HEROIN IS SAFER THAN FANTASY SPORTS - SAYS FDA*

I have never used heroin nor will I ever use heroin. Well, I guess I really can’t say I’ll NEVER use heroin – life is, after all, a series of ups and downs and ins and outs and you really never know where you’re going to end up. One day I could be here, at my computer desk changing the world with my indelible prose, and tomorrow I could be panhandling outside Yankee Stadium, selling fake plastic roses to terrified tourists so I can go buy a couple of snack wrappers from McD’s and a small bag of black tar. So I guess I should say, I never PLAN on using heroin. There, that’s better.

But I like to imagine that an addiction to fantasy sports is a lot like being addicted to heroin. Again, I have no basis for this, because I am stupid and I have a misguided view of crippling addiction versus a general hobby, but oh well. Still, the fact remains that similar to intravenous drug abuse, fantasy sports are time-consuming recreational activities, can cost a ton of money, and for the most part, inevitably leave you naked and dead underneath a highway overpass yearning for more.

“Heroin = Fantasy Sports” – Sigmund Freud

Most of my friends have a serious love/hate relationship with fantasy sports. I am no stranger to this volatile bond. One minute I am absolutely adoring my team and telling my mom about how awesome Jason Heyward is going to be, and the next, I want to punch my team so hard in the face and start watching "The Voice." Because unlike other "things" we "do" for "fun", emotions surrounding fantasy sports tend to linger long after you’ve closed your browser and gone back to eating that delicious cheeseburger. It’s just so easy to get caught up in the fantasy aspect of the game. It is, after all, a fantasy. And who doesn't love pretending to be the head honcho of a sports franchise?

But that's as far as the fantasy goes for me--I have no daydreams of being a successful real-life general manager. Unlike delusional egotistical assholes of the Bill Simmons variety, most people aren’t versed in law and the serious intricacies of business relationships, and wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to GM a real sports franchise. Even the shittiest active General Manager in all of sports is still at least a million times better than me or you or your momma. If I were appointed General Manager of the New York Jets, within in seven minutes, the stadium would be a pile of burnt tinder and the team's PR group would be preparing a statement highlighting the franchise's plans to move to Anchorage. Sure, when considering a team like that Jets, these results would probably be beneficial to the franchise, but still, not the most effective or PR friendly moves.

So, it stays a fantasy. But still, when the fantasy is good, it's good. With fantasy sports, you are a motherfucking G to the tenth degree. Anyone on your roster fucks up? How about you, Lucas Duda? Hitting .193 in May? YOU ARE CUT. No severance, no guaranteed money. CUT, BITCH. Now get the fuck out of my office. There aren't many more satisfying things then finally cutting an under-performing player, and then watching him suck even more on the waivers. Good riddance.

Obviously, the flip-side to these wonderful and not at all masochistic aspects of the game is the misery that comes along with sucking at it. I am halfway decent at fantasy football (Two championships and two 2nd place finishes in the last three years in two leagues--NO BIG DEAL) because head-to-head is mostly luck so it’s much easier to be successful. But rotisserie baseball? Holy shit - I am terrible. Within seven seconds of the season beginning, I am in last place, and that’s where I stay there for six months. Everyone makes fun of me and I pretend that I don’t care but I do care. I fucking care so much. Because I want to win so badly. Just once. I wouldn’t care about losing forever if I just got that one goddamn championship.

To take a direct quote from a recent email I received from a friend of mine: I fucking hate fantasy baseball and hate myself for doing it every year. But I just want to win once!!!

And that’s what it’s all about--winning. Just win once. Just win once and take my money forever and ever. The pain of being in 8th place for 10 years straight will go away instantaneously once I get that elusive trophy. And those three months where I am the reigning champ and I get to ram it down everyone’s throat– incalculable satisfaction. "Yeah, fuck you, son--THE CHAMP IS HERE. Maybe you should quit fantasy baseball and go do something that will give you some pleasure – heroin maybe? I heard Sigmund Freud got down with the China White, and since you’re an egghead like him, I think you might enjoy it. Now get the fuck off my message board before I lock your ass out, sucka!!"


