The Final “Kalen Garth” Chat.

Just a few minutes ago, I had my final–and I do mean final–conversation with the notorious “Kalen Garth“.  I’ve attached a transcript below.  (Warning–below contains language of an adult nature, not suitable for minors.  If you don’t want to read it, do not click the link to continue…)

Think Critically: She’s Not Into You; Just Your Money.

We begin today’s sermon with a psalm from the great Alexander O’Neal, he of the Minnesota Sound of the mid-80’s, as I find it appropos for today’s post:

If women could be counterfit, then you’d be it.

You’re a fake, baby, you can’t conceal it;
Know how I know? Cause I can feel it -

You’re a fake, baby, I’ve blown your cover;
the jig is up, ’cause I discovered -

You’re a fake, baby, no need to hide it;
Can’t change my mind, ’cause I’ve decided -

You’re a fake, baby, and I’m disgusted.
The game is through! And girl, you’re busted!

Fake!

If you’re on the internet, and in my age range, chances are you have a social networking profile, whether it’s MySpace, MyYearbook, Facebook, MyFaceYourSpace…whatever. Chances are, also, that you might have been contacted with messages from people who you don’t know, or who you might know and haven’t seen for years.

As you certainly know already, the most popular use of a social networking profile is for dating, or “hooking up”. Can’t say that it actually works from experience, because…um…it’s never happened for me. But I’m certain it’s been successful for some of you out there. I guess.

Anyway, let me tell you a little tale about a woman who contacted me out of nowhere and wanted to commit to a long-distance relationship within two hours, and why if you get a contact from someone like this, you should be thinking critically.

Recommended Reading: And Yet…

Mitch Albom’s column in the Detroit Free Press is one of many favorites I like to read. The one I’m recommending, however, he wrote in Sports Illustrated, and the Free Press reprinted it recently. It’s a fantastic read, about the setbacks that Detroit has faced of late, and Albom’s personal defense of the town. My favorite line from the column is this:

Do you think if your main industry sails away to foreign countries, if the tax base of your city dries up, you won’t have crumbling houses and men sleeping on church floors, too? Do you think if we become a country that makes nothing, that builds nothing, that only services and outsources, that we will hold our place on the economic totem pole? Detroit may be suffering the worst from this semi-Depression, but we sure didn’t invent it. And we can’t stop it from spreading. We can only do what we do. Survive.

And yet, we’re better at that than most places.

Love the column. Must read.

Inauguration Update:Camden, Penn Lines Sold Out; Brunswick Still Available

According to the system on Commuter Direct, MARC Rail has sold out both the Camden and Penn Line round-trip reserves for the Inauguration on January 20. (That’s the info as of 7:30am this morning.)

However, there are still plenty of ticket opportunities available (for now) on the Brunswick Line—the line that connects Washington to points west, such as Frederick, Maryland, as well as Harpers Ferry and Martinsburg in West Virginia. My understanding is that MARC is running three separate trains on that line—one to Frederick (three trains, two sold out), one to Brunswick (6 trains including the two to Martinsburg; only 1 train sold out thus far), and one to Martinsburg (two trains, neither sold out).

Jump on these opportunities while you still can, especially if you are coming in from points west. Remember that it will require a free account setup on Commuter Direct; the tickets are $25, and each individual account is limited to 25 tickets–they have already begun shipping tickets to people who have placed orders since Dec. 20th.

While it might be a bit of a commute, the benefit is you will be far enough away from the traffic in and around the I-95 Balt/Wash Corridor that you might make it home at a reasonable pace. So act fast…I don’t expect these tickets to be there by the end of Thursday.

DTV Transition Report: They’re Out of Coupons?

As of now, we’re 43 days away from the big FCC-mandated digital transition. What is apparent about this transition, as the day draws nearer, is that the government isn’t as prepared as it thought it was going to be for this.

We just got these new, Analog-to-Digital converter boxes here at the compound, and I’ve been using it the last couple of days to watch football in Faux-HD (because even though the broadcast is in HD, you’re not really watching HD—just a down-converted, compressed version of HD). I like it—no annoying fuzz, a clear, sharp, and colorful picture is what you’re in for if you get this converter. It’s a simple piece of equipment—you hook an over-the-air antenna to it, have it run a scan, and suddenly you have access to Faux-HD and other digital sub-channels with a multitude of alternative programming options.

However, for those of you who have procrastinated up to this point even requesting the $40 discount coupons the government is handing out: a report from today’s (Tuesday) Washington Post says that the FCC’s Digital Converter Coupon program has…run out of coupons! Oh noes!

The government’s billion-dollar program to help people prepare for the transition to digital television has run out of money, potentially leaving millions of viewers without coupons to buy converter boxes they need to keep their analog TV sets working after the switch.

As of this past Sunday, consumers who request a $40 coupon to help offset the cost of a converter box are being placed on a waiting list. They may not receive the coupons before Feb. 17, when full-power television stations will shut off traditional analog broadcasts and transmit only digital signals.

