Just stop playing ...

I can't recall a more miserable September for my favorite sports teams:  Red Sox and Braves are inventing new ways to lose, UGA is not what I would call having a good start to the season, Falcons lost their opener (but did win their next game so that's good), Furman ... who cares and then it just dawned on me -- our hockey team is in Winnipeg.  Not that I actually care about hockey, I just figured, might as well combine as many bad things into one.  I even lost a game the other night on NCAA 2012 ...

All of these sports failures are dragging me into depression. Sure am glad I got that sports betting thing under control back in my twenties. Also glad I will be MIA next week so I don't have to visually watch Boston and Atlanta complete their EPIC FAIL.

At least I'm not as angry as this guy:

Oh Nevin ... me thinks crossing Luther was a bad idea

One would think that after you were arrested for involvement in a 900 million dollar Ponzi scheme, you'd be quiet and maybe go into hiding. Not Mr. Nevin Shapiro ... he decided to expose 72 members of the University of Miami football team for NCAA violations. And then he decided to go even further and make comments about Luther Campbell ... yeah, even though he had a reality show and seems nice, I would never cross the former lead singer of Two Live Crew.  Good luck Nevin Shapiro - I bet your prison time is going to be a blast.

Story on ESPN

PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS

Dear Red Sox and Braves owners, managers and players,

I apologize for watching you in late August / September and potentially being some sort of cosmic reason for the recent slide that can only be describe as an EPIC FAIL.

For the love of all things holy (and unholy), please stop one of the largest collapses in sports history. Do you want an ESPN 30 on 30 about how you both fell apart? We want to watch LeBron fail, not the Braves and the Red Sox.  Please ... please ... please get it together.

For the Braves players, I went to hundreds of games in the 80's when I would go home with 3 or 4 foul balls because no one was at the game.  Win a couple of games for that kid who loved Dale Murphy and vividly remembers cheering for Pascual Perez and Raphael Ramirez. During the 1987 season, I watched every single home game -- even the one against the Astros when there were 400 people at the game. For the record, I had more people at my 21st birthday party.

I can relate to your struggles because I played the game of baseball and know how times are tough, the game is decided by inches and its not as easy as everyone thinks (to this day, I hate a lot of stupid fans and always wanted to punch the shit out of the fan that screamed, 'THROW STRIKES." But, as my college pitching coach so eloquently told me during a mound visit, "You best unf*ck yourself and figure out a way to win." Sounds harsh but sometimes, that's what works.  Here are some quick fixes: Kimbrel - try the outside corner and Bard - try throwing your slider away from the sweet spot of the hitter's bat.

But seriously ... suck it up and win. Second place is the first loser ... well, in this case second place is the wild card, but you get the point.  JUST WIN, DAMN IT, WIN!

Sincerely (a fan who really needs you guys to win so things will be ok in life),
Jed Eckert

Going left doesn't mean things are better

HA ... you thought that was a political comment, but its not.  I'm referring to the Left Coast where I spent the last 4 days.  I'm not going to say this was the best trip of my life because ... it wasn't. In fact, I'd have to admit that this trip ranks up there with one of the more disappointing (from a fun perspective) trips in my life.  Granted, I was out there for work, but I was hoping that I could mix in a bit of fun.  Some of the "low" lights:

• Bugs like me ... in two cases, I had a bug in my beer. Yeah, I'm sure they add protein, but that's something I reserve for saying on a Summer evening at 3 AM when I'm sitting on the porch intoxicated, not indoors at a restaurant 
• Hair is not a good garnish -- yup, I had a steak that had a really long, nasty, dark hair in it. I still don't feel very well. 
• When I think of bad traffic, I didn't think of Portland but I will moving forward. One evening, we decided to go to the North Face outlet and a 20 mile drive took 90 minutes.  It was also great to have three back seat drivers in the car making some fun, witty remarks the whole way. Sure am glad I learned patience when I moved to Europe or there would be a few co-workers hitch hiking back to their hotel in Portland. 
• Rain -- I was expecting rain, but not expecting the bulk of it to occur during our event.  Nothing says super fun like working outdoors in the rain. 
• Sat Nav and Verizon -- neither seem to work in Portland ... especially Verizon. In fact, my Droid not-Incredible decided to delete my address book again ... for the last time.  It almost has a horrible accident in the ATL airport but fortunately, I realized that you can't return a phone in pieces.  Bring on the Samsung INSERT RIDICULOUS PRODUCT NAME that arrives tomorrow. New phones mean lots of fun! 
• US Women's National Team -- they were staying in our hotel and we saw Abby Wambach hanging out in the lobby. Also saw Alex Morgan ... Yeah, nothing really to say there other than we saw them ... pretty sure they were making a trip to Nike.
• Speaking of Left -- saw James Carville on ABC this morning talking up how the White House should panic ... he job hunting or what?
• And to stay political -- nice press conference anointed one. I watched it on the plane and all I could do is think, "phenomenal leadership."  Let's create a larger divide amongst the people because that's how you create compromise -- through huge gaping gaps. I'm starting to think the administration wants open revolt in the streets? But don't get me wrong, the Republicans are idiots too. Let's face it, the rich can pay more money but there are more clever, creative ways to get their money that Obama trying to force it on them. This really feels like Forced Healthcare Debacle Part Deux.  Does he really think his Bilderberg friends are going to like this approach?
• Jet lag -- it sucks ... almost think West Coast jet lag is more miserable than European jet lag.
• The one positive thing ... the hotel had Transformers 3 on demand ... yeah, that's right. For 3 hours I was able to escape and enter a world of pure stupidity ... and I quote Optimis Prime, "You may lose faith in us, but never lose faith in yourselves!" .... epic

