Anemic

Ticked. I'm straight up ticked off. If I told you the Broncos would throw for nearly 500 yards in one game and have only 1 TD on offense you'd think I was crazy. Seriously. If you can torch a team for that much through the air there should be some room to punch in the ball in the red zone. I'm gonna get out my Nostra-Fletch-a-Damus beard and hat and predict here and now: THIS IS A BAD OMEN FOR OUR TEAM. 

I know it was the Colts, led by football cyborg Peyton Manning, but they were very beatable yesterday. "But they are who we thought they were! And we let 'em off the hook!" - Well said Denny Greene. When a team can only rush for 47 yards (10 on one play) and has to make some white guy from BYU their star receiver and they still win on the road... its a bad omen for our team.

[Truthfully, I'm happy Austin Collie is doing well in the pros, but COME ON MAN!!! Must it be against my team?]

How can I possibly be complaining? We lost by 14. Some would say we should be grateful to have lost by less than 20. However, the performance dictates otherwise. Anemia is my diagnosis for our woes. If we had a RED-BLOODED offense, we could be 3-0 right now. But for some reason, we can't score from within 20 to save our lives. So anemia claims another victim.

Perhaps it really is some voodoo thing like a Death-eater cursing our running game or the other team wears Red-Zone deodorant and we just fall to pieces at the smell. I don't know. I'm just looking for answers and want to go feed the whole offense 60 oz steaks and spinach for a week and see if it helps. The following video sums up my frustration.

How to End a QB Controversy

For those of you that wanted an end to the quarterback controversy in Provo, you got it. Here is what the press would tell you about the injury:

Nelson was injured at the Florida State game, possibly after one of the eight sacks BYU QBs received in the game. Nelson had two series and did not come back the rest of the game. http://www.deseretnews.com/blog/60/10010109/Harmons-halftime-Nelson-injury-is-a-tragic-twist-in-a-strange-BYU-offensive-fall.html

We all know the statements above are a bunch of LIES. Eight sacks does not blow out a dude's shoulder. Go ask Sam Bradford. The magic number is two and he found out the hard way. Clearly if Nelson had been injured, he would have come out after the second punishing lick. But he played on, uninjured and the coach was so disgusted with his play, that he pulled him from the game. 



So Good it Hurts...

Here is the real cause of the injury. After no definitive statement from Bronco that Heaps would take over as the starting QB, a local 63 year-old Relief Society President couldn't take the pain any longer. Anyone with at least one eyeball knows Jake Heaps is the future of the program. So this inspired woman did what any good Saint of the Ultimate Days would do: She made a Jell-O casserole with a side of funeral potatoes, took it to the team hotel, delivered it to his room, handed Riley the food and while his hands were occupied, she whipped out a pair of steel nunchucks and in a matter seconds delivered six bone breaking blows to his shoulder.



Nelson was so embarrassed that he got worked over by a RS President bearing a casserole that he denied any reports of his assailant. Besides, who could believe that harmless old lady could be so brutal? I know about it because I have a cousin in the Tallahassee 2nd Ward who is friends with the ward clerk that home teaches a guy who has a friend that dates this girl that works at the hotel and saw it happen while delivering ice to one of the "genuinely" injured player's rooms.

Trust me. This was no accident. "His judgment cometh and that Right Soon." Fair warning to anyone else who wants to try a dual quarterback system.

The Sting Part 2

The continuation of the thrilling saga of reclaiming a vehicle from slavery...

After all of her tough talk, the Boss started to get nervous as we got near the house. After all, this person was trained with guns and who knows what her friends might be like? I knew if the car was there I'd just have to hop out, book up to it and take off before shots could be fired. We sat on pins and needles as we approached the house... and then we saw it... a "FOR SALE" sign.

Once again the rage for satisfaction kicked in. We flipped around, looked in the windows and sure enough, the place was vacant. We took a brochure and called the agent, but no luck. The situation had become more desperate. Was she hiding from us? Was the agent helping her hide? Was he in on a scam? There was still one more address to check. So we drove over there, found a house that looked occupied. The garage door looked slightly ajar. The Boss insisted we try to pull it up and take the car, but I wasn't willing to break the law, especially if we had the wrong address. So we returned home, dejected and devoid of any satisfaction.

At this point I knew I had to get serious so I contacted a repo-man. This dude was straight out of a movie. Ex-cop with slicked back hair, fake cop/repo badge hanging around his neck in a diesel expedition with the lap top out like a cop with multiple Red Bulls. I gave him my file and waited to hear back from him, but 3 days passed and no news. At this point I felt like I had been betrayed by the world and knew I'd have to get crazy to get the car back.

