Some observations about this Pittsburgh office...

...and related things, such as the hotel room, both remarkable and unremarkable. This is guaranteed to be one of the most boring things you've read in the last four years, seven months and six days. Give or take. *shrug*

* the most expensive lunch I've had from the food court in the building must have been spaghetti and meatballs from the Sbarro's, which ran me $6.39 (I think)

* the cheapest must have been a large soup from Au Bon Pain from the same food court, clocking in at under $4

* a whole bunch of people -- not including contractors / consultants like myself -- clock out at 3:30... of course, they're in at ass o'clock in the morning, too

* the entire place (ok that's an exaggeration) is plastered with "Bring Back the Cup!" signs in hopes of the Pittsburgh Penguins winning the Stanley Cup (hockey for those who don't know). After working in Illinois for the last 15 months and watching the Bulls go from a playoff team to a turd, it's an interesting change of sports pace...

* most offices have a security ID card scanner outside the door leading into the office from the elevator bank, and a button that you have to press in order to exit to the elevator bank. Our button looks like the friggin' "Easy" button from those commercials

* not being able to communicate with the outside world while at the office, via anything other than my firm's webmail, continues to be frustrating. My fingers haven't yet, and probably never will, enjoy sending instant messages through my phone's keypad

* I should be used to this, because I spent a cumulative 28 months in an office with such a bathroom, but yet again the people here are incredibly sloppy with disposing of paper towels in the men's room. Half the time, a few sheets are strewn on the floor underneath the actual basket; more often than not, there are a bunch of sheets just hanging around the rim of the receptacle (thanks to Lebowski I must use that word now)

* in my time here so far, no one's forgotten to flush the toilet, unlike in the last building I worked at. Man that was fuckin' disgusting...

* this is one of those buildings where the men's room has a tall urinal and a short urinal. I haven't seen any men under four feet in this building, but I suspect it's to support those who are vertically challenged. If this is true... why, then, isn't this shorter urinal standard wherever handicap stalls are standard?

* this is one of the only office bathrooms I've been in that has a coat rack. It's warm now and no one's wearing coats so I lie the Gatorade bottle that I've usually just filled at the nearby water fountain across a pair of the hooks

* the color scheme here is mostly dark browns and greens in the halls and open areas, with white walls enclosing the majority of cubicles. Is this to encourage us to stay at our desks, where it's brighter and more cheery? :P Because the halls are damn depressing

* the water fountain is sufficient, but I miss the little "gloop gloop" that water coolers make when you use them

* my hotel is literally across the street from PNC Park, where the Pittsburgh Pirates play baseball. Every day I walk to work (it takes a total of about 12 minutes to walk from my hotel door to my cubicle), I pass by the stadium and then cross a yellow bridge over the river to get to the streets where the office building is. I think the same homeless person sits in the middle of the pedestrian area of the bridge every morning

* I just tried sending e-mail to three distinct individuals with a Hotmail address, including my old one that's I had to re-activate for my Xbox Live account. For some reason, tonight, I'm being told that my IP address is blocked by Hotmail... wtf?

* the hotel where I stayed at previously in Illinois had a lounge with free water bottles for those who accumulated enough hotel points. There is no lounge here and we get a tiny pint bottle each night. I drink A LOT OF WATER. So I've been resorting to boiling tap water in the coffee maker, then chilling it in a sink of cold water. Yeah, it has a burnt coffee aftertaste, but I'll take whatever I can get

* last week, my next-door neighbors in the hotels were singing. Loudly. And very, very poorly. It didn't help that it was one of those dealies where there was a locked door joining the two rooms, as opposed a solid wall, allowing the howling to seep through even more

* the bathtub in my hotel room has this weird plug that you push on one end to lock, and push on the other end to open. In several attempts to lock the drain so that I could fill the tub with bath water, it popped back open of its own volition about 14 times before I finally got it to stay. What the hell ever happened to a plain old fashioned wedge attached to the tub with a chain, because you know they're worried about people stealing the plug?

* they've played this goddamn motherfucking Volkswagen commercial where the drummer chick says "Europeans are crazy" WAY TOO MANY TIMES DURING THE LAST FEW GAMES NBA PLAYOFFS. STOP PLAYING IT. IT'S NOW MORE ANNOYING THAN THOSE REPEATED ZUNE ADS AND THE FKN' HEINEKIN AD WITH PEOPLE PASSING THE BEER ALONG VARIOUS REGIONS.