This is pretty much the only football I saw in Oregon this week

But watching Auburn lose was pretty much the greatest thing I've seen all year ... Let's just say everyone here in Oregon is more than pleased that Auburn lost ... and they refer to the former Auburn QB as Scam Newton as well.  Gotta love it when hatred brings complete strangers together.   

Never thought I'd see this on CNN

A good watch from earlier this week.  James is an entertaining personality and despite the fact that he's not a huge fan of Obama, I'm still surprised by the article ... PANIC ... maybe Obama will hire Morrisey as a political advisor.

Today's Motivational Image

Obama, Jobs and a Debate

It has been a few weeks since I decided to ramble about politics so I decided to wrap them into one big ole post.  So here goes:

American Jobs Act (awful name)

• American Jobs Act:  Seriously, that's the best name you could come up with? I understand the Great Society and New Deal were taken, but AJA? Sounds more like some sort of infection (which it will be) than a jobs program. I mean what about something like:  "Jobs Bitches - Get On Board", "No More Handouts Plan"
• American Jobs Act Part Deux:  So the anointed one feels we should pay for this with higher taxes to the rich and cutting incentives to the gas / oil industry. Ok, I get that ... but can you justify what we will get in return?  How can you create jobs by spending lots of money, increasing taxes and not cutting something? I didn't get an A+ in Micro / Macro Econ, but I at least went to class.  Plus, Dr. Noisewater shared this fantastic link that sums it all up:  The Cost of Obama's Stimulus Plan
• American Jobs Act Part III:  No way in hell this passes a Republican controlled Congress and Obama knows that. He's playing politics ... why not do something that will create a compromise? It's a shame that common sense has taken over politics.
• American Jobs Act Part IV:  This goes into the debate, but why don't we just enlist the draft and invade Mexico? No more boarder problems, plenty of jobs and we can sell all the confiscated drugs for billions? We could even legalize the cartels and incorporate them?

Republican Debate: I have to give CNN some credit ... I think they did a decent job. Wolf was less Wolf-like and the post-show panel after the debate was strong. Here are some of my key takeaways: 

• Republican consensus -- no one likes Obama.
• It wasn't so much a debate as it was an opportunity for each group to pimp each other out and try and break each other down.  The whole "treason" commentary got old quickly and it felt as if I were watching a bunch of children bicker of a DVD in the back seat of a car.
• After watching it, I really want a Godfather's Pizza. Not so much that I love Cain, I don't dislike him, but he reminds me of pizza and I'm on a diet which means pizza is sorta a no no. 
• Michelle Bachmann hates Rick Perry and pretty sure she didn't look at him the entire night.  Oh and she's short ... didn't realize she was short. I did have a conversation with Retired Sorority Girl and we are both pretty sure she was fun when she was 22. 
• Further to that point, I'm not sure any of them like Rick Perry.
• Newt is still running? 
• Aside from yelling at people, what did Santorum do?
• Ron Paul got attacked by the crowd and its a shame because what he said was historically correct (like it or not, it is historically correct). Granted, this isn't the first time the Tea Party has wanted to embellish history (and yes, Grumpy, even you know this is true). Yes, we did go to Saudi Arabia in '90 - '91 at the request of the royal family which irritated Osama Bin Laden. Yes, this led to a fatwa by his new group, Al Queda (which translates to foundation or basis), which did the '93 and '01 attacks. So in theory, yes we did provoke the extremists by having boots on the ground and that's fact ... not political rhetoric (and this is backed in a number of non-fiction books, the 9-11 Commission Report and even in pop culture: The movie The Kingdom). So stop booing ... unless those boos are targeted at UGA Offensive Coordinator Mike Bobo. If that's the case, then boo away.