It couldn’t have come at a more convenient time, either. People are only now starting to turn their attention to this issue, and the info blitz has been almost at a steadied pace. So wouldn’t it figure that, at the time where the entire lot of the TV industry is breathlessly warning you to get these coupons and go get your converter (or you’ll have no TV to watch), the Government runs out of the coupons, and you’re then placed on a wait list?

Chalk it up to another fine mess the Federal Government has gotten us into.

However, that will be mere scruples compared to the throngs of people at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and other associated stores that will come on Feb. 18, looking for those boxes, and not being able to find them. Those will be the people who won’t care about any coupons (or mistakenly think that the coupons are at the store).

Call me crazy, but why do I think that this is exactly what the government was counting on when they made this deal with the manufacturers of the converters?

Someone Needs to Chill.

Nobody likes waiting in line for anything. I don’t like having to go to the grocery store to buy a couple of things, then having to wait in line (while the store has two checkout lines open, versus 10 closed), but you deal with it by waiting.

Somebody in Atlanta, however, didn’t get the patience memo.

Back on December 20, an as-of-yet unidentified man walked into a Chili’s restaurant, presumably waited, then decided to jump the line and take a seat. The wait staff confronted him and told him to get back in line; to which he responded, “I’ve been waiting for over thirty minutes now!”

He then departed. And within mere minutes, returned, along with his Pontiac Grand Am, and rammed the side of the building. Because waiting 30 minutes for Boneless Buffalo Wings and Baby Back Ribs was worth $10,000 of unnecessary damage.

Here’s a word of advice to this genius, who is going to jail as soon as someone ID’s his crunched-up Grand Am: it’s called “call-ahead seating”, dude. It’s called “Curbside To Go”. It’s called, “Ask For Carry Out”. Any of these options are much faster (20 minutes, and your order is in your hand), and one even has the added convenience of taking your meal home. I do it all the time. Trust me, it works!

I recall seeing an enormous line at a Red Lobster a few years ago in Canton, Ohio, and I just walked over to the bar, placed my order, and was out of there in 15-25 minutes, and back at my hotel by the time the last person in line was probably placing his/her order. It’s the same meal, except you can enjoy it and watch the ballgame from the comfort of your own domicile, without craning your neck to look in the direction of the bar. That is, unless you’re eating at the ESPN Zone.

But that’s not good enough for this Einstein of Southwestern Atlanta. He had to try to invent a new service: Chili’s “I Wasn’t Served When I Wanted To Be Served, And Had To Resort To Attempted Manslaughter And Drive Through It” Service.

All of this over a wait at a busy restaurant and a cheap slab of ribs?

I’d suggest this guy go out and learn how to cook, but I don’t want to take a risk of him ramming his car into the local Publix, because they have three lines open out of 15 available and all of them are full!

Besides Detroit, Three Other Epic Failures.

• To the Dallas Cowboys: this is why I can’t stand that team.

They have all of these stars–Owens, Romo, Roy E. Williams, Barber, Ware, Adam Jones, Hamlin, Bradie James, et al.–and went from a NFC playoff lock, to 9-7 and out of the postseason, with one of the most pathetic performances I’ve ever seen from a team “desperate” to make the tournament. The 2008 Cowboys are one of the most overrated teams of all time, and I say that not as a Redskin die-hard (they suck, too, but that’s status quo of late). The last two Dallas losses were heartless. Typical of how the Cowboys have played lately. Thank goodness we don’t have to watch them in the playoffs; they didn’t deserve to get in anyway.

• To the Tampa Bay Buccaneers: I knew you weren’t getting in the moment I saw you give up rushing touchdowns to both running backs on Monday Night Football in Charlotte.

But then, that seemed to coincide with the announcement that Defensive Coordinator Monte Kiffin was leaving to join his son on the Tennessee Volunteers. A nice sendoff that was, Bucs; turning from one of the top defenses in the NFC, to a sieve that allows running backs to turn a ray daylight into six points.

• To the New York Jets: I say again..you wanted Brett Favre, you got Brett Favre. And all the horrible passes that come with him.

The Jets are another team that started out hot, and that half the football media was reserving a ticket for them in Tampa after they beat the undefeated Tennessee Titans. And then Favre started being Favre, and the rest of the Jets followed. And here it is, Sunday night, and the quarterback that everyone was putting into Super Bowl XLIII is now on par with his replacement in Green Bay. They both get to watch the playoffs at home this year.  This, after you were defeated by your division rival–the one that was 1-15 last year–and your former quarterback–the one you cast aside for Brett Favre.

Zero…Point…Zero.

It’s a final: Green Bay 31, Detroit 21.

The Detroit Lions have suffered their 17th consecutive loss, and their 16th of this season.

They are now 0-16, losers of 23 of their last 24, and the only team they beat in that stretch is the Kansas City Chiefs. They are now, officially, the worst team in NFL history.

This was their Super Bowl? From what I heard on the game broadcast on Sirius, only a handful of players, like Calvin Johnson and John Standeford, played like it.

Start the demolition. Now.

