Sometimes I Love Dumb People

Presented without further comment...from me, at least...

 

The Onion article in question...plus a bonus!

My Sports Tees And Miscellaneous Caps, Part 1

A while back I counted the number of t-shirts (and jerseys as well) in my closet from the local sports teams and posted it on Facebook. The count is now updated as I bought another one recently: 41 Phillies, 10 Eagles, 12 Flyers (and Phantoms, from before they moved to upstate New York and back down to Lehigh Valley), and only 2 from the 76ers. A couple of them are over 20 years old (one looks it), while most of the rest are from around 2000 or later. I've decided to post pics of all of them, as well as my baseball caps (not all of them are sports-related, and I don't yet have a count). So over the next few weeks, assuming I keep up, you'll be seeing them.

I'm sure most of them don't have interesting stories or anything, but if I can remember anything I'll mention it.

Also, now I'm really regretting not keeping the old shirts and caps I had from the Phillies World Series championship in 1980 and Eagles first Super Bowl appearance a few months later.

So...

This is one that I bought somewhat recently. Not sure where. It's one of those shirts that's made of material designed to keep you dry when it's hot. I wore it the other day just because I hadn't worn it before and it was still pretty hot out. (Generally I wear the sports shirts only if I'm going to a game, or for every game the Eagles play and for every playoff game of any team.) Seeing as how it's 2XL and I've lost weight, though, I'm not sure the material would've made a difference even if I had been running around performing amazing athletic feats.

And this is the one I wore to Tuesday night's game that I teased online, asking if anyone could guess the last word in the sentence. This was from a few years ago when the Phils were just dipping into social media. They held what I'm sure was their first social media-related ticket promotion: with a code from Twitter, etc., you got an offer for a ticket in the Rooftop Bleachers (not the greatest view), this t-shirt (front and back depicted), and I think a food and beverage credit as well, all for $20 or $25.

This is my most recent purchase. $7 at Marshalls.

This one I've had for many years. I thought I'd share it since Pat Burrell was added to the Phillies' Wall of Fame last weekend. It's a prime example of my Sports Shirt Jinx: if I buy a shirt of a specific player, either he leaves via trade or free agency, or he gets hurt/slumps badly and his career goes downhill. That started, if I recall, with my Scott Rolen t-shirt (which I no longer own). I will probably buy a Cole Hamels t-shirt when they're marked down to $10 or less. Consider it a retroactive jinx, but it's okay as he'll get on the Wall of Fame quickly.



And finally, this is one I purchased a while back (I think at Modells, definitely at a discount or clearance price) but never wore, until last night's game. Size: Large. I can finally fit into an L again (as long as they aren't a really tight cut)!

WHAT THE HELL...Philly Gay News

So this happened...

This is just...shoddy. I shared that first Facebook post with the comment "Wow. Happy but very surprised. VERY surprised." I should have known by the 193-0 "margin." Anyway, I wanted to mention it on Twitter and that's when I saw this:

(You should follow Josh on Twitter, BTW.) When I returned to Facebook I saw the correction. Obviously it's good that they corrected it, but I have so many questions. How on earth did this information get posted in the first place? Who gave them the incorrect information? Who received it? Did NO ONE check to make sure it was legit before they rushed to post it? Whatever happened to journalism? (Okay, that last question I've been asking for years.)

So, yeah, Philadelphia Gay News, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?????

Facebook Ad FAIL

I've noticed an increasing amount of advertising and pseudo-advertising on my Facebook news feed lately. There are obvious ads, of course, but there are also other posts -- "promoted" articles, "sponsored" posts, etc., all based on your "Likes" and those of your friends. For example, there could be a post saying "John Smith likes Wal-Mart" followed by a post from Wal-Mart's Facebook page. Here's another example, which just appeared at the top of my feed:

Just because I "Like" Jody Watley's page doesn't mean I want to like the page for her old group.

Sometimes, though, these auto-generated posts are wayyyyyyyyyyyy off-base. Here's a recent example: I "Like" the FB page for singer Will Young...

Based on this, here's what Facebook generated:

Ummmm...what?

