Under the radar, above the deck

Here's what the mongoloids paid to pitch you sports in suits didn't tell you...

2012-01-23T13:27:00.001-02:00

Both games were lost, as often happens, by someone bitching out.

Cundiff had to rush out there to take the field goal atempt. It's why Belichick, if he had any TOs (I don't remember, but I think he did) didn't bother to ice him. Harbaugh-A didn't pick up on this and didn't call time out to settle his kicker. After his special teams unit wasn't ready to try a 52-yarder a few minutes earlier- and I don't know why you wouldn't have tried it, down by three with a few minutes left- that coach is sure to get canned.

Hakeem Nicks' shoulder was jacked up to the point where he was only out there as a decoy. The 49ers surely picked up on this by the 2nd quarter, when Eli was throwing every ball to Victor Cruz, and bottled up Cruz. Eli was left to throw to the practice squad. The one time he threw to Nicks in the second half, Nicks bailed on the pass and the two DBs nearly wound up killing each other.

Harbaugh-B's play selection was markedly different depending on his starting field position. Any time the 49ers started inside their own 35, he clammed up. This indicated that he didn't trust Alex Smith. Further indication of this is the 49ers dismal 3rd down conversion rate. They twice completed 3rd down passes for less than enough yardage.

In fact, two-thirds of the 49ers offensive yardage came on about 7 plays. The other 50 produced little more than 100 yards. This is what happens when you take away your QB's balls.

As bad as Flacco played- he left two touchdowns on the field; one on that early bomb to Torrie(?) Smith and another on the rollout left where he threw to the tight end(?) when the fullback in the flat, a much easier pass, had a walk-in touchdown- he put the ball in Lee Evans' hands. I'd like to tell you that the Ravens broke the golden rule of football (Never leave the game up to your kicker), but they had it.

That was a shit 4th down spot on Jacobs' run. But, as horrid as he is (the hole was there for him to blow through), he deserved no better. He was largely ignored in the later portion of the game because the coaches had lost all remaining faith in him.

There was plenty of crap called on the Giants whereas next to nothing was called on the 49ers. Calling an illegal contact penalty on 3rd & 19 is about as cunty as it gets. Calling a personal foul after letting three linemen gang up on one guy is horseshit. Taking 37 seconds to spot the ball (after a kneel-down) before Tynes' winner, then calling a delay of game penalty.

Of course, the Giants did get the benefit of the forward progress call that, while technically correct, was a quick enough whistle that spared the Giants from having to sweat a replay appeal. But, that is pretty much why the forward progress rule exists; so the defense can't hold you up and strip you right before you hit the ground. So, I don't feel bad.

In any event, Bokolis takes both games and heads to the Bowl 7-3 for the playoffs. I think I got some gators coming.

Rugby for fairies, 2012 Conference championships

2012-01-22T17:03:00.002-02:00

This is where we git down with the git down.

Ravens (+7.0) over PATRIOTS - I have a hard time believing the Ravens are going to beat the Patriots and, given their sniping of Flacco, for whom I have no respect, they are candidates to bitch out. This is my attempt as a value bet, as I think the last week's respective performances are being overvalued. The Ravens are going to need turnovers and a fast start.

Giants (+2.0) over 49ers - I think the range of results are from Giants +17 to Niners +7. I have a hard time believing the 49ers are going to move the ball on the Giants. Things ar going to have to go wrong for the GIants to lose.

In both cases, I'm going to get fancy with some supplementals. I'm taking the 11-1 that the Pats game lands on the number. I'm also buying the point to get the Giants at +3. It means laying 6-5, which isn't much.

I need a nap for this.

Hey Franchesco! take the Gzziantsh and the points bihch

2012-01-17T18:20:00.000-02:00

That's what I imagine what Jeff the drunk would sound like if he called in to Francesa's sh...usual talking to himself, for himself that passes for programming. It’s amazing how he authoritatively tries to pass off his mistaken rehashing of the game (somewhere, Russo is saying, getting’ old, Mikey, haheheha). He yelled at some guy who had the audacity to tell him that the fumble play was originally called a fumble, then changed by another official, then challenged by the Giants, upon which the call stood. After dressing down the caller in the face of being corrected, instead of accepting the caller’s view, he retrenched, re-tracked and revised until he eventually decided that there was no call on the field and that the referee made the call from inside the peep show.

This is nothing new as, when his ignorance is shown to him, he will resort to all manner of bullshit to bluff his alleged authority.

As more and more callers called in wanting to spew about the fumble call, he scolded the callers for making so much of the call when the Giants won the game and, realizing that the callers had the jump on him, to not call up to talk about it. Let's leave aside the sad state that he could never have his finger anywhere close enough to the pulse of his “audience” to realize that the venting is for all the crappy officiating that we’ve seen in the two games and that people are so focused on the officiating because they know the Giants have the best team.

Whothefuck does he think he is- Rush Limbaugh- telling his audience what to think? Lie to yourself all you want that the world isn't passing you by, jagoff. Don't lie to us and don't ever think that you know more than the people. You're only there because you can sell advertising, which keeps Chernoff on the dick.

I'd like to tell you that he lost his mind with all the fat. But, he's always been that way. As I said, he is talking sports to himself, for himself. The rest of us are there to be pitched commercials.

Ehhh, wot I say?

2012-01-16T15:06:00.002-02:00

Now, after telling that Packers fan that the Giants would win by two touchdowns, I've got to deal with my crushed boss. Upon hearing me talk it up, he was willing to take the Packers at (+13.5). I wonder what that would've gotten me.

The Giants do Bokolis two better, going +3 in the turnover battle, and crush the 15-1 and done Packers. Well, it would've been +4 if not for those bungling officials and borderline-criminally bad referee. Looking back, the Packers scored their two touchdowns on drives prolonged by questionable referee's decisions. As far as I'm concerned, the Giants defense pitched another shutout.

Always planning for the worst, I was looking for inflection points. That horrid reversal and replay non-reversal was one possible point. I'd like to tell you that my tirade was expletive-laced, but there weren't enough regular English words.

The other possible one was when, after Umenyiora poked the ball out of Rodgers' hand, just as he was about to throw a TD to a wide-open receiver, the horrid spot on Ware's 3rd down carry forced a 4th down and a punt.

The third was when, with about 9 minutes left on a 2nd down in the red zone, Jacobs was outside on an island with just the corner and, instead of 'dozing him, he tried to get the corner and was leg-tackled. Can you tell I can't stand this muthafucka? The conservative 3rd down formation indicated that the Giants were going to take the field goal and a 10-point lead.

Instead, I get to dwell on Nicks' touchdown catches- neither was the turning point...the first one was indicative of what a winning team does and the second helped out.

It could have been one of the Packers' many dropped passes. Bokolis' attitude is that, in many games like this, one team will bitch out. Those dropped passes were the manifestation of the Packers bitching out and are- like Rodgers mising a few relatively easy passes- what losing teams do.

The turning point was likely Osi's strip of Rodgers. While, the outcome was that it only served to further slow the Packers, they probably would've gotten their shit together, while introducing doubt into the Giants.

Off of four consecutive wins of at least two touchdowns, up next are the despised 49ers. The hate of post-season battles past will build up. Contrary to what the dried-out-juicehead mongoloids pushing sports in suits will tell you, there is plenty of room for improvement. They didn't play all that well...they played a team that bitched out. Bokolis is very impressed by the 49ers, as they are one of the few teams I've seen that really know how to cover.

So, after getting hooked in the Ravens game (which I'd've never touched), Bokolis goes 3-1 in the divisional round and stands at 5-3 for the playoffs. I already know which way I'm going for the conference championships. That's all the fuck I got for now. I just hope the lines behave.

Are you ready for some...rugby for fairies, 2012 Divisional round

2012-01-14T12:13:00.006-02:00

Conversation between Bokolis and God, shortly after 4PM, last Sunday:

God: Waas happenin', nucka?
Bokolis: Yo, man, why you drunk calling me again?
God: Watch waas gonna' happen on this Broncos game.
Bokolis: Aw, C'maughan. You know I already took the Steelers.
God: You better change that shit.
Bokolis: Why you gotta keep fuckin' with this dumbshit? Polamalu crosses himself before every play. And he came to you...he wasn't brainwashed into it like this mongoloid. Wassup with hooking him up?
God: Mayn, I already done plenty for Polamalu. But, muthafuckas down there don't realize that shit. They just think he's crazy and they already know he can do it. Well, I've got everybody buggin' now.
Bokolis: Why ain't you just let him win all his games instead of letting him lose those last three?
God: Man, you gotta learn how to carry a crowd. I got the Jesus freaks singing and the atheists buggin' tryna explain this shit some other way.
Bokolis: Bokolis doesn't have much use for keeping the crowd's attention.
God: I gotta tell you everything?! Of course the crowds don't know shit. It's about dropping them when you feel like dropping them.
Bokolis: Point taken. You gonna' chill here to watch the game.
God: Naah, man, this shit gotta happen from the control room. Check you later. Remember Broncos, plus nine. You got the over, right.
Bokolis: Yes, I have the over. Suave, homes.

Once I saw three favorites cover, I knew some shit was going to happen. I was heaviest on the Giants, so I sent it in with the booty. I didn't change it here, so I'll live with this 2-2 (it actually went much better). The rest of the world went 3-1, so I'm already chasing.

49ERS (+3.5) over Saints - I was hoping for a muddy track out in Frisco but, I'm told it hasn't rained in a hot minute. Banking on the sprinkler system to mysteriously malfunction...hope is not a strategy, they tell me. Nonetheless, the Saints are a different team on the road. And, don't put too much stock in what happened in last week's game after the officials fucked up that call. All right, maybe it's just that I don't want to have to go to the Superdome.

PATRIOTS (-13.5) over Broncos - Big nutmber, I know. They did it once, they will do it again. I know the Pats have a crappy defense and that Brady and Belichick are bored with it. But, making an example out of Tebow should motivate them. Besides, this is the week when inferior (8-8) teams get crushed.

Update Sunday 1000 (UTC +500). Dear me! I done misread the spread! Ravens are giving 7.5. Fuck it, I'll take the Ravens.

Texans (+13.5) over RAVENS - This looks like an even bigger number than the other 13.5. Normally, Bokolis wouldn't even look at this game. Surely, the Ravens will win against this QB. I think that the Texans have a solid enough team to keep this reasonably close.

Giants (+7.5) over PACKERS - Eyeing this up, it looks like another one-possession game. Even with a limited defense, the Giants did enough to the Packers in the first game- and there is plenty of upside to that first game- to convince me that the Packers are vulnerable. With a stronger defensive line, I have to think that the Giants will do a little more to them. If this game went right- by "right," I mean the Giants are +1 in the turnover battle- the Giants win by 10-14 points. Of course, the opposite can happen. But, I don't see the Giants rolling over.

Are you ready for some Rugby for fairies 2012 Wild Card weekend

2012-01-07T19:13:00.001-02:00

These numbers render the card lukewarm at best. I feel best about the Giants, which, being a Giants supporter, is cause for concern. I'd throw in some point totals for hedging, but that would be throwing good money after bad. Since we have to...

Bengals (+4) over TEXANS - If you must, we're left to figure out whether Cincinnati's 0-7 record vs playoff teams will predominate, or a banged up Houston team will find a way to win its first playoff game. Give me the points and let both happen.

SAINTS (-10.5) over Lions - With everyone being down on the Lions because they were torched by the Packers' back-up QB, they have nowhere to go but up and I think the Lions are sleepers here. Compared to all the other defenses that were torched in the dome, they didn't do so badly last time around, even without Suh. Still, while the back-door cover is in play, after crashing out last year, the Saints figure to want to leave no doubt.

Update 1625 (UTC -5): Barkley just picked the Lions to win outright. Knowing his history with gambling, the Lions are fucked.

GIANTS (-3) over Falcons - The Giants seem to be on an uptrend that's got everyone thinking of another magic carpet ride. There are similarities because, as bad as this secondary may seem, they aren't any worse than 2007's team. The pass rush masked that crew and, off the last few games, we can dream that this line do the same. The road map is there; if they can beat Atlanta, I'll take my chances in Green Bay against their generous defense and a subsequent date in Frisco (assuming the Saints die out in a muddy track at the 'stick. So, they've got a puncher's chance.

It's a pretty day- 60 degrees as I type- out here in the Apple. It'll probably be 45 at game time. That may sound good for the domers, but I think it's even better for Eli. The Giants have been pretty good about getting teams to 3rd down this year where, without a pass rush, they've been horrid. They are on the uptrend, both on defense and with their run-blocking. Bokolis is banking that this will continue and they will handle the Falcons.

Steelers (-9) over BRONCOS - I didn't see odds on whether Tebow will be pulled. This is an issue to me because I fully expect Tebow to be yanked. Bokolis does not expect that the Tebow-led Broncos will be able to sustain more than one drive of more than 50 yards. In my mind, Pittsburgh gets to 10 and they win If we get the back-up, stupid things, like a back-door cover, can happen.

What do we know about 2011 NFL

2012-01-07T18:07:00.000-02:00

Similar to MLB after its job actions that scuttled the 1994 season, the NFL had some mending to do after the lockout, widely perceived as a smash and grab op by owners, nearly fucked with fat people's Sundays.

And, just like MLB, the NFL opted to ratchet up the offense. Offensive holding, done on every play, was called only after a copy of the police report was produced, while sneezing on a receiver brought a flag. Hitting a receiver brought a fine.

We ended up with arena football, quite literally in the case of the Saints and the Lions. Both of their QBs passed for over 5000 yards, with Drew Brees eclipsing Dan Marino's record with a game to spare. Three QBs passed for 5000 yards- E. Manning was just below and Aaron Rodgers surely would've reached it had he taken part in last week's orgy against the Lions (not to mention that a healthy P. Manning would've been a good bet to do it). In total, 11 QBs passed for over 4000 yards, including Ruthlessbuggerer. It used to be that passing for 4000 yards was a sign that your team was forever badly trailing. Nowdays, only shlubs don't pass for that much.

I mean, ferfook's sake, the leading receiver had more yards than the leading rusher. When's the last time that happened? 2007, you say? Well, how about before that? 2001? crickets Ummmm, going back to 1990, I'm surprised it's happened as often as it has.

Yeah, I was trying to get at that it is, now more than ever, a QB's game. So, why not point out two teams that don't have it at QB?

Bokolis has it on good authority that Tim Tebow going 7-1 was God's way of fucking with people, just to see what everyone would do. I knew from the get-go- and, by from the get-go, I mean the first time I saw Tebow play for Florida- that he was a dumb fuck and was incapable of processing variables as necessary to be an effective NFL quarterback. What is bothersome is that no pundits pick up on this, choosing to focus on his mechanics and talent. People apparently don't recognize outlying results until mean reversion kicks them in the mouth.

In pointing out the Jets, I must first note that the reason for their mediocre season was that their ordinary defense wasn't good enough to bail them out. Blaming it on Sanchez' supposed regression or locker room cancers is a copout offered by those who need you to pay attention to that sort of nonsense. Sanchez has been the same shyte he's always been. In his prior two seasons, the defense put him in better positions to win games. Sometimes he got it done, sometimes he didn't.

In any event, Sanchez did not dictate the game. Rex Ryan wouldn't and won't have it. Rex sees the QB as target practice for his defense. Where have we seen this before? Oh, yeah, from Rex' old man. Buddy, who had the best defense ever in the 1991 Eagles, yet, likely because his offense was neglected and punch-drunk from having to go against the defense in practice, couldn't even make the playoffs. The ballsac doesn't drop far from the prick. Because Rex will not accept that this is a QB's game, he will never win anything while in charge.

What do we know...

2012-01-07T15:29:00.002-02:00

Nah, man, Bokolis wasn't out fuckin' with these Occupy cats. I didn't catch a pepper spray to the grill. As I stated earlier, I'm not trying to do the dissident's 5-year bid. I'm not even trying to spend the night in Central. Besides, any protest that does not involve rock throwing is destined to ring hollow.

Say what you want about these muthafuckas. What you should've picked up from their adventures is that you start fucking with the PTB around here, Constitution be damned, they will come down on you. It should've also showed, once and for all, that corporations- and money- have more rights than people and our methods of handling disturbances are strikingly similar to the methods of the backwards countries we seek to "enlighten."

What makes the state of our nation all the more dire is that the police are all too willing to be the errand boys (the word is stronger, but using it would probably unneccesarily distract from the message) for the muthafuckas that are fleecing us. That, to Bokolis, is the biggest disappointment to come out of the first installment of the Occupy movement.

I don't really need to point out that the make-up of the police forces around this country is increasingly ex-military. Stereotypical NYPD used to be the drunk Irish hooples that let me walk right through them outside Joe's. In other cow towns, I was a bunch of Deputy Perkins-looking muthafuckas.

At some point, they decided to try and make the NYPD force look more representative of the demographics of the city. So, they let in more Blacks and 5-foot Latina birds. Nationally, after some well-publicized firefights with some cats armed for Armageddon and with the coming of the two wars, the faces on the force, as well as their battle gear, increasingly resembled military units. Municipalities all over the country are taking federal funding and buying up military surplus weaponry. At this point, Perkins is long-retired and living off his pension.

That brings me to the only good thing about the job- its pension. If Bokolis had become a cop (yeah, right) or a fireman (possibly) back when I'd become eligible, right about now, I'd be able to retire at half-pay. I'm still young.

Aside - Truth be told, if I avoided having the Towers fall on me, I'd've retired sometime shortly after 9/11 at quarter-pay of my highest of the last three years- which would've been 2001, as the overtime those cops were making in the aftermath would've probably gotten me close to the same pension as 20 years. I was still a kid at that point.

The reason I point out what a self-centered prick I'd've been is that the pension is the carrot dangled out in front of them to plow the field ahead of building all chain stores. After all, you can't build a bigger corporate monolith if enough ground is not level. So, while there has never been much police to protect us from the transgressions of business, there sure as shit is plenty of police to ensure that, if business does transgress upon us, we can't do shit about it.

Many cops, as we saw, were all too keen to do the job. They took relish in hammering hipsters that hardly put up resistance, much less a fight. They burned books and detained people for longer until arraignment that they would for violent offenders. But, we shouldn't expect anything more than cowardice from cops. With the pension dangling, their greatest incentive is not to fight crime. Their greatest incentive is to protect themselves and, like the rest of us, to keep their job; fighting crime is ancillary, protecting us is coincidental.

This isn't to say that all cops are this way. I'm sure there are quite a few that live the job. Collectively, however, that's what they are and what they do.

It's a shame, too. We don't expect any better from our leaders. After all, they are beholden to corporate soft money to keep their job. In the case of the Apple, the stooge in charge is one of them, a remorseless shill.

The public at large is largely misguided. Why else would anyone mock by telling protesters to get a job? I'll get to that. The point is that the public will believe whatever bullshit is fed to them my the corporate MSM. Protests will be covered insofar is the MSM call sell them.

It's left then, to change the attitudes of the police. The cops don't owe these muthafuckas any loyalty. They must think they do. Again, the carrot is the pension.

What the cops don't realize is that these muthafuckas are fucking them over, too, in a way that pensions and sweetheart loan deals don't make up for. They fuck us all by debasing our currency, which cheapens the value of our blood, sweat and tears- the only thing most of us have to offer. For the cops' efforts, they are taxed at a greater marginal rate than the muthafuckas they protect. knowing what side your bread is buttered on is of not much use when you are eating burnt toast.

