I haven't had a computer for seven days. While there was a certain freedom that came from that (like Costanza and Seinfeld's Vacation From Ourselves), there was also a certain emptiness that comes from not being able to tell everyone what is pissing me off.
"Full octane this morning, sir?"
Fuck yeah, Skippy.
1. Fuck you people who keep saying 'ginormous.' Look, the term gignormous was funny for like 15 seconds about 10 years ago. You know, the same comedic lifespan of wearing the number 69 on your jersey. Getting jersey number 69 made your little brother laugh, once. Using ginormous is exactly the same - we're all dumber for having heard it and we all feel like losers for giving you your pity laugh when you say it (or, in some cases, a pity crack of a smile).
Knock it off, it's not funny.
2. Fuck you soft focus Blues team preview. Great, some noodge at NHL.com was assigned the Blues as his draft preview team and he predictably phoned in a milquetoast assessment of the team and their chances this season. Let's see, they cut payroll and dropped 31 goals from the roster, need serious rebound performances from probably nine players and still have two overrated defenders holding down top spots and soaking up over $8 million of salary cap space and your official assessment is that they need to play like they did down the stretch the last two years?
Fantastic. Way to miss the entire point of why those second half runs were necessary and resulted in nearly-eighth place and ninth place finishes. That is the real problem with this team, pool writer.
You want to see some pre-season predictions with some teeth? Stand by. Stand the fuck by.
3. Fuck you ecopackaging. Green, green, green, ecofriendly, sustainable, recyclable. Bull-shit. You know what happens to so much of our "recycling"? It ends up in a fucking dumpster behind the grocery store. You know what I love? I fucking love the plastic ring six-pack holders. Those fuckers is the bestest.
I bought a six-pack recently, since somehow mistakenly I thought six would be enough (it never is) I got to handle one again for the first time in years and I loved it. In fact, I made up reasons to walk around holding my six-pack by one or two fingers looped through one of the empty rings.
It was glorious.
I was Buttermaker from the Bad News Bears, The Bandit from Smokey and the Bandit, virtually everyone from The Cannonball Run. In other words, I was the 2010 embodiment of nearly every role model I saw growing up: drinking while driving fathers and father figures. Soaking wet, bleary eyed baseball coaches and scout masters. Merle Haggard and Terry Bradshaw in a primer-painted hot rod blasting across country after pulling it out of the hotel pool.
Not sure yet, but I might just keep one around and just load beers into it to carry around. Fuck seabirds that get stuck in them, that's just natural selection.
4. Fuck you SBN Pittsburgh. In case you missed it, and you likely did, because it was a serious non-event, the SBN Pittsburgh hub posted parts of an email that (gasp!) accused Sidney Crosby of being some sort of sex addict and greater Pittsburgh area Lothario and Tiger Woods Wannabe. I don't say fuck you because you did anything wrong, because really, write about whatever you want to write about. I say fuck you more because the obvious comedy was missed: laying waste in Pittsburgh? How many links to People of Walmart could be cross-referenced there? A scandal as big as Tiger? Right. Because everyone always gets outraged when single young famous millionaires are nailing tail all over town, right? Isn't that why people got mad at Tiger?
The other reason, the main reason I'm pissed at the Hub is because it created a deluge of self-important and whiny emails in my inbox about how this reflects badly upon all SBN hockey websites. No shit? I thought that was us.
Meanwhile, isn't the SBN about fan blogs for fans? If you want to be by the fans for the fans (as the motto used to be) then you discuss the issues fans are talking about. If you want to be treated like the mainstream media and go sit in the shitty pressbox seats and go to the locker room afterward to watch single young famous millionaires walk around nude and pretend like you're not looking at their dicks, then by all means, go for it. I'd recommend starting with a journalism degree and an affiliation with a mainstream media organization, but that's just me. After all, it is easier to just be a blogger and simply whine away about how you're just as important as a school-trained journo who has a real job getting paid somewhat more than $600 a year and has the lame-ass access that you so desperately crave.
Me? I'd rather come here, bitch about stuff that annoys me, rave about stuff that excites me and crack a bunch of jokes along the way. You know, have fun being a fan writing for and with other fans.
Everything else can just fuck off.