Personally, I wish the candidates were all legos and we could construct a candidate to run against the anointed one. He's now in campaign mode which means he will have more energy, speak like an evangelical minister and start saying clever things like "Let's Do It Again" or "Yes We Can Do It Again" ... pretty sure he's paying the ad wizards on his campaign bus big bucks for such clever comments.

Let's be honest ... all the candidates suck (compared to candidates in the 50, 60 and 70s).  I wish we could just start from scratch or turn the election into tryouts like for a High School Football team. Oh well ... time to get my campaign up and running. At least my campaign slogan will be cool like: "Vote or Die!", "Why Not?", "Just Win, Baby, Win!", "Everyone else sucks, so why not me?", "Wanna Invade Mexico?"

Fall TV: but still no Mad Men ... son of a ...

The new TV season is upon on us and still no new Mad Men episodes ... sad, just sad.

The good news, I've been able to find a few other things in life beyond TV to replace Mad Men but I'm kinda tired of fresh air, exercise and I could really use some quality time with Roger Sterling and Don Draper. Oh well, until then, here are some sure bets (or tremendous fails) for TV this fall: 

1. Whitney:  New NBC show featuring some guy and his annoying girlfriend ... do we need a sitcom for the bachlorette? 
2. Kate Plus 8: Not so much new as its finally over. Wonder what Kate is going to do next? I'm looking forward to her checking my ID at Kroger and her kids bagging my groceries. 
3. H8R:  CW show where fans confront celebs they hate.  If this were real, it would be the greatest show ever. Imagine a real celebrity death match ... too bad that only happens in Syria. 
4. New season of Archer:  Might be the funniest cartoonish show to hit TV since South Park. If you don't watch it, then I bet you are voting for Obama.
5. Glee: Yup ... another new season.  I admit, I liked Season One but then I started watching the Deadliest Catch instead and now hate it. 
6. Walking Dead:  Love a show that's filmed in my building and outside of my office. There are days when I'm not sure if I'm watching Walking Dead or there really are zombies wandering around my building.
7. Karoke Battle: As if America's Got Talent wasn't bad, now we have Karoke battle. Sweet. Nothing says amazing TV like listening to a bunch of drunks slaughter Journey and Bon Jovi.  
8. Up All Night: Rumor has it, this show is amazingly funny. 
9. Amazing Race:  Yeah, its not new, but is always a great show.  I've considered doing this with my dad or some friends, but since neither know how to read a map or have any sense of direction, then I think the show is out. Course, I would want to be known as the first Amazing Race guy that gave up on day on and took the camera crew into a bar. 
10. Paradise Hotel:  I made that up ... but wouldn't it be amazing if that show came back? Wonder what Keith is doing these days?

I'm still waiting on AE to combine the Bacholorette finale and Shark Week as well as the new 90210 and Walking Dead. Regardless, life just isn't the same without Mad Men and I'm in hopes the show comes back in early 2012.  But let's be honest, as long as the politicans stay away from our prime time TV, all will be fine.

Now if we can only find a way to get Roger Sterling back sooner ...

I wish I had Nike's budget

Newish (yeah, I'm behind on the blog so more like from last week) Nike campaign ... I wish I had their budgets

There is so much wrong with this video ... I don't know where to start

Yup, 35 interesting years

Yup, Jed turned 35 today ...  kinda crazy.  Some key points about being 35:

1. I feel old and thanks to all my years of baseball, I can tell you when its going to rain 
2. My last concussion made me feel really old ... and stupid. The only good thing, I can play off drinking and just say the head injury causes the slurred speech. 
3. If this were France, I'd be close to retirement ... since this is the US and our economy / government is a disaster, pretty sure I'll be working on the celebration of my second 35th birthday 
4. I worked on my birthday for the first time in 10 years and it was great ... nothing beats a job with some amazing co-workers.  
5. Last year, I got dumped three days before my birthday. Three days before my birthday this year, I was sitting in Fenway Park watching the Red Sox v. Yankees thanks to Retired Sorority Girl who gave me the most amazing birthday gift of all time.  I finally found someone who out gifts me ... hard to imagine. 
6. So far, this has been the greatest birthday in years ... and it's only just begining. You all know Jed ... the birthday celebration lasts weeks. 

I've had 35 years of amazing adventures, mishaps, stories, hijinx and entertaining moments. I've been blessed with an amazing family and friends that make life exciting, entertaining and fulfilling.  I've seen large portions of the world and made friends from cultures I never thought would ever entertain a loud American from the South. I'm blessed to say I have "brothers and sisters" from all corners of the world that have shaped my views and I accidentally (and occasionally intentionally) insult frequently.  

And I did all this in just the first 35 years ... no telling what's going to happen in the next 35!  Cheers to you all!

Snapshots from Boston

Boston was amazing ... more details to follow when I can get a break, but here are some pictures from the trip. Boston had some of the nicest people I've met in years and Fenway is by far the most amazing sports venue around.