So, when someone tells a protester to get a job, they should realize that the protesters are doing the working man's work, as the working man is getting fleeced even more so than the unemployed slob that is out protesting. When the cop gets out his pepper spray, or his billy club, or digs his knee just a little deeper into a non-violent protester, he should remember that the protester was not out to fuck with him.

But, maybe they should be. Failing this epiphany, the protests may be better served to take on a tone that will test police commitment to the ruling elite. That may include armed conflict...in a manner that is consistent with the idea that, if the police overstep their bounds and use disproportionate force, rather than wait for the courts to sort it out, the people will defend themselves.

Bokolis isn't saying that cops need to die or even get hurt- though it would inevitably happen. I'm saying that shit needs to happen that makes policemen reassess what they are protecting. They need to be tested. Since they can't see for themselves, they need to be made to see. How that gets done is not my call...just sayin'

That's all the fuck I got. I think I'm ready...

How can she slap II

2011-10-15T12:38:00.006-02:00

A couple of Christopher Street lesbians biting off more than they can chew.

The expression is beyond cliche because countless hip hop jams have a "...you fuckin' with the wrong nigga..." sample. Yeah, well, they thought they caught a vic, but the vic caught a vic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tFvPKHABgk

Stick to nibbling on clits, love. As Charlie Murphy explained, you don't slap a man. You start fucking with the big boys, keepin' it real is going to go wrong on you at some point.

One might say, how were they to know they were fucking with an ex-con (who, seemingly, had a little pent up frustration)...exactly my point. Even if the were that one to steal on, to let slide a woman who raised his hand to him, they should've quit while they were ahead. Once they went behind the counter, it was on.

I expect that they'll drop the charges against the cashier.

Anybody who has had to drive across Christopher Street in the wee hours knows WTF Bokolis is talking about. Christopher Street is on Bokolis' route home- actually, it's on my route to Joe's Pizza, which will bring me to another, related story- from the fun job. As to the people who hang on Christopher Street at that time, their self-perception of their level of toughness is too high for their own good and, as a result, they are way too obnoxious for their own good (just like these two). They cross against the light on Bleecker and often hang in the crosswalk, just because they can, which bottles up traffic. Being held up in traffic at 1, 2 in the morning will fuck with a New Yorker's head. If I thought it was worth the effort, Bokolis would get out and throw a couple of these muthafuckas through a storefront. I don't think it's that much of a longshot to speculate that these two have, at some point, blocked my path to Joe's.

Which brings me to an episode that happened a few Pride days ago. Getting to Joe's after the fun job wasn't an issue. But, the array of people typically on that block is not there. It's like 11PM, the block is filled with people, milling around, people who would otherwise be on Christopher Street, people who just don't have a feel of the right time to call it a night. I want pizza, I don't care. I turn into Joe's and, within a tenth of a second, my hood sense starts tingling. The place has that air of a place that's about to get out of control.

Sure enough shit, not 30 seconds later, right in front of me (Joe's- the new Joe's, not the old one on the corner- is small), one bird is talking to another bird. No loudness, no build-up...crack! right hand, down she goes. Two other birds start stomping the fallen bird, blood starts flowing. The thought came to me that I should step outside, as I was between the door and the fight, leaving myself open to the odd limp-wristed fucker deciding to throw a knife into the mix. Narcissistic as I am, I'm thinking, this is all I need, to have one of these muthafuckas make me famous and to wind up as their martyr or some shit. I want some pizza, I don't care, and only back up enough as to not get hit with a follow-through or stray.

The cops come through about 30 seconds after the stomp-out and clear the place out. Because I want to see the bitter end of this- and because I want pizza, I don't care- I stand outside. To put it mildly, the cops didn't exercise great care in removing the fallen and bloodied bird from the place. Some other bird started wailing, "They washed her!" a couple of times. I've yet to determine to exactly what that slang pertains, but I gather it has something to do with picking her up by her legs, grinding her face into the floor; push-pulling her as if she were lodged against something; dragging her out by her feet whilst banging her head into every possible obstacle on the way out; once outside, tilting her so as to get that little extra leverage so that her face gets that extra scrape against the concrete.

They ignored the perpetrators, who hadn't left. I don't know where they dumped her, because I turned around to see the Blue Wall coming. It occurred to me that I wasn't getting any pizza.

At first, the wall didn't live up to its legend, as half those cops seemed drunk and allowed me to walk (towards my car) right through them...maybe they were sympathetic because I don't exactly look like the others. Before I reached my car, I notice that, in the space of about a minute, they had cleared out all the derelicts and the block again looked like any other night, tourists, locals and drunk white girls with a craving. The guy was still mopping up the blood when I walked in.

I got my pizza...all's well that ends well.

Spreading some love...

2011-07-28T23:38:00.005-02:00

...for Ultragrrrl. I go over for my dose of happy music; shit that keeps the party movin'. Hey, I've got to keep up with the kids. But, popular culture is not Bokolis' thing; I cant keep track of the mainstream stuff, much less the diggin' in the ~~crates~~ catalogues goodness. She's got the lock-down on that.

Now this here was touched by her magic wand. It reminded Bokolis of a couple of nipple bump parties from back in the day. I don't recall getting home from those parties. I still have my kidneys and my pucker, so I only had to dust my shoulder.

I had to suspend disbelief for some shit. This only happens to Bokolis when I use the green Axe. The yellow one brings muted results and the red is like repellent. And, the part about the Mexicans, after KTFO'ing him, driving him home is total bullshit. In reality, his pucker would have been ruined.

They were dead on about the blue one. The one time I used it, I also wound up wearing a snout...and it might have been the same bird.

Here's to more nipple bump parties, even if I'm not attending.

Now that they've worked out this lockout...

2011-07-28T17:30:00.001-02:00

...bullshit, the chumps at the "worldwide leader" have material for their first C'mon, man" segment. The Oakland Raiders present to you, Susie Sanchez

C'mon man. They didn't even try to 'shop this broad. Bokolis was going to say that I know loads of 37 year old birds that are fitter than this one, but none of them are mothers, let alone grandmothers. Was that supposed to be a draw?

I suppose the old man's taste in birds is running parallel to Hugh Hefner's- I hear they're giving horses the centerfold these days. Either that, or he's watching way too much MILF* porn.

*Bokolis' definition of MILF requires that, the mother is at least 35 and, if she has less than three kids, one of them is at least 12 years old. A 30-year old toting around a 4-year old isn't a MILF.

Just who's fault is this anyway

2011-07-14T15:35:00.012-02:00

As we watch our politicians play gay chicken with our nation's debt rating, I have to wonder how the hell we got to the point where the Alpha Betas are running things. Howthefuck did we get to the point where we've allowed a bunch of people who blatantly demonstrate that they don't give a dead rat's asshole about us are leading us?

We're not going to really blame this on the partisan nonsense because we put them in position to do this. We must look within for the answer. Life is about you vs. you, not you vs. them. The "...by the people..." as government, even if forgotten, is apropos, as this is our own doing.

By being asleep at the switch and neglecting our civic duties in favor of monetary enrichment (which is a vicious circle, as the scumbags serve as our role models), we've allowed for the rise of the military apparatus, the empowerment of the corporate entity at the expense of the rights human entity.

We've allowed ourselves to be dumbed down, to accept the Readers Digest version of things for the sake of convenience, to the point where we are incapable of confronting and processing reality. Our minds are not sharp, and we have frames to match. What betterment of body and mind we do pursue, we pursue for self, for primarily personal gain, whether it be to outrun the next guy, to self-medicate, just to feel good or to score a piece of ass.

I don't feel like listing examples here. I'm not an accountant, so I don't record history. I simply retain the parts that interest me and hope that my mind does not distort it too much. It's enough for me to say that, with all the information available (even if it creates a poverty of attention), for me to encounter so many dull minds is as saddening as it is draining.

Bokolis can say that, like- I assume- most people, I'm liberal about some things and conservative about some things. I'd like to think I possess enough logic to form cogent views about matters and do not ascribe to any party's line because in many, if not most circumstances, your ideology is to your detriment.

As I generally avoid imposing my will on people (ostensibly because I'm self-abosrbed, but really because I'm afraid of wielding that much power), I quash others' attempts to impose their will upon me. Because, if Bokolis were in charge, you can be damned sure that I'd impose my will upon everybody (until they eventually clipped me). It wouldn't be because I'd be a mad tyrant...I've been convinced for some time now that shit has gotten so bad that things can no longer be fixed by political process.

Can you imagine you were in charge and that, whenever you did something, no matter how noble your intentions, you had half the populace pissed as hell at you?

The noble person would eventually quit in disgust.

Some of us who swear they can catch him would chase the leprechaun. If they don't get clipped, they eventually get marginalized.

Some of us would stand up to the apparatus. Those guys get clipped for sure.

Then there are the street-level guys that will not only stand up to the apparatus, they'll harness others' rage. If they have back, those guys are the dangerous ones. They probably don't give a fuck about the cause; they love power and a good fight (beatdown).

It's muthafuckas like this that are most likely to change the world. Unfortunately, they are only fit to destroy and dominate, not to lead. Once a guy like this gets into power, it just becomes a new type of misery.

When Bokolis was in Spain this Spring, I encountered peaceful protests (I didn't hear much about this in the American MSM, BTW) regarding the people's plight in this global financial seizure (es una estafa). Their Madrid base camp (I had two separate one-day stints in Madrid) happened to be about a ~10 minute walk from my hotel.

Aside- while the government declared the base camp- in a public square- illegal, they sent sanitation to clean up after them. There were no police.

The first time, I went down dolo. I'm bouncing around, listening and taking it all in. It's (probs jobless) people sitting around speaking; no vitriol, no loudness even. It had the impression of a tourist colony.

Next time through, I linked up with one of my Madrid contacts (American friend who I know from here) to mix it up with them. Bokolis' Spanish is functional, but not good enough for high-level conversation necessary to get across my points. The gist is that, while I don't necessarily agree with their views, I'm glad they are doing this.

Ultimately, I'm as guilty as anyone else. While Bokolis placed in the money at Carlito's angles tournament, I don't lay it on the line to stand up to these muthafuckas, resolving instead to snatching up those nickels before the steamroller gets them. Aside from being relatively comfortable, because I need convenience like everyone else, I don't have time to do the dissident's 5-year bid. I want the revolution fermented and ready to go so I can jump in it.

Ignorant as I am, I thought I may have my chance. I asked if they were ever going to storm the castle or some shit. When told no, I wished them luck and bounced.

That's all the fuck I got.

Rugby for fairies...The Big Game in Big D

2011-02-06T13:29:00.003-02:00

Packers (-3) over Steelers - You can still find -2.5, but you'd have to lay odds. If you were smart enough to snag the early -2.5, or even the opening -2.0, you should just go shopping for a +3.5 spread and hope to hit the middle. In fact, Bokolis found 7.5-1 for the game landing on the number. I don't know if that's a good price but, at 8-3, it's worth putting up a little piece of the built up powder.

If you simply must take sides, the pundits have been at it for a fortnight. I'm putting stock in playoff performance and Rodgers' numbers in ideal conditions, and downplaying all of this supposed experience.

In the same breath used to talk up Ruthlessbuggerer as potential legend with a third ring, the pundits also explain that he doesn't have to play well for the Steelers to win...some legend. They ignore that, against relatively weak opposition, he didn't do all that much to win the two he's got. Yes, I remember the final drive against Arizona. What I don't remember is seeing Santonio Holmes' second foot come down inbounds.

Therein lies the rub. All things being equal, the Packers should smoke the Steelers. But, when the Steelers are playing, all things aren't always equal. It's one thing for them to get the calls against the Seahawks and the Cardinals. They shouldn't get them against the Packers.

What's his armband say now?

2011-02-01T11:03:00.012-02:00

Fernando Torres finally got his not-so-secret wish and was shipped off to Chelski FC. Liverpool received- latest figure- 50 million quid, which they pissed away on Luis "Handball" Suarez, formerly of ajax, and Andy Carroll, formerly of Newcastle United.

Still ain't got no history, muthafuckas. That pic is owned or some shit by Getty Images...please don't hurt me.

After that move in the World Cup, it is distasteful to Bokolis to have a rat like Suarez on the team. It will pain me to cheer his goals...if he actually scores any, that is.

Carroll, I'm told, is currently the third leading scorer in the EPL. I'm told. He did it for Newcastle, which means he's unproven. Further, for 35 million quid, there surely was higher quality- both skill and star- to obtain.

Anyway, about Torres...this move has got Liverpool supporters burning his shirt. Those who do so ignore that they are burning the crest on the front as well as the name on the back.

Of course, getting worked up- as if Torres is committing some footballing crime by daring to leave the great Liverpool FC- is silliness. The shirt burners are the people who deluded themselves by clinging to the “armband” and thinking Torres was anything more than a hot, but high-maintenance girlfriend, who's a hot, but twice-a-month lay.

Facing a second year without Champions League football and the minimum 20 million quid that comes with it, Liverpool wanted to ship him out as much as Torres wanted to leave. The club was, it seems, smart enough to sell the highs.

His departure is part of the cleansing process. That means the fans should get over it...well, get over it after the upcoming match with Chelski. You know what will help: helping the rent boys come up with a chant. They usually have to resort to corrupting our chants as it is. Why not do it for them?

A chequebook turned him Red to blue,
TORRES, TORRES
We sang him but we always knew,
TORRES, TORRES
The 50 mil to Liverpool,
Proves Chelski is the greater fool,
FERNANDO TORRES,
ex! Liverpool's number nine...BOUNCE!

It’s going to hurt far more if/when Stevie G leaves before anyone from the youth system develops into the role...there's Rafa still paying dividends.

Free at last?

2011-01-29T15:00:00.013-02:00

Well, well, well. It appears our boys the Wilpons haven't been entirely honest about their dealings with Bernie Madoff. In response to being sued by those trying to claw back profits from Madoff's imploded operation, Fred Wilpon is offering up a minority stake, probably 20% - 25%, in the New York Mets.

That pic is owned, or something, by AP. Please don't hurt me.

The whisper number on the amount sought by the lawyers is...pinky to mouth...$1 Billion. As it goes, all profits from a scheme such as Madoff was orchestrating are deemed illegitimate, regardless of whether the person profiting knew about the scheme, and can be clawed back. That, as it turns out, is even better than if Madoff had beaten Wilpon for half a billion. In that scenario, Wilpon would already be bottomed out and could possibly be looking forward to recovery.

So, how much of Wilpon's stash is at stake? The story goes that Wilpon had money with Madoff for at least 25 years. Madoff was dumping close to 2% yield into these accounts every month. That shit adds up, so it's not unreasonable to believe that the Wilpons could have cashed out several hundred millions of dollars. Given that Madoff professed to being a life-long Mets fan, it is not unreasonable to speculate that, Madoff craved access to the team/ownership, Wilpon's rate of return was just a bit sweeter than everybody else's and, even if not, he probably got to cash out easier than everybody else.

Regardless, this means that Wilpon, like it wasn't blatantly obvious, was less than honest about what effect his dealings with Madoff have had on the Mets. He bullshitted y'all so he could get y'all to buy overpriced tickets to pay for his new ballpark. Bokolis wasn't having any of that shit; I've never been inside the new place and didn't pay more than $5 for a ticket at the dump in the final six years of its existence. I'd taken comped tickets to the Dump in that time frame, but won't even do that to go to this ad-infested bomb shelter. This, from a guy who gets to 3-4 major league parks and as many minor league parks each year.

As Bokolis chronicled, Wilpon first bought into the team in 1980. He acquired enough to put his dirty mitts on the team in early 1986, first applied said dirty mitts after the 1986 season (notice that the Mets haven't won since), and bought out Doubleday in 2002, assuming full control. He promptly installed his boy, Jeff Wilpon, to run the club...shit has been mostly disastrous ever since. Urban legend has it that Doubleday said that Jeff Wilpon would turn out to be a colossal fucking embarrassment. Perhaps that is why he sold- to wash his hands.

This Madoff caper lingers while, Wilpon, being in the commercial real estate business, has seen that portion of his wealth take a haircut. So, in may come a "strategic partner." Yeah, right. "Strategic" would be if they actually brought in someone who knew WTF they were doing. This is pure fucking panic. You'd have to think that the Wilpons are looking to score a quarter billion. What kind of jagoff would give these two bananas a quarter billion, only to let them continue to run the team further into the ground? Surely, a quarter billion would at least buy a thunderous slap of Jeff.

Bokolis is speculating that the Wilpons are still sandbagging, and that shit is even worse than they are letting on. I think things will continue to spiral downward on them, eventually forcing them to sell their entire interest in the team. A forced sale to pay creditors isn't necessary, as I don't really give a shit about their personal and financial ruin; I just want them out. That day may very well be fast approaching. It's a shame that so many baseball summers had to be soured in the process.

Same ol', same ol'

2011-01-25T16:30:00.008-02:00

Bokolis swept though the conference championship round, even tossing in the under to go with the Packers, with the three wins taking the post-season record to 8-3. Bookies all over nowhere are scratching their heads.

Driving home Sunday from way up north- I may get into that another time- I was stuck listening to New York sports radio incessantly push the Jets to take out the Steelers. Having a slightly sturdier backbone than the politicians who are similarly lobbied and, knowing Jets fans are dumbshits on the level of Philadelphians, I resisted the temptation to switch up to the Jets.

I was in and out of the first game. The game was no fun, as it seemed like Rodgers and the Packers were carrying the Bears like Mayweather carried De La Hoya.

The fuss was about Cutler coming out with a creaky knee. Fellow players violated for twatting about what a chump he is for begging off. As Urlacher said, jealous muthafuckas talk shit cause that's all they're worth. Damned staight, those chumps wish they could've been in the game to get arm tackled by a QB. At least when that DB from Indy was tackled by Ruthlessbuggerer a few years back, the QB was the bigger man and the DB had the excuse of having been stabbed in the leg by his DreamKiller that very week. For fuck's sake, the way Urlacher moves like he has two left feet, you'd never know he used to return punts in college.

Deion Sanders, who, at best, can be considered a pundit at this point, whinged, conveniently forgetting that he couldn't tackle the guy holding the down marker and the games he missed because of turf toe or some shit. I remember thinking that, the way Cutler made his final throw, he's got nothing.

I was no less disappointed that the twatters. Bokolis picked the Packers primarily because of a lack of faith in Cutler. I didn't need some plucky back-up in there moving the team, all of the sudden. The second guy was as useless as Cutler, but the third guy got it going.

It was unsettling watching the Packers gift the Bears the 14 points that they did. It was REALLY unsettling watching the Bears drive down for the tying score, which, after a quick score by both sides, would've wrecked my hedge. Having watched the last five Packers games, they have always gotten the picks when they've needed them. That whole drive, I was wondering when the interception would come.

Boom.

I immediately picked up that the Jets were not getting tacklers in position against Pittsburgh...not missing tackles as the pundits would have you think. Some people can play defense by letting teams come at them, but they're not known to the socialized world. On the other side of the ball, the Steelers attacked the Jets, getting the jump on them because they seemingly knew the plays. Once they fell behind by 10, you could see that Sanchize was pressing. He was holding the ball longer and, when he did pass, trying to force it in. He got caught out there for 24-0.