* the room service here comes from a pub that shares part of the ground floor of this hotel's building. The person who delivered my snack yesterday was most definitely not hotel staff, unless this hotel staff has employees who regularly dress up as bar flies. Just an amusing observation on my part

* that's it. go home

On Fatigue

I guess the answer to the question I pose at the bottom of this blog is: My body's endurance sucks.

Here's a little preface on how my job works. I work for a consulting firm, meaning that -- in all simplicity -- I'm one of The Bobs from Office Space. No, I don't go in and find out what people do and get them fired literally, but my overall job -- as part of a team -- is to be involved somewhere in the process of going in, finding out what a business needs, how it can improve itself and its processes, develop a plan for that, implement that plan, and support it. However, not everyone stays in a project from beginning to end. A lot of us have experience in concentrated areas -- such as the planning and analysis stage, where we have to gather requirements for a proposed application, et cetera -- or the testing stage, or even the support stage which happens when the application or new system goes live. Now, some people do stay on a project for its entirety, from very beginning to very end -- but I’m not one of them.

So it's not like I stay at one client for three years. For me, it's been between 8 and 15 months at a time. These projects happen everywhere. Depending on your assigned specialty, certain types of clients reside in certain areas. Financial institutions are mainly centered around Wall Street and elsewhere in New York City, or in the tri-state area at least (as well as other metropolitan areas). I don't get assigned to Financial clients, though; instead, I'm in the Products group, which specializes in consumer goods and services (retailers, liquor distributors, market research firms), and health and life sciences (pharmaceuticals, health care). Thus, the projects I've been assigned to have been in South Norwalk, Connecticut; Schaumburg, Illinois; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That means I do indeed have to travel a lot, and for the most part, Mondays through Thursdays have been spent on-site with Fridays being the magical and relieving day working from the comfort of my native New York. (One exception: For Connecticut, I was close enough to travel there by rail. It was a 2-hour commute each way, but it was worth it to sleep in my own bed every night.)

Now, when you "roll off" of a project -- meaning your job and role on that project is finished -- you go "on the bench," waiting for new roles to pop up. It's like job hunting within a job. You're still employed by the company, but you're not working on anything in particular for a client. So when you're on the bench, your responsibilities are to actively look for other priojects to sign onto, and better yourself through training courses offered by the firm. Most of these can be downloaded right to your laptop. Some of them are in-classroom. Whatever the case may be, you're not just supposed to sit on the beach or on your rooftop garden with a Corona. You're supposed to be putting in a good, honest 40 hours per week, training, adding to your internal resume, and shopping yourself around to projects that might be able to use your skills.

Preface over.

From December of 2006 to the end of March 2008, I'd been going to Schaumburg, IL. This was actually my second stint on this specific project; I had been going there from September of 2004 to December of 2005 prior to that. Then I went to Connecticut before I ended up back in Illinois. The important takeaway here is that before the end of March, I'd spent 28 out of the last 38 months doing the weekly grind to and from O'Hare International Airport -- get my ass up on Monday at 5AM for a 7AM flight, and then catch a Thursday evening flight back to New York that would get delayed almost half the time (resulting in me landing in NYC at 1AM on a few occasions). Finally, on March 24th, they honorably discharged me after extending my role week after week. At that point, I was on the bench.

Now, I'd basically been inactive work-wise since March 24th until May 5th, which is when I was staffed to a new project. I didn't travel to the client site until the next week, May 12th, as the week of May 5th was spent reading up on the project's background and other documentation. Technically, then, I spent seven weeks on the bench. Yeah I was working, but doing training on your laptop out of your bedroom and having the luxury of taking a break for a walk in the park -- as long as you put in eight honest hours -- is a far cry from flying out at ungodly hours and working 10 - 12 hour days in a bustling, chaotic and frankly critical situation.

So what happened during those seven weeks? I started going to the gym regularly again. I learned me some skills. I received less-than-positive news about my Business School application (there's always next year). I reviewed a few games (though I really should have been kept more busy than I was, ahem). I poked a little at my website's design. I hung out with friends more regularly. I threw Rock Band parties. I discovered a weekly Guitar Hero tournament -- the prizes are free shots every time you advance a round -- and met some really fun people. I woke up at nine in the morning, put in my hours, and was out in the sunlight of the late afternoon every day of the week.