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I AM AN AMERICAN AND I DESERVE A BUCKET OF SODA

First they take away our soda and then they take away our freedom. What's next - our right to own M-4's with infrared scopes and grenade launchers? How else am I going to hunt deer? With a bow and arrow? Who am I, Robin Hood? If we don't stop this right now, next week we'll all be starving to death on bread lines and speaking Arabic!

Obviously, I am being facetious. Obviously, everything is going to be just fine. It's just giant sodas that we are (potentially) no longer allowed to buy--that's all. We can still go to Costco and buy 400 gallons of Diet Rite and pour it into a garbage can and then drink the whole garbage can while watching reruns of "The Commish."  Nothing is really different. It's not like there is a ban on fun. Most people don't consider drinking enough soda to have a heart attack 'fun' so maybe we can move on and stop acting like the government just banned the internet?

What this law is doing is teaching us a lesson. And that lesson is this: stop being a glutton in public. Stop walking around with a pale full of soda. You don't need all of that soda. No, you're absolutely right, I'm not your mother. But maybe I should be? Maybe I should be your mom because your mom obviously didn't teach you that there are worse things in this world than the inability to buy fountain sodas that are excessively large. Maybe you should go ask a Sudanese refugee who, for most of his/her life, had to not only worry about warlords shooting up their entire village but also worry about lions attacking and eating their friends. Go ask them if they felt violated when Bloomberg said 'no' to gallon-buckets of Mountain Dew.

I, for one, am all for health initiatives that at the same time piss people off.  Because nothing is funnier than people barely giving a shit when the MTA fare hikes kicked in (as service continues to slowly swirl in the shit-filled toilet), but people take to the streets with pitchforks when Bloomberg decides it's time to help those who refuse to help themselves. People who have their priorities out of order are funny. And by funny I mean depressing. Oh who cares about getting ripped off by a modern-day monopoly when BIG BROTHER IS TELLING ME HOW TO ENJOY MY SODAS.

Shut up. I don't want to hear it. Seriously, shut the fuck up. Stop telling people that obesity in America wouldn't be so bad if healthy food options were cheaper. That statement is fucking horseshit. I do the food shopping in my house and I promise you that a head of fucking Iceberg lettuce, chicken breast, and some fucking carrots cost a lot less than McDonald's. It's not about the 'prices'--it's about being a fat, entitled, lazy motherfucker. We are fat because we are lazy, not because we are poor and can't afford cucumbers. The cucumbers market isn't blowing the doors off the stock market. But you know full and well that if someone handed you a bunch of ingredients to cook a healthy meal, and also handed you a #2 from McDonald's, many people will choose the latter. And you know what? Fuck them. I don't have any sympathy for them. Yeah, sure, I know, it takes time to prepare food while at the same time balancing your job/recreation/dreams/laundry/karate class. I get it. But if you are going to fill your fucking face with terrible food, you shut the fuck up when some dickhead mayor bands 9,000 ounce sodas. That's the least of your fucking problems, pal.

Look, I'm no health "guru." If someone leaves an unattended box of donuts within 9 miles of my desk, I will hunt it down and I will fucking murder everything inside of it. I love candy and ice cream and shit that is terrible for me. When my wife goes away I pour barbecue sauce all over everything that I eat and I love every second of it. But I also find time to eat and drink all of this shit in moderation. I do not drink 48 oz. cups of soda. This is a good starting point for those people looking to make a little bit of a difference in their daily plight to fit through a turnstile. Start there. Start there and then maybe next, carrots? Once the horrible diarrhea has subsided as your body trying to expel everything vile from inside of you, you'll thank me.

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APPLE SUCKS

Guys, we need to talk. Seriously. This is serious shit we need to talk about. Go get your mother and close the door. Ready? You need to stop convincing yourself Apple products are great. They’re not great. They are shit. They are poorly designed pieces of shit created to confirm that we are all just foolish sheep who will do as they are told. In this case – buy shitty and unreliable tech products because they are round and have a sleek, minimalist design.

