such a system. Of course it's against the rules...As to what Loomis could or could not decipher from among another team's complex set of play calls and jargon, it's almost entirely irrelevant. It pales next to the idea that if you can eavesdrop on something, you can record it. If you can record it, you can review it. You can decode the jargon. You can store information for the games to come.
 

Holy shit, someone at ESPN gets it! HALLELUJAH! Look, ESPN should be embarrassed, nay, that's not strong enough, EMBARRASSED for Schlereth and Polians initial stance on this matter (in fact, I'm pretty sure they are, since I couldn't find that clip anywhere on their site after it was front page yesterday).

 How is it that so many rush forward so quickly to explain that Loomis wouldn't understand the lexicon of coaching well enough to help the Saints gain an edge in a game?

My thoughts exactly, Mark Kreidler

Polian, firstly, is the last person who should be giving unbiased opinions on anything related to front office issues...the guy is like 4 months removed from his own front office job. To say he might be partial towards certain teams and individuals is an understatement. And Schlereth? To directly compare this to stealing hand signals (so talking about the Patriots and Spygate, without actually talking about the Patriots and spygate), and say this is less of an offense, is the SINGLE MOST LAUGHABLE EVENT ON TELEVISED ESPN HISTORY. 

Yes Schlereth, that minimum wage intern recording hand signals from the stands went back during the 20 minute halftime, decoded them, and brought his dossier of intel to the coaching staff...That's more likely than a guy listening in on opposing coaches mic's while sitting right next to the coaching staff in their booth, gaining an advantage? Or, I don't know, recording those conversations and using them in the future? This right here, sums it up:

Of course the Saints would benefit from such a system. Of course it's against the rules...As to what Loomis could or could not decipher from among another team's complex set of play calls and jargon, it's almost entirely irrelevant. It pales next to the idea that if you can eavesdrop on something, you can record it. If you can record it, you can review it. You can decode the jargon. You can store information for the games to come.

What it all boils down to is this: Patriots: Bad, Saints: Holy Saviors. That's the way it's been since Katrina. And before I sound too callous, I get that they earned a bit of goodwill, but not this much, and they certainly used up whatever was left of it during their Bounty Scandal. It's despicable to think they have any defenders at this point.

Sports media watching types are going to have a field day in the coming weeks trying to keep track of all the people who ripped the Patriots for spygate, and seeing how they react to the Saints own, technologically advanced method. And the same goes for Goodell and the front office. If this is confirmed through reliable sources he has to act. It doesn't matter that you just imposed some pretty hefty sanctions not even a month ago for their previous scandal. You have to act. More fines, more lost draft choices, and maybe, longer suspensions (for Loomis in this case).

All Us White People Look-A-Like

I'll plead the 5th on this one, I stared at this thing for an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out who it was. I mean, if it's not Radcliffe or Elijah Wood, who is it? Not even kidding, about 5 minutes later I figured out what was going on.

For the record you could have thrown in Tobey Maguire too, I'm still not sure I know the difference between him and Elijah, never seen them in the same place at the same time either, for that matter. 

I Actually Found Jusin Bieber Funny This Weekend, Goddamnit.

TMZ - It's been nearly six months since we've heard a peep from Mariah Yeater, the girl who claimed to have birthed Justin Bieber's baby -- but The Biebs resurrected her yesterday via Twitter ... with a little help from Borat. Yeater's case was tossed out of court and she's been radio silent since last November, but Bieber decided to call her out anyway. The Biebs tweeted, "Dear mariah yeeter...we have never met...so from the heart i just wanted to say..." and then he linked to a video of Borat saying "You will never get this" over and over.

Well the world has officially gone to shit folks, I actually found something Justin Bieber did amusing. That's it. I was the last lone hold out. I've never, ever, listened to one of his songs straight through, I picketed outside MTV when I heard he was going to get to host an episode of Punk'd, and up until a year ago, I really couldn't have identified a single song of his. He just didn't intrigue me.

But this, this was world class trolling. So congrats Bieber, you beat me.

Red Sox Fans Pulse Check: Full Fledged Panic

It's time, no more cutesy "don't worry guys, they'll pull out of it," bologna. This team is in serious trouble. Yes their schedule has been tough, yes it gets easier for the next month or so, but none of that changes the fact the Sox could name me the 8th inning reliever and there wouldn't be much of a drop off at all as far as bullpen performance goes. Hell, you could argue the pen would be a little better in the short term, there'd be no scouting reports available on my stuff so it'd take a few outings for the league to catch up to me. I lit up the speed gun at a Sea Dogs game a couple seasons ago, 69 mph of pure gas, put me in coach.