It’s like I said yesterday: this could be the impetus for real, meaningful change in that organization. Or, they could continue doing what they’ve always done, and getting what they’ve always have been getting–nothing. As Mitch Albom pointed out in his column in the Free Press yesterday, that’s going to take an owner who gives more than a fleeting damn about the on-field performance of the franchise. I don’t know if Ford cares, and that makes him worse than Donald Sterling, in my mind. You can say what you want about the Steinbrenners, Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder, and Mark Cuban–at least they care enough to try to put a winning team on the field, to justify to their fans the prices they charge to hold an audience.

But this–a new low in NFL futility–is embarrassing, incomprehensible in this era of league parity, and unacceptable if you’re a long-suffering fan of this franchise. When William Clay Ford fires Rod Marinelli tomorrow as expected, he should be next up to the dais to announce that he is relinquishing ownership of the team that he has failed for over four decades now.

It’s not even funny, and there’s no joke you can make about this: an NFL franchise has lost 16 games in one season, in an era where virtually nobody should lose 16 games in one season. This is the final blow to the State of Michigan for 2008–a failing economy, a tanking auto industry, a mediocre UM football program, a deceitful mayor of its largest city now banished and imprisoned, and a 75-year old professional football organization that couldn’t win one game.

Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year, Detroit. You need it more than any of us.

Today in History: December 28…

• John C. Calhoun resigned the Vice-Presidency, in order to accept his election as Senator from South Carolina, a seat he would hold until 1844, when he took the Secretary of State job for a year, before eventually returning to the Senate in November 1845; a seat he held until the day he died. What a contrast to today’s politicians, where all they want to do is get out of the Senate…
• Spain finally recognized Mexico’s independence in 1836. Although it was supposedly recognized in September of 1821. I guess that means Spain finally got over it in 1836. Apparently, that wasn’t the end of Mexico’s troubles…
• In 1846, Iowa became the 29th of the United States. They couldn’t let all that corn go to waste.
• In 1912, streetcars took hold in San Francisco. Good. I don’t want to have to drive down those steep hills.
• In 2000, Montgomery Ward announced that it was going out of business. It then takes six years to replace the Wards Auto Center facade over at Laurel Mall. And yet…Montgomery Ward still exists as an online retailer…
• In 1945, Congress recognized the Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag. Of the United States of America.

Born on this day:
Stan Lee (yes, he of Spider-Man and Iron Man), Lt. Uhura, Phil Anschutz, William Gates (no, not that one…the dude from Hoop Dreams), John Legend, Denzel Washington, Adam Viniateri, and Ray Borque.

Who Died on this Day?
Jerry Orbach, Eduard Strauss, Queen Mary of England II, and Dennis Wilson.

The Big Event:
1958 NFL Championship…The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants in sudden death OT, 23-17, at (Old) Yankee Stadium in New York. And here it is, with the Colts and Giants already in the playoffs, and Baltimore’s Ravens with a chance to get in with a win later today, with a few of those players that played in that game still alive, and possibly in attendance at today’s game in Baltimore.

Defining Moments: I Was Wrong About The Summer Olympics.

Two of America's Olympic Superstars...

The Games of the XXIX Olympiad

Time to fess up.

I said this Olympics would be a failure.  The politics were going to be too much.  The broadcast coverage would amount to Sydney.

As it turned out, it was just what we needed, and so much more.  Looking back, I wouldn’t call it the greatest Olympics ever (I still hold the 2002 Winter Games in high regard), but it was the most compelling Olympics I’ve seen since 2002.

The U.S. Basketball team went out and got some self-respect back for the program by winning the gold medal.  Usain Bolt made me laugh out loud the way he blew everyone away on the sprint track.  Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin were standouts on a solid ladies’ gymnastics program.

But Michael Freaking Phelps.

That week where Phelps was swimming in the pool was the sole purpose for turning on NBC; just to see if Phelps would, could do what many pre-supposed—win eight gold medals.

And boy did he.  Sometimes he dominated, sometimes he needed a scant touch and a thousandth of a second, and sometimes he needed to rely on his teammates.  But he made it.  I don’t care if he has a daily diet that would render most diabetic; he can eat whatever he wants, so far as I’m concerned.  He may never swim that program again, and what’s great about that is he doesn’t have to.  He has eight gold medals from one Olympics.  He could swim one event in London and still be a star.  Nevertheless, it was fun to watch.  America seemed to think so, too; NBC’s numbers were up from Athens 2004, and in the first week alone, the Olympic telecasts took up the top seven slots of primetime viewing. The other three belonged to CBS, and two of those were reruns.  (Nice effort, Fox and ABC.)

As were the rest of the Olympics, and the ceremonies that opened and closed the games.  (Stop talking to me about the “fake” fireworks…I saw that, and knew it was a CGI flyover, you dolts…pay attention.)

In all, against my predisposed objections, the Beijing Olympics—in terms of sport and presentation—were a surprise success.  And a Defining Moment.  And a nice, two-week respite from the daily circus of American politics.  (Except when Bush was there, looking at his watch.)