Memo to Toronto Blue Jays: Two locker-room celebrations in three days is weak sauce

The Blue Jays celebrated clinching a playoff berth on the final day of the season Sunday with a champagne-soaked celebration in the visitors' locker room at Fenway Park:

On Tuesday, two days later, Toronto beat Baltimore in the Wild Card Game to advance to the American League Division Series--and then went through the entire ordeal again:

New t-shirts.  Probably new goggles as well.  And a whole bunch more champagne.

I get it the first time--you're celebrating the success of a 162-game season.  But seriously, what's different about your mindset 48 hours later?  "Woo-hoo!  We haven't been eliminated from the playoffs since we qualified two days ago!  Let's get nuts!"  I have to think some of the players must have been thinking "Seriously?  Are we actually going to do this again?  Do I really have to put on all that stupid crap and get soaked in booze for the second time in three days?"

This reminds me of that episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted throws a party so he can hang out with Robin, but when she doesn't show up he hosts one the next night too, then the night after that also:



The postseason continues for the Blue Jays in Texas at 4:30 pm Thursday.  Hopefully they can still play after two days of partying.


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The U.S. Open was shockingly unprepared for large crowds to enter on Opening Day

It's only a two-week event each year, so it should come as no surprise when the U.S. Open has some kinks to work out on Day 1.  I'm also certain there are all kinds of variables in play here that I am unaware of.  However, the following are facts:

We arrived at 11:15 am Monday (the first matches began at 11:00) to find a mostly unorganized mob attempting to enter the premises.  A very small number of Open employees were trying to guide people into two lines to pass through the security check--one if you had a bag, another if you did not.  However, both the signs and the staff directing traffic were far too close to the entrance and nobody arriving had any idea what the massive lines were for.

Even worse was the fact that the "bag" line was inexplicably moving right along, while the "no bag" line was at a standstill (as you can see from the photo).  The alleged "express line" took us 49 minutes and we finally entered the grounds at 12:04 pm.

Hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people in the "non-express" line flew right past us.  Why?  Of the 10 security gates in operation, eight were being used for the "bag" line and only two for the "no bag" line.  When you have to empty your pockets and pass through a metal detector, it doesn't really take much longer for a person to glance in your bag as well--certainly not four times longer, which is the ratio they seemed to expect based on the gate distribution.


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"Acknowledgement of Intent to Proceed" is the dumbest form ever

Among the 46 pages (that's not a joke) necessary fill out and sign when applying for a home loan in Massachusetts, there is one called "Acknowledgement of Intent to Proceed."  Its purpose is to confirm that in the process of applying for a mortgage, you do in fact intend to apply for a mortgage.

Seriously.

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Ray Lewis thinks God wants Michael Phelps to win as many golds as Lewis' high school football number

As far as infuriating tweets go, this one is pretty high on the list:

21 gold metals, when U reach 22 you will be at my high school jersey number. Don't tell me God isn't Intentional, let's go Lil bro. USA!!!

— Ray Lewis (@raylewis) August 10, 2016

Ignoring the general absurdity of what Lewis seems to believe God's priorities might be, what really irks me about this tweet is that Lewis is self-righteous enough to think anyone would be interested in a correlation between his high school jersey number and Michael Phelps' Olympic gold medals (or metals, haha).  Not to mention, how about the mind-blowing level of egotism involved for him to imply it could actually be a goal Phelps (who's from Baltimore and is, sadly, a Lewis fan) might care about achieving?

To put it lightly, Ray Lewis is not a person I think very highly of (if the picture is any indication).  Click on the many links in this post if you'd like to read about why.


UPDATE: Lewis deleted the tweet, but the embedded text lives on...

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Bartender tales: The best version yet of "I can't find my waitress"

The closest representation of the situation
that I could find on Google images.

This is something that happens quite often to me while I'm bartending--someone will come up to the bar from the dining room and say "I can't find my waitress."  One of these days I'm going to forgo my required pleasantries and respond with "Did you even look?"  I can almost always spot the "missing" server immediately, usually in plain sight of and in close proximity to the table where the person is sitting.

