Par for the Course

As you probably already know, Tiger Woods just got jammed up for cheating on his wife after wrapping his car around a fire hydrant and then a tree. There's speculation all around as to how/if the cheating and the accident are related.
I'm not buying the first part of the video—that she came to his rescue crap. Why in the world would she knock out the back window to save him if he's in the front? And how would a 110 pound woman, soaking wet holding two golf bags, pull a 200 pound man from a car? Not buying it.
The more believable story is the second part. I'll sum that up for those of you who don't follow Mandarin: Ole girl found out Tiger was cheating, slapped him around a little bit, and when he got in the car to leave she chased him down the street with a golf club. At that point Tiger turned around like, what is this B!t©h doin, and he ran into the hydrant and then the tree. The only thing fishy about that is the chasing him down the street with a golf club thing. Everybody knows white girls don't run down the street chasing men with the closest thing available (pots, pans, lamps, toy racecar tracks and golf clubs). That's reserved for the sistah's. White girls key cars, slash tires and cut off wangs.
Another story, straight from the mind of C.J., is that the whole thing was a setup. It follows the same line above: Ole girl found out Tiger was cheating and slapped him around a bit. Realizing he couldn't go to the next tournament looking like he got in a fight with Thing from the Addams Family, he smashed the car up to explain the scratches on his face.
And now everybody's in an uproar. I say, who cares? So the guy cheated. I'm not saying it's right; I'm just saying who's surprised? Yes, he's Tiger Woods and supposedly a good guy and all. But above all that is that he's a man. He has the same urges and tendencies as any other man, he just has more money and celebrity to make it all happen. I'm never surprised when I hear these stories. And to the he's supposed to be a role model crowd, raise your own kids. That guy has enough to worry about without babysitting your kids from inside the television. Parents need to start teaching their kids that, while these athletes have been blessed with what seems like super-human talent, they are still human, and just as fallible as anybody else. So it's ok to watch them and be in awe of their ability, but it by no means that the things that they do off the playing surface, or sometimes on it, are acceptable. That will put all this role model stuff to bed.

Keep It Simple Stupid

Since being in New York I've realized a couple things. One of them is that there is a disproportionate amount of douche bags, lame guys, creeps weirdos and cornballs in the city. I'm not saying I'm Don Juan or anything, but there are a lot of guys here who have no idea how to talk to girls. There are some things you just don't say or do. I went out about two weeks ago with two girl friends and I saw and heard some of the most ridiculous stuff.

One guy came up to one of the girls and said "So, what's the thing you regret most in your life?" What? What ever happened to questions like 'what's your name?' and 'hi, how're you?' He skipped to the 5th or 6th date before he even asked the girl her name or told her his. Not good. If you're already riding the relationship Delorean before you've properly met, then what's that say about two months down the line? Are you going to introduce her to your parents on the third date and propose on the fifth? Keep it simple stupid.

Another guy came up, while I was dancing with one of the girls and cut in. I didn't necessarily care because she wasn't my girlfriend but, as I discussed before, she could've been. So this guy comes up between us while we're dancing and gives her a rose. But he doesn't just give her the rose, he puts in her hair sensually, like it was in Spain or someting. We're not in Spain. What the hell are you doing? That's creepy. Keep it simple stupid.

Another guy just came up and started dancing. Nothig wrong with that, depending on how you do it. This guy's approach was to dance close enough to say, hey, I wanna dance with you, but far enough away that if she wasn't going for it it would look like he was just dancing by himself and enjoying the music. But she humored him and danced for a bit. The only words he said to her the whole time were, "You're hot." I don't need to tell you all the reasons why that's bad.

And finally, another guy just stared from afar. But not in a shy 'I want you to notice me noticing you so you'll think I'm cute and come over and talk' way. Most guys that do that sort of turn away sheepishly when they get caught. This guy just kept looking—like he thought he was smooth or something. Only thing is this guy never got the memo that that doesn't come across as smooth. It comes across as creepy. But my friend made the mistake of telling us, which made us look over at him, which gave him the idea she was talking about him, which made him come over. That's the worst thing he could've done in that situation. Bad idea. It's one thing to be a starer, but I think a girl would rather be creeped out from afar than close range. The only thing worse than a stareer is the starer who comes over to talk. Keep it simple stupid.

And that is all the advice I have. Don't try to impress a girl, just be impressive. Just tell her your name. Ask her hers. It seems lame, but in a place where people are killing themselves before they even get introduced, somebody keeping it simple is a welcomed relief.

