Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Free Pussy!!

Less than 24 hours after I sang the praises of Facebook, it has rewarded me with more entertainment.

As some of you know, my family has 2 cats. We had adopted these cats from a woman whom I used to work with. I have kept in touch with this woman via Facebook in the last few years.

My former coworker lives out in Western Massachusetts with her family, they have several cats that roams around her home and property. She always has kittens a few times a year up for adoption. Although some people might criticize her for letting her cats mate freely and bringing unwanted kittens into the World, but I do believe she does go that extra mile to find good homes for them.

Anyways, we'll refer to my former coworker as LOLcatWoman for this post.

I get to work this morning, I see this post on her status:

LOLcatwoman - To the serious freaks on CRAIGS list... If you using it as a dating tool, do the world a favor and stay in the "personals" section. The "FREE Kittens" section is not for this purpose...

That's a softball right down the heart of the plate - a 4 bagger with a single swing of the inappropriate comments bat. I let it go, too easy.

Then as the day went on, I see several posts from LOLcatwoman, and I started to piece together what's going on here.

As it turns out, LOLcatwoman has placed an ad on Craigslist, putting two of her kittens up for adoption. She had turned down several of people until she met a woman named Steph. She thought Steph was a nice single girl and would offer the kittens a good home.

After a few days, LOLcatwoman discovered this ad on Craigslist (since been deleted) from Steph.

Yep, you guessed it. They were the same kittens Steph had just adopted from LOLcatwoman.

Intrigued, LOLcatwoman contacted Steph,and inquired as to why she is putting them up for adoption again. I would do the same thing, figuring maybe Steph's situation had changed, perhaps she lost her job or got evicted from her apartment.. etc.

At first, Steph pretended that she didn't even know LOLcatwoman. After a bit of conversation, LOLcatwoman tells Steph to stop playing games and she'll just take the kittens back.

Steph agrees and gives LOLcatwoman her address so she can pick up the kittens. LOLcatwoman arrives at the house, and Steph refused to answer the door. LOLcatwoman calls Steph from the doorsteps, and Steph claims that she "loves the kittens and someone was playing a joke on her by posting that Craigslist ad". They have a conversation, and the ad is removed.

The next morning (today), LOLcatwoman discovers the ad had been re-posted. Just to be sure, LOLcatwoman calls from a different phone and posed as someone who was interested in the kittens. Steph responds on the phone "yes, I have 2 kittens for sale". Just to be extra sure, LOLcatwoman had friends and family call her to inquire about the kittens.

Throughout the many calls, the animals under the control of Steph has grown from 2 kittens to 4 and 2 puppies to boot.

LOLcatwoman has several phone conversations with Steph, and had Steph admit to her that she is doing this because she is lonely - she wanted to meet people by having people come by to look at the kittens; this conversation took place between bouts of Steph's arguments with an imaginary person in her apartment.

Finally decided she had enough, LOLcatwoman dispatches her husband to Steph's house to retrieve the kittens.

When he arrived at the house, of course Steph denies everything. The husband of LOLcatwoman tells her to stop being a freak, and hand over the kittens. Steph does so, probably after some discussion with her imaginary roommate/friend. Oh, while she is claiming not to know how the ad got up there, she is wearing that exact same outfit as shown on the picture.

Here is the post by LOLcatwoman about the details of the kitten rescue [sic].

"she tells [lolcatwoman's nephew] that she has 4 kittens.... I have my coworker call, she tells him she has 4 kittens and 2 puppies. I call her back and double check, she says "i cant find a way to take that ad down". I said "has anyone called you" , she said "no"... [lolcatwoman's husband] calls her while on on the phone with her and I can hear it beep in...
She flips over to him and... he is RIGHT here... She tells him she has 4 kittens available. He says "what the HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" She hangs up. She calls me 8 times asking how to take an AD down from craigs list. Wants to get together for coffee. So he goes there to ask her whats her problem, since we have a ton of people to give them too, and she says "i dont know what you are talking about, I havent talked to you or your wife... " - So he pulls out his phone and says "this is a little thing called caller ID, and that over there is a police officer, stop being a freak, give the kittens back (who were in the carrier all night with out food or water)"

At this point, I jumped in and asked some poignant questions:

Me -2 questions -
1. How did you guys get the kittens back?
2. Is she hot?

LOLcatwoman answered #1 with the details above, as for question #2, she quoted her husband:

"it doesnt matter what she looks like, you will be getting a threesome with only 2 people."

Well played sir, well played.

Throughout this whole ordeal, LOLcatwoman had posted the link to the ad on her facebook status, enlisting people to call Steph about the kittens.

I had briefly contemplated calling the woman and pretending to be a Chinese restaurant owner, and ask if I can have the kittens before the dinner rush.


See, I can do that because I am Chinese, anyone else that would be racist, and would require to buy me beer at a teaching moment.