The most ridiculous example of this that I've ever encountered happened last night.  A woman approached me to say that her party wanted to pay their check, but they hadn't seen their waitress in a long time.  I asked what she looked like (blond or brunette), then pointed out the closest server I saw fitting the description (blond with hair up), who happened to be standing just a few feet away.  The woman replied that that was in fact her waitress--crisis averted.

Now here's where the humor of this particular scenario far surpasses that of all the others just like it:

1.  As it turns out, it was the wrong sever and she was very confused when the woman asked her for a check.

2. When she went and found the right server, that waitress was also very confused because the bill was already on the table.

3. The group of four women then proceed to sit for another 20 minutes before paying, which begs the question of why they even approached me for the check (which had already been delivered) in the first place when they were clearly in no hurry.


RELATED: More stupid stuff people say to bartenders


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I'll pass on paying $399 for a Celtics folding chair used at the new Garden

Bring the courtside action into your home! Get an official Celtics Courtside Seat today: https://t.co/hP1cgUDTgR pic.twitter.com/RrL7TOWgrM

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) May 24, 2016

"A piece of history" for a padded 10-year-old folding chair made me chuckle, @Celtics. https://t.co/mKf1ZM0Udf

— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) May 25, 2016

"Made me chuckle" is a nice way to phrase it.  Here's what it says on the Celtics website when you click on the link to buy one of the chairs pictured above, for $399:

"Take advantage of this exclusive offer to own a piece of Celtics history by purchasing an authentic courtside seat from TD Garden, the home of the 17-time world champion Boston Celtics.

Each seat was in use at Boston Celtics games at TD Garden from 2005 until October 27, 2015.*

*Courtside seats were added and rotated in between 2005 and 2013. Specific use dates are not available for each individual seat."

Come on Celtics.  You're better than this.  It'd be one thing if these were seats from the old Boston Garden, but don't try to pass off anything since the Fleet Center days as "a piece of Celtics history" (unless you can guarantee it's from the 2008 Finals, but that'd still be a stretch).  This is just degrading to your actual history.

Oh, and in case you're the one crazy person who wants to fill your entire house with $400 folding chairs from which somebody may or may not have once watched Wally Szczerbiak play basketball, you can't--there's a limit of four per person.


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Is it really possible Bartolo Colon hasn't learned English by now?

Bartolo Colon recently made headlines by hitting his first career home run just shy of his 43rd birthday, (which is today, coincidentally).  Because of that, his decision to never swing the bat last night due to a bad back was all the more news worthy--particularly because Colon claimed he even told the opposing catcher as much:

Bartolo Colon told the Nats catcher he wouldn't swing because of bad back. Not sure Nats bought it -- fearful he was baiting them to hit HR.

— Adam Rubin (@AdamRubinESPN) May 24, 2016

You can watch Colon's postgame interview here (beginning at the 5:30 mark of the video).  What stands out to me though, is that it's in Spanish.  Colon began his career as a major league baseball player in the United States 19 years ago.  How does he not speak perfect English by now?  That's just lazy.


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Why would this guy take "professional" pictures of himself wearing a tux in front of a Porsche?

Sorry I don't have a better photo, but I didn't want to be too obvious that I was snapping a picture and I had to get a safe distance away first--you never know how somebody taking bizarrely staged selfies on the waterfront in South Boston is going to react...

The thing that's really funny to me is that if this guy actually owned the tuxedo he's wearing and the Porsche he's standing in front of, he'd never pick the Castle Island parking lot in Southie as the scenic place to shoot his "professional" selfie.

Did he rent both for the day in an attempt to get a picture of himself looking like a "baller"?  For what purpose would somebody do that?  Is that the kind of stupid stuff guys use to try to impress girls with their Tinder profiles?  Also, if he plunked down the cash to get the tux, car and camera, why not also invest in another person to take the photographs, if for no other reason than to at least make the experience not feel quite so embarrassing?  Not to mention, why not take the time to drive to a nicer beach?

Please, if you have any reasonable explanations for this I'd love to hear them.


