The Yankees: Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don't

I love arguing baseball because you argue with actual fans. For whatever reason, baseball isn't one of the sports where people feel the need to pretend to like. If you start a baseball argument with a casual baseball follower, they'll straight up tell you, "Yeah ya know I really don't give a shit about baseball". But if you pick an MLB fight and that person bites? You got a real fan, hook, line and sinker. My two closest friends are Mets and Sox fans. Our arguments are nasty, they get personal. After signing Gerrit Cole, all eyes were on the Yankees. Now it doesn't matter what they do, because my arguments are fucked for at least a year. 

This year Mets and Red Sox fans were already preemptively loading arguments against the Yankees before the season even started. Before this pandemic my Red Sox buddy told me, "Yeah it's stupid because the Yankees SHOULD win the World Series. Honestly, if they don't it's just embarrassing". Took a page right out of Skip's book. With that shitty thinking he wins either way. Fuck him though, banners fly forever. That was my line of thinking until Manfred dropped the hammer on this season. 

Let's hypothetically say the MLB plays an 80 game season, and the Yankees win the World Series. Can we even enjoy it? I would get so sick of the word asterisk, that I would rip the word out of every dictionary I ever came across. In the eyes of those disgusted by the Yankees, it would be the perfect World Series for them to win. The 27.5 rings jokes would be nauseating. Omg I'm just burying myself at this point, 27.5 would be a genius rallying call. 

So what do we hope for? The MLB cancels the season? That's just selfish, I still need baseball. Plus that doesn't bode well for the team. That's a wasted year of prime for Judge, Gleyber, and Sanchez under their rookie salaries. Imagine paying Cole and Stanton all that money this year to not even lace up? I need to stop before I puke. 

Who knows the solution? Whatever, solutions are things of the past. If the Yankees win the Series I'll just have to shove it down people's throats. It's all I know. If people are going to be obnoxious about a World Series win, Yankee fans will just have to out-obnoxious them. We can do that, who's more obnoxious than us?

Stolen Quarantine Valor

I have a confession to make. I just got off of work an hour ago (10:00pm). I know, I know. I've written eleven quarantine based blogs in the last month. The truth is, I've been writing them after work or on my days off this whole time. I'm sorry to have hoodwinked you. The only thing I can offer is my deepest condolences and my shame. 

While killing some time on Facebook, I scrolled across the class clown turned woke guy from high school. It was seven paragraphs long, but I was in the mood to be angry so I indulged. The post starts with him asking for the last ten years why it has to be this way for him. He's isn't sick if that's what you're thinking. Our gracious host then strongly insists that he isn't doing this for sympathy. I, his humble guest on this post, obliged. He goes on to say that being jealous of what others have during these times isn't the right 'mindset'. Odds are he just watched that video of celebrities singing/pacifying the world in their mansions. The word "mindset" is so fucking triggering to me, I can't explain it. Like if you casually use "mindset" I just assume you're a douchebag. What are you a fucking personal trainer? Getting off track. The reader is instructed to embrace their hardships because that's what makes you....(wait for it)...you. Very uplighting. Next paragraph, not so much. Woke guy says right when he's beginning to accept his hardships, this whole pandemic thing happens and that he is now facing even more adversity than ever. He's having a tough go at it in his parent's house apparently. His dissertation ends with some personal growth thing and how we need to stay positive. If you're feeling sad, stay positive. Damn, wish I would've thought of that. I'm sorry I've been acting like I was quarantined every day, I didn't understand the toll this was taking. 

All of his likes were from users who are collecting a social security check. If you think I'm being too hard on this kid remember I know him and you don't. He hasn't had some tragic death in his family, he isn't sick, according to his friends he doesn't have any mental health issues. I'm pretty sure his last ten years of his hardships is just him not going to college (not cause he couldn't afford it, he's rich). He got his real estate license or some shit after graduation and now thinks he was robbed of his childhood. You're home, fucking try hard to enjoy it. I was home for three days last week and my masturbation to shower ratio was 2:1. Or was it 1:2? I don't know I was never great at math, but I jerked off a lot. 