The lesson learned from this ordeal? Don't put your pussy up on Craigslist.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Pink Hat Nation

You know that Facebook is a great application.

You use it to keep in touch with friends and family, when you meet new people, you have more time to learn more about them - what you may or may not have in common with someone.

Another thing about Facebook is that you can use it to get back in touch with friends from long ago, whom you have lost touch with.

It's great to find out what happened to them and what they are up to now; and this is where I had disturbingly discovered that a lot of my friends from high school are pink hat fans.

What are pink hat fans? They are what people used to call band wagon fans, or fair weather fans. They are easy to spot when someone likes a successful major out of town team - like Duke or the Lakers; but they are much harder to spot when the pink hats are fans of a local team, they can easily blend in with the homers.

Well, then how do you spot the pink hats in the Boston area where the local teams has had much success in the last decade? Well, the dead give away now is to look at people's cars. At least once a day in my commute, I will spot a car with a Patriots sticker, a Red Sox sticker, and a Celtics sticker on the back trunk or tailgate of their vehicle. The Pats sticker and the Red Sox sticker are generally much larger than the Celtics sticker, and they are generally symmetrically placed. The Celtics sticker will almost always be placed at a location where it was obviously an afterthought.

Alright, back to Facebook. I have discovered people from my high school who when we were growing up, didn't care about football and baseball, now pimping the fact that they're big fans of the Patriots and the Sox. Posting updates during the game - pictures of them at the games.

This fella pictured here to the left,whom I shall refer to as Joe Pink Hat from this point on, is the worst offender. Growing up in the 80's, he had no clue about the Patriots and the Red Sox, or even the sports in general.

In fact, his parents had 4 season tickets to the Patriots in the old stadium, and each home game, they would ask - no, beg us to go with them because they cannot get rid of them. Every time they asked, we would not go because I was not a fan of the Patriots and he deemed (correctly) that it was more fun to have the run of the house for several hours while his parents were at the game.

One of the main characteristics about being a pink hat fan is that he or she knows next to nothing about a sport or team, but became a "fan" so they can be liked and fit in with others. They are annoying because they really don't care about the sport, but usually pick up on the obvious portion of the fanhood - like hating a bitter rival. Joe Pink Hat is the living embodiment of that type of a "fan".

One of my most vivid memory of going to a Red Sox game, was a game I went to at Fenway with the White Sox visiting. The White Sox catcher that day was none other than the former Red Sox player and legend (now Hall of Famer) Carlton Fisk. Even me - not a Red Sox fan, knew this.


We were sitting behind the visitors dugout with his mother, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon - with tickets bought from the walk up window - yes, it was possible to get seats behind the dugout on the day of the game back then.

Well, Joe Pink Hat here wanted to heckle an opposing player - because you know, that's what you're suppose to do; and knowing next to nothing about baseball or the Red Sox, he decided to pick on Fisk - not knowing what he had done for the Sox (the warm reception Fisk got from the hundreds in attendance should have given him a clue). Anyways, when Fisk was returning to the dugout after the home team had batted, Joe Pink Hat started to heckle Fisk.

Fisk would ignore him for the first few times, as we were just kids - and his material was limited to the run of the mill "Fisk! You Suck!" variety. It was maybe the fifth or sixth inning, when Joe Pink Hat pulled out the big guns (okay, I may have egged him on a bit). "Hey Calrton! YOU FAG! YOU HAVE AIDS!!!". Remember, this was the 80's, and AIDS had just came into national attention as an epidemic (before Magic Johnson), and still was considered a "gay plague".

Fisk stopped dead in his tracks while walking back to the dugout and glared right at him. I think if we were a couple of years older than what we were back then he would have came into the stands and killed both of us. There were not that many people sitting around us, so he knew exactly who said it (also we were the only kids in that section and his crackling adolescent voice was a dead giveaway). Even the few people sitting near us grew quiet and stared at him.


Anyways, Fisk waited a few seconds until Joe Pink Hat shrunk a few inches in his seat before he walked into the dugout. His mother, who is a very sweet woman, didn't really follow current events. She had no idea how inflammatory her son's comments were. I think she even asked something like "hey, was that player looking at us for some reason?" We sat in our seats for another inning or two and decided to ask his mom to get us out of there because we want to go to the 7 PM movies.

I found and friended Joe Pink Hat about 2 months ago on Facebook. And I have watched him post something about the Sox everyday, and now the Patriots.

Why am I very annoyed at these people? Well, one - now they had jumped on the bandwagons of the teams I do support in the Boston area, the B's and the Celtics, they have driven up ticket prices and lessened the availability of the tickets. Also, infinitely worse, when I wear any Celtics gear, I am lumped in with these idiots.

You know how annoyed you were with the fair weather Rays' fans with their stupid cowbells and mohawks last year during the ALCS? That's how I view the Boston Pink Hats.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Jerry Jones

Love him or hate him, you have to give him props. The man's got balls.