UPDATE - Best response so far:

@LucidSportsFan broke lawyer making his own commercial "Better Call Saul" style. Not a doubt in my mind.

— Thomp (@Thomp_26) May 17, 2016

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Ray Lewis reportedly out at ESPN - Finally!

According to USA Today's The Big Lead, Ray Lewis is reportedly "on the way out" at ESPN.  I'd like to think this represents the network finally correcting a mistake it never should've made in the first place when it hired Lewis as an NFL analyst shortly after his retirement from football in 2013.

It blows my mind that ESPN (and anyone, for that matter) was able to overlook the role he played in that double-homicide in January of 2000.  My guess is, if social media had existed back then Lewis' entire NFL career never would've happened (a few security cameras outside of the Cobalt Lounge nightclub likely could've kept him out of the league as well).

Yet somehow people magically forgot (or ignored) what he did, and he had a three-year run of saying stupid things on television.

Hopefully I'll never have to see his face in my living room again.


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Memo to ESPN: Bar graphs don't work for everything

This tweet came before Game 3 of the Cavaliers-Hawks series:

LeBron James has never lost a playoff series after taking a 2-0 series lead (16-0) pic.twitter.com/kKkwUGm3Pf

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 6, 2016

One, I can't for the life of me figure out why they decided that sentence needed a graphic.  It's pretty self-explanatory.  Two, why is there any blue in the "0" section?  And three, how did they determine how tall to make the "16" bar with nothing to make it proportional too?

I can't decide if this one is worse than the SportsCenter bar graph I wrote about three years ago that plotted Brittney Griner's game with two dunks opposite every other WNBA game ever (the ones that didn't have two dunks).


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Today is National Blah Blah Blah Day

It's National Blah Blah Blah Day!  How awesome is that!  Are you excited?  Woo hoo!  Now you have the opportunity to eat/drink/use/play much more blah blah blah than you would on a regular-old boring day!  In doing so, it's also extremely important that you spend lots of money at establishments that sell/serve/provide blah blah blah and are adverting that today is, in fact, National Blah Blah Blah Day.

Don't worry about partaking in any "whatevers" today though, because you'll want to save that for tomorrow's National Whatever Day.

This blog was inspired by the following tweet (as well as many, many other tweets and Facebook posts of a similar nature that I see virtually every day of the year), as well as the fact that the bar I work in puts up a sign for National Margarita Day roughly once a month.

Mark, celebrate #NATLPancakeDay w/ a FREE short stack & a special invite for a friend! https://t.co/PABtlkznck pic.twitter.com/8eIM9Jx6hL

— IHOP (@IHOP) March 1, 2016

OK, this is a little scary.  In an effort to find a picture to use with this post, I googled National Blah Blah Blah Day and came across a site that actually claims it's a real thing, and that it happened this past Sunday.


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Memo to MLB: There's an easy way to avoid snow for Opening Day

As I write this, there's roughly two hours to go before the Red Sox begin their 2016 season.  It's also snowing like crazy in Boston:

Happy #OpeningDay from #FenwayPark!

Believe it or not... only 1 week until baseball is back here! #CapsOn pic.twitter.com/qymwJQMWUW

— Fenway Park (@fenwaypark) April 4, 2016

Luckily, the Red Sox are out of town.  Unfortunately, they're in Cleveland instead.  Here's what's going on there:

Sweet.  That "RealFeel" 16 degrees number at the bottom sounds particularly awesome.

When is MLB going to learn?  Opening Day should never happen in cold-weather cities, and there's a very easy way to fix that.  Play the first two weeks of the season in the 15 of 30 ballparks that aren't crossed out in red:

Everywhere else is either not cold (with the possible exception of St. Louis, but hey, it's still a lot better than the northeast) or has a roof.  Problem solved.


UPDATE:
The Red Sox-Indians game was postponed while I was writing this blog.  How fitting.

Today's #OpeningDay game has been postponed until tomorrow at 1:10pm ET.