I keep saying I hate Facebook more and more. I have too many friends (real-life friends as well as  Facebook "friends") who aren't on Twitter, though, so I'm stuck. 

SERIOUSLY, Facebook?

SERIOUSLY?

I hate Facebook more and more. Seriously.

Twitter Spammers Get Clever

So I just noticed I have a new follower on Twitter. According to her profile, "Sherry" lives in Wilmington, Delaware with her roomate Jen and two cats, Simon and Holden. One of her favorite movies is Walk the Line. And there's a link to find out more. Seems like a nice enough person; perhaps I'll follow back, I thought. But when you look at "Sherry's" profile, the tweets tell a different story...

Who's this Harold Shults, and why are all of Sherry's tweets actually retweets of this character?

By going to longurl.org you can copy and paste a shortened URL and find out where it leads, without clicking on it and putting your computer at risk for viruses and such. (Not that I'd have ever clicked on this one anyway, but this can be helpful for less obvious spammers.) Needless to say, "Sherry's" link leads to an adult dating website.

A thought just occurred to me: why isn't there more of this on Facebook? It's easy enough to set up fake profiles, I would think.

Earthquake!

In a shameless attempt to lure more hits, here's my story of the Great East Coast Earthquake of 2011, or whatever they end up calling it:

I was sitting in a booth at Burger King having lunch. (So you know this is exciting.) I felt movement in the seat and thought there was a little kid in the booth behind me kicking the back of the seat. I turned around to yell at the kid, but the other booth was empty. I resumed eating. Then I went to the supermarket for a few items, walked home, and turned the TV to the Weather Channel to see the latest on Hurricane Irene. Instead, they were reporting on damage to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. from a quake (5.8 on the Richter scale, centered 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Va.) and I wondered: was it the earthquake that I felt back at Burger King? Since there was no brat behind me it couldn't have been anything else. It had to be the earthquake, right?

I got online and saw that my Twitter and Facebook feeds were haywire from everyone talking about it, and reportedly people felt it from Maine to South Carolina. So it had to be the earthquake -- the first one I've actually noticed while it happened. We've had a few minor quakes in the area -- a couple of tiny ones have occurred just this year -- but unlike other people, I didn't feel a thing. Until today.

There you have it. Now, let's sit back and wait for the blog hits to pile up.

REALLY, Facebook?

Dear Facebook,

First you've been sluggish today (a day after both Twitter and especially Blogger gave me agita), and now this? Really? Is this a gay slur? Is this juvenile behavior really necessary?

Raising Hell On Facebook

Maybe it's me, but there are times when I think that most people are idiots. This is one of those times.

The first time I logged into Facebook today was from my cell phone while I was out. The screen said I had a message from someone whose name did not ring a bell. When I clicked to read it, I saw a list of message recipients that seemed endless. It's bad enough on a regular monitor (see screen captures after the jump), let alone this list, one name at a time, on my cell phone's small rectangular screen.

When I finally got down to the bottom, there were a series of replies -- on Facebook, you see all the replies to a message because you can't just reply to one person on the list. You have to reply to them all. The message originated, as it turned out, from the Phoenix Hellraisers flag football team, promoting...something. I've forgotten what. Whoever runs the team's Facebook sent it to every one of their FB friends, including me. (I know people who either are or were part of the team.) Right now they have 2,208 friends. A few minutes ago it was 2,210. I also unfriended them earlier in the evening.

Unfortunately, the replies keep coming. The "conversation" has gone basically like this from almost the beginning, and similar replies (including some duplicates) just keep coming...

Remove me too!

Remove me from this, please! Thank you...

Remove me as well

Omg. I have kept quiet all day, but enough is enough. Faggots!!!! Shut the f--- up!!!!!

Lol

The only way to make it is to stop replying... so STOP REPLYING!

So stop!!! Dyke!!

Stop

STOP!

STOP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is this

And on and on and on...

You can delete it from your list of messages, but it just keeps coming back whenever another person replies. I'm not sure if the original sender can delete it (which would stop any further replies) or not. You can report it as spam, for what good that would do.