After seven weeks of this, I went to Pittsburgh for my first week. I got up at 6AM to catch an 8:30AM flight at Kennedy, which is much better than waking up at 5AM as in months past (that hour makes a difference). After my first day, I had some energy to run a full court basketball game, though I was woefully out of basketball shape at that point. On Tuesday, though, I came into my room not wanting to do anything. ANYTHING. I didn't want to check email. I didn't want to study more for my GMATs. I didn't want to play Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations on my DS (that's the last game in its trilogy and I've been trying to finish it for quite some time). I didn't want to read more about my project. I was too goddamn tired and just wanted to watch the basketball game. Wednesday night after work, I just plum fell asleep before midnight with my DS open and the TV on. I woke up not knowing who won the game (it was the Lakers) and found my DS with its battery entirely drained.

Ok, so that's weird, because I just had seven glorious weeks of not-work and rejuvenation.

This past Tuesday night, my second Tuesday on the job, it happened again. Only this time, it wasn't before midnight -- it was before 10PM. This was during the Celtics-Pistons game. I was lying on the couch and had my laptop open to do work. I only remember drifting in and out, opening my eyes and just barely seeing Kevin Garnett hitting a jumper from 19 feet out, then fading out again. Then in, another KG jumper, then out. Rinse, repeat. I woke up with a drained laptop battery and the post-game press conferences on ESPN.

Why in shit's name am I this tired after almost two months of the most relaxed job in the world? Is seven straight weeks of that really not enough to combat three years flying back and forth / making a 2-hour rail commute? And mind you, I *did* take real family vacations during those years, so it's not like I went straight through without rest.

Project in Pittsburgh

given a laptop by the client which can't be used to access any personal webmail, unlike my last project

can't connect my own work laptop to their network for any reason

can't put any flash memory cards or USB drives into client laptop to transfer files, unlike my last project

half the stuff around here closes at 6PM

per diem$ are 15% lower per day than my last project

have not yet determined whether or not I can actually get on AOL Instant Messenger

can get on Mobile Instant Messenger, though it fucks up my buddy list when I log on via computer

don't have to get up at 5AM on Monday to catch an early-ass flight, as with my last project

proximity to NYC and lack of time-zone change means my flight on Thursday night lands at 8:30PM in New York, instead of 11PM as with my last project, delays pending

access to an indoor basketball court by the hotel means I can trim some fat off my fat ass without being bored

the office building has a small mall on the first floor and a fucking food court on the second

don't have to walk for 20 minutes just to get to something, say a bar or restaurant or store, outside of the hotel as with my last project

right across the bridge from where the Pittsburgh Pirates play

Is it a wash? We'll see in about 6 months.

To Catch a Karl Malone

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/080507

Read that.

Now, read it again -- specifically the paragraph that begins: "Roger Clemens' alleged seedy indiscretions".

Yeah. That's right. Karl Malone may have given his yogurt to a thirteen year-old girl. I don't know if I should be surprised -- I shudder to think what a man of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson's stature (especially that last one -- c'mon, "Magic" "Johnson") would have taken when drunk at a frat party -- but hot damn. That's sick.

Now, it's only reportedly so -- not confirmed. However, if someone would kindly look up the age of Demetrius Bell's mother and subtract his age from hers... well now.

Ew. Just, ew.

Thanks to my boy Matt who found the article.

LeBrohn Starks

LeBron James, meet a little bit of basketball history.

Okay -- to be fair, this was Game 1 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Semi-finals. Starks' own 2-for-18 performance was during Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals against the Houston Rockets -- a much more important game than a series opener "feel-'em-out" game.

But still. James' shooting performance -- not to mention several botched layups -- was just as painful to watch. Here we've got a perennial MVP candidate, the so-called King, a man who could soon be averaging a triple-double for the season for many years to come, and we see him make only two baskets in 39 minutes of playing time -- and missing 16.

Did I mention he had 10 turnovers to go along with his 12 points, nine boards and nine dimes? Hell, son coulda had a quadruple-double the shitty way.