Baseball starts tomorrow! ⚾️ pic.twitter.com/EJmuQ8pHwK

— Boston Red Sox (@RedSox) April 4, 2016

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ESPN.com changed its box scores and made them much, much worse

Here is what an ESPN.com basketball box score used to look like, with one team listed above the other (this was the only screenshot I could find in the depths of my computer--it's just the top half):

And this is what they look like now (with the teams side-by-side):

The new one has much less information.  You can still get the full box score for both teams by clicking on separate tabs, but then you can't compare them each head-to-head at the same time.  ESPN.com just lost my stat viewing business to either Yahoo or NBA.com, and I'm betting the same is true for a lot of other media people and fans alike.


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That's not Scotch. I don't understand how movies can make these kind of mistakes.

Take a look at this scene from the 2014 film That Awkward Moment (which is sneaky pretty good):



At the end of the clip she says "I brought Scotch--I don't know if you guys drink Scotch?"  The thing is, it's clearly not Scotch.  It's a very recognizable bottle of Bulleit rye whiskey.  I don't understand how this possibly made it into the movie.  With all the people on set (and editors after the fact), how did nobody catch this?

The crazy thing is, this mistake shouldn't even fly among the four characters in the scene, let alone the hundreds of people involved in the real-life production.

Assuming she somehow bought the booze (which likely would've been on a shelf marked "whiskey" or "rye") without looking at the label and realizing it's not Scotch, the chances are extremely high that at least one (if not all) of the three well-to-do 20-something New York City bachelors (who spend a lot of time drinking in bars) would immediately know what it actually was.

I have a hard time believing none of those four actors even noticed, let alone all the other pairs of eyes and ears that were on this before the movie was released.  It seems unfathomable that this error wasn't discovered.  Or did they just not care?  And if that's the case, it bugs me just as much.


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This NBATickets.com commercial bugs me so much

The above ad irritates me for several reasons:

1. "The Andersons" are already at "the game" sitting in their seats at what appears to be a crowded arena, so it's likely about to start.  This other family is just leaving the house now--how are they ever going to get there in time?  It'd be one thing if they lived across the street or something, but the husband says "grab the keys" so I'm assuming they're driving.  Just the time it'll take to park and get through the gates alone at a sold-out NBA game will make them late, regardless of how long their ride is.

2.  This game is sold out and is a big enough deal that it's referred to simply as "the game" (so it's probably either the playoffs or a matchup with a major rival), but nobody in this family cares enough on their way out the door to grab a single item of clothing that represents the team they're cheering for?

3.  This is the worst of all, what kind of moron is this dad who thinks he can't get tickets because the game is sold out?  Is this commercial actually from 1987 and nobody told me?  Or maybe he's never once been on the internet before until the second his son shows him NBATickets.com?

Nice work NBATickets.com, you just solved an issue that hasn't actually been a problem for decades.



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More stupid stuff people say to bartenders

This bartender rant is actually two different stories that overlap:

Part 1 - Three guys walked up to my bar last night and ordered three different draft beers--a Pacifico, an IPA and a Yuengling.  Those beers are three different colors, but I don't expect people to know that (it's relevant later).  They asked for them in that order, I poured them in that order, and then I set them down in that order, each beer directly in front of the guy that ordered it.  At that point, the first guy said "Which one is which?" as if I wouldn't remember and might've put them in the wrong place.  With a confused look on my face I pointed to each beer and said "That's the Pacifico, that's the IPA and that's the Yuengling."

Part 2 - About 30 seconds later, another guy came to the bar (he wasn't with the other three).  I asked him what he'd like, and he said "I'll have what they're having" while pointing in the direction of the other three guys.  As I said before, the beers were three different colors.  I said "Who?" hoping to give him a chance to specify, but he replied "Them" and gestured again angrily as if I was supposed to know.  At that point I probably should've poured him one of each of the three beers he was asking for, but I just gave him what the closest guy was drinking.


Something else I've experienced a lot lately is the "I can't find my waitress" scenario.  Well, did you look?  Because 99 percent of the time I can see said waitress from where I am standing.