24 points had to bee too much. I fell asleep as the Jets were lining up for the field goal that would open their account. Even the chuckle I had to myself- the same ol' Jets, putting me to sleep- couldn't keep me awake, as, after the weekend I had, it was just about bedtime.

Bokolis woke up in the middle of the night to birds playing tennis; not in my room, though, I'm sorry to say. Don't sneer; after Saturday night, slightly less far-fetched...like I said, another story. Nonetheless, I expected to wake up to a 27-10 final. When I saw 24-19, I was a little more interested to see what happened. I gather someone called the 2nd half comeback "gallant" or some shit.

It couldn't have been, and the highlights proved it. The Steelers never had to stop the Jets. They didn't even have to field an onsides kick. And...and, when the Jets needed to stop the Steelers on that last drive, twice, they couldn't. That leads me to think that, maybe they mussed up the Steelers' hair a little, but the Jets only got close because the Steelers let them.

So, as the Jets fans tuck their cunts back into their knickers, the real men continue onwards.

Rugby for fairies...2011 Conference Championships

2011-01-21T15:41:00.008-02:00

Ummm, yeah, right back down to earth. A crappy 1-3 later, Bokolis is 5-3 for the playoffs. I can't claim any Tom Jackson bullshit, that I was trying to motivate the Jets by picking against them. Actually, the last 40 minutes or so of that game went about as I expected. It's just that I'd expected the Patriots to have had a 21-0 lead by then. The Ravens pissing away that game would have bothered me far more. The Falcons weren't ready for prime time...should have picked up on that...whatevs.

Packers (-3.5) over BEARS - The Packers are everybody's comfortable pick. The only things not comfortable are the wood we have to lay and the fact that the referee was part of the crew that flagged the Packers 18 times in their Week 3 loss to the Bears. The Bears were in garbage time from the second quarter last week. They did everything in their power to help the Seahawks backdoor cover. To pick the Bears is to place faith in Jay Cutler...yeah, right. While we're dicking around, let's also take the under (43.5) as a hedge. If the Bears win, I'm pretty damned sure that it won't be a track meet.

STEELERS (-3.5) over Jets - The Jets fans have their cunts up in the air like never seen. I'd tell them to act like they've been here before, but they haven't, really. This is their fourth AFC championship game and, while all have been on the road, this one has to be the one the fans feel that they have the best chance of winning. They probably had an excellent chance in '82 against a weak Dolphins team. But, the fish management decided to let the rain turn the Orange Bowl into slop, muddling the Jets and resigning them to watching A.J. Duhe run away with the AFC championship (A.J. Duhe, btw, was reputed to be one of the biggest pussies in the history of pussies). They were tough for a half in Denver, but got popped with a bomb right out of the locker room. Even last year, they were right there before Greene was injured. Might they finally break through?

History tells us not so. Bokolis has always said that the price that the Jets (and Chiefs) pay for winning rigged Super Bowls is that they don't get to go back until everybody else gets a turn. As it was, I think they were the last team that was around at the merger to win a division. The Bucs, Panthers, Cardinals and Saints were big hurdles. But, I believe that the only teams that haven't been to one since are the Browns, Lions, Jaguars and Texans. Is Karma going to make the Jets wait around for them?

This time around, the Jets have nothing to avenge. They defeated the Steelers in the regular season, ending their oh-for-ever losing streak in Pittsburgh. The Steelers were without Polamalu and Heath Miller and had some pretty horrid play calling, while the Jets popped the opening kickoff. The Jets have done well improving the ride for themselves coming out of the gate (vs. reg. season) in all of their playoff games under Ryan. I'm thinking that it's the Steelers' turn to make the Jets uncomfortable.

Rugby for fairies...divisional round

2011-01-12T17:00:00.009-02:00

4-0, putos. The only thing that can explain it is that I've stayed away from the pundits, which has kept me with a clear head.

On we go to the divisional round. I'm writing this before the pundits get to me, because with fresh snow on the ground, it will be harder to get out and away from the television. Bokolis feels confident about marking so early and would only amend picks in an extraordinary circumstance.

Ravens (+3) over STEELERS - The two regular season games didn't tell you much; two tough matches, the Ravens winning without Ruthlessbuggerer and the Steelers stealing (n/p/i) the game down in Baltimore. I just think the Ravens are a slightly better team than the Steelers, have no qualms about playing on the road, and will find a way to exploit their main advantages, Boldin and Ray Rice, in ways that they didn't during the previous two meetings.

FALCONS (-2.5) over Packers - Had to get this in before it went to 3. As you saw with the BCS game on Monday night, falling right on the number is not fun. Green Bay dominated the Eagles- even had a 100-yard rusher- and still had to fight off a final drive. The Packers are a tough team, but they do not play crisply. Even if they play as well in Atlanta, against a markedly better team than the Eagles, it will be good enough for them to lose a close game.

BEARS (-10) over Seahawks - Just as the Seahawks home field advantage was discounted too much because of their regular season record, their road disadvantage (12PM game out east, which has typically been a disaster for the Seahawks) is being discounted because of their latest performance...though it's not discounted as much as it was when the line opened, as we now have to lay the full 10.

Bokolis is fully aware that the Seahawks defeated the Bears in Chicago this season. But it was before Chicago's bye week, so you can toss that result right out the window. Besides, I have a hazy memory of some unusal events occurring in that game. 9-7 teams can get it together for playoff runs, but I have decidedly less faith in a 7-9 team, especially in Seattle's circumstances. If Cutler can keep from playing like a jagoff, the Bears should smoke the Seahawks.

PATRIOTS (-8.5) over Jets - OOOOoohh!!! The main event. How cheesy was FOX' constant referral to the late Sunday game as the headliner?! Serves them right that it was a dreary game.

These teams split the season series, but the Jets were embarrassed in New England. The two Jets victories over New England under Rex Ryan were the result of the Patriots getting tired of being hit. Without the malaise that accompanied the cancer Moss, the Patriots have dialed up the intensity and have returned to their championship formula of methodical, superb execution. They have torched the league, only stubbing their toe against the Browns, which is a throwaway at this point.

To win this game, the Jets will have to reprise and outdo the tactics that won the game at Indy. Basically, they have to beat the Patriots the way the Giants did in the SB XLII, pound the hell out of them and keep possession for 40 minutes. Unfortunately for the Jets, the Patriots know this is coming and watched the Jets do it to Indy. The Jets are tough and play with heart, so I expect them to fight the good fight...and still lose by over two touchdowns.

Are you ready for some...Rugby for fairies 2011?!

2011-01-07T22:27:00.005-02:00

Bokolis is not sure what I learned from this year's NFL regular season. Every time I sit down to watch, something puts me to sleep. Historically, the Jets have been the culprit. But, we've had so many weeks where the Giants or the Jets were not playing on Sunday afternoon that out-of-town teams were regularly dumped on us. All manner of bullshit conspired to put me to sleep.

So, really, the season wasn't that memorable. It was just a bunch of plodding; sometimes certain teams were good, sometimes they weren't. The Bears, Eagles, Jets and Ravens fit this description. The only team that stood out was the Patriots. Others, the Falcons Saints and Steelers, looked like they could do some work on their best day, but weren't always on their best day. The Packers and Colts were too hurt to key us in on what they really have. Similarly, the Chiefs could be a dark horse, or could be the team that lost twice to the Raiders.

So these are your playoff teams. The Seahawks are only involved to piss people off. Two ten win teams are home. Tampa Bay pulled about a half-dozen games out of its ass and can look to build on that, as they will still play a third place schedule next year. The Giants won 10 games without really pulling a game out of their ass and were well beaten- though they had a sniff at stealing the first Eagles game-in 5 out their 6 losses. Fans will point to the meltdown against the Eagles as what did them in, conveniently forgetting that they were smoked against Tennessee and Dallas at home.

Onward we go, in hopes of atoning for last year's disaster.

SEAHAWKS (+10.5) over Saints - There are no match-ups to discuss. The Saints are the defending champs and the Seahawks are in because they play in the NFC West. Nonetheless, I think Seattle's home field advantage has been discounted too much. Putting an indoor team in a raw setting should inject some counterbalance into this game. If the elements can keep the Saints from flying out of the blocks, the Seahawks may stay close enough to keep focus.

Jets (+3) over COLTS - What has changed from last year? The Jets aren't really playing better ball than they were at this time last year, but they can afford more mistakes than last year. Even last year's outfit was ahead at halftime before the injury to the RB scuttled the ship. The Colts are banged up, can't quite move the ball as well as last year and can have the ball moved on them. P. Manning may be the best player on the field, but he is not the overwhelming force. This game is here for the taking.

Ravens (-3) over CHIEFS - I don't think much of Flacco, but I don't think the Chiefs have much to offer. Much has been made about Arrowhead being a tough place to play. The Chiefs were 7-1 at home this year, but they have played NOBODY this year. Am I to believe that they will outperform against relative quality when they didn't look all that impressive against scrubs?

Packers (+2.5) over EAGLES - Will the Packers be able to move and score on the Eagles without having a running game of note? What I'm seeing out of the Eagles is that Vick is allowing himself to get a little full of himself. I don't see the same solid QBing that I saw the first half of the year. He's been sloppy. Not surprisingly, the Eagles went 3-3 in their last six games. Even when you toss out the Vickless finale, the Eagles were behind entering the 4th quarter in the other five. As it turned out, they were a freakish 8 minutes from being the ones out on their asses. I don't believe Vick will be able to dial it back up for the playoffs.

Liver-cesspool

2011-01-07T14:07:00.016-02:00

As we approach Sunday's cup tie with the filthy manc cunts, Bokolis will reflect on the state of Liverpool LC. More pointedly, I will examine what it took for us to get to this sorry state, where the fmc are on course to overtake 'Pool with a 19th League while Liverpool are on course to miss out on Europe next season.

Fans often blame the coach when the players look shyte. But, as people call for Hodgson's job, have they not considered that this squad looked shyte from the beginning and was put together by prior regimes? By that rationale, Hodgson must have worked magic when they ran Chelski, especially since Chelski have since gone into a tailspin.

It is the coach's fault when the team always looks awful, even when the team is awful. But, when you have an awful team, blaming the coach is sort of like blaming Obama for running the debt to $14T without regard to how the first $13T was racked up.

Unfortunately, Liverpool is suffering the combined effects of two terrible courses of action. Half of the team was owned by a man dumb enough to buy something from Goerge W Bush. Tom Hicks, having fallen ass-backwards into the Texas real estate boom, together with his partner in bungling, George Gillett, had (a la Fred Wilpon) pressed his luck in the hopes of cashing in on the new stadium payday. When that well dried up, it disastrously affected their ability to bring in top tier talent. The brink of bankrupcy has ousted Hicks and Gillett, at the expense of misfortune and mediocrity.

Of course, that's only half the problem. The other half came in the form of the fat Spanish waiter, Rafa Benitez. Benitez gutted the youth system, failing to develop a single player from within. It was one thing to bring in quality like Luis García and Xavi Alonso. It's another to start bringing in the third tier Riera and Arbeloa and third tier Brazilians Fábio Aurélio and Lucas...that fucking Lucas...he must have been Benitez' mistress or something. They brought him Keane, Benitez shunned him and they sold Keane for 60% of what they bought him after 6 months. They brought Benitez Aquilani- Benitez treated him as though he found out Aquilani was banging Lucas on the side.

Hey, Hodgson isn't the answer (neither is Obama, for that matter). But, like Obama, he didn't create the problems. Moreover, having this team overachieve and get to, say, 6th place would only further delude those who think a top four spot is merely a few tweaks away.

Watching Liverpool pull Champions League victories (Benitez won it in 2005 with Houllier's team) out of the hat while struggling to stay top four in the League (while clinging to its history) pulled the wool over most people's eyes. Bokolis could sense this coming for a few years. As the stadium deal soured, I knew there would be a day of reckoning.

Having never been to Liverpool, I imagine that, at its best, it is sort of like Pittsburgh; at it's worst, Detroit, and can probably be categorized as somewhere between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. All three of those are dying cities, with Pittsburgh having done the best job of re-inventing itself. I feared the team was dying in the same way.

With fuck-ups of this scale, they will be lucky to avoid relegation. The current cycle hasn't even hit rock bottom. Rock bottom will be when Stevie G, who has got about one solid season left in him, which he will surely look to convert into 4 years of salary somewhere else, leaves and no one is there as he was when Macca left and Owen was when Fowler left. Torres - well, he only plays about a half season anyway, what's it matter if he leaves?

So, it doesn't matter who they bring in. Liverpool will be feeling the effects of the mis-management- both by the fat Spanish waiter and the two dumbshits- for at least a few years...and, that assumes the current regime can both rebuild the youth system AND go on a City-esque spending spree to hold over the fans.

What will hold Bokolis over is putting one over on the fmc. As it is, asking what took so long to get to 18 will lose its effect once the fmc get to 19.

Dutch Treat?

2011-01-06T17:32:00.013-02:00

Sylvie van der Vaart showing that her old man ain't got shee-yit on her.

video via El Comercio

aside- I guess he's not her "old man," is he? WTF is Rafael van der Vaart doing with a bird 5 years older than he is? Bah, she's doing better than his already washed-up ass...AND she's had to fight off breast cancer.

El Comercio asks its readers, toungue-in-cheek, hopefully, whether this Dutch trick is real or fake? I haven't seen such bad posture on the ball since Desailly was playing for Milan. Moreover, there's no way anyone without proper form on a high-five can juggle a football...none, fuckin' fuggedaboudet.

If they wanted to get a broad to juggle a football in heels, they should've just brought in Poof-naldo and taken the scratch they saved on the CGI to order up a few call girls.

turn out the lights...

2010-12-06T15:37:00.014-02:00

...the party's over.

No, Bokolis didn't die out there on the tarmac. The plane made it to where it was going...no Matt Busby songs about me.

"Turn out the lights, the party's over," is what Dandy Don used to sing/croon/whatever- way back when- in the MNF booth when he figured a game was decided. Even though it meant my ass had to go to sleep, it never seemed to get old.

Unfortunately, he did, and he checked out on Dec. 5.

Among his other gems,

referring to Nixon as "Tricky Dick,"
way before Twitter and Facebook, changing his status to "mile-high" on the opening intro of a game in Denver,

and

as of an undefined point in the 1970's, not having met a fair hooker.

Suave, homes. While I'm stuck listening to Jon Gruden this evening, Bokolis will shoot one back for you.

On the tarmac

2010-07-19T12:52:00.003-02:00

I'm stuck on the tarmac at PHL, so I've got nothing better to do. Here goes off the phone.

As it turned out, homegirl bartender was in AC with the BF. How sweet! Nothing good to report from that night...I overdressed and got hit on by guys all night (no homo).

I went off the program on many counts, mainly because I was feeling myself. The night ended with me trying to kick it to the female cop stationed by my telly. She was pretty much a captive audience, so WTF.

The details are very hazy, so I can't say how close I came to getting thrown in the drunk tank. But the movement might still have ended in a collar for her. These three black dudes come along...one of them on a bike. I say, in my best knockaround guy voice, watch these guys. Sure enough, the guy on the bike is a spazz, and he stumbles off the bike. A switchblabe falls out of his back pocket. "OA!" exclaims the cop. "Right there!"

13 years out the hood and I can still pin out these muthafuckas. I walked right up the stairs, I think without saying good night.

Live from...an undisclosed location on the East Coast...

2010-07-17T22:02:00.020-02:00

Like Cheney's bunker, y'all'll have to guess. I mean two and two can be put together, but I still ain't saying. Because I forgot to bring my phone charger, I've had to come down to the car to recharge. Luckily, I have my laptop. The following is the world's gain, pre-gaming at 8PM and tipsy-inspired.

Spending a weekend in a beach town, the overarching theme is that, god...dayam, there are a lot of fat people in America. What balls on these people to waddle around looking like that, as if it's all right! I mean, Bokolis is not soccer-player skinny (despite being a soccer player, I look more like a rugger), but I look fucking good...not important though.

Well, it is semi-important because I'm about to relate some bullshit. I'm at the spot last night, working the place (I should mention that I hunt lone-wolf). I've been coming down here for years. The difference is that, this year, my trusty bartender is nowhere to be found. This is terrible, as she would keep me out of trouble.

I've previously (in the tipping post, one of my first) went though why it's important to have the bartender on your side. I hunt lone-wolf, because, quite frankly, a bartender is as good a wingman anyone could hope to have. I've had 4 good (non-bartender) wingmen (I'll call them my running partners) in my life. 4 is probably 3 more than most people...I know how to pick out quality and I'm a good guy to have around because nobody fucks around while I'm around. I've also had the need for 4 because they inevitably fall by the wayside to marriage, drugs, etc., etc.

Roping in the tangents, without my trusty bartender, I am exposed. I'm working the place, only to get accosted by a fat chic. It's a hazard of the game; Bokolis is put together and the fat broads consider me a great prize. In the ultra-long shot that I could rope in her two hot friends and under the theory that, when life throws you a lemon, you make lemonade (she wouldn't leave), I decide to engage her.

She's not quite the water buffalo in the ">Jerry Ball category (and, that's Jerry Ball from his SMU days, not the fat tub of shit that lined up for the Vikings), but she was plenty fat...but not ugly; justl like there's Irish girl cute, there's fat girl pretty.

Almost needless to say, Bokolis was not entertaining the thought of throwing her over the shoulder. But, I figured that she'd be good for warming up my game. Of course, she had different designs, but I've dealt with this before. Some breeze and a few pecks on the cheek later, she starts telling me how I'm the first white guy to whom she's ever been attracted. I immediately thought of the Nik Richie post on Amanda Bynes, where he commented that he loved how, as soon as white chics start getting fat, they automatically think they are attracted to black guys. My only reponse was that her womanly intution must have sensed that the purple crayons have nothing on Bokolis...I didn't use the term "purple crayon," but Bokolis is, at least in my head, a porn star. This bird treated herself to a feel and another peck.

Anyway, I eventually got rid of her. A quarter hour later, she was in the arms of a purple crayon. Some, somewhere along the line, some suitable talent starts working me. 21 and petite in a little black dress. Surely looking to get steamrollered. At some point, she instructs me to buy her a drink.

Many girls- girls that haven't yet graduated to bottle rat status- will chat up guys to work a free drink out of them. Of course, the money means nothing to Bokolis. I'd throw 2, 3 hundred, even a nickel on the table and proposition them, if only to remind them that they are just whoring themselves and to cut to the chase. I'm a little more chill than that and I don't think of it as paying for a drink. I'm paying for information, like calling a better hand just so you can see what the guy played.

Nonetheless, because guys should never give any woman what she wants when she asks for it, I string her along. She's a bartender (whythefuck isn't she working on Friday night?!?) in a little black dress. While I never pursue a bartender when she's working, under the theory that a salesman is the easiest person to sell because they will sell themselves, I've got this all worked out. Further boosting my cause, people actually knew her...and I engaged two of them (guy and his GF) to where they gave their implicit blessing.

This is all in the space of maybe 10 minutes...I got felt up yet again. I have the seal of approval, I'm in...it's just a matter of closing.

