Month: July 2009

You Missed It: There is no joy in Beantown edition

Hey, guess what? I’m about to head out for week-long vacation. It’s so close I can taste it. You know how that is, right? I’m just counting the minutes until I’m out of here. Anyway, if you were busy getting cash for your clunker, odds are you missed it.

How Papi got so big
There is no God. First Brady’s injury, now this. David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003, when both were playing for the Boston Red Sox and on their way to becoming legends in the city. Boston fans are surprised because they are naive. And since we’re going for disclosure here, I was on performance enhancing drugs during the 2004 playoffs, and so was Bryan Schools. The more we drank during the second half of the ALCS and World Series, the better they played.

We should try this with Israel and Palestine!
You may not have heard about this, but apparently a black Harvard professor was arrested by a white police officer and the issue became a little tense racially. Luckily, President Barack Obama knew just what to do in commenting on a topic that had nothing to do with him, thereby making it into a huge issue. Predictably, they settled it with booze They got together at the White House, invited “Crazy” Joe Biden over and drank away the awkwardness. The bad news is that Obama drinks Bud Light and Biden doesn’t even drink alcoholic beer.

You might be a terrorist if …
A North Carolina father and several others have been arrested and charged in relation to what police say was a “violent jihad” terror plot. Authorities say Daniel Patrick Boyd, a Muslim who sports a bowl cut, known in the Muslim world as “The Holy Hairstyle of the Prophet,” traveled to Pakistan to plan attacks on American soil. In other news, I have yet another reason not to go to a NASCAR race.

The feel-good racial tension of the year

The nice part about having a VP is always having someone available for double-dates.To close out our coverage of the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. fiasco and Beergate 2009, we leave Gates and Sgt. Crowley on a brighter note.

Their initial meeting was a misunderstanding, leaving one to think the other was an uptight, Harvard-teaching priss and the other a bumbling meathead with a badge. They infuriated each other; but little did they know that they were challenging each other to learn something … about themselves.

And then Gates friend, who just happens to be the President of the United States, took his friend’s side before discovering that Crowley deserved a second chance. Taking fate into his own hands, he invited them each over for a beer on the same day. Oh to be a fly on that wall!

After what Crowley described as a “private,” frank” and–as we imagine–wry, yet touching conversation, the two have agreed to meet again, this time without the First Chaperone. They plan to call each other over the next couple of days to arrange their next outing/compare favorite movies and music.

The Guys don’t normally cry at romantic comedies, and such was the case with this one. However, our allergies are acting up, so that’s why they’re watering. No, really.

IT’S A CONSPIRACY!

I’ve gotta say, it must be fun to work in Microsoft’s legal department. Personally, I tend to gauge whether my day is enjoyable by whether it was busy or slow, and more often than, unfortunately, my days at work are very slow. Not so much over in Redmond, it seems. It appears to never be a dull day, though whether the majority of what they have to deal with are credible or crackpot, we’ll not know. We do know one thing, however: this lawsuit is of the latter characteristic.

Microsoft is being sued yet again for allegedly knowingly selling, and profiting off of, defective products. Up to bat is a fine gentleman from Oak Forest, Illinois, who had to pay $99 to get his X-box 360 fixed. Surprisingly, though, this time, though, it seems the Red Ring of Death is not to blame. Unfortunately, the plaintiff doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong with his system, because Microsoft refused to tell him.

The unnamed plaintiff is hoping for a class-action suit, along with monetary damages (of course) and for Microsoft to stop selling 360s until they fix their hardware issues. Yeah, which of those things do you think is a bit more possible than the other?

I wouldn’t automatically accuse Microsoft of purposefully making broken hardware, because I don’t think any major company would intentionally put out a defective product, but the failure rate of their consoles has been incredibly questionable. Whether it was simply a rush job, a lack of oversight, or something totally beyond their control, who knows, but whatever it is, a total injunction against selling the system is no way to correct the problem.