In any event, I'm not hopping on the "LeBron sucks" bandwagon. He's a force, and along with young studs like Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and fellow draftmates Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony, he's an icon for the league and will be for years to come. It's just disconcerting to see someone who's really supposed to be that guy -- a killer, a monster, an unstoppable force of nature -- pull such a poor performance out of his jock strap. Anyone notice that while you usually get yours at the foul line when you've got a poor shooting night, LeBronze didn't attempt a single free throw in the second half? Yeah. This is year five, Bronny. Stop taking those shitty three-point attempts.

But hey, on the bright side, he's still only 23. Can you imagine him five or six years from now, if and when he improves his scoring consistency to Kobe-Jordan status? Can you imagine if and when he improves his defense to Kobe-Jordan status?

...well I can't -- not just yet. First I've got to be confident that I won't see 2-for-18 from him very often in the future.

Ok, ok, ok. So there's another bright side: LeBron only needs 141 regular-season points to pass John Starks' all-time 14-year career mark of 10,829. At the rate he's going, it'll take him five games when the 2008-2009 season starts.

Unless he shoots 2-for-18...

Really, LeBron?

This was supposed to be the DeShawn Watch for Game 5, but I'm livid at what I saw yesterday and had to change the title.

Really, King James? Really?

Three after three after three after long jumper after long jumper after three after three.

I'm beginning to think that maybe I was wrong to mock Brendan Haywood for, well, mocking you when you said, "I guess they're trying to hurt LeBron." I'm beginning to think that you really do believe they're trying to hurt you, and as a result, you took your time in Game 5 and threw up bullshit from the field instead of taking the lettuce to the salad bowl and getting and-ones.

Oh, and then, what about that second-to-last possession -- you know, with your team up by one, before Caron Butler shut your guys up -- when you stayed out waaaaay past the top of the three point arc, dribbled down the shot-clock to about ten, then started slowly making a move only to swing the ball to the corner for a missed three-point attempt? Why not drive the ball, try to initiate contact, and if the defense collapses on you to take away the close layin, find someone within close range to bank one home? What's with all this, "Oh, I'm going to go for the big shot from my teammate, that'll show them," bullshit?

As my boy Cris texted me: "Turning point: up 5, LeBron takes horrid 3. Es no bueno! The game 4 assist bolstered the I don't have to take the big shot mentality. I don't mind great assists, but LeBron should be facilitating everything in crunch time."

As my boy Matt texted me: "He is so lax. It made me nauseous."

All of a sudden LeBron turned from a freight train into a pillow feather in this game. All season he's been driving into the lane, taking contact and making defenses protect the basket. When he when he eliminated the Wizards in years past, it was on a game-winning layup on a strong drive. This time, yes, he did have the opportunity -- which he missed -- but it should really not have come down to that. I guess maybe he was extra motivated to take the game back to Washington DC so that he could show up DeShawn on his home floor. Maybe that's gangsta.

Or maybe just completely lame. MVPtoChrisPaulthankyouverymuch.

Not all of your customers are idiots, Gamestop.

So I was walking back home from lunch with my friend Dave today when I passed by a Gamestop. I decided to go inside to do a little window shopping when I realized that I'd been holding onto these gift cards that my other friend Tony gave me not too long ago. I figured, what the hey, let's pick up Super Mario Galaxy. I had my Edge card with me so I figured I'd visit the dark side and buy it used to shave 10% off the price. I'm a miser like that. I'm trying to cut down how much I spend in general, so making gift cards go as long as they can will help tremendously.

After receiving my disc and making my way to the door, I remember to stop and check it for scratches, because with any used disc, you're sort of playing with fire. Sure enough, among the typical nicks and non-threatening scuffs you usually see, there was a 3cm-long circumferential -- officially, tangential -- scratch. If you don't know what a tangential scratch is, it's basically a scratch that curves along in an arc on the circumference of the disc as opposed to one that kinda just juts down in a straight line from the edge to the center.

Now, picture how ANY optical disc drive reads its media: the disc itself spins around and around in a circle, and the laser eye that sits inside the drive stays in one spot and shoots out a laser that hits the surface of the spinning disc and determines what the data is. Sometimes the laser eye will travel up and down the radius of the disc area. The key takeaway is this: if the laser is stationary and making contact with the disc for even a split second, it is basically reading a small curve of data off of the disc. It is reading a small arc of the disc's circumference. Therefore, a scratch that curves around the spiral of the disc like that is much more problematic than a scratch that simply nicks the disc from center to edge (otherwise known as a radial scratch).