But, in the end, as Joe Pesci explained in Casino, I fucked it all up. I waited too long to get her a drink, so she took it upon herself to order. She gets carded by my unfamiliar bartender because of a particular bracelet she was wearing. After an awkward moment, she asks me to order her drink. Too fucking late now, I'm thinking. She pulls out her ID to show me that she's 21 ("look! 1989!"). I looked, but, as I was about 12 drinks in, I couldn't settle my eyeballs to see shit. A bouncer quickly showed up and escorted her out. I went out there to try to work some magic, but it was only half-hearted. She was borderline hysterical and, even though the friends appreciated it even more, I knew I was sunk. It was abut 3AM, and she was too hysterical to even suggest the room party with her friends (and work the full swap), so I cut bait and headed back to port.

And, no, I didn't go looking for the fat chic. I sure hope my homegirl is working tonight...that NEVER would have happened if she was there.

Steinbrenner gone

2010-07-13T13:46:00.005-02:00

The Boss- the one-man cult of micromanagement- is dead. D-O-E-N, done.

I'm getting "ding, dong, the witch is dead" messages left and right. Ironic, isn't it, how, while Yankees fans couldn't stand him before 1996 and non-Yankees fans couldn't stand him period, he leaves behind a world filled with Steinbrenner types.

For those for whom the end justifies the means, no victories are Pyrrhic. Suave, homes.

I thought Defecit

2010-07-13T11:44:00.008-02:00

A lot of good shit gets kicked on Barry Ritholtz' site, but this morning's post on Deficit Chicken Hawks vs Ronald Reagan got me to thinking...the issue, not so much his words.

Anyway, why waste a good shit-talking rant on his comments?

With regard to the debt, it's not so much a question of "how do we fix it now" as much as "how does it ever get fixed."

How do we get in a positon where we can consistently run the surpluses necessary to tame the debt when a unique event drove the only surplus of the last 40 years?

Can we really become that much more productive so as to generate the revenues to pay it down? Of course we can't. Even if we could, all that extra liquidity would short-circuit the taco stand.

Can the government spend less? Those damned illegal aliens that are the real drain on our budget...or so the chain e-mails tell me. The pork and the war spending will never stop because they both feed addictions. And, even if no more goes into them, the damage is done from the bailouts.

So, who do we tell to go fuck themselves?

----Our debt holders (READ: China)? Do we sit around and wait for them to implode and then decide that we don't have to pay them? That'd be a neat trick, but might cause more problems than it solves. Maybe they'll just turn into us and spend away their credit. Ummm, leaving aside that, if they call in their markers, we've got a problem, where are they going to get the necessary crude? Yay, more war! Addiction fed.

----Our old people? Cut Social Security? Letting me opt-out of paying it? Weaning people off of it? Bahh, too easy and logical. Why not just clip them while were at it? Medicare is the real problem and people are living too long anyway. Maybe a buyout option...on their Social Security, not their lives, although paid to check out would be an interesting proposition.

----Our richer people? Pursuant to the above, let's say anyone that has made $200k/yr in any 5 years (or $100k in any 10 years) is disqualified from Social Security Benefits. Because, really, if you couldn't make that work into a nest egg, shame on you...how do you like capitalism now?

----Our richest people? Essentially, this $13T+ debt is just the government giving away money to the richest people. It's time to give it back. I'm not talking 90% tax rates, but Gates having to fork over half his shit (fuck that charitable trust bullshit, give up the loot muthafucka) will weigh a lot less on him than it does on me when I have to fork over about a quarter of my earnings. Wait a minute...that's a quarter to Federal. State and local is another ~8%, FICA 7.65%, sales taxes, toll roads (somehow this became a separate "charge"), excise taxes. Muthafucka, I'm already forking over half my check. Woman, where's my torch and pitchfork?

ahem...

The argument that it would hurt job creation will be ignored because what we call the Bush tax cuts didn't do anything for job creation. In fact, since I've been close enough to observe- which is to say, since the early '90s recession- rather than leveraging existing talent and manpower, all I've seen is companies looking to reduce headcount...and spending on technology accordingly. Granted, there aren't enough smart and driven people to go around. But, if the last 20 years have been spent trying to run leaner, from where will the necessary innovation come?

See, y'all muthafuckas fucked up the game by dumbing down this country. You couldn't build out if you wanted to because y'all're dealing with a bunch of dumbshits and each guy is a bigger dumbshit than the last (I believe the economists call that the law of diminishing returns). It's now on the government to spur growth by putting people to work to shore up the creaking infrastructure 'round this muthafucka.

But, you speak too loudly about that type of government spending and people will start throwing tea bags at your ass.

See, the lot of us were dumbed down to the point that we've come to depend on the corporation for a job. Because we can't see ourselves as the boss, we don't embrace our jobs as such, rendering ourselves limited to the table scraps, and thus are married to opposition of any policy that would upset the corporate apple cart. So, instead of fighting for policies that would employ and empower us, we fight for policies that empower our employer...all in the misguided notion that our employer will keep us around forever, in the misguided notion that depending on a private employer for work rather than on the government is somehow further up the road toward self determination.

Who do we tell to go fuck themselves? It was a rhetorical question; we've been fucking ourselves all along.

Of course, by "we," I mean y'all.

The Reign of Spain comes mainly off the Plain

2010-07-12T01:48:00.006-02:00

I didn't get a chance to get on here to post a prediction, but the world already had that octopus. Nobody needed to hear it from Bokolis.

I was especially happy that it was Andres Iniesta who scored. He has been a personal favorite of Bokolis for a few years, despite that he plays for a club side that I don't support.

The consensus feedback from the pundits was that this was a drab, horrible Final. Such an assessment is expected, as they cater to the stupid and the marginal fan. While Bokolis would certainly agree that it wasn't pretty, I've told y'all plenty of times that pretty doesn't win. While my opinions may have the bias that comes with my preference for a physical game (I very rarely get called for fouls in real life, but it's mostly because I'm usually the strongest guy on the pitch and I am fast enough, my positioning and game reading good enough that I don't need to hack down the opposition), I think a player would appreciate what it takes to win the ball, settle yourself and create a game while people are trying to kick the shit out of you....it's kind of like real life. It may have been the logical extension, but I was still surprised that such gifted players were making wrong decisions an the ball and were generally not as technically sound.

The hacking, diving and flopping is for another discussion.

The discussion with a buddy of mine- who picked the Dutch- was about the Iberian Heart. I explained to him what I've posited here; that Spain overcame it, so it's considered conquered. Spain won the World Cup by grinding out four 1-0 victories in the knockout stages and doing it with 8 goals for the entire tournament...what is the world coming to? They had a solid spine; tough play from two not that great center halves, great goalkeeping and the incomparable little general Iniesta in the middle.

For all the fuss about the Dutch hacking, they had it. Sneijder sprung Robben and Robben was all alone on Casillas. It was his world cup to take and he let Casillas get the better of him by making a tip of the boot save. To compound the failure, he had another chance late in regulation and was held back by Puyol. The one time he needed to dive, which surely would have gotten Puyol sent off, he chose to stay on his feet. The ref probably still should have sent off Puyol for the last-man challenge, especially considering that he sent off the Dutch player Heitinga (second yellow) for virtually the same challenge. In any event, Casillas once again got the better of him.

In the end, patience and perseverance win the day. To my Spanish friends, savor the flavor.

World Cup 2010 Semifinals

2010-07-06T09:15:00.003-02:00

Bokolis has had an impressive record for the knockout rounds. But, when I go down, it's usually in flames.

Aside from being married to the pick, one of the factors I thought would help Argentina against Germany was that, unlike England, Calamity James would not be in goal to help the Germans. Wrong...wrong. This Argentine mook decides to get low to contest a high ball into the box. Even though the header came in low, the fact that the keeper was low and wide contributed to not being able to keep the ball from going in off his shin.

The complexion of the game was defined by the early goal. The Argentines were now left to chase not only a goal, but the ghost of the Swamp Rat. For a while, about 50 minutes or so, it seemed like they were cooking up a goal, too. Unfortunately, Messi brought nothing to this tournament, so the goal was never going to come. At some point, it all set in and the Argentines lost both their nerve and their spirit. The Germans' second goal sprung from a pas made while the German was on his bum. That's how you knew the Argentines were done. They mailed in the rest of the game and the Germans dumped another two on them.

From the post game explanation of how the Germans did it, you found out that coaching matters.

NED over URU - Crazy how Forlan has stepped up for his country while Messi, considered a far better player, brought nothing. This is far enough for the Uruguayans. This will be a rare time when no one will be pulling for the underdog. That's what happens when you use a second goalkeeper.

GER over SPA - On the back of two dismantlings, it's hard not to fancy the Germans over the consistently unimpressive Spain. They've not gotten anything from the strikers, needing David Villa to bail them out. One of Bokolis' own pundits explains that Spain do not utilize Torres because, as a classic striker, he doesn't fit the style they play. To get off, Torres will have to repeat his Euro 2008 FInal performance, outpacing someone to the ball and poking home. Spain will really neeed that...if that was all they could muster against a not-as-good German team, it doesn't look good for this outfit.

Are you ready for some...more QF?!

2010-07-03T02:14:00.003-02:00

As Bokolis types, I still haven't seen that mongoloid piss away the PK. Having only caught the first half, I've been on the road for the last 8 hours. I had to listen to the rest of the game on the spanish radio station. Apparently, from the aye-yaye-yayes of the announcer, Ghana should have scored about five goals during extra time.

Muntari's goal was a wicked cracker, but the Ghanians' luck finally ran out. Uruguay, with at least two key players missing in the semi-final, are living on borrowed time and the Netherlands have a clear path to the Final.

As part of my sleep when you're dead philosophy, I'm about to head out for some trouble. In case I don't make it back, here is your Saturday serving of possibly flawed analysis and bullshit-ass predictions.

ARG over GER - It turns out that the Germans are a little better than I expected. Ballack getting hurt was the proverbial blessing in disguise, as he would have slowed the squad down. As it is, Germany have the requisite strike force to cope with Argentina's stable.

One of the gripes I've always had about Argentina is that, while they consistently crush inferior opposition, when they play an equally powerful side, they don't often enough bring their best. This could possibly be that, post-Batistuta in his prime, they've lacked the necessary strikers. They now have them and should be able to find as many goals as they need against Germany, who, as was lost amidst the controversy surrounding the game with England, quickly coughed up a two goal lead.

SPA over PAR - Like everybody else, I want to see that bird streak. Or, I just want to win my pool. The Spain side are having their own issues with strikers. Torres has been shyte (which is good because he'll be forced to stay at Liverpool), but David Villa has picked up the slack. Merely more of the same would still be enough to see off Paraguay. I mean, really, if they couldn't score against Japan- Japan's spirited defense notwithstanding- how will they score when they have to withstand real pressure?

Are you ready for some...WC 2010 QF#2

2010-07-02T14:10:00.005-02:00

Bokolis is proud of having the guts to pick the Netherlands to clip Brazil. I had my doubts and, literally a minute after I clicked publish, Brazil carved up the Dutch defense and scored. Just like I feared, I was thinking. But, the Dutch, while being dominated in the first half, rode out the storm and went to the dressig room off their best movement of the half.

They returned with more to offer. As it never fails, if you force Brazil to play defense, they lose structure. The Dutch had halted Brazil's momentum, but certainly didn't have the momentum at the time of the equalizer. Felipe Melo, the only non-stud on Brazil's back line, got in his 'keeper's way and flicked past Julio Cesar's attempt at a punch.

That picture belongs to Reuters...please don't hurt me.

This shook up the Brazilians and paved the way for the winner. Kuyt, pretty much useless for skill but a tireless worker, flicked on the corner, which Sneijder headed home for the winner. By then, the Brazilians had clearly lost their concentration and were further punished when Melo was sent off for kind of stomping Arjen Robben. It was more over-exuberance than malice and a little harsh from the referee, but it was also on the back of two leg clips...that's what happens when you play like that.

The Jackie Chan lookalike referee didn't do the Brazilians any favors and they repeatedly took issue. The Dutch capitalized on this and baited the Brazilians into numerous fouls. However, Chan must have developed a fondless for van Bommel, as Chan let him slide for cynical foul after cynical foul.

But the main reason Brazil lost is because they didn't have a worthy striker and Kaka is not what he used to be. There was a play, late, when, after getting a fortunate bounce, he was walking in on the keeper. He let himself be closed down and his shot was blocked. The top-form Kaka finishes or provides there.

URU over GHA - There is no sound reason why Ghana should win this game. They've looked shyte all tournament and, even though they were able to control the midfield for the entire first half, scored two flukish goals against the US. A more concentrated Uruguay defense should effectively bottle up the Ghanians and their strike force should have enough to close the ledger on Africa.

Is this where it gets good?

2010-07-02T11:33:00.002-02:00

This is a little into the match, but I work a lot. WTF ya gonna do

NED over BRA - Having picked Holland to reach the final, I'm married to them. They can match Brazil for skill and I don't believe that Fabiano is a worthy striker and I think Kaka is...not washed up, but off from his highs. I'm banking that the Dutch will find a way (two ways, actually) through the Brazilian defense, which, for all the myth of jogo bonito, is its relative strength. In any event, it should be quite the kickaround.

At least he didn't cry

2010-06-29T19:58:00.008-02:00

Poof-naldo is maturing...maybe not. Maybe, for the next big tournament, he'll show up to do something besides take free kicks. Ye hear that, princess...because you didn't hear it when Bokolis pulled your card two years ago. You're never going to win anything by hanging on the wing and taking the path of least resistance.

So Spain win the battle of Iberia on a murky offsides situation. That call was a product of not having two linesmen across from one another, as there was little way for the positioned linesman to properly determine whether David Villa- who just about managed to put the ball in the net- was offsides. Well done, again, Sepp.

Otherwise, both sides put up a credible account of themselves. Except for Poof-naldo, who was nowhere, there was both fight and ball movement. In the end, Spain were the better side and Portugal suffered for their lack of a striker. Torres wasn't of much use, but Spain did enough. It turned out that I had good reason to balk at picking a winner, as it was a "cookie crumbles" decision that settled things.

So, Bokolis goes 7-1 in the round of 16. Totally coincidentally, the group winners went 7-1 and the only loss was the USA. That almost makes up for the rotten NFL Playoffs.

So, we'll get two QF match-ups worthy of a Final and at least one surprise package in the semi-final. Before that, the world may get some more bullshit-ass predictions and possibly flawed analysis. Before that, two days of productivity at work, maybe. Stay tuned, kids.

Are You Ready for Some...Iberian Heart?

2010-06-29T15:14:00.003-02:00

SPA over POR - Neither side is bolded here. While both sides have quality, this is a case of the resistable force meeting the movable object. Going up against its fellow no-hearted Iberians gives Portugal a real chance to step up in a big game.

Having not conceded in their first three matches, Portugal may well have turned the corner on learing how to play tournament football. So, I would really like to pick Portugal to bounce Spain, but I fear that Poof-naldo will, as usual, be nowhere when it comes to the big stage. Spain grinded out a Euro 2008 championship, which, even though they are not playing at the same level, counts for a lot. Bottom line, I've never seen Poof-naldo and co. come through when it matters.

I'm not ready

2010-06-29T11:54:00.002-02:00

PAR over JPN - Doing these off the phone is a bit of work. Japan have shown me nothing. Their goals have come from nothing and they will have nothing for Paraguay. It's all on the finishing of Paraguay to keep this from going nil nil into penalties.

Boy, oh boy...a matchup of the Iberian Heart. Portugal, having seemingly mastered the corporate football put out by countryman Mourinho, have yet to concede and shared the spoils in crushing the Kim jong-Il select.. Spain have been nothing special. Can Spain be taken out? Sure. Can Portugal do it? Lemme tink 'bout it.

Fucking posted this in the wrong place. These phones are good for what they've allowed us to do. But, you have little room for misfortune.

Are you ready for some Voetballl!!! 2010 WC Round of 16, Day 3

2010-06-28T08:07:00.005-02:00

What is there to say about that non-goal that hasn't been said? Karma blowback for '66? Been said. Howls for replay? Been said. About the only thing I haven't heard is how, instead of having the best referees, we have regional quotas. Slobs that couldn't get a gig in League Two are officiating World Cup games. I wonde if we could get the Hebner twins to referee a few of these matches.

href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_myQmNn7POBU/TCh17XMjSJI/AAAAAAAAAIw/oizdiwXY2WA/s1600/GER-ENG+Lamp+goal.jpg">

The blown call during the ARG - MEX match was only slightly less appalling. Bokolis immediately had his hand up. Not that I saw it because I was tripped up as well. With the goalie out of position like that, no way Tevez was still going to be in front of two defenders. The replay was shown on the monitor, so the linesman immediately knew he had royally screwed up.

Those games may not have been decided by the officials, but they sure as hell were defined by them. Oh, well, nobody is going to miss either Mexico or England.

NED over SVK - Slovakia remind me of the mini-Russia team that smoked Holland out of Euro 2008. They are some lucky fuckers, too. Nonetheless, I think the Dutch will get enough out of their firepower to advance.

BRA over CHI - Finally, a South American team will be eliminated. It would be good to see Brazil get bounced. Hopes should not be raised, as Bokolis is told Chile have an awful record against Brazil when not playing in Chile.

Are you ready for some Foootbaaaalll!!! 2010 WC Round of 16, Day 2

2010-06-27T11:16:00.002-02:00

Uhhh, yeah. I sure wish we still had Friedel in goal and McBride were still the same age as in 2002. Those two on this team would have done something. It was proven that Howard isn't as good as people think he is and, unlike what Bokolis postulated, the US couldn't overcome its lack of a striker.

Uruguay impressed by finding a goal after sitting on its collective asses for a hour, trying to protect the lone goal. Fucking hell, next thing you know, the South Americans will be clamoring for more teams...especially since the next one is in Brazil.

GER over ENG - I would like to watch this game, as it's always fun when two people that don't like each other play. Bokolis has better things to do. I think England will play better against the devil it knows. This one has 1 - 1 penalties written all over it. Lets hope I'm wrong.

ARG over MEX - A rematch of the last go around. Mexico are good about playing up to their competition, but have lost in the second round in the last 3 or 4 WCs. Why should this be any different?

Are you ready for some Foootbaaaalll!!! 2010 WC Round of 16, Day 1

2010-06-26T10:37:00.005-02:00

IuTo clear up some lingering business, that phantom foul...the US should have never had a free kick in the first place. Knowing that, the ref had already decided that he was going to blow a foul, taking the chance that there would actually be a foul. That's how it goes.

Dempsey being ruled offside...it was a shyte call, but I could see how it would be called. Besides, all that should settle up the karma account depleted by Rob Green's howler. As it worked out, the draw looks favorable. On we go, cards cleared and all.

The worst thing about those vuvuzelas, much more so than being annoying, is that when someone scores, instead of cheering, you get the vuvuzelas. It destroys the ambience, as the screams of joy are integral to sports. Of course, I have no faith that we'll get tempered and judicious use, much less FIFA intervention. Don't say that Bokolis didn't tell you how to get it done.

As always, the side Bokolis would like to win is in bold.

URU over KOR - If Bokolis is not mistaken, Uruguay have yet to concede. They are good at that, but not so good at scoring. Yet, they've gotten it done...it must be the southern hemisphere. On the other hand, Korea have scored in every match, even when they were torched by Argentina. Something has got to give. Will it be Korea's workrate, or Uruguay's...I'm not sure what Urugray has, other than divers, Forlan and kissing sub-ins...that will win out? Having played against enough Asians to know, Bokolis feels that, once you match their running, they have nothing. Uruguay advances on the lone goal.