Bought the Dallas Cowboys 20 years ago for a mere $140 million, now according to Forbes - it is worth a cool $1.65 billion.

Yep, that's right billion with a B.

Sure back in 1989, I fucking hated the man. As a life long Cowboys fan, his first move as the new owner was to fire one of the most successful coaches in the history of the NFL, and push out the general manager that built the Cowboys from scratch into America's Team.

Sure, there were a couple of down years, okay - a decade of down years (3 consecutive NFC Championship losses in the early 80's - unless you are a Bills fan or an Eagles fan, those are failures in my book), both Tom Landry and Tex Schramm deserved better.

But give Jerry credit, he saw that time and the NFL game had past the two by, and it was time for something new.

His next move, was to hire a college coach with zero professional experience to take the reins of the Cowboys. The pair them promptly traded away Hershel Walker - who accounted for 65% of the offense for the mediocre on their best day Cowboys.

What was that like for a Cowboys fan? I wanted to fucking kill both Jones and Johnson. For the love of Christ how in the fucking world do you trade away the guy who IS your offense in the middle of your season??!!

A few years later, the move proved to be the very reason that the Cowboys took home the Lombardi Trophy 3 years out of four. In fact, it was such a great move, Johnson called it "the Great Train Robbery".

The next few years that followed after the Cowboys won the first Superbowl in the 90's, I would give Jones a B+ on his achievements. The bad - he drove off the coach that won him the Superbowls mainly because he didn't want to share the spotlight with him. The good? He broke with the NFL/NFL PA in the merchandising front.

Not many of us remember that Monday night game in New York with Jerry Jones walked onto the Giants Stadium turf with Nike Founder Phil Knight to announce the deal that the Cowboys had struck with Nike to brand Texas Stadium with Nike logos. But that was a revolutionary move for the NFL.

Up until then, all the franchises in the NFL shared the merchandise revenue equally. It doesn't matter if your team sucked and you as a owner can barely remember the address of your stadium, or you as an owner spent every waking hour trying to improve your team - you shared the revenue equally. All those Emmit Smith jerseys that were sold? Every team in the damn league gets a piece of that action.

In political circles, that's what is known as communism. With one bold move, Jerry Jones changed all of that. Why the hell should Jerry and the Cowboys share the money he earned by being the most popular franchise in football with the perennial bottom feeders who refuse to improve their team?


At first, there were only a few owners who saw the light. Al Davis, who was just happy to have someone else being labeled as "maverick owner" besides his Darth Vader self; and Bob Kraft. That's right, Bob Kraft; he saw back then the smart money was the opportunity to shed the dead weight of the layabout owners and market your own team - if you can keep most of the fruits of your labor.

Now after several years, guess what happened. Everyone is on board now as the NFL became the most successful professional league in the world. Everyone is richer, and everyone is happy (except Al Davis, who is still unable to expand his merchandising demographics from LA gang members and frustrated by his apparent inability to hire coaches who doesn't punch fellow employees).

Fast forward a few years to the current time. Midst of a recession, Jones is set to open his 1.2 billion dollar football stadium.

Prices too high in a recession? Nope, the stadium is almost sold out, including the luxury boxes and even with the personal licenses for season tickets and corporate sponsorships.

Worried that the higher ticket prices will only bring in the "well-heeled" crowd who will not make the place a living nightmare for visiting teams? In addition to the 72,000 people the seats and the suites will hold, Jone is selling an additional 30,000 $29 "party passes" that will let the fans stand in the decks and buy Jerry's beer and hot dogs. This is just brilliant, simply brilliant. You know all those rowdy bleacher crowd you see in baseball parks? Jones just created an opportunity for 30,000 rowdies to enter the stadium at $29 a pop to move around and do their thing.


Worried that the planet's biggest HDTV (which sits 90' - 9 stories to you and I, above the stadium surface) will interfere with playing football? Get the NFL to amend/clarify the rule. In the mean time, everyone is talking about the new Texas Stadium.

As Michael Silver suggested, I am thankful for the Jones owning the Cowboys.

20 years later, I will own up to Jerry - I was wrong.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Shawn Merrirman Does the World a Favor and is Arrested for it

Shawn Merriman was arrested in the wee hours of Sunday morning for allegedly "choking and restraining" girlfriend Tila Tequila.

Listen, I am against domestic violence, but I think in this case we must ask ourselves - who hasn't thought about choking out this low-rent Paris Hilton wannabe?

From her "MySpace fame" to some unwatchable bi-curious dating show, to some crap she calls music; she has come to represent everything that is wrong with "Internet Fame".

I'll go ahead and say it. Thank you Shawn, for sacrificing your professional football career for the betterment of these Internets.

Let's hope Roger Goodell will have the common sense of the judge in the Chris Nilan shoplifting case and take into consideration of this great service to the community and be lenient when levying out Shawn's suspension.