 I’d like to point out that, as I am writing this, I am thinking about all of the stupid Apple products I own, and how infuriating it is to hate them so much and use them all the time. Forget about being an extremely fortunate young man who has an abundance of technological miracles right at his fingertips--everything should work perfectly. So yeah, I am a sheep too. And I will continue to follow the flock until someone recommends something better. I can't do it on my own. Every time I look up product reviews, I am immediately overwhelmed so I close my internet browser and go hide in my basement. I bet this is how Nell felt in “Nell” when she left the woods. All the user reviews of tech products are either too complicated or someone turn everything into an argument about George W. Bush being an asshole and orchestrating 9/11. I thought we were talking about the Samsung Galaxy?

For the time being, I am stuck with all this amazingly cool and innovative technology. But none of it 'works' right. It starts off working right, and then it just stops. Something goes wrong. Maybe it has something to do with the 900 software updates per day? If you miss one you might as well throw your iPhone into the ocean and become Amish. I don’t even know if you can 'become' Amish – I would assume they make you go through some sort of hazing ritual that forces you to rake-fight with a giant bearded man and then drink cow’s milk from the cow’s udder or something else gross like that. But still – one software update is ignored, the phone is pretty much worthless. And I don’t get why people are making a bigger deal about a product being released before the kinks are worked out. If the kinks need to be worked out – work them out. Isn’t that what makes it “good”? Look, no kinks! Enjoy a healthy technological lifetime of stress-free use! I bet that's why people in Japan are so calm. I bet that in Japan, when they are releasing a new robot that combs your hair, they make sure to work out the kinks before proceeding with their day that includes using a vending machine to buy used underwear. I bet that's what happens.

But I will give credit where credit is due - Apple has one of, if not the best brands in the world. People will line up around the block no matter what Apple decides to release. They could “re-release” the iPhone 3G in “limited quantity” and call it a “collector’s edition” and there would be 9,000 idiots standing outside the Apple store waiting to buy an outdated piece of shit. Again, it shouldn't be about the brand--the quality blows. I’ve gone through five iPods in four years. That is not normal. I understand it’s a relatively insignificant piece of technology that is not-essential to everyday use – but would you buy five cars in four years? I wouldn’t even buy four pairs of jeans in five years. Or belts. I have a belt that I bought at Structure 40 years ago. Structure doesn't exist anymore, but my goddamn belt does. That's a testament to the will and resilience of the American Manufacturing industry (unless the belt was made in Bangladesh, and if so - congrats Bangladesh!)

I’ve resigned to the fact that my iPod will break after minimal wear and tear, it will cost $1 less than retail price to fix it, and so I will have to go out and buy a new one. Oh, and I will have to 'illegally' remove my songs from my iPod because Apple is a bunch of corrupt and greedy assholes who make it nearly impossible to transfer songs between iPods if you’ve imported them via CD’s and not via iTunes. Oh, and speaking of iTunes. What the fuck? What the fuck is going on with iTunes? Fuck iTunes. Who is advising them to keep changing the way it looks? Who’s fucking idea is that? 99% of iTunes users don’t want the fucking interface changed. Leave it the fuck alone so I can impulsively buy songs that I don’t even really like. And for the 1% who care out the aesthetic quality of iTunes, they are probably downloading their music illegally, anyway.

Oh, and Steve Jobs. So, I kind of get why Steve Jobs is revered. I do, I get it. He was an innovator and he made some cool shit. But what I don’t get is why a bunch of strangers were lying around the Apple store after he died, posting notes and writing haikus to their iPads for his ghost to come and read and enjoy. Part of my issue with that fiasco is: A) you didn't know him; and B) judging by the picture painted of Jobs by those closest to him, he probably would have kicked everyone off the property and then slapped a bunch of the gardeners for cutting the grass too short.

In conclusion – fuck Apple. Fuck everything that they stand for as a company. Fuck Steve Jobs and fuck all of you for sanctifying him. And fuck software updates.


Sent from my iPhone 4S

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