USA over GHA - I am leery that, as the only African team left, they will get some serious home cooking. Ghana defeated the US four years ago, but there are differences. Our boys are improved and, most importantly, the CANCER Claudio Reyna is gone. For their part, Ghana 's two goals have come on penalties. Granted, a handball stopped a goal that was finished off by a penalty. Our boys may give them an early goal but, without a gift penalty, I see Ghana struggling to score.

The US should be concerned that all of its goals- even those ruled out- have come from midfield. Nonetheless, I think that the US will overcome that in this match-up. Even Clinton and Obama have jumped the bandwagon- an African president (I mean Clinton, not Obama) should help balance out that factor- does anyone really believe that the US can be stopped? 2-0 or 2-1 to the US.

Off to the beach then. Live life, don't watch it.

Bokolis Presents: You make the call

2010-06-18T16:30:00.008-02:00

So, for all the hugging, mugging, fondling, etc. that went on during this play, the official word is that there was a foul on Maurice Edu, the guy that puts the ball into the net. I dare you, I double dare ya, muthafucka, find me the foul on Edu.

Referee quotas are beautiful, aren't they. As the Brits often say, Fucking Hell!

Not Surprised

2010-06-13T20:20:00.011-02:00

On the morning after the WC draw, the headline on one of those Brit rags read:
England
Algeria
Slovenia
Yanks

Pretty clever.

As easy as a two-hopper straight at the keeper, isn't it? I had a keeper that used to let them in like that all the time. We still won the league, but I'm a hell of a defender and he wasn't the keeper for the final. With its stable of dodgy keepers, England won't be so fortunate.

The sensationalists that the media are, they will focus on that awful misplay. They will blame it on the ball. To be sure, it was a howler for the ages and it was the most telling moment in the USA-ENG match. But, as hard as it will be for people to get away from it, the Hand of Clod (those Brits are so clever) does not define the game.

In Bokolis' own matches, I always tell the lads that the first thing they should evaluate is why we didn't win the match 4-0. This is because we would too often focus on the unfavorable events in the match. As it applies to England, the reason their talent and skill didn't dominate is because they failed to control the midfield.

Structurally, the USA's relative strength is in midfield, as their two best players are the wingers. Dempsey and Donovan did enough from the wings to allow Bradley to sacrifice his offense to shore up the spine. So, you have to wonder where Lampard and Gerrard were. Typically, Gerrard has to perform the clean up for Liverpool because of the lack of wingers and skill in midfield. I'm guessing that, given his issues with playing with Lampard, he decided, especially after scoring the early goal, that he wasn't going to be the bitch. As such, the US won more than their share of the balls and won the battle in the middle of the park.

To get Rooney out of the way, that's why he couldn't get service and had to lie deeper to get touches...this isn't man united, mate.

Capello's lineup also made for less than optimal performance. Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole are effectively the same player. Both are flawed, as Johnson doesn't have the savvy to match his speed and Cole isn't in the right frame of mind to utilize his skill set. Capello fielded Aaron Lennon, who is Ashley Cole with more skill, but not as good as Theo Wolcott, who Capello left off the squad. Then, he brought on the Bastard Son (Wright-Phillips) after 15 minutes, taking out Milner. I'm not sure if he has issue with Milner or he was trying to counter the USA's wingers with speed. I don't know WTF he could've seen that early...the US wasn't even settled. In any event, that's four guys who are effectively the same; and none of them check papers.

It was also evident that Heskey's strength was giving the US problems. He was winning everything in the air and was either being triple-marked on balls in the air or, when single-marked, being conceded the ball. He made the telling pass on Gerrard's goal and was still giving the US fits. But England largely went away from that and it allowed the US to get settled. All this explains to Bokolis why England didn't have the US under constant pressure.

And...I've seen Terry get sent off for less than what Heskey did to Tim Howard. WTF?!? It's too bad no one would exact some justice on Heskey's ACL.

In the end, it could be said that the US played well enough to lose and were bailed out be a howler. Why feel guilty? We knew going in that we had three keepers that were better than anyone on the England side. I thought that England's keepers were the great equalizer; I just thought it would have been "Calamity" James that would have gifted the goal. That it turned out to be Green is no surprise; he's good for 5 of those per year.

And, there is no blaming the ball, either for Green's or the Algerian's howler. I've played with that ball about 4 months ago, but I didn't know at the time that it was the WC ball. I only remembered it because it was so awful. That ball sucks. I was trying to get it taken out of play. It's made of some weird material. I didn't get to rip into it, but that was mainly because I couldn't get it to sit still.

In any event, neither Green nor the Algerian can blame the ball for their howlers. The Algerian has no excuse for not getting in front of a side footed shot. Moreover, if you can't catch it, parry it wide, fucker...fucking up our nil-nil draw, ye sumumabich. The US will now have to go in search of goals against Slovenia.

The US still has issues up top. They didn't trouble England much, even Carragher (and WTF was Capello doing taking off Ledley King?). They had one instance when they spun around England and Altidore shot off Green and onto the post. Sure, he had (Dempsey?) in front with the goal yawning, but he was never going to make that pass. He's not capable. As I've often said about Altidore, if he ever learns how to play football, he's going to be dangerous.

Capello's substitutions may be questioned, but I'm sure his madness considered that England didn't necessarily have to win this match. Dropping points to the US is far less of an issue than dropping points to Algeria or Slovenia.

Nonetheless, with Onyewu back on, Howard sharp the and DeMerit emerging, USA's spine is really strong. I can dream about winning the group and getting on the weaker part of the draw, no?

Not yet ready for some footbaaa...

2010-06-04T15:20:00.007-02:00

The World Cup is great but, as a three day a week footballer, I'd much rather be playing than watching. Nonetheless, having been roped into one of these pools (and having dragged in others with me), Bokolis has to ogranize my thoughts on what I think will happen...nofuckingway am I doing research.

Anyway, here's the pre-pre overview:

Despite the push from the worldwide leader, there isn't as much buzz to this one. Ironically, it might be because it's not "everybody vs Brazil." More likely, it's due to:
the locale...$2200 a plane ticket is some buuullshit to have to endure an African spitefully blaring a horn in your ear,
and
a European side having never won outside of Europe, which will surely continue because the African squads are sure to get home cooking from the officals at the Eurpoean sides' expense,
the confluence of which turns off the rest of us football snobs.

So, even though Spain probably have the strongest side, it narrows the possible victors down to: Brazil, Argentina and France (rim shot).

Here's the obligatory rundown on Europeans sides:
Portugal, of the #3 world ranking, will be victimized by the Iberian (lack of) Heart and will be picked off in the group stage by sleeper Ivory Coast, driving Poof-naldo to cry enough tears to (further) sheen his legs, UPDATE: Put a big strikethrough on that...Drogba has a broken elbow and is probably out
Germany aren't that good and could possibly get picked off by the USA in the second round...if the USA were any good, that is,
Italy's defense won't be good enough to carry them within a sniff of the podium,
the Netherlands are good, but can be beat at their own game, hardly the mark of a champion,
Engalnd's defense/keeper will not stand up against the strongest teams,
Spain, having conquered the stigma of the Iberian (lack of) Heart, are good enough, but are just as likely to get hosed, like they did in 2002.

France aren't that good and probably won't be motivated. Brazil, with a team full of European-based players, aren't that strong and play continental football..the jogo bonito is a myth; it died in 1982. This leaves Argentina, who, while they have the goods (a stable of strikers, led by Messi) on paper, haven't won outside the Spanish speaking world and have a batshit crazy, old Italian aunt as their coach, who will surely sink the side by employing bad tactics and playing the wrong players (Veron and Palermo are on the squad, Cambiasso is not).

Maybe it makes for drama, after all.

Imperfection

2010-06-03T11:27:00.012-02:00

I see about 50 calls per night that are- context removed- just as bad as Jim Joyce ruining Armando Galarraga's perfect game. But, the shop never howled like it did last night. I was too wrapped up in my work to follow the game and didn't realize what the situation was because it was relatively early in the night (the game only took 1:44). When they filled me in, it was OMG-WTF for about 10 minutes. I couldn't work and I was getting pounded with texts.

In this case, it was far worse to take away the perfecto on a bad call than it would have been had he gotten the perfect game by being on the right side of a blown call. In Halliday's, he threw a 3-2 pitch easily 6 inches outside, but the ump rang up the batter and nobody said anything.

Bokolis has said it countelss times; until baseball effectively implements replay, it's just like WWF. My issue is that we have 55-60 year old fat guys- out of position more often than not because they can't be bothered- officiating these games, yet we can't use replay. The replay was on TV in 10 seconds, but we can't equip the umpires with an iPad-like device so that even these old, sausage-handed fuckers could swiftly deal with blown calls.

As can be seen from the picture, Joyce is at an angle where he cannot easily keep ball, bag and runner in his line of sight. This would be more easily accomplished if he were a few steps to his right. This is the problem with having these old farts. After 20 years in the show, Joyce can't be bothered and nobody's going to teach him. He calls what he calls. The post game mea culpa is lip service. To boot, he could have had a plausible out by saying the snow-cone catch by Galarraga didn't constitute possession (the ball took a while to settle after initially hitting in the palm of the glove and, after a short snow-cone, Galarraga released the ball so that he could tuck it away...it would have been flimsy but, in applying some NFL catch-and-contol logic, Joyce would have put it over), but tried to sell us that I-thought-the-runner-beat-it bullshit.

It's not like guys in their 30s and 40s don't blow calls (and aren't cunts about it). The older guys are set in their ways and think they are part of the act. Joe West, because there isn't much he (or C.B Bucknor or Angel Hernandez) won't do to get on TV, got into his own dust-up last night, with the Rays' manager Maddon using West's own rant (on the games taking too long) against him. If they're going to keep y'all old-timers around, y'all had better learn that, if you want to be part of the act, the bar is going to be raised on you.

To his credit, Galarraga didn't say a word. The game ended on the next at bat. Miguel Cabrera spent it lacing into Joyce. Joyce surely must have realized by the tone of Cabrera's vitriol that he royally fucked up.

As for Galarraga, he's left to make lemonade out of this. Maybe he'll be the 21st Century's Ernie Shore, or he'll be at least as famous for having been jerked out a perfecto.

Fraudonomics

2010-05-17T15:01:00.008-02:00

The following is a post on how this whole taco stand we call the American Economy is built on fraud.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mark-ames/28354/confessions-of-a-wall-st-nihilist-forget-about-goldman-sachs-our-entire-economy-is-built-on-fraud

In real life, I've been telling people as much for years. This economy has always grown upon the hatching of a new scam and recessions occur from the time when the scam has run its course until the hatching of a new scam.

At some point, the scams stopped being enough and the PTB (starting with Reagan Adminstration) began pulling out the stops (deregulation, lower taxes for the wealthy and deficit spending) to foster growth. To his credit, Bush I had an attack of conscience and broke his infamous "Read my Lips" promise, at the expense of a second term, to slow the metastasis. Further deregulation during the Clinton Adminstration, institution of the Greenspan Put, a refusal of Bush II to go through the necessary correction (I'm thinking he was playing Civ III and got fucked over by war weariness) all paved the way for a complete contamination. On the way, the government essentially borrowed $10 trillion and gave it to the richest 0.01% Americans...and that was BEFORE the bailouts.

Ususally, Bokolis will not bring up a problem without offering a solution. But, as the piece explains, the fraud is now so ingrained that it would be impossible to eliminate it without sending the markets back to the Stone Age (early 1982) and thereby shattering the economy...seriously, the Dow would go back to like 750 'n shit and the NASDAQ would go to like 54 or whateverthefuck it was back then.

Ignoring that this taco stand is too big to fail, you can romanticize about some Trotsky-esque revolution- replete with nationalizations, appropriations and beheadings- that could fix everything...eventually, maybe, but not before the abovementioned shattering. Unless you put some scam in place (in front of the tank) that was going to save the average shlub's retirement plan- in other words, scam the scammers- there is nothing you could do. But, as Trotsky fond out the hard way, if you're going to go through the trouble of organizing enough might to take over, why give the spoils to the people when you can keep them for yourself?

Real life and Reality TV

2010-04-28T14:02:00.012-02:00

Bokolis hangs out with a fair amount of birds, but seldom do I get to buy a woman dinner (a woman I'm trying to steamroller, anyway). A big part of it is life's responsibilities taking up too much of my time, some of it is that, like Seinfeld explained, 90% of the population is undateable. Mostly, though, it's because I've taken the approach learned as a kid from Broadway Joe, who explained that he doesn't date; he likes the girls that just show up...I don't know how Suzy Kolber kept her hands off of him.

As opposed to merely steamrollering, in case I ever want to go about picking bird(s) to bear more of my spawn, I suppose I'd have to (re)learn that dance. Accordingly, the first date would have to lead to a second date. What's important here is the tale of the tape on that savage graphic- somewhat blatantly pilfered from Flowing Data.

Number of people...Edge - Reality TV: Bokolis is a porn star, baby; the more the merrier. I'm a little perturbed, though, about the prospect of showing up somewhere, like Cromartie showing up to the draft in civvies, and having the crowd chant, "Feed your kids!" to me.

Hot tub time...Edge - Real life: While the hot tub allows for quick assessment of a bird's fitness, remember the abovementioned grand purpose. This isn't a ski trip. A bird that hops right in to the hot tub on the first night is a broad that walks herself out to the car at the end of it. I prefer shower sex, anyway.

Number of Drinks...Edge - Real life: You show me a bird that can bang down 8 drinks and still function and I'll show you a broad with FUPA. Better yet, show me all her teeth.

Months until engagement...Edge - Reality TV: A cycle that quick makes for a cleaner break, even if it introduces the Cromartie dilemma.

People watching...Edge - Real life: People watching me is a problem...and I'm not talking performance issues...see title. I'm not trying to have an audience. If people are around, they'd better be participating.

Amount that is real...Edge - Real life: You could argue that the actuals are much closer, but genuineness is important.

In the end, it's decidedly the real life scene, and all the kooky chics it holds. There is little chance of seeing Bokolis on tayvee. But, if I were to whore meself out to the tube, y'all can bet it'd be a ball swinging, cock whipping good time...with Bokolis doing the ball swinging and the cock whipping, of course.

Now we really must end the season

2010-04-28T02:53:00.011-02:00

Sure as shit, after Bokolis tears into the Mets, they get hot. I'd like to think that I lit a fire under their ass, but it's more interesting than that.

Miracle of miracles, they find themselves- as I type- atop the NL East. It had the most unlikely start, as the Mets won that 20-inning game with the Cards going a 3rd inning with a field player on the mound.

I don't think there was a carryover, either, as they blew a 3-0 lead the next night, with Wainwright going the distance. It's all down to pitching, home cooking and momentum generated from getting it in gear. Even as I was offering him up to the Iron Sheik, Jose Reyes busted down the line on his last AB on 4/16. It didn't mean much at the time, but you had to notice the bust. It's not even like he is contributing all that much, but the taco truck runs much more smoothly when Reyes is hauling.

When pressed on a 5/1 (earliest projected) return, Carlos Beltran was resigned to (accented) hemming and hawing. I think he was figuring on the Mets being 8 games out on May 1 and being able to take off the entire season. I think mid-June is more likely for Mr. Softee.

The reason I suggest an abrupt end to the season is that this doesn't figure to last. There are a load of unusual circumstances in play here (apart from the Mets running off 9 of 11).

Home cooking - 15 home games vs six road games.

They have butched up at the expense of a useless Cubs team (led by a detached Piniella) and a Manny-less Dodgers team just looking to get home at the end of a long road trip.

The philthies went 2-4 in ATL and SFO, historical graveyards for the Mets.

Rollins is on the DL and Howard has gone about 60 ABs without a home run.

Seemingly stellar (ERA) starting pitching- which furthers my point that, just like anyone could pitch at Shea, anyone can pitch in Shitti Field- but a staff that has walked the most batters. This is particularly glaring for Pelfrey, he of the 0.69 ERA, with a 19-13 K/BB in 26 innings and a .254 BABIP vs his career average of .314 and a league average of ~.300.

Ike Davis has helped and, of course, they could start hitting, too. That they've shown a pulse is reason enough to be happy...but don't set up the playoff rotation. We'll see what they're made of when they go down to the town of dumb-shits this weekend...where they'll face the great Roy "Doc" Halliday- possibly on their third consecutive Sunday night game, in none of which were the Mets the featured team- who says he doesn't even need all his pitches to dominate the NL.

Spring Recoiled

2010-04-23T15:03:00.005-02:00

It was a long winter here in the Apple.

Not because it was so cold. We didn't have any more than the requisite cold snap and didn't have that body numbing deep freeze reserved for the mountains.

Almost every winter yields a week's worth of 50+ degree days. But, we didn't have so much as one the entire winter.

By about Feb 20th, Bokolis had about enough of it. I was getting a little stir crazy. So crazy, in fact, that I cancelled a planned ski trip* with some buddies. At that point, the last thing that I was going to do was to go somewhere colder than I've already been suffereing.

*- Bokolis doesn't ski, literally or figuratively.

So, I was happier tahn a muthafucka when mid-March brought spring-like weather.

All the while, I had been predicting that the birds would be exceptionally fit this year. A little background; on those blazing summer days, when all these fine-ass women are walking around with minimal clothing, so much so that you can smell the pussy in the air...we call those days LOW TIDE! Last year, Bokolis and crew were very disappointed with the step back (there was only one LOW TIDE! day) NYC women had taken with reagrds to their appearance. Early on, we knew there would be trouble, as, generally speaking, these broads came into Spring carrying excess winter weight and never quite lost it through the Summer. It was rather disappointing.

I thought this year would be a bounceback. These birds were looking good enough in their winter gear and I liked what I was seeing at the track at McCarren. But, the spring-like weather we had in mid-March proved me wrong. I quickly realized that I was using a biased sample set and cursed my luck. I mean, I must have been seeing shit, or these designers are working magic.

When the following week brought chillier weather, my joke to all was that, Spring showed up, took a look around at these broads and broke thefuck out.

The week wrapped around Easter brought summer-like weather. The joke was that Spring brought Summer for a second opinion. Towards the tail end of it, the winter cloaks were shed and we got a real look. Like a wishy-washy professor, the grade was B-/C+...Spring gave a B-, Summer gave a C+. The day after it passed, I was walking to lunch with a few co-workers. I conveyed the grades, to which the response was, "Did you see the women out here yesterday?" I replied that he's married. Pause. "Good point."

Granted, frequenting thedirty has friggin ruined me. I'm noticing minor imperfections and the words "Thunders," "shim" and "beat" are constantly flashing. We're still not looking good. Spring still isn't impressed and goes off on drinking binges every week. I fear it's going to be an ugly Summer.

At some point, it dawned on me that this drop in form coincided with the Great Strath in which we are currently muddled. This downturn has been called a Mancession because the people hardest hit have been the Wall St. set...the guys with the money. If you're half the chauvinist pig Bokolis is, you'll draw the conclusion that, as the desirable bank accounts have dwindled, these broads are using this downturn as an excuse to let themselves go.

We can't have that, ladies. We need y'all to take the lead here. Tighten up. Inspire the rest of us. Inspire the banker set to greater performance to help pull us out of this mess. Do it for your country.