Want an explanation? Go here.

Now with that out of the way, I take the disc back to the cashier. I show him the tangential scratch, and ask him politely if I could change the disc. He looks at it in the light for a few good seconds, tilting it as if inspecting it gingerly, then makes his verdict. "It'll be fine." He puts it back in the box.

No. Fuck you. I'm an educated individual. Don't try to make me look like a fool.

"Um, no, those are the worst kinds of scratches because of how it curves around the data."

With a somewhat incredulous look, he says, "I'd understand if it went all the way around the disc, but, nah, I've had lots of scratches on discs before and they work fine."

You know what? I don't give a shit what you've had. I've had lots of scratches too and they've worked fine -- but I don't care. If I'm going to pay money for a used game, I will make sure that I get one in the best condition I can. Everyone has the right to do that, and if management tries to instill a policy that says otherwise, then fuck you three times in the ear, I won't shop there anymore. Anyway.

"I really don't care -- I'd like to get the best disc possible. I don't want to be playing this at home and then come to return it days later, or play this just to come to find out that halfway through the game, that's where the scratch comes in and the game freezes. I've seen this happen with a Dreamcast disc of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 -- it got a similar scratch and never worked again."

"Did you say Dreamcast?" he asks, again incredulous.

"Uh, yeah. So?"

He smiles. "Dreamcast and Wii process their games totally differently."

Again, I must hold my tongue. I don't know how old he is, how long he's had this job, what shit all he knows about engineering and optical media, or if he's been commanded by Gamestop management to not allow any disc swaps unless customers won't go away, but he must think I'm an uneducated slob of a gamer. I don't think telling him he must think I'm an idiot and that he has no idea what he's talking about and has he ever taken any engineering courses and asking if in fact he has even graduated from high school yet would get the job done, so I stay calm and just tell him that's not how it is.

NEWSFLASH: Just because a console is different DOESN'T MEAN that the optical media on which the software is contained is read so significantly differently from each other as to shirk off the basic principles of how OPTICAL DRIVES WORK. YOU ARE A DOUCHEBAG.

"Besides," I continue, "I don't want to be playing this at home and then come to return it days later, or play this just to come to find out that halfway through the game, that's where the scratch comes in and the game freezes."

"Well is there a Gamestop near your house?"

I lie and say flat-out no. (Hear that? I lied, but you did too, so don't get all vagina-sandy about it.) I ask again to please just give me the disc. He turns to his manager and relays the situation, and the manager just points to another used-game case and says, "Get it from there," not giving me the, "So sir, what are you asking for again?" and not sticking up for his employee. Box was empty, so the cashier finally found a copy in the drawer and gave it to me. It was a pristine disc, and I was ultimately happy.

But the bottom line is this: just because you work in a Gamestop, are taller than me, and have a polo shirt tucked in while I am wearing a cap with my un-tucked T-shirt and baggy jeans, doesn't make you even a fraction as smart as me or any other customer. Just because you're a clerk in a videogame store does not make you the ultimate expert on how the physical machines -- which read these games -- actually work. In fact, you probably know as much as the average gaming fan, so don't try to insult my intelligence or anyone else's by making up some completely bullshit bullshit about how a disc is read by a drive. You don't know how it works, my friends and I do know how it works, and a simple customer request that really isn't unreasonable should just be made after legitimate inquiry. Yes -- Dreamcast discs are pitted from the outside in, where traditional discs are pitted from the inside out -- but this has NO bearing on whether or not an optical laser reads the disc in an arc or not.

So, if you were the one in the Gamestop at 33rd Street and Broadway in Manhattan, New York, NY, at approximately 4:19PM on Wednesday, April 30th, who tried to tell the Asian guy in the Kansas City Kings retro hat with the navy blue jacket, blue tee and jeans who was buying Super Mario Galaxy that Dreamcast discs are read in a different manner than Wii discs so as to render tangential scratches as insignificant, fuck you. You don't know shit. Read a little bit about how it works before you try to peddle that steaming pile of crap to another customer who might know a thing or two.

UPDATE: My boy Al just made a very salient point in the comments about how Wii discs are probably even worse off with a tangential scratch than a Dreamcast disc:

You know, Wii would be much more sensitive in reading media than the Dreamcast! As discs continue to squeeze more and more data into those fixed areas, the probability of corruption increases with tangential scratches.