It amazes me that someone would be stupid enough to rile up all of their friends this way. I rarely send messages through Facebook. If I do, it's only because it's to one friend, or a few, and it doesn't need to be broadcast on my Wall. Then again, I'm not an idiot. (Well, not usually.)

Dear Charlie Sheen: GO AWAY.

Whatever Charlie Sheen is trying to prove, appearing on at least four different TV shows as well as TMZ.com today and tomorrow, it's not doing anything except pissing me off. Between mentions on Twitter and Facebook and about a hundred blog posts on EW.com -- for once, Entertainment Weekly's abbreviation is apt, and would be even more on target if the magazine were renamed Entertainment World Weekly -- I'm completely sick of him and his story. Apparently he's passed a drug test, which would seem to discount my theory that he didn't spend nearly enough time in rehab. If he is clean, though, then I can't help but wonder if he may have some mental health-related issues. In either case, someone who truly cares about him (in other words, someone besides the porn stars and others clearly latching onto him for money or fame) needs to get him help.

And if he doesn't have those issues, then he's just acting like a complete jackass, and should be ashamed -- as should the TV "news" shows giving him their time. Charlie, take your porn stars/hookers/whatever and GO AWAY.

My Relationship With Sports?

I'm in a weird place lately when it comes to sports. I've been thinking that I haven't done many sports-related posts lately. Actually, other than during the NFL playoffs, I've hardly blogged specifically on sports at all. I've had passing comments in my MixBlog posts, but very few posts on one sports-related topic. It's not like I've lost interest in sports. I'm still reading the sports section of the Daily News every day, I still read things online, I still put games on TV, etc. I'm just not blogging about sports. I'm not entirely sure why, but I have a theory or two.

Part of it is due to Twitter and Facebook...and, going back further, to message boards such as the one at Outsports and the old Usenet newsgroups. I've always found it easier to make a quick comment on a game or some team-related news (Twitter and Facebook are all about brief comments -- 140 characters or less in Twitter's case) than to do a long analytical post. Lately, that seems to be the case even more. For example, after the Super Bowl I've been thinking about the Eagles and their failures as an organization compared to the Steelers...and then Pittsburgh had to go and ruin things by losing to Green Bay. Although the points floating around in my head are still valid, I haven't been inspired enough to sit down and put it together.

(And, of course, the impending owners' lockout of the NFL players -- they have one week to miraculously settle their differences -- has a lot of personnel moves, through free agency -- on hold.)

The Flyers, on the other hand, are doing almost everything right. They're tops in the Eastern Conference and seem primed for another long playoff run. So maybe I'm just waiting for the postseason. This leads to another issue. I still find myself not watching hockey games from start to finish. Take tonight. The game began at 7 pm and I was still running through my Twitter and Facebook timelines until about 7:30 pm. Then I got away from the computer and started watching the game. When the first period ended, I watched

Grammys And Gay Twitter Wars

A couple of Grammy comments before we get to...the War of the Gays on Twitter!

I am not a big fan of the Grammys. It's bad enough that this awards show is mostly full of performances instead of actual award presentations. Only ten Grammys were actually given out during the 3 hour, 30 minute show. And I don't know how they decide which ones (besides the obvious majors, Record/Song/Album of the Year, Best New Artist) make the cut. Besides the big four, we saw two Pop, two Country, one Rock and one Rap presented. The entire R&B genre, among others, was ignored. Of those 10 awards, all but one went to someone who performed on the show. (Fortunately, that one was given to Train for that awful "Hey, Soul Sister" thing.) And to have Arcade Fire perform both before and after winning Album of the Year just screams out, "FIX!!!"

(By the way, the Grammys need a host. The awkward ending of the show, with the one Arcade Fire member saying "we have to go perform another song...everyone leave to this song" or something really points out the need for a host, even a bad one.)

I don't respect the Grammys as an award or as an awards show. It's mostly performances. Had it not been for Lady Gaga, I probably wouldn't have watched at all. She was a lot less over-the-top in her performance, by Gaga standards, despite being inside an egg from the time she arrived at the show until the time the egg "hatched" on stage at the start of her performance of "Born This Way." So it was good, but not outrageously so -- like the song itself, although it is growing on me. It was a solid performance but I think she's been better.