Do it for LOW TIDE!

Kennesaw Mountain Goodell

2010-04-23T11:49:00.012-02:00

It's Friday and I have some time to kill before I get to yelling at some people over whom I hold no explicit authority.

So, Goodell sits down Roethlisberger for 6 games after the latter was cleared of criminal wrongdoing for doing whatever it is he needed to do to knock down a 20 year old bird. All views Bokolis has heard from everyone reflects their ideology, that this sumbich did this and that and that Goodell was right to slap a 6 game bid on him.

If we're going to look strictly at this situation, then sure, Ben may have gotten just desserts. However, there is a bigger picture and a bigger issue.

When the MLBPA puts the screws to the owners, everybody blasts the players. The media have portrayed Donald Fehr as a sinister, almost satanic presence, a stain on baseball. When the owners were found guilty of collusion, they were slapped on the wrist; nobody batted an eye. Bokolis isn't saying that there are good guys here, because there aren't.

But, the lesson was always that, if ownership can push around such a powerful union, the rest of us are fucked. I'm sure that, were I to go downstairs and ask 100 (largely) random people on the street whether they were paid their self-perceived worth, I couldn't get 5 of them to say yes.

That is why I always root for the unions and won't bat an eye at the salaries, grossly overpaid though they may be...even if it means the owners are going to raise ticket prices to cover it.

The Roethlisberger case, and those of the other NFL derelicts before him, present an interesting parallel and are setting a dangerous precedent.

After having 4 or 5 drinks at the bar, anyone (we're talking a regular, grown-ass man) that drives home knows that, should some shit go down, they have strict liability. So, if you're going to blow a .12, like Jim Leyritz and Donté Stallworth, if some slob jumps in front of your car, you're on the hook for him. It doesn't matter that whether on foot or in a vehicle, Miamians have this issue with wandering into a traffic lane for no apparent reason (that doesn't just happen in GTA; this is a real phenomenon). It doesn't matter that the woman that caused the accident that killed her was more drunk than you were*, it's your ass.

*- That's not to suggest Leyritz be absolved.

If some shit like this (just the getting pulled over part...God forbid, not mowing down someone) happened to Bokolis, I'd be fucked; likely out of a job, with a future of events that will only drive me to drink. My career in corporate America: D-O-E-N done. I'd have the state telling me how to live my life and I'd probably have to sell my ass for cash.

Just desserts, scumbag, right? Sure, you self-righteous cunts. Like Tony said, you're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie.

I digress. Let's change the scenario to something that everybody does: Drinking on a worknight, 2 or 3 drinks over 90 minutes. That's not illegal. Do we want to raise the ante? Let's say you'd blow a .06 and you drove home afterwards and, like 99.999% of the millions of people who do this, you get home without incident.

A .06 would get you a summons, I think. But, at .06 how tired you are has a far greater effect on your driving ability and judgement than your BAC. It's highly unlikely that you'd do anything to get yourself pulled over.

Let's further suppose that, because you're a moron, you tweeted it. Corporate Big Brother picks up on this and docks you a day's pay because some cunt in HR feels you couldn't possibly have put in an honest day's work. That's some bullshit, right? The lush CEO is stealing money every day.

You want a little more credit than that, don't you? It's 20 years from now. Indians still haven't developed critical thought, so you still have your job. Yet, globalization and the Information Age have taken such hold so that, effectively, you are on call 24 hours per day. Along those lines, Corporate Big Brother has intruded to the point where it can now observe virtually everything you do and has the AI to analyze it. CBB observes that you are out boozing and hunting for poon-tang, which, it deems, limits your ability to absorb and convey information (assume your job doesn't involve the conveyance of information on how to pick up tipsy 20-something birds). Your pay grade is lowered for the rest of the week.

Too creepy? Too fucked up? All right, before leaving the office/signing off, you are now made to file an agenda of your evening plans. This information is conveyed to the establishment you will patronize, you are cut off at the appointed time, dumped in a cab and sent home. Change the options; you can stay longer, but you have to concede a vacation day, or a day's salary.

How about, while on vacation, you engage in similar activities to Roethlisberger; I'll leave it up to your imagination as to whether the girls went willingly and you had a bouncer at your door.

You're not that cool? Fine, you pass out drunk on the beach and your buddies have to drag you back to the room. They do some forgy shit to you, like make you piss yourself or draw on cocks on you with a marker or, worse yet, draw directly on your nutsac.

Not that Bokolis would know; I can hold my liquor.

The public figure, role model angle is bullshit. We're now blue-skying an employer sanctioning for perceived transgressions in personal lives in the face of signed contract- never mind that it is non-guaranteed and contains imposed morals clauses that give the employer the right to terminate...just so we can feel- WTF do you care?- that justice has been served. The rest of us don't even have that protection, but it's only a matter of time until these rules are applied to us.

Yeah, yeah, asshole. The boss doesn't even sanction for the shit we do on company time. We'll let go that you're cheating yourselves by fucking off at work. Does it make you feel better to think that you're only a hyper-diligent IT guy away, or that your company writes off a certain amount of it as an inevitability?

I'm not that smart and not all that creative. If I can think of this, you can be sure that, before too long, someone with the drive to implement worse will come along.

That's all the fuck I got.

Must End The Season

2010-04-17T14:26:00.011-02:00

or, My Entire Team Sucks.

So, last night, I'm at the fun job. The Yankees game gets rained out, so we switched over to the Mets-Cards. Wonder of wonders, they're up 1-0 into the 7th, with Oliver Perez pitching his guts (if he had any guts, that is) off. Actually, he looked good, keeping those hitters off balance.

The jagoff that led off the B7 hits one in the hole to Reyes, who, cunt that he is, eases over to backhand, doesn't bother to set, flings off his back leg, tailing the ball over and pulling the 1B off the bag...scored a hit, but would get Reyes benched on Bokolis' team. Next guy bunts the runner over, after which Jerry Manuel pulls Perez after 97 pitches. I'm like WTF?!, to which multiple co-workers respond that it's good for Perez because he now will not get a loss after pitching so well. I'm like WTF?! again. The team is left with 8 outs to get...WTF did he accomplish that he's in the dugout hugging everyone who'll let him cop a feel?

Of course, this is Manuel's call, so I don't want to be harsh on Perez. He brings in Nieve, who proceeds to nick the next batter and walk Holliday. Out comes Manuel to make another change, bringing in a lefty to pitch to Felipe Lopez. Bokolis promptly breaks out into a mediocre Jerry Manuel impression, explaining to the press at the post-game conference that he felt turning Lopez to his power side was the correct move in this situation. It was meant to be a first-guess, but the lads got a kick out of it.

Work took me away from the TV. A few minutes later, I look up to see a 1-4 score. I call out, did somebody hit a grand slam? The whole room, waiting for me to refocus, breaks out into laughter.

I think I've explained that the Mets ruined Reyes a few years back, when Willie Randolph yelled at him for dogging it during a game out in LA. He must have went and pissed and moaned to someone over Willie's head. And, it worked, for Reyes anyway. They must have given him his way and it has turned him into a spoiled little cunt. As presently constituted, he is utterly worthless. The only way to fix him is to send in the Iron Sheik to make him humble (1:08).

Speaking of humbling people, despite the layered ineptitude, Bokolis is sure that I could turn around the franchise were I made the GM. Of course, it goes beyond talent evaluation and player procurement, which is the easy part. I've previously explained that all of this stems from Wilpon. The real problem in that organization, Bokolis is told, is the owner's son, Jeff Wilpon. I mean...your son...really? WhentheFUCK does that ever work? This is the guy who pulled rank to bring in Kaz 'torn asshole" Matsui. That alone should have gotten him disowned, never mind banned. Of course, if Wilpon knew how to handle his business, this wouldn't be posted.

Anyway, here's what Bokolis would do on his first day on the job. I'd be addressing the staff- introductory stuff and all- giving them an overview of the plan. Jeff Wilpon, unable to keep his mouth shut, would interrupt. I'd say, "Excellent, Jeff, but I'll finish." After it all ends, I'd call Jeff into my office. As soon as the door shut, I'd unleash a venomous open hand that would surely be heard through the door. While Jeff was on a knee, which the slap forced him to take, "Jeff, it's ok. Nobody saw it. You can go back out there like we're in here drinking whiskey. But, the next time you try to tell me how to run the team, I'm going to fuck you in front of everybody. For that matter, don't even show up here unless you've asked permission. Now, getthefuck out."

I'd make sure the contract language was structured accordingly and the check was deopsited. Thinking about it some more, I'd probably have Sheik do it..I don't think I could get it up for Jeff.

The team that gays together...

2010-04-17T14:15:00.005-02:00

The guy at Getty Images that snapped this should get a Pulitzer. To me the funniest thing was that, when I right-clicked to download, the name of the file was "Nevillegay..." I think the secret's out, ye filthy manc cunts ye. I tell you, with the fmc's last gasp winner over City, I'm starting to think Rednose must have some incriminating pictures of Satan. Nobody's deal lasts this long.

Duke bag

2010-04-06T15:08:00.007-02:00

Given that I consider today's version of basketball to be NASCAR, I wasn't really paying attention until the last 3 minutes or so. But, you had to love the competition. From what I saw, it was basketball as I knew it to be; half-court, working for every basket, with little or no dunking and not too much one on one play. Those kids fought like hell.

Needless to say, I didn't want Duke to win. They're not championship quality and they had a scandalously easy draw compared to the other 1-seeds. I guess that, if you're always a factor, sooner or later, you're going to bag a cheap one.

Because they never got their noses out front in the second half, I never had the sense that Butler was going to win that game. I figured the only way was, if the they had the last shot down a point. But, they seemed to be drifting off, as they couldn't hit a shot for 7 minutes or so. Lo and behold, they dragged themselves back because Duke couldn't put them away.

The rainbow would've looked cool if it dropped, but I really wish that last shot would have dropped, if only to bite Krzyzewski in the ass for intentionally missing the free throw.

These guys outsmart themselves with these nonsensical strategies, like that one and intentionally fouling when up three. By missing with 3.6 seconds left, he introduced the possibility of losing, going from about a (max) 20% chance of having the game tied to about a 5% chance of losing it. And, without getting the perfect trip up the court, when the kid had a free look from inside 45 feet, it was about 10% chance of losing...not materially different from a 25-footer with a hand in your face.

You lucky fucks.

I Take You All to Fudging Hell!

2010-03-30T21:16:00.005-02:00

I mean, forget the kids...adults thought this was a good Idea.

I could do a good Tony Montana back in the day. This kid sounds more like Roman Moroni.

How the fuck did Bokolis end up on Twitter, you ask?

Yo, nik, whachew doin' in a cark clowny munnicibull ambulamps? That is pretty funny though.

That's a man, baby!

2010-03-30T11:44:00.004-02:00

I'm just saying...if Brittney Griner played on Sunday, Baylor would've beaten Duke. I don't know why she couldn't...if it walks like a duck...

Actually, I got a text from a buddy during the game on Sunday telling me that Duke looked shook. I didn't watch the game but, upon getting the result, I texted back that they couldn't have been that shook. Seeing the highlights, it seems like Baylor was having a dunk party. But, really though, Coach K decided just about 20 years ago that his team was never going to get bullied off a floor ever again. Lucky for him, they can stand 20 feet away from the basket and get three points for shooting from there...kind of why no Duke guard ever makes it in the pros, but an effective strategy when facing big black guys.

Her play kind of reminds me of David Robinson at Navy. They get UConn next, don't they? Aught to be fun.

Chased away, or Cutting the Chase

2010-03-29T13:49:00.007-02:00

I hadn't checked my Chase credit card account since (probably) Tuesday and I had thrown a couple of hundred dollars worth of charges (two fillups, dinner and drinks for me and a friend) on it. Checking my the damage this morning, I noticed that the cunts clipped my credit limit from $14,000 to $1,100. They'll probably mail this notice to me in like 2 weeks or so and hope I do something in the interim that allows them to raise my APR to like 246% or something...too bad I don't carry a balance, fuckers.

Chase picked up my account with WaMu's ashes. I don't know WTF WaMu was thinking giving me a $14,000 credit line. I mean, I used it wisely and astutely to get me out of my mess, but that thinking is probably why they are out of business. I've always steered away from Chase because I've heard from many people about what shady crap Chase pulls on them. I even called them up to get them to stop sending me offers.

Aside- getting the offers isn't necessarily bad because the company does a soft inquiry before they send one. The quality of the offer functions as a free bootleg credit report.

In this environment, this type of crap is to be expected when a company acquires your account. It happened to me a few years ago when HSBC acquired my account and soon cancelled it because I wasn't using it. Curiously, HSBC sends me offers every month. They put some effort into those things...they must have a bottomless marketing budget.

Anyway, I knew a chop was coming from Chase- I'm suprised it took them this long- but $1,100? WTF am I, a college student? It disgusted me, and writing the following made me feel better.

Furtively changing account limits shows that Chase credit cards and its parent company have learned nothing from having legislation shoved down its throat. 35 years of having the playing field heavily tilted in favor of the credit card industry has allowed Chase to survive with a flawed business model.

Chase’s actions indicate that it considers existing customers a burden, yet it spends so much money to acquire new ones. Except for cable/satellite TV, I cannot think of another industry that cannibalizes its own customer base.

Perhaps both industries believe they have a captive customer base. But, it is more likely that they are behind the curve when it comes to innovative ways to generate revenue. So, Chase resorts to bleeding its customers dry.

In my own case, when was Chase going to tell me? Were you hoping that I’d make a big-ticket purchase that put me over the limit so you could bleed $39 (or whatever the fee is) out of me? Chase is required by regulations to eventually notify me by mail, but regulation still allows Chase to furtively change the limits as and when it pleases.

It would seem to be far more efficient to make this change and send notice with an account statement, as it would both save money on mailings and possibly save face with the customer. Of course, that would assume that Chase is capable of maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship with its customers, which isn’t the case.

To the merits of the action, I understand Chase’s need to give the perception that it is mitigating risk (I use “perception” because I can see that both JPM Chase and Citi are engaging in the same yield-chasing strategy that has gotten us all into this mess in the first place). My account was acquired at a fire sale from a company that went “belly-up” due to horrid risk management. Not that they (or you) were punished in my case, but I will readily admit that I have no direct use for a $14,000 credit line. Its main benefit is the positive effect on my credit profile.

Nonetheless, cutting over 90% of my credit line indicates that my credit profile- I can see that Chase does soft inquiries every month, so my ever-improving credit standing should be apparent- and account history mean nothing to Chase. Understand that the feeling is mutual; I’ve always known Chase to be the @$$hats of the industry- and, that’s saying something…its actions, while furtive, are hardly surprising.

That is why, even when I needed the credit, I blocked Chase from soliciting me. Having my account acquired by Chase was an uncontrollable circumstance, but I did my part for the relationship by using the card (when I could have been using other cards) and paying off the balance each month…and this day’s treachery is how Chase repays me.

Actually, Chase’s actions come at a pivotal moment for me. Now that I’m almost done unwinding my revolving debt, I will be increasing my autonomous spending. As such, I have been in the process of reassessing my creditors, deciding which ones to purge and which cards to acquire. Chase was always atop the list of creditors to purge. Now it has made the decision still easier.

It says that they will reply within 4 hours. I can't wait. They're actually doing me a favor. I'll be done paying off a bargeload of credit card debt (long process; I may post on how I did it when I'm actually done) later this year and plan to use the cash flow to have a little more fun. As part of the process, I'll be switching up my cards (I have 8) to ones that hook up the rewards...and get rid of those that treat me like shyte.

UPDATE: This is what they wrote:

Dear (Bokolis):

Thank you for contacting Chase.

I am sorry to hear that the service you received did not
meet your expectations. Your satisfaction is extremely
important and your comments are critical to our efforts
for continued improvement. Thank you for letting me know
that we can do better.

If you have any further questions, please reply using the
Secure Message Center.

Thank you,

(Jagoff)
Email Customer Service Representative

Typing back: c-u-n...I left out, "It took you 15 hours to come back with that?!?" It did, when they promised 4 hours. "Cunt" seemed so much more succinct.

Norm!

2010-03-19T14:39:00.006-02:00

While I'm kicking it about college basketball, St. Johns officially shit-canned Norm Roberts. I'd put his picture up, but I don't even know what he looks like.

St. Johns is the neighborhood school, so Bokolis takes a passing interest in its comings and goings. SJU basketball has been atrocious for years. So, atrocious, in fact, that they play more games on campus vs the Garden than they used to.

Norm's biggest sin was that he couldn't get anyone to come here. As the story goes, he used to be able to pull when he was at KU and other places where he was an assistant. So, WTF is the problem? Other schools in NYC have no problem pull...

Wait a minute. There are no decent schools in the NYC-area. WTF?!? Bokolis will tell you WTF. First off, no NYC schools have football teams. Columbia? Don't make me cuff you. Even Hofstra- which held it down in D1-AA- shut down its program. Now, there are a variety of reasons why NYC schools couldn't make football work. For these purposes, you need only accept that there is correlation between not having a football program and not being able to recruit basketball players. The important takeaway is that, if you don't have a football team, you're pissing in the wind.

The reasons are the same; housing, booze and poon-tang. 'Round these parts, none are available to the degree acceptable to a 19 year old college student. I've been to KU; when I tell you it is wide open, it is wide open...ample poon and hayseeds with no game. Even on the campus visit, a recruit probably fries his hard drive filing away all the talent.

St. Johns no longer has off-campus housing. Lest you think that the Brothers were jammed up with these kids living the party life, it's because, starting around 1998, real estate (and rental) prices went buckwild. Even the athletes- procured or not- have to live on campus, which is not exactly buzzing at a commuter school.

There is no longer extra exposure by playing in NYC. All manner of games are now on national cable. No one needs to come to the Garden, crap SJU or otherwise. Duke must think that a cupcake at the Garden is a great deal, but SJU can only take so many beatings.

But, you say, you can't beat the NYC nightlife. You sure can't, but what kid, even on the booster's arm, can afford it? Even if they could, they can't get into any place. What happens is, we get these underage Jersey piglets, thinking they've outgrown Hoboken, or Mahwah, or Lodi, or Garfield, or Belmar or wherever- sneaking into the Apple, getting themselves drunk and into some shit, bad things happen and we get the teeth filed on all the rules around here.

And, if these kids were trolling around Manhattan hot spots, camera phones would be running like a muthafucka. So, these guys would have to stay local...yippee!

The neighborhoods surrounding the campus are decent and not as densely populated as other areas of NYC. It certainly isn't the PJs. Since it is a commuter school and has no off-campus housing, it's a challenge to get students to the bar. The only way you get college kids into a bar is with drink specials, which bars facing heightened rents can't typically afford. As a result, there are 3 bars in the immediate area...and one is for old people; uninhabitable, nobody- even the old people- goes there.

Certainly not Bokolis...I once walked in that place and, spooked to see people 5 years older than I am on the prowl, broke thefuck out. But I do go into the other two. The one place is usually quiet (which is partly why I go), except when they have a beer special. Because this guy cards, he gets grimy 23-25 year old guys and barflies-in-training for birds. If you're 23-25 and still haven't outgrown this place for its cheap beer night, you've got problems. You're ruining my quiet night of no footie, no Manhattan or Brooklyn. Get it together.

