Red Sox Defense

I just read an article by ESPN's Jim Caple telling Red Sox fans to shut up. (Read it here) He also wrote a blog on his page that reads "The Devil wears Red Sox" which is a take off of his book "The Devil wears Pinstripes". Now after reading what this guy had to say I felt it my responsibility as a fan to give a little return feedback.

I consider myself to be a big fan of the Red Sox, I'm not what you would call an Uber-fan, unfortunately since I have moved to Florida I haven't been to a Sox game as I haven't had time or money to attend even one. I also don't have the finances to pay for the "Ultimate Baseball Package" through my cable provider so I can't watch all the games on TV. I do however go to the website and use the "GameDay" browser to watch the simulation of each pitch and read the play-by-play. I truly, enjoy the game, it is one that I can get into, I have been a fan of baseball my whole life and I have always been a fan of my home team.

So much like everyone else that was cheering for the Sox in 2004, I was glued to my set to see every game, and nothing could tear me away from the play offs or the series. To watch them win was the greatest experience that any fan of the team could ever have. Since that day we hold that win close to our hearts and like any true sports fan we hope to see it happen again.

The problem that I find is that there are people like Caple who are now saying "Shut up" or "This is getting annoying" and they still want to consider themselves true fans. This guy now speaks of the Sox as a team that he is proud to watch, but it is almost as though he wishes that the win would have made the team disappear. Its as though the rivalry of the Red Sox and the Yankees would die after the Red Sox won one series and then we could go back to being a mournful group of fans with our catch phrase of "wait till next year".

He even says that calling ourselves "Red Sox Nation" is getting worn out. How pathetic is that? Every time the Sox play whether it be at home or away the seats are bombed with many Sox fans eager to watch their team play. And then you have this ass clown that is saying "I'm a Sox fan, and I think you should celebrate like the White Sox do, quietly." Unfortunately this guy is the worst kind of Sox fan, he isn't a die hard fan, he isn't a band wagoner, he is a self loather, the kind of fan that doesn't like other fans because he thinks that their actions reflect poorly on him. Well let me be the first to say if our fans want to stand in the crowd waving signs and drawing attention to themselves then so be it! I would prefer to see the fans in the crowd having the time of their lives. Passion is one thing about a game that makes it what it is, the Red Sox fans have always been passionate, and while there are many of them that have bailed out when the team does bad, the true fans are the ones that will remain in the crowd watching until the final pitch is thrown and cheering for their team even if they are losing horribly.

He rips on us for still calling ourselves Red Sox Nation, obviously he has never been to a game outside of Fenway because half the crowd is cheering on the Sox, you can't go anywhere that the team is playing without finding a massive onslaught of Sox fans showing up to cheer them on. That is why we are Red Sox Nation. There are Sox fans everywhere because they care about the team. He may call himself a fan, but if he keeps posting things like this, he should hand in his nations citizenship and go root for a team that will stay nice and quiet the way he likes. People in the public eye that will bash the fans of the same team he roots for should quit whining because by bashing the fans you are effectively betraying the team.

So Jim Caple, Shut up, you're embarrassing yourself.

Box Office Flops

I would have loved to be in the think tank where someone spawned the notion, "Ok theres a guy that is famous, maybe an athlete, or a rap star, and he really wants to become part of this all white country club, and they won't let him in. So he gets bunch of his friends to come over and they all try to get in.... we'll call it..."Who's your Caddy?"" I would have simply stood up, and calmly walked over to the person that made the suggestion and smacked him upside the head.

I honestly don't know what is going through the heads of some of these people when they decide that they want to spent hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on movies that are obviously so tightly focused on one general market that they couldn't possibly make their money back in the theater sales, and if you are going to focus on one market why would you choose a "minority" market? I don't mean it to sound insulting to anyone in particular but if you are going to make a movie like this, why would anyone put it out in the theater especially in the summer when movies like Transformers, Super Bad, I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry, are obviously showing signs that they will dominate the market.