Now, on to the War of the Gays!

Female Psychology

The things you find when looking at websites that are...well, let's just call them less than family-friendly...

So much to work with here. First, "wierd" questions? Misspellings do not inspire confidence. What questions would they be? "May I come to your place, give it a good housecleaning, then cook dinner for you and wash the dishes afterward?" or "Would you let me give you a foot rub while I listen to you talk about your feelings?" might work. But are they "wierd" enough? For that matter, I wonder if 312 people actually "liked" that, if indeed that's a legitimate Facebook button.

And who knew there was gender-specific psychology? Or that psychology has loopholes? This is ground-breaking! Now, all I need is to discover the "wierd" questions that expose the loophole in male psychology and I'll be all set for Valentine's Day.

Then again, the ad says "I've made over 27 girls want to f--- just by asking..." etc. It doesn't say he made them want to f--- him. Just sayin.'

Some Stuff About Me

I was rummaging about my Facebook profile and saw an old note I posted almost two years ago. It's one of those memes that were going about at the time, where you were supposed to post 25 random things about yourself, then tag 25 people and ask them to do the same. I took a while until I finally wrote it, I don't think they're entirely random, and I didn't tag anyone. I'm such a rebel.

I thought that, for anyone who hasn't read this already, you can get to know me a little. Plus, it's a copy-and-paste job, so it's an easy blog post! I have made only one or two very minor changes, so if you saw it on Facebook you don't have to read the whole thing again. And, since this is a bit of an exercise in nostalgia, here's my high school graduation picture again.

Finally! 25 Random (I guess they're random) Things About Me (written February 6, 2009)

1. I am, by nature, not very outgoing in person. I’m not the type of person who will start a conversation with someone I don’t know, and it takes a lot of time for me to feel comfortable talking to someone beyond basic small talk.

2. At the same time, I utterly despise when I’m in a group and someone says to me something like “You’re so quiet.” I suppose they mean well but all I feel is, “Yes! I already KNOW that! Thanks for making me feel even MORE uptight, jackass!”

3. I was reading and writing at a pretty early age. I used to love newspapers so much that I would write my own, sometimes making up stories and sometimes just copying what was in the paper, including weather maps. I was especially fascinated by the weather.

4. When I was in third grade, I was skipped ahead to fourth grade during the middle of the school year. I think it was because the school felt I was bored because third grade was too easy for me.

5. Fourth grade wasn't actually any more difficult from an educational standpoint, but

The Elephant Project

Back in September I wrote about the Gumpathon, the British and U.S. Marines running across the country to raise money for wounded veterans. They completed their run on Veterans Day, but you can still make a donation. Meanwhile, I thought I'd highlight another worthy effort with a post.

The Elephant Project is raising money and awareness for the fight against Alzheimer's disease. I learned of this through Twitter, although I don't remember how I started following them (which, I guess, is ironic -- once again, paging Alanis Morissette). The elephant is their symbol because of the old saying that elephants never forget. So they have celebrities pose for photos while holding an elephant beanie baby. A package including an 8x10 photo, an autographed card and an elephant beanie baby is then auctioned off, with proceeds going to the Alzheimer's Association. (This is National Alzheimer's Awareness Month, by the way.)

I refer to the Elephant Project as "they" and "them" in the paragraph above, but that's sort of misleading. One of the main reasons I wanted to write this was because of this tweet from last month:

  

From what I can tell from the About page at the website, this kid is doing much of the work on this by himself, while going to school and working at his job. He totally puts me (and perhaps some of you) to shame. So, if your financial situation allows, help this guy out, either with a donation or a $10 purchase of a 5x7 photo of one of the famous people.

Links to the Elephant Project: website, Twitter and Facebook.