The other place...Bokolis won't mention the name of the place because, apparently, only the Feds read weblogs. Anyway, it has various nightly drink specials. Not being a beer drinker, Bokolis heads there for the $2 Jameson. Look, you can't beat $2 Jameson. One day, the subject came up as to what percentage of the birds in there are underage. I would have put it at 20%-25%.

Aside- One of the reasons Bokolis doesn't date birds under 23 is that I can't reliably tell the difference between 21 and 16. It would bother me to think I'm kicking it to 21 and find out, you know. But, I am continually amazed as to the openings, without even trying, that are presented to me. I wonder if it's because they know I could buy them more stuff (not that I would) than the college student banging them on the side or because I could put it to them better than said college student. It's a rhetorical question.

Now that I've convinced you that I don't go there to pick up college birds, we asked some alumni from real life and got back that it's about 75% underage...and that the place often gets shut down for this. The guys that run the place are two scuzzy, perv-looking creeps. Nonetheless, truth be told, this place has the better collection of talent. If they're not driving, what's the problem?

Oh yeah, SJU. I think the best kid Norm landed was rated 80th or something. With all that, what top level recruit would want to go to St. Johns? The only worse places to go would be to the service academies.

The comparison is to WVU for two reasons...Bokolis has a plant down there and there are 3 guys from the NYC area on the squad. Assuming you had all your teeth, where would you live? That's another rhetorical question. Morgantown, WV is the number two (Milwaukee) drinking city in the country. As it's been explained, there is absolutely nothing to do there except drink. That's perfect for a college town and, while it's ironic that the head coach is on the wagon (suurrrre he's on the wagon), it presents limitless opportunity to color drunk white girls purple. That's the most important thing nyone learns in college and why those cats are down there.

People are talking up Mark Jackson as the next coach and he wants the job...like he's going to draw talent. Listen, I've dealt with the dude way back when and know him, despite the way he comes off in public, to be a good guy. Nothing tells me he can coach and still less tells me he can pull ballers, let alone in that environment.

Because, nobody seriously thinks that guy can coach, we're not even getting into Huggins being able to buy who he wants to buy. The conditions do not exist to improve recruitment. How do we solve this? Re-instate off campus housing and give tax breaks to bars within said distance of either. For that matter, if they can find the land, give tax breaks to build the housing. Hey, for all the tax breaks given around here, I don't see the problem. Lower the drinking age within 1000 yards of either to 19, of course. Of course, we would have to regulate the driving habits accordingly.

If that doesn't work, we're going to have to import SEC poon...might be cheaper than the tax breaks.

That's all the fuck I got.

Beastly East

2010-03-19T13:49:00.004-02:00

So, we had a little action yesterday. As the story goes, the NCAA can opt out of the TV contract after this tournament, so CBS is highly motivated to give them a good show.

Of course, to CBS, that means booking the endings, not offering a better product. And, let's tell it like it is; CBS still sucks at this. They never come in and out of games at the right times and they are killing us by not offering a second (dedicated) channel. Not to worry, sports fans, the worldwide leader will surely drown the NCAA in money to take over and drown the rest of us in bracketology.

11s beating 6s (13 over 4, 14 over 3) notwithstanding, Bokolis still maintains the format offered up last year is best, with the amendment that there should be no more than 4 teams per conference. There's just no need for 7 or 8 teams from conferences, only to have half of them get clipped.

1st Round	2nd Round	3rd Round	4th Round	5th Round	Regional Final
	9 Seed		1 Seed
14 Seed		8 Seed
19 Seed
			4 Seed
16 Seed		5 Seed
17 Seed
	13 Seed		3 Seed
		6 Seed
	11 Seed
	12 Seed		2 Seed
		7 Seed
	10 Seed
15 Seed
18 Seed

Uhhh, that didn't come out looking so good, but you can still get the picture.

That's a direct shot at the Big East. People will be quick to say that the conference is a fraud on the back of that crap performance yesterday. Just as the conference was overrated, calling them frauds would be harsh. From what little college hoops I watched, I saw all of their teams struggle when going out of conference. I don't know whether there is a style difference or whether the teams treated out-of-conference games as a letdown. But, I saw it across all the relevant teams. In conference dogfights don't help the confidence, especially when you can't shoot or create flow on offense.

Granted, I don't think there is any difference between 6-seeds and 11-seeds that will cannot overcome. But, if you get in 8 teams, you are marked. A lack of intensity gets your 6-seeds clipped and puts your higher seeds in dogfights.

Nonetheless, there was no need to have Notre Dame and Marquette in the tournament. Louisville is now on the clock to earn its keep and WVU- oh, look, they've spotted the 15 seed 10 points- and the 'Cuse to step up for the power.

Curling, anyone?

2010-02-19T14:49:00.006-02:00

I guess it's time Bokolis admits to watching Curling. When I'm lucky enough to be home, unless it's a live sporting event, I don't watch television at home. I think it's all pro wrestling and I'm happy to say that Bokolis has outgrown pro wrestling.

But, I cannot escape the television at the office. We mindlessly watch CNBC because, lets face it, hundreds of channels and it's still slim pickings. While I previously knew of the game, I was proper introduced to it four years ago on the last go around. We happened to have a Canadian visiting, so he taught us all the rules.

As it turns out, CNBC gets way better ratings from this than their daily drivel. Everybody in the office is glued to the TV.

I tried my best to avoid it, but the cackling and yelling sucked me in and have since been glued to it. So, WTF is the deal with curling? The biggest appeal is that it looks like anybody can do it. You're watching, thinking, I could've been in the Olympics because I can do better than these mutts.

It's not all that different than watching Wheel of Fortune. As I've explained countless times to people, they prefer putting functional retards, rather than moderately intelligent people, on there because the idiots' struggle is the big part of the appeal.

You can tell that blonde has a smokin' hot body, but, yeah, my first reaction to the US team was, how come all our broads are over 35? We've got three other soccer moms on the squad, including two heiffers.

If you think that is bad, some bird on Canada's team is 5 months pregnant. What happens if that kid throws out a roundhouse at an inopportune time?

By comparison, the Danish girls looked rather goth in those black skirts and hose. The Russians have two reasonably cute birds...and I spent enough time in strip clubs in my early 20s -middle aged friends, long story- to be totally immune to Russian broads.

We've watched both the women and men get buried. And, the American that seems to be the best (at curling) of the lot looks like she wasnts to strangle the captain because the captain ("skip") is bloody awful.

If this were gridiron football, we'd be screaming for the back-up QB go get in there and whythefuck don't they take out this putz/this heiffer. I'm guessing that, so few people play this in America, that both of the skips got there because their daddies were the coach or something, now have tenure and have been playing prevent defense.

Well, enough about them. Like any other sport not invented by Americans, it needs more offense. In my half-assed attempt to change the game for the better, Bokolis will propose some rule changes to perfect the merger between run-n-gun and smashmouth.

Women's curling will now be a full contact sport. The men don't get to play this version. They have to play the existing rules.
You cannot touch the stone, but you can whack the sweepers' brooms with your broom and you can check the sweepers, so long as you don't check them into any stones...like you can't be blocked into the kicker.
Any bird under 30 wears poom-poom shorts. For that matter, only one broad over 30 per squad.
With the contact, teams are sure to field a broad that looks like nose tackle. She stays bundled up.
Given the above, any shot entirely within the "bullseye" gets an immediate point.

Some of the comparative minutia will be changed to speed up the game.

Ends>>Innings
fewer rocks per inning
shot clock

That's all the fuck I got!

Sol, Sol...

2010-02-18T00:11:00.006-02:00

There was Sol Campbell, back in the Champions League, either to turn back the clock, or re-prove that even a broken one is right twice a day.

He didn't look altogether inspired, more heavy than a heavy. But he played with he urgency of a man getting one last shot at the big time and pulled Arsenal level after their keeper bundled home Porto's opener.

You know it must have burned the arse of every Spurs supporter just a little bit more to see Sol come in off the street and score in a UCL match. He probably scored while they were in the middle of one of their chants at the pub.

Well, Sol giveth and Sol help taketh away. Using tactics he must have picked up during his stint at Notts County, when there was no need to do so, he just had to get a touch on a ball heading back towards the shaky keeper, Fabianski. The keeper played no small part in this hash. No only did he fail to call off Sol, he picked up the backpass. Then, instead of stalling (to the point of getting booked, if need be) so he could get a wall set up, handed the ball right to the referee, who handed the ball to Porto.

A pass and a shot later, it was one of the easiest goals you'll ever see...clownish. Wenger was left to whinge about the referee letting Porto quickly take the indirect. This is the same mook that let Henry get way with a carry, but he can't be blamed for this disaster.

Nonetheless, the Gooners are far from fucked. But, while there is talent, they don't exactly have a striker to bag up a couple of goals. Adebayor, Adebayo-oor would be pretty good to still have right about now.

As for Milan vs the fmcs, what can I say except, Rooney is a bad muthafucka. It's Bokolis' turn to have his ass burned. I've gotten about as much as I expected out of Milan this year, but crashing out at the hands of the fmcs is never easy to take.

So, shit did happen a little bit

2010-02-17T01:30:00.005-02:00

I think the Apple wound up seeing 10 inches of snow from that last storm. That storm was like 5-in-one. But it took a day and a half to get down. I broke out from the office at 3PM and the shit was just starting to jump off.

As if to rub it in how bad I've been at calling shit, once it got going, it just hovered over the area. Burned several sessions of footie for me.

With no footie- and not stupid enough to drag a bird through some Valentine's nonsense, I sat around and found some site called the Dirty. Other that to say that I will probably incorporate "+2" into my vocabulary, I'm not sure what to say. But, I will have to consult my own dirty army to find out, considering how much time they spend surfing for shit like this, whythefuck did I have to find this and not them.

Enjoy!

I don't believe shit until shit happens!

2010-02-10T14:08:00.005-02:00

That, of course, was part of Bernie Mac's Kings of Comedy routine. This applies to the two latest calls for a snow Armageddon in the Apple.

Last week, they warned us that we'd get bombed with about a foot overnight Friday into Saturday. I told people it was bullshit, but there's something you don't know about Bokolis. As I woke up to watch Liverpool, the snow on the ground was akin to cinnamon sprinkled on oatmeal.

So, both on Monday evening and all day yesterday, the cunts on the local news channels warned about impending doom that would befall us overnight and all day today. I woke up yesterday to find predictions of 10 to 15 inches, that it should get going about 9PM, Tuesday evening.

I keep the radar maps on weather.com and the NOAA on my browser so I can track this stuff. The NOAA radar is a compilation of local radar, so there are gaps in the composite. I'm not sure about the TWC radar, but TWC gives you a "future" feature (say that quickly 5 times) that goes forward 3 hours.

TWC usually lags in the mornings, so I would track its future against the NOAA's 80-minute radar loop. Right away yesterday, I could see they were overstating the storm's track and intensity. This is why, by the time of the drive home, the story changed to a post midnight jump-off, with the hard stuff coming around 4AM.

Of course, Bokolis wasn't buying any of this shit and made my own call for 5 inches max and included rain in the mix. So, I woke up at 4:30 to see for myself...more cinnamon.

Anyway, this morning, in true pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain style, they all downplayed the relatively minor output and warned us that the winds would change, the temperature would not rise through the daytime, that the brunt of the storm, which has now moved from our south and west to the west and north, would now intensify and REALLY blow ("blowing snow," they say) through here during the day; that we shouldn't go to work because we'll never be able to get home.

As I sit, typing on The Man, I wonder what the angle is now that, after sleeting from 8:30 to 10AM, there's been nothing for the last two hours...that's a rhetorical question.

I always tell people, when assessing the prospects and/or magnitude of a storm hitting the Apple, they should consider that the Dutch- who, considering their homeland, must have a nose for weather- didn't settle on Manhattan by luck. I'm not saying that it's done- I've killed a lot of storms and this has been one of the baddest muthafuckas of a storm I've ever seen and it still hovers ominously. But, relatively speaking, this has been a miss.

Fearmongering is endemic among all media, but I'll stick to the present topic. When you put on the news for these sorts of things, you're told not to even bother going outside, to stay indoors where it's safe. Leaving aside that they're treating people like children (read: idiots), the undertow of that message is to stay home- even to forego shoveling the driveway- and watch the news so they can tell us all about the snow.

If I'm holed up in the house, WTF do I give a fuck about the snow outside? Why should we listen to alarmist bullshit, bullshit that conditions a reaction...especially when there's Internet porn out there. Hey, Internet porn is a wonderful distraction. One doesn't have to watch it to understand that, both directly and indirectly, it helps put all media and much of life in perspective...why let neurosis consume you when you could be busting a nut?

That's all the fuck I got.

Hitler and Saddam Spotted Ice Skating

2010-02-08T12:53:00.010-02:00

I didn't get to hype my annual Super Bowl Sunday foray into rugby for fairies. Since it was expected to be a full 11v11, this year's game turned into a tackle affair. Because people bailed, it turned out to be a 9v9, but we still went tackle, with a 4-man line.

Let me just say, what cunts! Bokolis was out drinking until 4AM on Saturday (Don Julio at a party, Jameson at the bar), but got up at 8AM for a 10AM soccer game. These guys are all 5-10 years younger than I am, but they couldn't make an afternoon game because they can't handle their liquor.

I actually let someone else start at QB. On the first drive, he threw an Eli-esque duck that functioned as a change-up, floating over the defender and into my arms. I took it the rest of the way.

He was ineffective though. He kept drifting back to avoid the rush, took too long to get the ball out and couldn't get the ball to the receivers. Our captain implored me to take over, but I wound up giving him three more drives because the other squad could not move the ball at all...wasn't even cause of me; the lads played good defense and their QBs (they kept switching) all had nothing.

Finally, when he blew up a post play on 4th down- he drifted so far back and waited so long that I had to continue it into a corner route- I had enough.

Bokolis was playing linebacker on D. I'm usually a strong tackler, but I found myself appalled at my lack of desire for contact. I didn't drive through guys; I would just hold them up for others to finish them off. As a QB, though, Bokolis will hang in the pocket because I just don't give a fuck. I got out the rust (3 incompletions) on the first drive, but hit a stop-and-go for a TD and marched for another on the next two drives.

As a QB, I'm more in the Warren Moon, run-n-shoot style. I don't like to run because, when you're allowed to throw the ball, running seems like a copout. But, I'm built like Barry Sanders and know better than to let my ideology get the best of me. I couldn't tell you how good my protection was overall because I get the ball out pretty quickly and I don't pay attention to the line. These guys were so bent on getting to me (they didn't) that they were ignoring their lanes. I stepped though the DT and DE and tore through a broken field (I'm still fast and, while I don't cut like Barry Sanders, it still hard to get in front of me and I know- field vision- how to set guys up without the juke).

I hit a bomb first play of the next drive, which completed the whitewash. Since I had a hand in all 5 scores, I'd have hooked up your fantasy team like a muthafucka. I'm waiting for old age to allow these guys to overtake me, but it looks like they will get old before Bokolis will. The game started too early and finished way too early. We sat around almost 3 hours waiting for the Bowl to start. I should have just gone home to regroup, but was not motivated to make the half-hour drive.

After double duty, I'm well and sore, with expected sorenesses- my shoulder is on fire- but I've felt far worse from less.

The router blew on Friday and the cunts at VZ won't have a router out to me until Tuesday (tomorrow), so I had to post those losers from the mobile and am posting this one on The Man. They'll probably have this printed out when I get my annual performance review later today...bah, I save them a lot of money so WTF.

Since I couldn't type in the text box, I had to dump the predictions into the subject line. In my haste, I forgot to stick the under for the game in there, so Bokolis goes a putrid 4-10 this post-season and, had I actually followed through on my bullshit-ass predictions, would have the book looking for me.

As one may infer from the title, it's a cold day in Hell.

If one judges him by the GOAT (greatest of all time) standard, it's easy to blame this on P. Manning. There was a point where the GOAT (Johnny U, Montana) turns that game into a train run. P. Manning didn't seal the deal, so he will have to tuck in behind them.

But the Colts' early momentum stalled when Garcon dropped that pass on 3rd down. All of the sudden, after a quarter of lock-down, Saints receivers were getting wide open. That was the difference in the game. Except for Wayne's TD, the Colts were not getting open. P. Manning was making some sick throws when nothing was there, the sickest of all being that corner route to Clark in the 3rd Quarter. I couldn't even see Clark through all the coverage.

Inevitably, however, when you have to make so many fine throws, you're going to fuck up one. The Saints finally jumped the slant, Reggie Wayne, doubtless saving himself for a post game The U party, didn't want it...a TaInt* and that was that.

P. Manning standing shaken on the sidelines, his own fallibility dawning on him, realizing it wasn't going to happen and seemingly ready to cry, was a profound moment. I looked for an image of that look, but couldn't find it. You'll have to make do with this image of the onsides kick scrum...I can only imagine how many nutsacks were fondled and balloon-knots masaged.

Sometimes, people feel for the villain or the beaten Goliath. But, not in this case. I didn't feel anything for him, except to want to tell him to get it together because he could still make a sweat out of it.

And, they could have. Just like earlier, P. Manning seemed to choke up when it was time to punch it in. But, Reggie Wayne dropped the 4th down pass. That makes him the bitch and makes Bokolis more inclined to blame him for the TaInt. It underlies that, in the end, the Colts, previously 16-0 in games they tried to win, weren't that good. In the end, they were well-beaten.

The three ballsiest moments, in order of occurence:

Saints going for it on 4th and goal. I didn't like calling a running play when your relative strength is in the passing game. But taking the 3 points gives P. Manning better field position from the kickoff, which quite possibly meant that the Saints would have wound up losing from the exchange. As it was, the Colts played it safe and the Saints wound up getting back the spuned 3 points.
The onsides kick. Winners take chances.
Colts going for it without a huddle on 4th down on their next to last drive. Sure, the drive ended horribly, but the way they went for it was a resounding "Fuck You!" to the defense.

*TaInt > Touchdown after Interception, referred to by the commoners as a pick six.

Rugby for Fairies...the 44th Bowl...Colts lay the 5...Saints and the under for first half...Colts for the second half

2010-02-07T15:56:00.001-02:00

Rugby for fairies...2010 Conference Championships

2010-01-23T21:43:00.003-02:00

After an 0-4 washout, Bokolis stands at 2-6 for the Playoffs, with no shot of salvaging. Right about now, I'd be calling guy number 3 trying to win back what I was in for to guys 1 & 2. The funny shit was that guys 1 & 3 knew each other. They probably had some fun- among other things- at my expense. Hehehe. I was one of the chosen few that got it all back in the end...more stories for another time.

COLTS (-7.5) over Jets - The bottom line is that the Colts still haven't lost a game in which they were trying to win. It's true that they haven't covered all that much and 7 and a hook is a lot of wood to lay. But, history (both NFL and the Jets') tells us that this is where the Jets fall short.

It's more than that. Last time these two played, the Jets didn't score an offensive TD on the Colts' first team. The Colts had quite a few bounces go against them, which is what kept that game close. The only reason P. Manning played that drive in the 3rd Quarter was because the Jets ran the opening kickoff back for a TD. His directive for that drive was to score a TD so that they could say they left with the lead.

The Colts have a further advantage of having gone up against a very similar defense last week. The results were decidedly mixed; 6 good minutes propelled the Colts, even though they produced none of the big plays and couldn't run worth shit. They didn't need another reason to have something to prove. The Jets will have similar issues trying to score against a team with the heart to close the deal.