Finally on a Friday, the agent called and said he heard the driver was working as an exotic dancer and gave me the name of the place she worked. At last! I could pull up at 11:00PM hop out and drive way while she worked. But then I looked up the company. NO REAL ADDRESS. Why? It was an escort service. This girl would never be in the same place for long. My hopes began to fade further... I reported all of this to Boss and she audaciously suggested we "hire" her and take the car. We were flat out of options. So with some help, I found the driver on the company website, used a spoof dialer and called the escort service. They were pretty nice on the phone, but I had no idea what to say. I told them the name of the girl and I wanted her to meet me at the motel I was fake dialing from. They wanted to sender her over in the next 30 mins. Whoa! I told them I wasn't quite done with work and I needed more time. So I set it up for 7:00 PM but needed to answer the phone in the room after 6:30 to confirm the appointment. What was the cost? $220 for one hour. With some MUCH appreciated help, I paid cash for the room, called the Repo guy and he said he'd be in the room and confront her and take the car.

We rolled down to the motel and found it to be the perfect location. There was like 10 black dudes on the upper balcony and a bunch of random people hanging around on the lower level and in the parking lot. The Boss and our friend laid low while I met with the repo guy. He said he called the cops and needed to go meet with them down the street. Thus, I had to wait in the room to answer the phone to confirm the appointment since it was now just after 6:30PM. That was some very awkward waiting.

The Motel Room

I was mad, a bit scared but mostly worried this chance would slip through my fingers. Repo guy asked me to call and get some more time, so I made the call but didn't think it through first. I told the dispatcher that I needed an extra 30 mins due to a meeting running late. They said sure, but asked me what number to call. I said call me on the number I'm calling from. Then they said, "isn't that the number you're calling from?" I knew my lie was busted. So I played dumb. "Look, this is embarrassing, but I'm just not ready yet and new to this. Can I get a little more time?" The said fine and I hung up thinking I had blown it. I called Repo guy and he came to the room.

We lamented the failure and all of the sudden I got a text from the Boss saying "she's here with the car." Repo guy flung back the curtains and I instantly saw the car out the window across the street from the motel. He grabbed his file and went booking out the door... at this moment I heard a chorus of oooOOOOOOOoooo!!!! from the upper balcony. I couldn't help but laugh. Everyone came pouring down to watch the action. The Repo guy was  a stud. He ran out in front of the car waiving his badge and stopped them from pulling out. They thought they had been busted for solicitation and were freaked out. They told the repo guy that dispatcher warned her it was likely as sting and not to go. Fortunately, she was stupid and went anyways.

She first told me the payments were caught up (LIES!!!). I told her obviously they were not. Then she said she had to have the car for work and it was Friday night. I said I don't care. Too bad. Then she said her grandpa would buy the car... SURE... Finally, I told her "Lexus is in my jockstrap calling me 3x a day. Do you have any idea what I've gone through to get to this point?" We agreed to take her and her "pimp" home let them clean out their crap and we wouldn't press felony charges. The car was back in my hands. But did I have satisfaction?

Here is a list of what was wrong with the car:

1. Extremely messy. Junk and a film of putrid scum on everything. My heart sank.
2. They had smoked in the car. It REEKED. I thought about how I had once cherished the new car smell in this vehicle. Now it was utterly disgusting. $300 to detail and de-smoke and the smell still isn't gone.
3. The real kick in the teeth came next. I had a Cameron moment when I looked at the odometer. 55,400 miles? I turned it over at 17,500???? She drove nearly 38,000 miles in one year?!? I'm already out nearly $2K on over mileage charges. I'm almost tempted to try taking the miles off going in reverse. But I learn from the movies I watch.  
4. The next day I took it to a shop and they noted some performance tires were on 3 of the 4 wheels, but the front right had the spare wheel and tire that didn't match the rest. No wonder it rode like it was on a slant! So I had to order 3 new tires and a new wheel. 
5. Alignment was off so I had that treated as well.
6. Oil needed to be changed since I figured they never changed it during the 38,000 mile rumpus. I can only assume she drove to Vegas weekly.
7. The bumper and door of the car still need to be painted and have a crappy spray paint job on them. I suppose I'll get this fixed sometime.
8. I had to make up late payments and fee of $925 plus Repo fees of $360. Then I had to make an immediate payment on the car for September.

After getting the car back I remarked, "Its like we're sitting inside of a raped body." I felt unclean and the shame of having sold the car into slavery burned into my tender conscience. As Mr. Cobb said in Inception, "Guilt. I feel Guilt."

I confronted the agent with Repo man the following day. He freaked out. Said he had no money to pay the repo fees, late fees and damages. All of which he was responsible for per the contract. Once again, can you enforce a contract? I told him I'd give him 2 weeks to make a payment or I'd press felony charges. I called him today for an update. Guess what? Number is out of service. Next step is to file the report.