Quick Review: The Social Network

For a film that has no chase scenes or buildings blowing up, "The Social Network" is surprisingly energetic. If you're looking for it to be the completely true story of the creation of Facebook, you're out of luck. It's structured around depositions in two different lawsuits against co-creator and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). In one, Harvard rowers and identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea for a website to allow Harvard students to connect with each other. (One twin is played by Armie Hammer, and the other by Josh Pence's body with Hammer's face and voice digitally added -- weird! And impossible to notice, at least for me.) The other suit was filed by his best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), whose algorithm was used by Zuckerberg in the creation of "The Facebook," which started with Harvard and then moved to other schools (and eventually to all of us, of course, losing the "The" in the process). His shares in the company were reduced from one-third ownership to less than one percent after Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), creator of Napster, was brought into the company by Zuckerberg. None of the principals were involved with the movie, whose screenplay (by Aaron Sorkin of "West Wing" fame) was based on the book "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich. It tries not to take sides so it's up to the viewer to decide, for example, if Zuckerberg is an insensitive jerk and a lying thief or merely a misunderstood genius. (Although it pretty much paints "the Winklevi," as Zuckerberg refers to the twins, as entitled snobs, and Parker as a party animal whose new friendship with Zuckerberg ends up destroying Zuckerberg's friendship with Saverin.) In a movie that's well-acted throughout, Eisenberg is the biggest revelation here. He is extremely successful in breaking out of that sensitive-soft-voiced Michael Cera mold. Cera himself made a start, but only a start, in breaking his own mold in playing Scott Pilgrim. He should take on a more challenging role, as Eisenberg has done here. My grade: A-minus.

A Milestone Post, A Worthy Cause, An Important Day

Yesterday I noticed on my Blogger dashboard that my next post on this blog would be post number 500. I thought that such a milestone ought to be about something really important instead of the mostly trivial stuff I normally write about. I asked for suggestions on a Twitter/Facebook update. I got none. Fortunately, (insert name/title of your preferred deity or deities, or chalk it up to fate) provided inspiration today.

I had just gotten on the bus that runs along Frankford Avenue near my house. There was a bit of a commotion. The driver commented to another passenger about being stuck in the outer lane. There were a few cars and vans driving along the other lane, moving more slowly than the rest of the traffic. As the bus driver finally managed to pass the clog, I noticed two vehicles in particular -- with a red, white and blue motif and a lot of text, with one word in the largest font standing out: GUMPATHON. In between them was a man in what seemed to be a wheelchair/bicycle hybrid. His legs were still -- it was his arms "pedaling" the handlebars that powered his ride. Curious, I jumped out of the bus a minute later, ahead of the caravan, and captured some video. (You don't hear sound because of the YouTube sound issue I previously ranted about, so you can't hear the man give me a shout in response to my thumbs-up gesture as he passed.)



So, what is the Gumpathon?

Let's Talk About Twitter

Since I seem to do my best work in the early morning hours -- to be more precise, since I tend to post in the early morning hours -- here's a blog post. My original intention (since I keep putting off the posts about the three movies I've seen in the last 2 weeks) was to just write about some random stuff in my head at 2:30 a.m (the time I began this). However, it's turned into a whole Twitter thing.

As of now I follow about 275 Twitter accounts. (I have about 180 followers of my own and am always looking for more, so tell your friends!) While I really like Twitter, there are things about it that I dislike immensely, and it's not posts about the weather or people's lives that some get worked up about -- they see tweets (or Facebook status updates, for that matter) like "Going out to dinner..." as boring. I don't mind them, though. They're little looks into people's lives.

Following 275 accounts, though a few aren't really active at all, it takes time trying to read through the timeline. That makes me want to try and save time by dropping some of those I currently follow. I don't want to unfollow anyone who's following me back, though, and of those who don't follow me back, I always seem to find various reasons to keep them, whether they're really entertaining or just because they're a favorite of mine (like Annie Lennox).

I finally dumped a couple today, one being ESPN's Jayson Stark. Why Jayson?

Oh, HELL No, Facebook!!!

Never, Facebook! Never in a bazillion years! I don't care about the three friends of mine who like Palin or the anonymous ninnies who like Brewer.

I have no idea why, but this is turning out to be Facebook Day here on the blog.

Facebook's Important Discovery

Breaking news!!!!

I'm astounded! Is this actually true? You can like both music and sports? I can't believe it! Do you realize how much my life would have been changed if I learned this when I was younger? How have I lived the last 48 years without knowing this stunning information??????