None of that is an exaggeration...the bullpen is seriously bad, and that's not Bobby V's fault. As much as I want to shit on him, as much as I'd like to think it's all his fault and if he weren't here we'd be cruising right along, it's just not true.  All the negativity towards Bobby V this season has been misplaced (with the exception of the Youkilis thing). It's a reaction to the ownership and their handling of Francona. It really hasn't been Bobby's fault, every single person he's turned to out in that pen has failed him at some point or another this season. Every single one. Look at this:

Apologies to Bowden and Atchison who apparently had a good inning or two while I was taking a piss or something, because other than that, every time Bobby's called on the bullpen, I've had to seriously debate turning the game off instead of further torturing myself. It's just gross. (And yes, Bard isn't in the bullpen, honestly, I spent 5 minutes cropping that thing together and realized my mistake and couldn't be bothered to fix it. My logic? He's going to be in the bullpen soon anyway, see below). 

This has led to widespread hysteria on the radios. Debating whether Bard should move back to the bullpen (sure to be a season long story line), as if he'd be able to pitch innings 6-9 every day, news flash people, one man isn't going to fix this smorgasbord of shit the sox have assembled...And that's not even the worst of it. For some unfathomable reason I decided to listen to the Baseball Show on Saturday morning, do you want to know what they discussed for a solid 10 minutes? Aaron Freaking Cook. Panicking because they only have until May 1st to decide whether to bring him to the bigs or cut him. HE'S AARON FREAKING COOK! Listen, I'm sure he's having a great spring against the minor leaguers, but if we're sitting here thinking that Aaron Freaking Cook is going to be a real help to this team, then we badly need a coming to reality moment where we just accept this team is going to more or less suck for the 2012 season, end of story. 

It's a shame too, because the offense can hit. The job they've done while missing 3/3rds of what was supposed to be their starting outfield has been remarkable (not that Bobby will get any credit for that), but the pitching staff might as well bring out the "L" shaped screen if they're going to keep tossing out batting practice every day.

PS: I forgot to touch on the starting pitching, they've sucked too, if you were wondering. Not Doubront though, he's been a revelation.

Ladies and Gentelmen, Metta World Peace of Shit

What a frigen dirtbag. There is just no place for this, and no place for Ron Artest in the NBA. Change your name all you want, that thug-life piece of dirt will always be you. To make matters worse there's this:

Really guy? You can't just come clean like a man? Spare me the you didn't see him, didn't know he was there, didn't mean to hit him shit. It's all bullshit. You knew damn well what you were doing, I don't doubt you're sorry, sorry you got caught, and sorry for the results, but no sane human being thinks you didn't know what you were doing there. You may not have meant to hit him in the head, but you meant to hit him. Vicious elbows to the air aren't usually part of celebrations or King-Kong routines like you tried to claim to the ref. It's pure thuggery and that's it.

And honestly, I wish you would have squared off with Serge Ibaka, I'm fairly certain he'd have eaten your lunch. You may have a bit of a weight advantage, but this guys from Africa. I'm fairly certain he had to catch and kill lions for family dinner before being allowed to go out and play with his friends on the weekends as a kid. Your prancing and preening aren't intimidating him.

As for the suspension that is surely coming, I've read quite a bit that there's precedent in 1-3 games for elbows; A) I think Ron's past has to be taken into account, you don't just ignore the fact that he's been an asshole more or less for his whole career, and no, I don't care that he's been good for a couple of seasons, and B) He doesn't even get to think about playing again until James Harden can, and even then, I'd tack on the 2-3 games after that. If Ron Artest is allowed to step on the court before Harden does, then the league doesn't truly care about player safety, plain and simple.

Today's Boston Area Weather Forecast

Yup. 

How Is It Possible That I Paid More for this Web Design than North Korea Did for Theirs?

Fox News - Robert Westmore of Southern California designs websites for a living -- but he was shocked to learn that he had designed a new homepage for the reclusive North Korean regime. “I had no idea,” he told FoxNews.com in an interview. “Honestly, I didn't even know North Korea had a website.” While the notorious totalitarian government continues to spend hundreds of millions on failed rocket launches, North Korea skimps in other areas, notably web design. Indeed the country spent just $15 redesigning its national homepage, korea-dpr.com -- a fact accidentally discovered by an unsuspecting college student. Son-il built the site, he said -- along the way paying that $15 to Robert Westmore, a freelance web designer from the West Coast who had posted the template for general consumption on ThemeForest.com, an online exchange where designers can show off their wares. Such templates are primarily intended for personal blogs on WordPress or Blogger -- not for government or international regimes. 

What the hell! $15, either North Korea drives a hard bargain, or I got ripped off and someone owes me $60, because that's how much more I paid for this template, meanwhile North Korea's over here delusionally working on world supremacy and shaking down America's web designers. 

I'm dumbfounded, I honestly don't know which is more embarrassing, that North Korea, a whole country, spent less on web design than a guy who blogs as a hobby each morning before work, or, that I paid 5x the price Kim Jong Il negotiated and his site looks like Fire (for a blog anyway, for an official government domain its a bit of a joke). 

Someone get me this Robert Westmore's contact info, I need to know if he's still running the $15 Sovereign nation special for web designs or if that deal was only the kind of thing you give to foreign dictators.