But no... Who's your caddy was released, and it remained in the market a whole whopping week before it crashed and burned. Now keep in mind I am not saying that because it is a comedy movie focused on the black community that it is a bad movie, there are lots of movies that come out with the same target audience, but if the movie doesn't look like it is going to be an award winning comedy they don't spend the majority of their funds showing off the same trailer over and over again every 20 minutes on tv... they may show it a couple times to get interest, but let it go.

I picked that movie to rip on only because it was the most recent movie that this has happened to... I have seen my fair share of bombs in the theater and I keep hoping that hollywood will learn. But since they won't I figure I will help enlighten those of you that have not noticed how short the lifespan of a failure really can be...

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo - Cost: $65 Million. Made in the theater: $22 Million. Out of the theater after 3 weeks. Surprisingly they let it sit in the theater for that long. Falling far short from the original comedy, this was just painstakingly awful to watch. I refused to see it in the theater, and saw it when someone at my school decided to play it one night while I was working on one of my projects. Glad I didn't contribute even a penny to the 22 Million it made.

Stealth: Cost: $130 Million. Made in the theater: $30 Million. Jamie Foxx is doing really well for himself after the success of Ray. Now he decides that he doesn't really need as much fame that badly as he sets fire to his career with this stinker. Now he is back to working on television again.

Alone in the Dark: Cost: $20 Million Made in Theater: $2 Million. After having seen only one film from the director of this movie, here is a rule of thumb, if you see the name "Uwe Boll" attached to the director's tag then avoid the movie like the plague! He is a hack that has butchered a lot of the games that I liked playing as a child, and he ruined them by trying to make them "better". Needless to say he has never put out a single good movie. Every one he has touch has failed.

Date Movie: Cost $20 Million. Made in theater: $48 Million. This movie was one that people flocked to because it had a trailer that made it seem like it had potential as one of the better spoof movies. Thank god I was smart enough to know that spoof movies have been a horrendous failure ever since the Wayans brothers bailed on Scary Movie 3. Just because you make money on the movie, doesn't mean it is any good.

Soul Plane: $17 Million. Made in theater: $14 Million. After Nashawn Wade (Kevin Hart) gets stuck in an airline toilet. The plane suffers a minor disaster and has his dog sucked through a jet engine, he then sues the airline. After getting a large settlement of $100,000,000 he decides to start his own airline, called NWA (Nashawn Wade Airlines). The airline specifically caters to African Americans and hip hop culture. The terminal at the airport is called the Malcolm X terminal, the plane is "pimped-out" with low-rider hydraulics, a dance club, and the safety video is a spoof of the Destiny's Child song Survivor. With a description like that don't you just want to run right out and watch it? I didn't think so...

I can keep going with this, but its just too easy to find so many crappy movies, and yet I still can't fathom why they keep pushing this garbage out, why not save some of the money and put it towards better movies? I guess if you don't squander a bunch of money you just don't get the same budget as last year.

Tonight!

Last night at 3:15am the moon turned blood red. I haven't seen a sight like that since a fateful day in 2004 that Red Sox fans around the world know as the day the the curse was reversed.
Ok it was a few years back, and yeah every Sox fan will most likely talk about it as though it was the only world series that has ever mattered...ever. But I thought it was interesting to see that things happened that night under a lunar eclipse... and then today while the eclipse has already happened, it just seems like an odd coincidence that the Sox and the Yankees are playing again on the same day as the next lunar eclipse since the one in 2004.

Speaking of sports, what the hell is it with these people that are always in the spotlight doing such stupid things? I'm sure there were things that happened in the past, yea we all know the story of the "Chicago Black Sox" in 1919. But seriously beyond that there may have only been a hand full of athletes that would go out and do things that would cause them to have a tarnished image in the public. But now-a-days its so commonplace to have someone that is just outright stupid, repeatedly doing dumb things, and then getting a slap on the wrist for it because of their celebrity. In the last 5 years alone we have probably doubled the number of celebrities that should be sterilized just to prevent them from breeding.