Much more:

• Most drinks these days aren't real drinks
• I'd really like to know the thought process of this calculated 10-percent tipper
• Do you ever look at pictures of food on your phone in a restaurant before ordering?
• Why do people think it's OK to ask bartenders to put more booze in their drinks?
• Advice for bar patrons: Don't be afraid to look at the menu before ordering
• If you're drinking vodka-soda cause it's "low in calories," maybe don't order mac n' cheese with it
• PSA: "Low calorie" alcohol does not exist (sorry Keel vodka)
• If you're meeting a blind date in a bar, probably don't order lemonade
• Guys do some weird stuff to try to impress girls in bars
• How come men use cash and women don't? (This really makes no sense to me)
• Some things you should know before getting food from a restaurant "to go"
• Snifters: 101
• "Can I get $7 of Patron?"
• Memo to young women in bars
• Memo to young women in bars - Part II
• Inappropriate bar behavior?
• People will drink whatever I tell them to
• Public Service Announcement about "skinny girl" drinks
• Advice for when you're buying a round of drinks in a crowded bar

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Did anybody else get aggravated by this on Facebook?

When I logged onto Facebook Sunday, this is what I saw:

It irritated me for two basic reasons:

1.  Why would any of my friends possibly care if I am watching the Super Bowl?  What's next Facebook?  Are you going to start pulling this sort of crap all the time?  "It's morning!  Let your friends know if you're eating breakfast."

2.  I think Facebook has actually forgotten that in the status box it says "What's on your mind?"  Why bother asking the question if it's just going to tell you what's on your mind for you?  I'm sick of Facebook always trying to get me to do things.  No, I don't want to say "Happy Birthday!" to the random guy I worked with eight years ago.  Back off!


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The Cavaliers made another questionable choice with their in-game promotions last night

Black Heritage Celebration sponsored by Hennessy?

Here you go folks, Black Heritage Celebration night in Cleveland presented by Hennessy. #Cavaliers pic.twitter.com/6H4AZgFGDT

— gary washburn (@GwashburnGlobe) February 6, 2016

The halftime show begins in Cleveland. #Cavaliers pic.twitter.com/E2OjcEu6lr

— gary washburn (@GwashburnGlobe) February 6, 2016

Nine months ago the Cavaliers ran a jumbotron video of a guy throwing his girlfriend across the room for wearing a Bulls shirt.



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LeBron wants you to know that he's not a coach killer, he's just smarter than them

The Cleveland Cavaliers recently fired their head coach David Blatt, a guy LeBron James was never fond of.  On Wednesday, LeBron decided he had to defend himself against accusations that he was responsible for the dismissal of Blatt, as well as some previous coaches he's played for.  Here are some of the things James said, via ESPN's Dave McMenamin:

"People get it so misconstrued because I'm a smart basketball player and I've voiced my opinion about certain things, which I did when I was here my first stint with Paul Silas and Mike Brown. ...

What do you guys want me to do, turn my brain off because I have a huge basketball IQ? If that's what they want me to do, I'm not going to do it because I've got so much to give to the game."

Admittedly, often times quotes can be taken out of context.  But in this case, you can watch the clip of LeBron's interview in the above link--his words are just as egomaniacal coming out of his mouth as they are to read.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say these comments probably didn't do much to help his case.


RELATED:  My "all the reasons why I can't stand LeBron" compilation blog


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You have to have just given up to wear a GoBelt, right?

I saw this ad on TV late last night:

Here's my breakdown of everyone in the commercial:

- For the people working out, fine I guess the GoBelt is OK.  But the others just walking around with it on during their day-to-day lives?  No.

- The lady with the shopping cart (:10) probably should've looked a little more like the woman in the purple shirt (:42)--she's the target audience GoBelt ought to be going after.

- The redhead in the green (:40)?  Absolutely not.  Same goes for the unidentified mom (:13) pushing her daughter on the swing.

- Tank top guy (:35) is just not wearing that thing over his shirt like that, and neither are raking leaves guy (1:19, pictured) or fishing guy (1:25).  In fact, those two should probably be made fun of mercilessly by everyone they know simply for being willing to dress like that in the ad, let alone in real life.


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