To top it off, the day the Lexus was due out of the shop, the transmission blew out on the MDX. Dealer's estimated cost to repair? $4,900. I flipped out. I cursed the car gods and their wrath against me. What do I have to do? Light a bucket of chicken on fire as a sacrifice?

Ultimately, I'm relieved the sting worked and I can get my life back on track. But like Mick Jagger... "I can't get no Satisfaction."

The Sting Part 1

Everything in this post and the subsequent ones are true. I know many of you don't believe half of what comes out of my mouth but in this case I must apply the old adage, Sad but True. So onto the tale.

In an unfortunate way, Morons make the world go round. They allow thieves and liars to take advantage of them so they have "a job" and in this case, I helped the world go round. Sensing it was time to divest myself of the beautiful Lexus I was driving on a lease, I made an attempt to sell it on Craig's List. I was shortly contacted by a guy who wanted to set me up in a sub-lease situation. Seemed like a win-win for all. They would take over my lease and I'd walk away. The contract looked like it protected me and I was confident if anything went south, I'd be able to pursue justice. Once again, I am a MORON. Just because a legal contract exists and is executed, doesn't guaranty you'll be able to enforce it without great costs that may outweigh the benefits.

The day I dropped it off I had a pit in my stomach. I figured I was just on edge because I'd never done anything like this before. Oprah says to trust you gut. I should have listened to Oprah and got the heck out of there. But as a MORON, I went through with it and said good bye [Adagio for Strings playing in the background]. Looking back on it now, I feel like a father who sold his child into slavery. I know its just an inanimate object, but I talk to the cars I drive, name them and I'm ashamed of what I did.

Here is a modified quote from Burton Howard on matters of cars and keeping them safe from slavery,

If you want something to last forever (or until the end of the lease), you treat it differently... You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don't expose it to the elements. You don't make it common or ordinary... It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more valuable and precious as time goes by. 

Alright enough self-loathing. At first things seemed fine. Payments were made, some tickets and tolls popped up, but nothing too unsettling. The guy who set up the contract between me and the driver kept promising they would assume the lease outright, but nothing ever happened. Then in November 09, the payment was late. It happened again in January, February and March. I started calling the agent multiple times per month with no improvement.

At this point the Boss got involved. If I have a weakness, it is for the Boss. The old dueling challenge of "I DEMAND SATISFACTION" is an understatement when it comes to customer service with her. Normally, I will pounce like a maniac when she is unhappy and slaughter all who oppose her. But my inner-tiger was unwilling and soon she was making phone calls. Needless to say, I demoted to "total wuss" status in her fiery eyes. But in the oppressive heat of August after a partial payment in July and nothing on the books for that month, my sweaty angst reached a peak and I could take no more. I demanded SATISFACTION!!! (and the car back). Now things get interesting.

I met the agent at McDonald's and gave him my last link to the car, my remaining key fab. He had it for a week and failed to get the car. Kept saying he was too busy with his son. Don't bring your kids into it. Man that ticked me off. So I demanded the key back and said I'd go get it. During the course of the late payments, I began to research who the driver was, where they lived, worked etc. in case this day came. The agent was such a tool that he didn't eve know her address, he just "knew" where she lived. I had to find her on white pages, run a background check (to be sure there was no history of violence) and that helped me find a myspace page and confirm where I thought she lived. It was time to take justice in my hands. With the Boss at my side and key fab in hand we ventured into a pseudo date night fraught with the anticipation of SATISFACTION!!!

To be continued....

Look Out Obama

This guy gives one heckuva speech:

It took me a moment to determine if this guy was serious or not. I admit I find the delivery comical, but I'd love to have this kind of passion from public servants when it comes to cleaning up the treasury. Perhaps he's a real serious pee-wee football coach who doesn't know how to use his indoor voice anymore. Maybe he got that masters degree in communications from "THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR'S SCHOOL FOR COMMUNICATIONS." Seriously. I've seen the ultimate warrior on C-span and other various venues. I'd post his stuff but its laced with profanity. Go find it if you see fit. If it were not so sacrilegious, I'd ask this guy to come speak on food storage this Sunday!

Shoot the Mockingjay

85. That's what I had to make it through. 85 pages of sheer teenage female angst and whining before this book becomes palpable. I nearly quit reading after chapter 6. But the Rooster encouraged me to keep reading and the second half of the book was good, but I can't get the bad aftertaste of the first half out of my mouth.

Hasn't the world had enough of the incessant whining of Bella Swan and her impossibly wonderful love triangle? For me, the appeal of the Hunger Games is... Hunger Games and the rebellion. Not the force fed Pita-Catnip-Gale love triangle. In the history of love triangles have two dudes ever had worse names? Every Gale I've ever known wears skirts and this guy is supposed to be a ruthless rebel leader? And a baker's son named after a type of bread. If only Katniss was named Fletcher (arrow maker) I could forgive all of the whining. 