I probably am being too harsh. I don't mean to diminish people struggling with this quarantine. I'm sure it can be mundane and lonely. Really, you can't tell by my tone, but I'm not being sarcastic. Take care of yourselves, call your families, call your friends. Have a drink, you deserve it. My only ask is that you try not to fucking lecture a whole social media platform on how hard your life is while you're still in pajamas. I guarantee you, those nurses and doctors would switch with you in a heartbeat. Remember how being at work sucks? They're still doing that. Now I'm lecturing. 

Try not to go crazy. Watch Ozark, what I've seen of this season is really good. I'm falling in love with Jason Bateman. Gain a few pounds, no one's watching. Watch a man open up 6,000 boxes for three hours. Read a book, draw something, laugh at some stand up. Find a way to blow off some steam, like I just did. Do whatever you do that makes you enjoy your nothing time. Because you most likely won't get another chance at nothing until you retire. By then, you'll be too old and gross to enjoy it. Don't feel sorry for the people still working, they didn't sign up for the pity field. They're more worried for you for when everything goes back to normal and you're a part of the worst Sunday Scaries in history.  

On a personal note, I was asked to possibly work seven days a week. I'm going to try and keep blogging as much as I can but if I miss a blog on a day I normally post, cut me some fuggin slack. I'm sorry I snapped a bit back there.  

The Twisted Inner Workings Of An All Male Group Chat

I don't know what our girlfriends and fiances think goes on in this chat, but if we gave the a thousand guesses today I don't think they'd get it right. My invisible girlfriend would definitely get it wrong. There's no rhyme or reason to the paths of our conversations. No one knows how the topics start but they don't even end in the same realm. For instance, today we started with bear attacks and it ended with me getting shamed for a friend's dead grandma. 

There's thirteen people in the group chat. For today's story, you only need to concern yourself with three other characters. For the sake of their stupid privacy we'll name them F, S, and M. It's the first letter of their names. Ok, so recently my friends have become obsessed with something called hoodsite or something like that. From what I gather, it's a not very Christian website that posts shit like cartel beheadings and people getting their faces skinned off. Not my cup of tea, so I'm going to have to take their word for it. Today's topic from the site was a man who got his face mangled by a bear and then killed the bear. 

The guy lives somehow. It sounds like the inside of his face was dangling from the outside. There was an argument for about fifteen minutes whether the bear ripped the dude's face out with his claws or with his teeth. My money is on claws but there's no time for that right now. Apparently the man's transformation from the plastic surgery was miraculous. On the topic of the mangled face, F said "I'd just wanna die prob", thus began my snowball. 

Seeing F's comment I texted S outside of the chat and saying, "Want to see F get mad?". Back in the group chat I wrote "F would rather see both his grandmas kill each other or whatever fucked up shit he said that night". Now this was a callback to a 4th of July BBQ six years ago where S attempted to push F in the pool and F wound up chipping his front tooth in half. That's when F wished death upon his sweet poor grandmothers. We were pretty drunk that night, and F has vehemently denied ever saying that, but we all swore we heard him say some variation of that. My theory is that when the joke didn't go over well, he figured that we were all drunk enough to deny it for the rest of his life. It's only been brought up a few times since. Anyway, F responded in the chat telling me to shut the fuck up and that sometimes he want's to bash my face in. Not unlike his face, the night he lost half a tooth. 

The chat went on to talk about the Russian mob somehow. It might've gotten too awkward after F's obvious anger, and half the chat HAHA'ing my text. Those HAHA's are like crack to me. You've met S and F, now here comes M. He does not come bearing good news. 

Couple hours later F texts the group chat between him, S and I. Every group chat has sub groups and if you don't think that's true, than you're the friend nobody's comfortable hanging out one on one with. Sorry you found out this way. Right, so F texts in a screen shot to me and S of his conversation with M about how his grandma died last night. F thought he had me dead in the dirt. He sent the screen shot with "Wow a lot of badly timed dead grandma jokes today". S half-jokingly called me a scumbag which was dismissed by F who stated he was being serious.