GD-ROMs only held 1 GB of data.
Single layer DVDs hold 4.7GB of data.
Dual layer DVDs (e.g. Smash Bros. Brawl) hold up to 9 GB of data!

This is even more of a reason that rep should have gotten you a cleaner disc from jumpstreet.

Really, Steve Nash?

How about your sloppy turnovers and errant shooting?

Really?

I've always had a love-hate with Steve Nash. I love the things he does well. But I absolutely cannot stand it when he shoots from distance without rebounders under the basket, or drives along the baseline with nowhere else to go and recklessly throws the ball back out and sometimes into the stands. I just hate the image of his floppy hair just splaying about as he makes a boneheaded, clumsy ballhandling move.

There were lots of problems in Game 5, for sure -- Shaq and Amare getting into foul trouble, no one rotating onto Tim Duncan shooting that dead-eye jumper from the top of the key, and Boris Diaw making a REALLY SHITTY pass in the closing minutes during a post-up opportunity where he was going up against Ginobili (you see Kurt Thomas coming over from the weak side -- why not spin baseline and potentially find Shaq? Oh wait, you wanted to pass to the coaching staff, I forgot -- you fucking dipshit), but for me, personally, nothing is more irksome than seeing a supposed former MVP (two-time!) make unfathomably sloppy and unacceptable plays with the ball.

Nevermind that I never thought Nash was MVP-material anyway. I love the guy, but he can't play D worth a dogshit, there's that aforementioned sloppiness, and the only worse candidate to get it in recent years is probably his former teammate Dirk Nowitzki.

There was also some poor officiating to be had -- like when they called the ball out on Shaq after he shot that completely shitty baseline hook in the 4th, when Tim Duncan so obviously deflected it out; when they called Shaq for that bullshit tripping call; but there were some missed calls for the Spurs too, so I'm not going to hold it against the refs.

I didn't care who won this series, as long as it went to 7 games. It was exciting, and Game 1 whetted my appetite for what I thought would be the most competitive series in the first round. Now my fun gets cut short.

So because I'm on the internet and have to blame someone, like everyone online with a blog who thinks he knows more than he actually does, fuck you Steve Nash.

Oh, and for the record, the winner of tonight's crumbly, smearing piece of shit award is Jerry Stackhouse. Don't be mad that you're stuck on a shitty overrated squad that's about to lose its coach and that you're about to get beat by a team that you didn't even know existed before last month. Don't be mad you're not the next Jordan everyone thought you were. Don't be mad that you're not the same excellent 25-5-5 player you were on the Pistons just after the Grant Hill era ended, and likewise don't go and swipe the ball away from Chris Paul during a deadball situation and then try to be all big about it and then get ejected, costing your team two free points and a reliable outside shooter (who coincidentally was having a completely shitty series).

PETA Bitch

So, my friend Alexis and I (yes -- Alexis who lost Robert) went to Six Flags Great Adventure on Friday, April 25th. Since I am in self-training mode in between projects, I was able to get myself a day of paid time off; she just got a nice new job and doesn't start until Wednesday so we decided to go and celebrate. We got there quite early, as the bus ride was much faster than we anticipated, so with the aid of a Gold Flash Pass we were able to snare three rides in under an hour: King Daka, El Toro and Rolling Thunder (just for good old times' sake). After getting our heads rattled around, we took a break and had lunch, digested, and then went for Nitro. That rattled our heads around even more, so we broke for another 30 minutes before taking a trip on the Duh-nuh-nuh-nuhnuhunununununublah BATMAN.

Heads destroyed by then, but she resolved to make it to Superman as if her life depended on it. In order to do so, however, we had to break until near the end of our day just before we left so we wouldn't destroy our brains. In the meantime, we went to see the tiger show right by the King Daka ride because tigers are mad cool.

This tiger, sitting in a grassy little cul de sac, behind a chain link fence and a glass panel, is sitting there enjoying a half-nap. This group of teens comes walking by -- at least they looked and acted like teens -- and watch as the big cat suns itself. As if by some vomit-inducing, superficial and pretentious display of compassion, one stupid little bitch goes, "Like, ulch. I can't watch this, like, it's so sad. I want to like, go up to the trainer and ask her why this tiger is like, in captivity and not in the wild, you know, like, but it's not her fault."