I'm done with teen angst books: "My life is so unique and complicated! No one understands me. Why am I so boy crazy? I am not boy crazy. Why can't everyone leave me alone? How come I've been left alone? I want to die. I want to live." SHOOT ME!!!

For a moment at the end I thought Collins would one-up J.K. Rowling and actually kill her title character but that would be absurd for "Young Adult Fiction" filled with peda-gladiatorial slaughter, torture and warfare. I must admit that would have pleased me immensely. 

So go ahead and finish or start the trilogy. Just remember 85. Trust me, you won't miss hardly anything.

Why This Blog Sucks

This is a guest post by Edward Khoo. I died laughing when I realized nearly all of this applies to my blog. I'll highlight the ones that sting a little (or a lot) and add some commentary.

If I don't love it, I don't SWALLOW.

You check your traffic every day but all you find are tumbleweeds blowing across the landscape of your blog. Well, there’s a reason you’re not building readership. Your blog sucks.

Most do, and all for the same reasons. The same 10 reasons.

1. You use syndicated content. You can download badly-written articles on the topic of your website at ezine.com, helium.com, goarticles.com and other places on the web. You can cut and paste these pieces on your blog and all you have to do is provide a link back to the author’s site or blog. You can, but you shouldn’t. Without unique content your blog is nothing. Shoot. I guess I shouldn't have copied this article.

2. Your blog is boring. There I said it. Write about topics that interest me, your reader, not topics that interest you. I want you to keep me engaged, entertain me and teach me. Otherwise, you’re boring me. I'm just another random white guy. How vanilla is that? Now... if I cover myself in chocolate I get a lot more interesting.

3. Your blog revolves around your person. Stop talking about yourself already. I don’t know you personally, and I couldn’t care less about your ramblings. Tell me something I can use in my own life. Facts, stories, not boring personal stuff. I pride myself on having no facts and this blog is my Horcurx so I guess I loose on this account.

4. Oh no, not your favorite music on auto-play! So as soon as I access your blog, the ukulele string quartet starts playing? I’d rather hear an accordion band. Don’t add music to your site. Half the people won’t like it and the other half will find it’s a distraction. Yes!!! I finally did something right.

5. You use clip art. I can spot it a mile away. The model smiling, the perfect family spending the day at the beach, the marathon runner – all license free clip art. And with free clip art, you get what you pay for. I disagree. Clip art is SICK. Anyone who can't get behind mass produced art is not worth a bucket of camel spit in the wind.

6. I can’t find the post I want to read. So I have to scroll down through pages and pages to find the piece you posted two months ago. First, even the simplest blog platforms allow for categories and search boxes. I've actually done this to defend prior idiotic statements so I guess I'm safe here.

7. Your writing totally sucks. Oh, not the writing itself. You’ve got a good writing style. Easy to read. But your posts are loaded with typos, misspellings, lost punctuation and other mistakes that signal you don’t care enough about your readers. BURRRRRRRRNNNNNN!!!

8. You’re spinning articles. You might not be using software to actually spin the articles, but you are writing about the same stuff everyone else inside your niche is. This is not as bad as getting content from article directories, as you are actually using your own words here, but it won’t cut it all the same. Write something interesting or go home. Guilty as charged. I don't have an original thought in my head. It all comes from the green little men that visit me when I sleep.

9. You post once a month. How often you think I’m coming back to see if there’s some new, pithy pearl of wisdom I can glean from your blog? If you can’t update your blog at least a couple of times a week, forget about it. I'm guilty here because I'll try to keep my day job and not post for weeks at a time then have a massive output like the last few days. Yes, I suck.

10. Your blog looks like 12023532989 other blogs. WordPress offers hundreds of templates from which to choose. So, if you choose Minima Brown, your blog will look like all the other writers who build blogs using Minima Brown (or Blue). My fingers are trembling. I'm not sure I can continue. Not only is my look ordinary, it is dated. I hate myself and my pathetic look!

Does your blog suck? Well, roll up your sleeves and do something about it. It is still time! Dude. Just because I suck, why on earth would I change? Here are my reasons.

1. Syndicated content rocks. 
2. By being boring, I make others seem interesting. I make a difference for people that actually try. 
3. Since this blog is a Horcrux I have to blog about myself. No choice here. Even my Horcurx sucks.   
7. If I were a good writer why would I be blogging???
8. Sometimes other people just said it right. Get over it or go home.
9. My inconsistency is probably a good reason people don't read. That and oh yeah, - I SUCK.
10. My layout is unattractive. Perhaps this is one thing I might venture to change. Until then, I suck.
   
Edward Khoo writes about blogging tips and tech stuffs at his blog EdwardKhoo.com. You can also find him on his Twitter account @squall768.

Google Cell Phone

For my one reader who works for Google.