I let it sit there for a bit. F is one of the most ruthless, most inappropriate friends I have. So I replied only with this:

  

"If you pull that trigger aight, you pull that trigger for a fucking honorable reason. Like an honorable man! Not like some fucking civilian that does not understand the wicked way of our world mate." I will not be chastised by the man who was just joking about a real human being, who got his face ripped off by a bear. This wasn't some fucking scene from The Revenant. This is the life we chose. We laugh at things when we aren't supposed to be laughing. We've made jokes that would make Lucifer himself blush. So I made a couple of dead grandma jokes? "What fucking line am I supposed to have crossed!"





p.s. For the record, I didn't not know about the passing of M's grandmother before I made the joke. Much like Alfie not knowing they'd use Tommy's son. It was the principle that got to me. RIP

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Today Is My Birthday So I'm Throwing Myself A Pity Party

I think it's extremely selfish when people make mass tragedies all about themselves. People moaning about trips they couldn't go on, bitching about not going to their senior prom, whining how they're unable to buy essential goods, you know, that sort of shit. The worst so far has been the people complaining how they couldn't celebrate their birthday. I hated them for that. But that was their birthday, today is mine and I'm here to bitch.  

If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all. The dominos started to fall that night the NBA went AWOL. The next day was a Thursday and I had a pair of third row tickets to see Nate Bargatze in Red Bank, New Jersey. He cancelled an hour before the show. The following day, Friday, I was given lower level tickets to the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden. It was cancelled the morning of. 

Now you might be thinking, wow look at poor money bags over here can't see his wittle shows. That's what I'd be thinking, but fuck you. I could barely afford this shit and I rarely leave my house. I'm not super into the higher power thing, but karma is looking pretty legitimate at the moment. Hang tight, it gets worse. 

Last week the boys and I officially pulled the plug on our trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. Like an old dog, we knew it was coming but we held out probably longer than we should have. Nine days from today I was supposed to be catching a Diamondbacks game, going back to our fancy schmancy Airbnb, and pregaming for a pool party bar where I was planning on failing with ASU girls way out of my league. 

Which brings me to today. My birthday. My cousin had bought me Yankee tickets for my birthday. Not any ol Yankee tickets either. Today was supposed to be Gerrit Cole's first start in Yankee Stadium. Instead of beers, pinstripes, and the 300 million dollar man, I'm sitting here refreshing Jeff Passan's twitter to see if there's any updates on the MLB returning to my television. Woe is me. 

Props to me for never tweeting or complaining about any of this. I never would either, but today is my birthday so I'm the King. That means you have sit there and listen to my pity party. I should have been sitting in Yankee stadium as I'm typing this. What did I get? A mean hangover spent with two fans on, switching back and forth between Ozark and an old comic book. Year 27 off to a slow start. So it goes... 

But this is my birthday, damn it. I had my fun whining, it was pretty therapeutic actually, but I'm going to choose to end it on a positive note. Last night I celebrated on Zoom with college friends from Alabama over a couple of drinking games. My dad, my brother and I ordered in some Houlihan's and I blew out a candle stuck into my side of mashed potatoes. And lastly, most importantly, my sister is in labor at this very moment having my first nephew on my birthday. Woah is me. 

Survivor Should Have A Season With Only Homeless Contestants

I watched a lot of Survivor yesterday. Like all eight episodes of the current season, or whatever. I normally wait until the season is over to watch. With no sports on, my two Survivor buddies and I figured out a way to bet on the show. When everyone was caught up, we snake drafted the remaining contestants and whoever has the winner on their team, wins. During my catching up, it struck me that homeless people are playing Survivor every day, so what if we cast them for a season? 