I don't know about you but when I was a kid I never heard about Orel Hershiser, Nolan Ryan, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzski, Bobby Orr, or Cam "Sea Bass" Neely beating the piss out of anyone, or threatening to kill anyone, or getting arrested for drug use. These were people that I thought of as sports heroes.. the ones that kept me interested in the sport. And now on a daily basis we hear about more dumbass "professional" athletes that are getting arrested for being absolute jackasses, and then get get away with it! They are told "you better not do that again, or we might have to suspend you from being able to play." Until they ultimately screw up to the point where someone finally says, "Hey wait, maybe Michael Vick isn't someone I want to be associated with... he could hurt my career" and they fire his ass. But with every person that sees the light there is always some other dumbshit sitting in the darkness that says, "Hey Michael Vick is free for trade! I could use him on the team! Hire that man... and give him a raise!"

Yeah there is no such thing as class in sports any longer. Its time we set some new rules and make some changes. If you are a celebrity and you screw up... the punishment is the exact same as everyone else, no special treatment. And if it means you don't get to "play" because you are in jail, and they fire you for it... welcome to the real world, they do that at regular jobs too.

No more, no more

Well here I am doing what I do best which is completely slacking off on updating this blog. I realized its been damn near a month since I posted anything on this and now I feel obligated to add something.
Let me start first by saying that I have been damn near killing myself lately with work. I came to the realization that when I got transferred into the IT department that I was going to be spending a good portion of time working on trying to get things organized and running smooth at the company. For the longest time there has been problems with IT, the problems don't stem from the guy that does the IT work here, they stem from the fact that this company much like many of the others that I have worked for is completely flawed.
In the last 10 years I've held about 6 different jobs and eventually each one of them moves me into either the IT area of the company or promotes me to become a trainer. The downside which I am finding to be a huge repeated issue is that they all want to move me into these positions without giving me any kind of compensation. Thinking "hey we got this guy that loves to fix computers and can do it damn near blindfolded, why not just give him the work, and see how long he will do it for pretty much nothing." Well I have come to realize that I don't need to be this guy anymore. You see the problem that I am having is that I have more debt hanging over my head than I know what to do with and I really need to pay some of it off.
Last week I had a confrontation with the Director of the facility I work at... now I call him the director but according to him he really has no say in how anything works, everyone turns to him for support and ideas and to make decisions, and while he can spend $200,000 to hire a company to staff the facility with the dumbest people in the US (now don't get me wrong, I've worked for a staffing agency before, not everyone that has come in here is a moron, but there are more idiots than not that come from this agency.)And while he can drop that much, plus give them a fair salary (which I have recently found is the same that I am making now after being here for 3 years), but he can't "authorize" giving me a raise, or give me a position title. Here is a quick example of what has been happening in the last month.

For those of you that know me, you know that on my last trip to NH I had to get a new car. My old one was on it's last legs and it wasn't going to make it back to Florida.
So I get my new car and I make it back to Florida. When I get back I find that they want to keep me in the position of working on computers as I have done miracles with their systems, keeping them running smooth and handling issues as fast as possible. They were thrilled to have me come back and jump right back into working on the machines. Well at this time I also went to full time status, and that was good. Until I got my first pay check and realized that I was not making enough to survive. Now that I had a car payment, my school loan had been called in so I have to pay that, and I have to pay all of my other living expenses on top of it all... and I was coming up about $350 short. So unable to pay my bills is one of my biggest fears because I hate asking for money, I hate not being able to support myself fully. So I began working more hours, I figured out that if I worked a couple more hours everyday the overtime would compensate for what I needed. So I began working extra every week, there is always lots of work to do, and by doing this I found that my stress was reduced because I was able to finish more work everyday and I didn't feel as though I was overwhelmed when I arrived the next day.

Well this worked for 1 month... and last week this is the conversation that I had.

[Boss] I can't have you working overtime any longer. You have to approve all overtime through me first, and right now I don't see you needing to be here later than 5pm.

[Me] I have a lot of work that I am trying to keep under control, by staying a little later I am able to keep things running as they should.

[Boss] I'm trying to pull for you here, but I can't justify the overtime. I have people all over me asking why you need this extra time.

[Me] I need it because I am the only one working at this position here.

[Boss] Well I appreciate the effort you are putting in here, I hear nothing but good things about all the work you are doing, but unless you have an emergency then you can't have overtime.

[Me] I'm going to level with you, I have a lot of work, I need to get it all done, I haven't been given my title yet, and I need the extra time.