Dance At Your Own Risk

I can't stand dancing with girls when they're drunk. Don't get it twisted, it's not because I don't like drunk girls. I just hate it when you can't tell whether she's actually dancing or about to fall. Every time she makes a move you have to stop dancing for a split second—with your hands and arms extended like you're accepting one of those huge high school lunch trays—to get yourself in position to catch her. Not because you're worried about her safety, but because, like it or not, if you're on the dance floor with somebody, they're yours. For five minutes and fourteen seconds, or for however long music shall play and you two shall dance, to everybody in that bar, that's your girlfriend—for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till next song due you part, for as long as you two shall dance. As long as you're dancing with her, guys aren't going to approach her, and if you're cute, girls are going to look at her like she's a slut for being with you (if you're ugly they could care less). If she falls, the egg is on you too. If she looks stupid, you look stupid. You're her "dancefloor" boyfriend. For the rest of the night people are going to whisper to their friends, "That's that guy who let his girlfriend fall down on the dance floor," when you pass by. You're stuck. And no guy is going to step in and take her from you. First, you may be her boyfriend. Second, who wants to be seen with the girl who everybody already saw belligerently fall down while dancing? That makes you no better than an ambulance-chasing lawyer or a hunter who only goes after the young, sick and wounded. Nobody wants that. Even if a girl is hot, she's just the hot girl who got drunk and fell at the bar. Not sexy. Inevitably, once you get comfortable and start thinking she's not that drunk or she isn't going to fall, she's going to fall. And you're left to pick up the pieces. Because if she's drunk enough, she will cry. And there she is, drunk-whimpering on the floor, while you stand there, arms out, with that "she's not my girlfriend, I don't even know her" look on your face. So don't do it. DO NOT dance with drunk girls.

How Cruel is That?

You know what sucks: the physical inability to pronounce the very disease or impediment that burdens you. Cancer patients can say cancer. People with arthritis can say arthritis, but people with a lisp can't say lisp to save their lives. You know it's bad when you have something and can't say it. What's worse is the technical term is called sigmatism. Even more s's. Terrible. Who's in charge of naming these things? They have a pretty good sense of humor. First they name a disease characterized by bad breath halitosis. A word that begins with an h, when everybody knows you don't want people with bad breath saying h-words. Then they make the impediment that makes people unable to pronounce s-words full of s's.

Worst Mistake

Like most of us, Steve Phillips has made many a mistake in his lifetime: trading for Mo Vaughn, trading Scott Kazmir for Carlos Zambrano, firing Bobby Valentine, or his affair with an employee of the Mets minor league affiliate. Personally, I think he has made no mistake greater than hooking up with this piece of work while working for ESPN. Hooking up with Brooke Hundley, or Fatal Attraction intern as I like to call her, eventually got him fired. She looks more like Todd Hundley if you ask me. And she even went as far as to Phillips' doorbell to leave a note for his wife detailing the sordid affair, and also befriending his son on Facebook. Just terrible. Apparently the one he got caught up with while he was the GM of the Mets was worse. It's pretty apparent that Mr. Phillips is not a good evaluator of talent on or off the field.

Bathroom Etiquette

I'm sorry to have to write this. I never thought it to be necessary until the events that took place in the bathroom at work today. Let me break it down for you. THERE ARE NO MANNERS IN THE BATHROOM. Let's say you're in a stall brownberrying. Or maybe you're taking a poop nap. If the guy next to you sneezes, you do not under any circumstances say bless you. The whole point of stalls in the bathroom is to maintain anonymity. They're not in there and neither are you. It brings up the age old question: If somebody sneezes in the stall next to you, but nobody's there to hear it, does anybody need to be blessed? I say no. It's awkward. What are they supposed to do? Common courtesy says you're supposed to say thank you. But just because you gave your voice up to be IDd doesn't mean they should too. That's a lot of pressure, so just don't do it. Even if you recognize their shoes. You don't say anything. You don't know them.

Beggars Can Be Choosers

I've been in New York for about a month now. I'd been here at least ten times before I actually moved, so I knew it was a different world. I didn't know it was a different solar system. Even the homeless are different here. I was sitting in the park eating lunch with some guys I work with. One of the guys told me he offered a homeless guy a bologna sandwich once and he turned it down. Turns out he didn't like bologna. He even asked him if he had anything better. I thought that was pretty funny, but nothing could've been funnier than seeing it in person. About five minutes later a guy walked up to us and asked for some food. I was about finished with my lunch, and the other guy had just finished his burrito, but one of the guys had a bag full of bagel chips. He offered the man a couple bagel chips, whereupon the homeless man bent over to peek inside the bag. He looked at my friend perplexed and asked, "What the hell is a bagel chip? I've never heard of that."
To which my friend responded, "Well, it's pieces of bagel, cut, fried and made into a chip."
The homeless guy peeked into the bag yet again, turned his head and said, "I'll pass. I've never heard of that shit."
I was shocked. A pretentious homeless person? He turned his nose up at bagel chips—fried bread. Maybe he was trying to cut out the carbs or something. And it was so nonchalant—like he wasn't even sweating it. Like bagel chips were beneath him. It was almost as if he couldn't believe he'd been offered some no-name snack. Atlanta homeless will eat your shoe strings if you offer it to them. What was the guy expecting, filet mignon? Did he have something specific that he wanted? I think I'm going to put a menu by my feet when I go to the park—like the ones restaurants put in the window so you know if you want to go in or not. Then the homeless guys can window shop and only ask me if they like what I'm serving that day.
My mom used to always tell me, "You're not starving. If you were starving you'd eat anything. You're not even hungry. You don't know what hungry is. You just want something to eat."
Well I guess this homeless guy just wanted something to eat, and he was treating the park like a drive through window. He pulled up at McDonald's looking for a Whopper and didn't find it. He probably just pulled up to another window until he found somebody with something that he liked.