That's Just Criminal

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis recently took time out of his busy deodorant hawking schedule to chat with ESPN's Sal Paolantonio. During said interview, Mr. Lewis made a rather bold claim: if there's a lockout, crime rates will increase because "There's nothing else to do, Sal."

Now, Ray-Ray - can I call you Ray-Ray? - I respectfully disagree. Very respectfully. Please don't send your planet-blasting, jet-powered raven after me! It seems to me, Ray-Ray, that there are plenty of things to do without football, even though I will miss it worse than I will some day miss my liver. Something tells me that, come Sunday without the NFL, most people's first reaction isn't going to be to go rob someone.

No, Ray-Ray, these are the trends we'll see during a locked out season:

• Declining divorce rates. No football. No fantasy football. More lawns getting mowed, shelves getting installed, trips to Ikea getting taken, mothers-in-law being visited, etc., etc., etc.
• Climbing suicide rates among married men. Fellas, just look at the above and tell me it doesn't send a little shiver down your spine.
• Less Joe Buck. Hmm, that's a plus.
• A sharp drop in sales of fabulous suits. Without Deion Sanders and Shannon Sharpe needing a fresh outfit every week, men's wear as we know it may never be the same. I hope you like tweed.
  
• An increase in large men shaking what they've got on the dance floor. With no end zone in sight, nose tackles have to get their groove on somehow.
• A marked increase in the quality of...er...ah...service at your local Hooters. Cheerleaders need work too.
• A sharp drop in brain hemorrhages caused by wasted time outs and stupid challenges. Also known as andyreideurysms, this terrible disease will go the way of polio, smallpox, and
  
• A ridiculous rise in the number of prima donna wide receivers with reality TV shows.

And Mr. Lewis? If you need something to do, I suggest setting up a school where you teach rhythmless white boys like myself how to do that cool dance you do when you come out of the tunnel before the game. Just think how popular I'd be if I could bust out the Ray-Ray at parties.

P.S. While writing this I watched "Stone Cold" Steve Austin make some big farm boy cry. Stone Cold, I miss you and you should be in charge of eliminations at every reality show between now and the day I die.

P.P.S. While writing this I also saw the tried-and-true wrestling trick of hitting somebody with a car. That never gets old, especially when the medic finally shows up after a few minutes of awkward yelling for help and the following exchange ensues:

Medic: "What happened?"
Tag team partner: "HE GOT HIT BY A CAR!!!!!!!"
Medic (under his breath): "Uh, not again. Hopefully the man behind the wheel was somebody better than Rikishi this time..."

P.P.P.S. Also, he got hit in the leg and they are clearly treating his knee. Why the hell are they playing the beep of a heart monitor in the background? Vince, you're losing your touch.

"Run as Administrator" Can Kiss My Ass

For those of you who haven't upgraded, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 have introduced a new feature straight from the lowest circle of hell: "Run as Administrator." Most people won't even realize it's there until they try to do something that should be easy, fail miserably at it, and spend two hours Googling how to do it. Then they follow instructions that fall along the lines of "right click on the whatever and click Run as Administrator," and resolve to make their next computer a Mac. I AM THE ADMINISTRATOR, BITCH! What is the point of obfuscating functionality from me? Security through rickoculousness is not true security.

I shit you not: in order to read a firewall log file today, I first had to right click Notepad and choose "Run as Administrator." I've heard some stupid things in my day, but "right click Notepad and choose Run as Administrator" is right up there with "I just sold my hand gun to Gilbert Arenas." I couldn't even take my daily one o'clock dump until I right-clicked and chose "Shit Like You Mean It."

Microsoft, let's go. There are so many more useful things you could replace "Run as Administrator" with. Here, let me suggest a few:

• "Run as Dumbass." This one changes all the text and menus to idiotspeak so you can understand what your stupid coworker/relative/client means when he says to you "OMG the button in my Adobe doesn't work!!!!!"
• "Run as Marketing Shithead." Have you read a product brochure lately? They spend 18 damn pages telling you how much they're going to increase your productivity and 1 page vaguely mentioning the program's features. This replaces a program's menus with direct mappings to those half-assed definitions.
• "Run as OS X." This takes all the menu items that are buried 19 pages deep and puts them on the top level where they belong. May also cause spontaneous instances of black turtlenecks.
• "Run as Guy Who Overpaid for Training that Should Be in the Manual." Self explanatory. If you need to sell three day seminars to teach people how to use your product, you need to take your UI designer out behind the shed and shoot him in the back of the head.
• "Walk Like an Egyptian." Why not? Maybe "Run as Marketing Shithead" will tell you what this really does.

Yes I'm angry and bitter. I went to a new bar tonight, Meadhall, expecting awesome and all I got was crap. The food was ridiculously overpriced, the atmosphere sucked, the crowd made me feel like I should've worn boat shoes and a Lacoste polo, and never in my life have I seen a beer list that long with so many beers I couldn't give two craps about. I give up.

What the Rapture Means for You and Me

According to all manner of billboards, buses, placards, brochures, pop-up ads, newspaper inserts, toilet paper, fortune cookies, town criers, chain letters, and notes passed in the back of the classroom when the teacher isn't looking, May 21 is the date of the rapture. Some dude has some math that supposedly proves it, but it's too ridiculous to print here. Jedi like me aren't going to get raptured-we don't go to heaven or hell, we just turn into blue ghosts who magically turn into different actors twenty years later. And, let's face it, if you think my shit is funny, you're probably a terrible person who isn't going either. So what does Judgment Day mean for you and me? For starters, it means you get a bulleted list. That's right, I'm laying it down for you in the language of the Metatron himself.

• It means free stuff. It a ton of people just off and disappear, well, somebody has to take advantage of the crap lying around. Why shouldn't it be us? Just think of it all: homes, electronics, food, cars, boats, and probably a shit ton of land in Texas. All there for the taking. And beer! Think of the beer!
  
• It means everybody else was proven wrong. No more solicitations by well dressed young men on the street. No more people ringing your door bell right as you sit down to take a dump. And just think of all the hot young Muslim ladies who, having been proven wrong, will literally let their hair down for the first time and lose all of their inhibitions. Ohhhhhhhh man.
• It means fewer people clogging up the line at Dunkin in the morning. This one might make it worth being damned for eternity.
  
• It means parties. Crazy, ridiculous, outlandish parties, the kind you see a couple of losers throw in an 80's flick that magically turns them cool, with Molly Ringwald and/or a computer generated genie/bikini model. All the aforementioned beer has to go somewhere, and I can't be counted on to drink all of it. Some of it's going to be Stella Artois, and there's no way I'm touching that shit.
• It means lots of available billboard space.
• It means the T will finally learn how to operate like a real mass transit system. You know, because it's the end of the world and all.
• It means awesome reality TV. "Fourteen and Pregnant with the Antichrist." "Survivor: Rapture." "Levi Johnston's Alaska: Where the Fuck Did all the Palins Go?" "Are You Smarter Than a Horseman of the Apocalypse?" "Flavor of Love: Last Time, We Promise!!!" And of course, that oldie-but-goodie, "Jersey Shore," with all of the original cast members.

I hope this has been informative. I'm going to watch some wrestling now.