[Boss] I can't make any promises, I have been trying to get the title open but I don't have the authority to make that decision. You need to speak with the head of IT at the home office (which is not in Florida), and you need to get him to make a decision as to where he is going to put Chris (the current one with the desktop support title, and is too busy programming which is what the guys in the home office keep assigning him to do, and the reason they asked me to jump in to begin with). If he makes Chris a programmer, then the job of desktop support will be open. Now this is not to say that you will get the title, I know you have been doing the job for 3 months but I have to open the job up to anyone that wants to apply for it, and if there is someone more qualified then we might have to give them the position. But hang in there, the fact that you have done this job for so long may give you an advantage.

[Me] I understand, but I don't make enough right now to survive. I can barely pay my rent, and I have 2 other huge bills that have just started coming in I need the extra time as well because I need to make ends meet.

[Boss] Thats not my problem, I'm not your bank. I'm offended that you would use the overtime as an excuse to try to raise your pay, you should be using it only for emergency work.

.... ok so the rest of this conversation kind of went downhill for a while, until he finally listened to me and said that he will approve OT if I really need it and I ask for it. He also realized that I am underpaid, and that once the title comes in he will help me make sure I make enough to sustain myself.

This was good... until yesterday.

Last night, I had 2 computers that were not working properly. The users have to fax in messages to the companies that they have been taking the messages for, now 2 of the 4 computers refuse to fax. So when they approached me with the issue I sent a message to my boss that said "I have 2 computers that need to be ghosted (a type of reformatting that automatically sets up all the software and programs needed to perform their job, it takes 2 hours to run a ghost, instead of a day to install everything manually) and I need a couple hours to take care of it. He replied "I don't think this qualifies as an emergency. Can't you do it when you come in, in the morning?" And again the problems continue...

Yesterday I realized that he was trying to do what he does best, out right look me in the face and do nothing. He is a nice guy usually and outside of work I can talk with him quite easily. But it was this last thing that broke me... he wants me to wait for a position and then fight for it. He also wants me to talk with the head of IT to get the position open... for someone that is a "director" he really doesn't like making decisions, and he honestly believes that I should push to open a position he has already told me that I may not get if he finds someone else more qualified.

So the resume got revamped yesterday... and fuck them I took the title that I rightfully deserve and put it down as my position here. If they don't get on the ball here and get me a pay raise that meets my needs, then they are going to lose me fast, and I will be sure to hand off my notice to him directly so I can tell him that he doesn't have to worry about opening the position or my overtime, because I won't be coming back.

To conform or not...

In my last blog I was talking about how I went to Brewzzi for my 16+14 Birthday (thanks to Keith for the correction, as I still get carded for R rated movies, I couldn't possibly be older than 18, and since I still do stupid things from time to time, I must be around 16).
Now this blog is going to seem kind of stupid, but it is one that I have to read and question the idea of whether or not conformity is a good thing or not. As I mentioned in the previous blog, Alex had ordered chicken parmesan at the restaurant. Now as most of you know chicken parmesan is one of my favorite dishes.. hell it became the second most popular thing to make at good ol' NHC just after chicken sate. So when you think chicken parmesan what do you think of? Here is my idea of what consists of a good recipe for chicken parmesan:

1) chicken (preferably breaded)
2) Linguini or angel hair pasta
3) parmesan cheese
4) marinara sauce

This being the most basic recipe (as I tend to add a lot of different spices, and sometimes add some other types of cheese variants with the parmesan) is a pretty standard design. There are other minor additive that can be added to enhance the flavor but to make a good parmesan this is the basic formula.

Well let me tell you that night at Brewzzi things weren't exactly as Alex and I expected. She ordered parmesan (as she has in the past from there) and the waitress asked her "Would you like the sandwich, or the entre?" A pretty straight forward question that she quickly answered "The entre". Knowing that we would be going some place nice, and also knowing that she has never finished an entire meal at any of the restaurants we have gone to in the past, she didn't eat that day and spent the entire day working on her demo reel.
With that said it should be abundantly clear that she was starving, as it was now 8pm by the time we were seated and 8:30 by the time we got to order. So when the food arrived around 9:00 or so we were completely surprised to see that her "chicken parmesan" arrived the following way:

1)Breaded chicken, that was over cooked and dry
2)Penne pasta
3)Bolognese Sauce
4)A melted swiss cheddar cheese combination on the pasta.

