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.

Do Senior Citizens Love Junk Mail?

Fox News - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is making a top-to-bottom case for prompt passage of a Postal Service reform bill that if defeated, he says, would deny seniors their beloved junk mail. “I’ll come home tonight here to my home in Washington and there’ll be some mail there,” the Nevada Democrat said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “A lot of it is what some people refer to as junk mail, but for the people who are sending that mail, it’s very important. “And when talking about seniors, seniors love getting junk mail. It’s sometimes their only way of communicating or feeling like they’re part of the real world.” 

Look, I don't want to say Harry Reid is misinformed, I'm sure he's got plenty of great college interns working for him, but I can tell you right now what my grandfather's going to say if I call to ask him his feelings on junk mail: "It's all JUNK!" Maybe, he's replace junk with rubbish, but it would definitely be capitalized like, RUBBISH. 

I sincerely hope there's no one out there who feels connected to the world because they got a credit card offer, one of those American Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes things where you're notified that "YOU'VE ALREADY WON $10K!" (someone tell Ed McMahon I'm still waiting on my gigantic check), and coupons for 50% off fancy feast cat food, that's truly depressing. At a bare minimum there's at least the TV to watch. It's not like the old days when people got old they either sat around in silence all day or got shipped off on an iceberg or anything, there's TV Land re-runs, Dr. Oz (old people seem to love him and his constant pushing of fish oils), and the Hallmark channel still shows Murder She Wrote (a fantastic show, IMO). 

Bottom line is, there's no reason to believe anyone, anywhere, loves junk mail. Sorry Harry.

Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding is Must See TV

 STOP THE FIGHT! Talk about an upset for the ages, Christ I did not see that one coming.

A little back story: 

TMZ -  Every reality show on the planet should give up NOW -- because the girls on TLC's "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding" just set the record for the wildest, most ruthless catfight of all time ... and it was all caught on tape. The fight went down last November at a "gypsy" wedding in West Virginia -- the smaller girl (Mellie) hails from the groom's side and the bigger girl (Diamond) was the maid of honor. Sources tell TMZ, neither side of the family exactly approved of the union -- but Mellie took it one step further after the ceremony ... running her mouth about how the bride and groom don't belong together. Diamond caught wind of it ... and FLIPPED -- shoving Mellie to the ground outside the church. 

So those are gypsies? From West Virginia? I would not have guessed that. That might be more of an upset than Half-Pint over here pummeling that Land Monster after that initial brutal shove. I mean she threw her 4-5 feet backwards, I've got to hand it to that tiny gypsy, she's freaking scrappy. 

Back back to the gypsies from West Virigina thing, are we sure that's right? My knowledge of gypsies to this point is from children's folk-tales and Borat. I assumed they all traveled in covered wagons and essentially wore a variation of hippy clothes...these people look like your typical Jersey Shore guidos...And West Virginia? Not one of these people is wearing flannel, I call bunk on that. 

Either way though, fight of the year, upset of the decade in my opinion.

Happy Birthday Fenway!

Happy Birthday Fenway, 100 years, pretty amazing when you think about it, and judging by some of the pictures through the years that I've just browsed, it appears you've got a Benjamin Button thing going on, actually looking better and younger with age. 

I don't have much to add, I'm not a historian, and I certainly can't wax poetic, so I'll just say this, Thanks for my first game, thanks for every game since, and thanks for those to come (except for those where I'm sitting in section 3 and am uncomfortable the whole time). I will, however give you my favorite game at Fenway

It was the 2003 ALDS, Game 3, Sox vs. Oakland. My friends and I had camped out all night for tickets, the Sox were down 0-2 in a best of 5, we didn't care. This was pre-2004 remember, this wasn't anything new, no one was reacting hysterically, it was all business as usual. Everyone had hope, we always had hope back then, but we knew the reality. I distinctly remember a cabby driving by in the middle of the night while we were all lined up, stopping, rolling down the window, and in a gruff Boston accent yelling "WE GOT 'EM RIGHT WHERE WE WANT EM BOYS!" That line is burned into my memory. The entire line of people camping out, mostly intoxicated, lit up with cheers. It was awesome, and so was game 3. An 11 inning thriller, culminating in this Trot Nixon Walk Off Home Run:

It sucks that the stands are blurred because my friends and I are right there in centerfield, up against the wall in the top-left, going absolutely ape shit. To this day it is the most fun I've ever had at a sporting event. Trot's home run was straight at us, Straight At Us. When I retell the story I usually say it landed a row or two in front of us, in reality it was probably 7-10 rows. That didn't stop one of my friends from leaning forward like he was going to catch it, and then falling 3 rows forward. Not that any of us try to save him, or the people he fell on even cared. Everyone was going bananas. It was incredible, and I'll always use the Fenway Park crowd that night as my barometer for how a playoff baseball game is supposed to feel. It was electric, it was alive, it was Fenway, and I hope it always will be. 

Happy 100 Years Fenway Park, and thanks for the memories.

Spirit Airlines' Secret Service Bang for Your Buck Specials!

Fox News - Spirit Airlines, the company that has mocked the likes of Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen, Rob Blagojevich, is now capitalizing on the Secret Security prostitution scandal by advertising a special for one-way flights to Cartagena, Colombia, starting at $19.80. The Florida-based budget airline's "More Bang for your Buck" promotion, that features an ad depicting a sunglass-wearing agent in front of four scantily glad women, appears to be poking fun at the allegations that Secret Services members.

While I respect the hell out of Spirit Airlines and their on-going comical promotions, I have to question the $19.80 price tag for an international flight to Columbia...that tells me one of two things, I'm either:

A) Boarding the same plane Amelia Earhart used in her attempt to fly around the globe, or:

B) It's a clever trick and you'll be charging me upwards of $5K for a return flight home because Cartagena is not someplace anyone of non-Columbian descent would ever dream of hanging around for fun. 

That's gotta be it.