Then whose fault is it, PETA bitch? I should really call her PETA-wannabe bitch, because I bet you she wouldn't do anything about this if she could. She doesn't give a shit -- she just wants to act all righteous in front of her fellow cool teenage posse. Right. Meanwhile, the tiger makes a big turn and lies on its back in the supine position, legs and paws twitching about in the air and enjoying the sun on its belly.

"Um, that looks like a pretty happy cat to me," Alexis muttered to me.

"Yeah, like, so sad," said one of PETA bitch's friends.

"C'mon, let's go. It's so heart-wrenching to watch," cooed PETA bitch, not sounding the least bit concerned, upset or even remotely emotional.

So how about that tiger show? We learn that the breed of tigers we were seeing is actually incredibly endangered (not to mention tigers in general) and that the two tigers on display, whose breed is called the golden tabby tiger, with really gorgeous butterscotch-brown stripes on top of orange (as opposed to black-on-orange or black-on-white), were two of only approximately 30 left in the world. Of course, the usual claims of poaching and dwindling of prey were made as reasons for their endangered status.

Whether or not you believe this is up to you (I choose to believe it), but before you go to a zoo or animal display and jump to the conclusion that an animal's being tortured just by the fact that it's not in the wild and then try to impress your friends by showing off what a fucking hippie self-righteous love peace and happiness bullshit canCUN Tourist you are, just think about the possibility that maybe they're in captivity because otherwise they'd all be goddamn dead.

Stupid PETA bitch.

The DeShawn Watch, Game 4

DeShawn Stevenson, if you didn't already know, does this funny and stupid thing with his hand where he waves it in front of his face any time he hits a three. From afar, it looks like he's blowing on his fingertips as if he's "on fire" (a Kobe staple), though that's not what it is. TNT announcer and former coach Mike Fratello first said it was a signal that meant, "You can't see me," i.e. he's so unguardable that no one can catch up to him; later the announcers started saying it meant, "I can't feel my face," a metaphor for another saying ("He's unconscious!"). After the Wiz completely elephant-handled the Cavs in Game 3 (by 30+ points -- sick!), he even had Soulja Boy ("SUPAMAN!!!!") getting in on the act on the sidelines.

Then Game 4 happened.

With 34 points, 12 boards and 7 dimes, LeBronze (I'm still thinking about Team USA in 2004... grumble) was 3 assists shy of a triple double. His team eked out a win when he gathered that seventh assist by passing off to Delonte West, who was chilling in the corner behind the three-point arc. Swish, bang, game over, I can't feel my farce I mean face.

DeShawn? Respectable night... 13 points, 5 boards and 5 assists. But he also took out his shitty frustration on LeBronze by swiping at his nemesis' head. Sometime late in the first half LeBronze was driving hard to the cup and zoomed right by Stevenson, so Face-Feeley leapt up, swiped, and caught LeBronze in the head and as a result took his head-band clear off. Facey fell on the floor, LeBronze stayed on his feet, and the two stepped to each other ice-grillin' like prize fighters. I'm pretty sure some words about mamas, their skills, and DeShawn's jail-bait adventures were exchanged.

This DeShawn thing has just gotten completely baffling. There are well-publicized hostilities (or at least some drama) between players -- Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas (KNICKS! ell-oh-ell); Kobe Bryant and Shaquille Large'Neal; Bruce Bowen and every two-guard, small forward and rebounder who happened to cross his path; even Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury at one point.

LeBron and DeShawn? It's like David and Goliath, except this time David has no arms, is missing an eye, and has a really poor sense of judgment. At the very least, Bruce Bowen is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate and has been a significant part of the Spurs' championships. DeShawn is a middling talent who can hit a few threes, dunk the ball a little, and be rendered obsolete once (a) Gilbert Arenas comes back in full force and (2) he goes and tries to manhandle Miley Cyrus (she's still got a few years to go, DeShawn...). It should be said, though, that for LeBron to even respond to this flea who tapped him on the head says something about how good a job Jail-Bait Boy is doing getting into the MVP-candidate's head. So, score one for child molesters, I guess?

Besides, "LeBron" and "DeShawn" rhyme. They're both high-school draftees. Furthermore, they both trendily capitalize the third letters of their names. Shouldn't they be the bestest of friends??? Shouldn't they be a sweet couple and get married?????

<_<

>_>

Nevermind.