Ok, for those of you unfamiliar with the problems let me give you a quick break down...

1) While the chicken was breaded and cooked, it should be moist and tender, if it is tough to cut, and dry straight through the thickest part of the center, this is a problem. It means that it was cooked too long, and possibly left under a heat lamp for a long period of time, it also means that the chicken may have been frozen at one time as when you freeze chicken the moisture inside freezes and when it is thawed the moisture leaves, this is especially bad when working with actual chicken, chicken patties can withstand the freezer as they are made to be moist when they go in the freezer to ensure that not all the liquid will leave when they thaw.

2)Penne Pasta... well there isn't anything exceptionally wrong with this, except when you are expecting angel hair or linguine, or any other kind of pasta that you can twirl with a fork, then penne is not going to cut it. Its like ordering mac and cheese and getting ravoli instead, it just doesn't compare when you have your heart set on something.

3)Bolognese sauce, The basics of bolognese is that it is a meat based sauce with very little tomato in it, in fact the little that is used is usually a tomato paste not a tomato sauce. Bolognese sauce is not a bad sauce, in fact it is very tasty with penne pasta, but being that we didn't expect penne it was just another unexpected additive. Also when ordering chicken parmesan I generally think of the chicken as the meat, why would you order chicken parmesan with a meat sauce? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? I mean its like ordering a hamburger and putting a piece of chicken on top of it, the two flavors while tasty on their own just aren't great together because if you expect to taste chicken, you don't want to be tasting hamburger, and vice versa. The combination may be good on pizza, but thats a whole different animal, and we are talking about traditional Italian chicken parm.

4)As I mentioned mixing different types of cheeses in can be good, but you don't go over kill. While it can be traditional to add a lot of different types of cheese with penne pasta, even adding enough to the point so that the pasta is sticky with the cheese is normal, that is not the way to make chicken parm!

So when the waitress returns we ask her about the penne, and ask her about the bolognese sauce. She said "Oh! I'm sorry, I should have asked if you wanted linguine and marinara sauce or not. I forgot to ask and this is how we serve it if no one mentions that they want it changed." She was at least nice enough to run to the back and get a small bowl of linguine and some marinara, but that doesn't fix the fact that the chicken was over cooked and dry. Personally I think that someone else ordered the chicken parm and then decided they didn't want it, and instead of throwing it away they let it sit under a heat lamp and handed it off to us. But this was the first time out of 7 or 8 times that we have been to Brewzzi that we had a bad meal.

So the real question is, should they go around calling what they were serving chicken parm? Or should they conform and give the people what they would expect? Honestly I think if they labeled that one Brewzzi parm, and made a separate dish called Chicken parm it would clear up the problem and they could offer another meal on the menu that people who enjoy their obscure version could order.

Either way, I know that if we ever order it from there again we will make sure to drill the wait staff on everything to ensure that there isn't a twist up like this one again.

The other side of the generation gap...

Its happened... its over... I am still in shock. I will never see the 20's again, as a few days ago I crossed over into my 30's. The idea behind it is just twisted, that a number can make you feel different about your life and perspective.
While the majority of the day was uneventful, meaning that I spent most of my day at work, and I got out on time (rushing to get out at 5pm for the first time in a couple weeks). I spent a couple hours hanging out with my friend Marc, and after that I spent time with Alex, we went out to dinner at a place called Brewzzi.
Now I really like Brewzzi the food is generally very good, but tonight while my meal was good, they really screwed up Alex's. Which I will probably discuss in the next blog.
After dinner Alex had to get back home, she wasn't feeling well, and she has been very nervous lately about not having her demo reel completed yet for SIGGRAPH which she is leaving for this Sunday.
Well I guess there isn't a whole lot more to put in this blog, as time passes, it only makes you wonder what lies in store for you down the road. Here's to the start of the 30's and to hoping that the 40's don't come around as fast.