Seems so obvious that I can't figure out why it hasn't been done. A cast of only homeless people on Survivor could make for some of the best reality TV ever produced. They've been unintentionally training their whole lives for this. CBS should do the right thing and give the homeless population the possibility at a new life with a million dollar purse. Let's break it down. 

My biggest hurdle on Survivor would be that I'm a big fan of eating, but I don't like seafood. Grosses me out. I've seen a dude in Penn Station pick lo mein out of the trash with his hands and eat it. You think homeless people are scared of a little hunger? They could probably go double the amount of days of a regular season on rice, coconuts, and a beach full of fish. 

Sophie on the latest episode of Survivor was crying over a little bit of rain in Fiji. The homeless population has been fighting the rain fight on the streets for centuries! They are not the same. No shelter? It's in the name motherfucker. Their whole life is no shelter! Give them a couple of cardboard boxes and they become architects. Imagine what they can do with bamboo.

The challenges would feature some of the most athletic feats ever seen on the show. Some people, not me, walk up to homeless people and tell them to do a flip and they just do it! Homeless people are forged differently. Their genetic makeup was built for harsh environments in fast pace. You ever seen that naked homeless guy running down the street do a flip mid-sprint? Here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG1LG1gADog

As for the social game, we'd need to make it very clear that murder gets you automatically disqualified. I've seen two homeless guys come to blows over street corner territory where they hold their marker signs. Shanks are prohibited, but backstabbing is encouraged. Sometimes homeless people talk to no one. Now the possibilities of conversations with nineteen other contestants is endless. Or how crazy would this be, the camera pans to a contestant talking to themselves and they think they're in a four person alliance but the other three people don't exist! Imagine that blindside. Man, the drama in that camp would be insane. 

Would it be entertaining? Of course. Would it all be for a good cause? Absolutely. Fan favorites tend to have something real to fight for. Every contestant on Survivor:Vagrants would be fighting for the biggest life progression in the history of television. For those who don't win? Television has a way of taking people who you otherwise wouldn't help and make you set up a GoFundMe for them. If CBS has an ounce of integrity, they will give the homeless population something to strive towards. Make homeless people the newest contestants to get the chance to be America's next Sole Survivor. 

Buttered Bagels Are Trash

Tragedy struck my household this morning. My dad got bagels and it turns out we have no cream cheese. Was it safe to risk it all going out for a bag of bagels this morning? Who's to say. Dad claims the local establishment is safe. He's not a doctor or anything but I really wanted a bagel so I agreed with him.

Beating out my sleeping brother, I got the plain which was bunking with an everything. I really thought it was going to be a good day. I sliced up my bagel, and my father's cause I figured I owed him a kindness. I went to the fridge to get us the cream cheese and it wasn't there. That can't be right, I closed the door, collected my thoughts and reopened the refrigerator. Not in the usual door spot, ok, maybe somebody put it on a shelf or something. Nothing. Not Philadelphia, not whipped, not even that weird cream cheese that comes in the pink container. Slowly, I turned to my disappointment of a father and asked him if he bought cream cheese. I knew he hadn't, but I hung onto my delusions because the prospect of a few more seconds of hope was better than nothing. That's when he said it. "I'm not going back out, just use the butter".

I must have been adopted. Butter? BUTTER?! Do I look like a serial killer to you? Only lefties and communists butter their bagels. Seriously, let's look at that picture above. That neanderthal is buttering his bagel with a steak knife! There's no form. Just clumps of butter placed randomly around the bagel. I don't need to see the 'After' picture to know that shit isn't going to spread correctly. I mean look at it! If you wanted me to butter something, you should have bought a bag of rolls.

I don't know the history of cream cheese but I just realized right now that I always assumed it was created solely for bagels. I remember eating a stuffed mushroom and learning how to make buffalo chicken dip, thinking "Wow that's a creative way to use something that's only used for bagels". Cream cheese was made for bagels. Bagels were made to be cream cheesed. So if you do butter your bagel, grab that steak knife you use to spread it, and take a long hard look at your wrist.