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Battlefield Baseball’

Battlefield Baseball is not exactly what you would call a sane movie. Though, I guess I should back up a minute first.

Baseball movies are almost always feel-good chick flicks. Bull Durham is about romance. Field of Dreams is about hope. The Rookie is a lesson in perseverance. For Love of the Game is about … well, who really knows what that one’s about other than Kevin Costner’s penis is laughable (at least, according to the rumors regarding early test screenings).

But really, who cares? The point is that, ironically enough, baseball movies ultimately aren’t for guys. They’re a way for girls to get guys to watch chick flicks. Except, of course, Major League. That one’s for guys.

Have no fear, though. There’s another that’s totally for guys, if only because, by process of elimination, it’s definitely not for women. As I mentioned in the beginning, it’s not a sane movie. But why is it for guys then? Hit the jump to find out why. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Battlefield Baseball’

We nailed it: Beergate ’09

In our coverage about the Gates arrest while everyone ignores health care, we made note of President Obama’s invitation to Gates and Crowley to the White House for a beer.

In the comments, we made this prediction:

Rick Snee on July 28th, 2009 11:42 am

This week’s big “political” scandal: is Obama a beer snob? How much are taxpayers paying for special interest brews? Why does Obama support outsourcing American pale ales to India?

You read it here first, folks.

Read it and weep, unbelievers. We’re movers and shakers, baby.

Keeping your finger-the latest version of a dowery

It’s no secret that Japan’s graying population and shrinking birthrate are major concerns, and everyone is being asked to pitch in and help out in their own way. From attractive public service billboards to special cash bonuses, businesses and government are all working to encourage the young people left in the country to get busy and make more young people.

What’s really weird is that there’s now an industry. Opportunities are to be found everywhere to be labeled as “marriage brokers”, or people who matchmake without the help of a weird website and weirder commercials. Obviously, if there’s a new industry, then there’s opportunity for crime. Fifteen men with ties to the yakuza have been arrested for running a series of marriage brokering scams and making off with as much as 1 billion yen from 200 victims. It’s hard out there for a yakuza.

Posing as “celebrity marriage brokers”, the gangsters would entice victims into signing up for their service with a “membership fee” of about 100,000 yen, and then setting up dates with accomplice “sakura” girls. Each date would cost a fee to set up along with various “deposits” and convenience charges. The client would then be strung along for more and more dates as his bride-to-be feigned growing affection. When the time was right, the gangsters and their girls would just disappear. One victim was taken for nearly 80 million yen. Their scams also went small-scale, targeting rural, lower-income marks for about 100,000 yen apiece. Victims in those cases were more likely to just write off the losses rather than shame themselves trying to get their money back.

Do the yen to dollar translation yourself. And no, we won’t make a joke about a shotgun wedding.

Where is the racism?

Given the chance, Obama could be one of his multi-racial best friends.If you’ve been following the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. situation, you might be a little disappointed. Sgt. James Crowley turned out not to be as much of a cross-and/or-book-burning Cambridge gestapo than we hoped.

Worse yet, they’re settling this problem with a beer, so Gates might not be as much of a latte-sipping, vagina-painting snob than we thought.

Honestly, all we ask for–as a news-reading public–is a little over-the-top racism. Black-on-white, white-on-black … who cares? Didn’t you see the box office numbers for Gran Turino?

And that’s where Boston police officer Justin Barrett saves the day. Let’s go to the quote box:

“In Barrett’s e-mail, which was posted on a Boston television station’s Web site, he declared that if he had ‘been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.’

“Barrett used the ‘jungle monkey’ phrase four times, three times referring to Gates and once referring to [Boston Globe columnist, Yvonne] Abraham’s writing as ‘jungle monkey gibberish.'”

Mm, delicious. But that’s not all! What did Barrett follow it up with after he got in trouble?

“‘I have so many friends of every type of culture and race you can name. I am not a racist.'”

Gonna need a cigarette after that. Nothing beats old-timey “some of my best friends” crackery.