SAINTS (-3.5) over Vikings - With the exception of the game against the Cowboys, the Saints have performed when the lights were shining brightest. The Vikings were a terror at home, but calling their road performance pedestrian would be kind. They've lost 4 of their last 5 on the road. It's about time this little fairy tale ends.

America's Game?

2010-01-21T20:40:00.003-02:00

While watching the NFL Playoffs is still a worthwhile endeavor, Bokolis typically puts on regular season games to fall asleep. Hey, I'm all over the map for 13 days out of 14, usually going on 4 hours sleep. I need a day here and there to recharge.

In that regard, the Jets have usually been my patron. But, generally, I find NFL broadcasts boring. Most of the broadcast teams are terrible, but it's not about that. Despite not giving a fuck about college football, I can more easily sit through a game, even though they last longer than NFL games and the announcers are usually worse.

I've gone on about all the commie rules and their misapplications. But, the reason I commonly give is that there is no action; most of the time, they're just dicking around. Well, the Wall Street Journal, of all things, has quantified this...now those are some fuckers with nothing to do. Considering that we're in the middle of a shitstorm unlike any most of us have ever seen, you'd think they'd have hunted down those responsible or, at least, devote their energy towards figuring out what our government government does withour taxes.

The citizenry's loss is the football fans' gain. NFL games run about 3 hours or so. As it turns out, the time spent on air is a little under two hours, with the difference being commercials. That's criminal in itself, but practically inescapable. Out of the time on air, almost 60% is spent watching the players dicking around in the huddle, grabbing each others' nuts in the pile-on, or craning at the sideline trying to figure out if they should be on or off for the next play.

They give you all this other minor bullshit that goes on. It seems that we don't get enough cheerleaders and there was nothing about the sideline broad getting cock-whipped. That's some bullshit.

Game action is typically about 10-12 minutes per game. All that fuss, all those buffalo wings and other fat people food for 12 minutes of action. That's less bang for the buck than UFC, hardly enough to satisfy people's bloodlust. To be fair, that probably doesn't count the part of the game where the QB repeatedly yells out "Omaha!" and raises his right leg, lest we figure out that he knows fuck-all about what he's doing...that's exciting shit right there.

This is the part where Bokolis usually offers a suggestion as to how to fix the problem. Someone had it right the first time; it's called rugby. You have a thing for the forward pass, you say. There's always college football. I have to think there is more game time because of all the clock stoppages. But, the games also take close to 4 hours, without overtime. The networks won't have that. I guess you could take some time off the clock and re-institute clock stoppages so as not to lose any plays like they did when they eliminated some clock stoppages.

The ptb at the NFL would rather spend their time redefining and reinterpreting what constitutes a catch. It ain't much, but that's all the fuck I got.

crashed out

2010-01-17T23:28:00.005-02:00

wrote this sunday night, got sidetracked had to come to work to finish it.

What a fuckin' disaster! My old boss used to say that all the time. Almost always an exaggeration, he would say it with a matter-of-fact cadence (he is not an excitable guy) that would belie any disaster.

Similarly, Bokolis' 0-4 disaster- that's what happens when I pick these games without watching much of them- would be a problem if I were actually going to the window. In those days, I'd be looking to double down on college and pro basketball right about now (Sunday night). I was all too happy to se the Jets pull it out. After being on the wrong side of 3 blowouts, having picked against them, I knew they'd cover.

You'd have thought that Norv would take the heat- and, I gather that he's gotten his fair share of abuse over it. But, he also scored a contract extension. Granted, it was his team's lack of heart that did them in more than his strategy, but....errrr....huh?!?

I could see the bolts were shook, even when they were winning. The Jets are an excellent tackling team and I think the bolts tired of it. The Chargers' body language indicated that they had lost confidence, either in themselves and/or the game plan. LD fake-ass LT was nowhere, Jackson was blanketed and Quivers was too shook to throw the ball straight to anyone else.

The biggest whore moment was when Shonn Greene blasted through the hole, bowled over the DB and accelerated and separated from the rest of the bolts. That was criminally poor.

Down 10 and having to take chances, they finally got it back together.

Odd though, that Norv would go for the onsides kick with 2:14 remaining and a timeout remaining. It was a given that the Jets would run three times. At worst, the bolts would have gotten the ball with a minute and 70 yards- assuming Sproles didn't pop the return- to go. I say 70 yards because, you don't think that dodgy kicker would have made a field goal over 30 yards, do you?

As it turned out, while the kick itself was well executed, the only two players in position to recover were Jets. Rhodes bobbled and still no Charger was in the frame. The favorable field position inflated the Jets' balls- during the timeout, I texted a Jets fan, "What would Herman Edwards do?"- so as to go for it on 4th and 1...didn't count on that, did ye Norv? I think it's safe to say that Rex Ryan wouldn't have went Belichick from his own 29.

Yet, Norv escapes the heat AND gets re-upped. Maybe he could use some of that scratch to get himself a Ray Handley.

About Farve, as much as I could never stand this cunt, it's no place to bitch about his running it up after the fact. While you're on the field, you can take regulation into your own hands, fuck the sanctions. After he went up top the first time on 4th down, the Cowboys should have been looking for an opportunity to take a shot at him. That he did it again shows why they got stomped.

And Wade gets to come back, too. Awesome! And so does Bokolis, to salvage a respectable record. I've got the picks all worked out, too.

Rugby for fairies...2010 Divisional Sunday

2010-01-17T11:24:00.002-02:00

It's not often that you see a team lose 20-3 and feel that not all that much was solved. It's also not often you see one team make all the big plays, only to have them all nullified, either by refs trying to get on TV or by their own bungling. Fucking hell, what a crash that would have been.

Cowboys (+3) over VIKINGS - All right, so that declining momentum theory didn't work so well yesterday. The jefe, a Farve flunkie says that, if the Cowbys win, we all have to work tomorrow. I just want to defy him.

CHARGERS (-7) over Jets - The Jets can do everything right and still come out on the wrong side of the number.

The jumpoff

2010-01-16T19:38:00.011-02:00

One of the funniest things ever was watching the Saints coaches and players huddled around the picture of of them getting smoked for a 70 yard TD run on the first play. It reminded me of every construction job where the bosses are standing around trying to figure out how they're going to work around all the fuck-ups and shortcuts they've taken.

I'm thinking, wow, the fingerprint hasn't even left the mouse and here's my point about the Cards ringing true. Then, someone answered back, slow your roll cowboy. This is like the first seven of 80. The Saints don't turn the ball over like McNabb, Delhomme and the Packers did. Before I could check my whiskey for hallucinogens, it was tied. Before I could check again, the WR coughed up the ball.

-----

The ease with which the Saints scored their second touchdown set off all the alarms. The Cardinals are scared to tackle. They can't even get in front of the Saints. Now, they actually held the Cards. Damn, Reggie Bush looks for real. This is how he used to run for USC. dudes can't even see him. 21-7 is a muthafuckin' problem (2:26) like DMX. So, we stand between quarters and the only thing that can stop the Saints is their own resolve. How timely then, that the quarter gives them an opportunity to reflate their balls on 3rd down. Well, what do you know, the Cards held. Maybe they do want to play.

---

Oh, shit, a pick. They said that once Warner is sacked, he has the tendency to give up the ball. Wow, they called a blow to the head, nullifying the pick...great, because they missed a more obvious one on the last drive...too many fucking rules. The KWM has adjusted by going underneath because the Saints aren't letting them take what was there last week. 21-14; pretty easy after the penalty. Offside on the PAT Do they grow some balls and onsides kick from the 35?

----

No balls of course, and the Saints torch them again. Fuck, another pick, where the fuck was he throwing it? just like th- oooooffff Warner got leveled. There he goes to the locker room. Ah, holding. 2 minute warning. So, what's 17 yards to the Saints? It's too easy, that's what it is. Leinart's coming out? All right, it may be time to pack this one in for the half. Can Leinart even get us to the half? I don't think this Saints kicker is using the K-balls. He's reached the endzone every time. Ho-o-o-oly shit, there goes the helmet.

Haha, Cards have called a time out- they can't leave bad enough alone. I think the Jets did this in Week 4 or something and wound up going the other way. They're going to play for the FG, isn't that cute? 3 points. Rackers coming out, this aught to be fun...from 51, he missed, but the Saints called a time out right before..dumbasses...I feel another rule change coming on. He couldn't even reach this time- on a 51 yarder, indoors. Why is he even in the league? Bah, it might have helped with the backdoor cover. But, when I said it was the first seven of 80, I didn't mean 80 just for the Saints.

Good thing I'm long retired. I remember having the over 58 in a college bowl game in, like, 1993. Just like this one, they had 49 between them at the half. While I was counting the money, they started playing defense; both pitched a shutout in the second half. What a crash that was. Fat chance of that happening here, right? Let's see if they can tweak the CPU and fire up the KWM for the second half.

---

Fucking mook kicks off out of bounds. Saints got cute on that drive...here we go 4th and 3...ah, they chickened out...and the punt wasn't all that productive. The Saints took their foot off the Cards' neck can the Cards sh-man that cheerleader was hot... no way she was in the Would You Do...?-ow some signs. It's probably their last chance.

---

Flamed out. If the Saints score here- stranger things have happened- I'm probably going to tune out. A field goal; eh, I'll give Warner one more drive. More cheerleaders; FOX has its finger on the pulse of things.

Another kickoff 5 yards deep. Warner back to the underneath and short stuff- two drops, twice good pressure...Fitzgerald had it, damn, they are double covering him with the zone. Go for it you jagoffs...ahhh, oh fuck, that was shit coverage, morons...awww it's Kim Kardashian. good thing her ass-they're going to pull Warner, I think...let me finish this thought them I'm outta here- was below th- I mean, good thing the camera was at a distance; her ass would have taken up the whole screen.

Another kickoff into the endzone. If they find nitrogen in the footballs, can we get a DQ out of this. Warner's staying out and throwing more underneath stuff. That he was fighting to stay in this game has to mean that this is the last game for him. There is no way he is going to end on the bench. That the Saints are far enough ahead to take their foot off the gas means that, as long as Warner remains in, this will serve as his testimonial. What a f'n ride it was!

Rugby for fairies...2010 Divisional Saturday

2010-01-16T18:58:00.003-02:00

Many folks call this the best NFL weekend of the year. Bokolis always used to think so. This was back when we had traditional powers. By traditional powers, I mean, back when the NFC used to kick the snot out of the AFC; 49ers, Cowboys, Skins, Giants. This decade saw the two most productive teams come from the AFC; Patriots, Steelers and, it may play out, Colts.

Back then, things seemed more predictable. During the divisional week, the team with the bye typically kicked the shit out of the visitor. These days, someone has anointed the Patriots a dynasty for going 3-1 in Super Bowls, all decided by 3 points. They didn't cover in two of them, they won as a big dog and lost as a big favorite.

Fitting then, that the divisional week has lost its predictability. The results have been all over the place. But, we do know that the P. Manning hasn't won coming off a bye and that the Cardinals won in the exact same spot last year. While not forgetting what was just written, both scenarios are getting the points.

Cardinals (+7) over SAINTS - Last week said a lot for declining momentum. Having lost their last three, the Saints stink of it. We've seen their high-powered offense and we've even seen them play the pass. But we haven't seen it in the last month. I've watched the Cardinals jump out to big leads in the last three NFC playoff games. Getting a TD, it's about time I learn my lesson.

Ravens (+6.5) over COLTS - With the Colts, it's not so much declining momentum as it is no momentum. P. Manning, like Greg Maddux, is a victim of his own consistency in that, if someone dials it up to his level or better, he never has an answer. Flacco isn't going to dial it up; I'm talking about the Ravens defense. On the surface- the Colts have bagged the last seven here- it would seem the Ravens defense hasn't matched up all well against P. Manning in recent years. But, they did this year and he was last held without a touchdown by the Ravens during the playoffs a few years back. That would indicate that, it is more an issue of the Ravens being good enough to be bothered. Winning is still going to take some doing, but the Colts, their record notwithstanding, aren't that good. I think we can land on the right side of the number.

Go figure

2010-01-10T23:03:00.005-02:00

Bobby Flay knows we're disappointed that we can't watch the Food Network. That's presuming a lot.

The late game sure wasn't disappointing. While Bokolis favors low scoring and defense in all other sports, there is nothing like a shootout in gridiron football. It's amazing how, when offenses get in a comfort zone, defenses get thrown out of sorts and forget what defense is all about. Such defensive ineptitude leads to guys running up and down the field and memorable games. A defensive stop becomes as rare as a break of serve at Wimbledon. It makes the NFL so much more enjoyable, as all that scoring minimizes all the commie rules.

So ironic then, that the game ends on a defensive touchdown amid a couple of questionable non-calls resulting from misapplication of the commie rules.

I thought the Packers should have gone for it at the end of the first half, down 17 and on the 5 (or so) yard line with 4 seconds left. Trailing by 14 or 17 points mattered little, whereas 10 sounded do-able, even against the KWM*.

They get a pass on that for going with the onsides kick after their first score of third quarter. Jennings makes two spectacular catches, Woodson's fingertips finally make a defensive stop, the Packers pull even.

1:52 is all day for Warner; it was an average drive back in the Greatest Show on Turf days. He wouldn't need the 3 TOs. Well, the Cards got into plus territory, the approach became more pedestrian. They broke the golden rule of football: NEVER leave the game up to your kicker. I'd make the font larger if I could.

After the won the OT toss, the Packers, who had no business even being in this game, were poised to win it and send Bokolis to an unheard of 3-1 on wild card weekend. They went for the gusto right on the first play from scrimmage. Rodgers overthrew a wide open Jennings, who was gone, when he had no reason to.

Second down was made worse from a holding penalty. It was a hold. But, the ref, who I'm sure threw the holding flag, lets slide a clear, not incidental helmet-to-helmet hit on Rodgers. Given that the NFL has its panties in a bunch about protecting the QB, process of flagging the hold must have blinded him to the helmet-to-helmet. After calling a (declined) bullshit roughing the passer penalty in the 3rd quarter on Fitzgerald's touchdown, we can only hope that the cunt missed it.

The Packers picked up 15 from a dump-off underneath on the replay, but the runner left at least a few yards on the table, making 3rd and 5 a passing down. Rodgers knew he had to make a play, as punting would have led to a death march. His habit of holding on to the ball bit him in the ass. The blitzing defensive back stripped the ball and grabbed hold of Rodgers' facemask with his follow-through. If the ref missed or let slide the helmet-to-helmet, forget about getting the facemask called.

It's for the best. The NFL needs as much of the KWM as it can get. Cards-Vikings promises us another shootout.

KWM* - Kurt Warner Machine, from The Hater Nation, used without permission.

Sundays games

2010-01-10T12:58:00.004-02:00

was on a bender, woke up late and gotta run...won't be back before 1 to speak on the early game. so, marking down that I'm going with both home teams. will fill in the spreads when I get back.

Update: Here I am muthafuckas! Here I am, just in time to change up. The bender limited the activity.

I don't know what surprised me more; that Sanchez was so good or that Palmer was so bad. What I should have realized was that, given that Revis was going to shut down 85, no other WR was going to do anything.

Ravens (+3.5) over PATRIOTS - Not that I'm so high on the Ravens, but it's time to bury these chumps, once and for all. If their legacy wins this game for them, let it be by a field goal.

Packers (-2.5) over CARDINALS - Too many hurt muthafuckas on Arizona and I've watched the other two rematches be won by the team that won the first week.

Are you ready for some...Rugby for fairies Playoffs 2009-10?!

2010-01-09T12:17:00.004-02:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, New Year, whateverthefuck else.

What's more fun than making bullshit-ass predictions? So, here we go with the wild card weekend.

So much for the scouting. Except for the early parts of Eagles-Cowboys and Bengals-Jets, I didn't get to watch anything last week. Hopefully, the three teams that got trounced last week used those games to scout...because they sure as hell didn't play.

BENGALS (-2.5) over Jets - I don't like this game as far as I can throw it. I've got to pick between a team on some serious declining momentum and a team that has to treat its QB like a son fresh out of rehab. Am I supposed to believe that the 9-3 version of the Bengals or the 1-3 version? I've got to balance that the Bengals have a big advantage at QB and at WR with the fact that they took last week off. I don't believe that the Bengals are good enough to put it on another (however dubious) playoff team. Of course, the spread doesn't say they have to put it on the Jets; just kick a field goal at the gun. Last week's game priced out the Jets. Even if I think the Jets can dominate the Bengals for large stretches, getting less than a field goal means they effectively have to win the game. The Jets can dominate and still fuck this up.

COWBOYS (-3.5) over Eagles - The Eagles were the trendy team until they got stomped thefuckout in Dallas last week. LT says that the Cowboys will never win anything with Romo because Romo doesn't have the balls to win. I'm pretty sure LT was liquored up when he said that...and, Romo isn't playing against LT. Hey, Romo may not yet have won a playoff game, but he has won 3 games in December and January this year, which is about 3 more than he had. The most unsettling part about this is, if the Eagles have the ball, down 11 with 1:45 left, you'd still have a sweat...bah, McNabb will fuck it up, like he will the rest of the game.

Rugby for fairies...pre-playoff talk

2009-12-29T15:19:00.005-02:00

Finally finished taking a dump after all that crap I ate over the weekend. The NYF Giants were in the next stall.

Not to blame the Giants' awful display vs Carolina on Eli, but, if the Giants insist on paying off his contract, they should use all the suckers' PSL money to move all of Eli's salary to the uncapped year. I'll bet y'all muthafuckas think the Giant's really got suckered there, huh? As always, the fans are the real suckers; specifically, the real suckers were those who paid the PSLs. Because, after all, it was the expectation of that suckers' money that enabled the deal.

Those mooks at the NFL currently recognize Denver as 5th, the Jets as 6th and Baltimore as 7th in the AFC. Of course, if all threee win, it's the Jets 5th, the Ravens 6th and the Broncos bounced. Apparently, in a three-way tie between the Ravens, Broncos and Jets, they have to go down to the common opponents tie-breaker. The Jets would win that at 4-1. They would then revert to head-to-head to sort out 6th place, which the Ravens hold. The NFL's Mumbai customer service rep-level programmers can't write code that recognizes that the three teams will have the necessary 4 common opponents after this week, so its ranking currently ignores that tie-breaker.

It's quite likely that the wild-card round will have three rematches from the previous week. If they could somehow rig it so that Houston loses to New England...and the Steelers, Broncos, Ravens, Jaguars, the Lakers, man united, Scunthorpe, Inter, Tottenham, Real Madrid, Barca and Valladolid all lose, all four will be rematches. Have fun selling this week's games.

Actually, they might not need the Jaguars.

In its myopia, NBC decided to flex the Bengals-Jets game (in 20-degrees and wind) because the Jets have to win to get in...with Ochocinco on the sideline drawing "don't fine me" signs and fucking with Jets fans (that aught to be something) for the entire second half. In front of the whole country, Cinci half-assing it just enough so that they get the Jets back at their place the following week is going to look real good.

On the subject of selling, NBC should have flexed Eagles-Cowboys for the Division and an Eagles bye. If either of them are serious about getting to the Bowl, there's sure to be more fight for that one.

I still have the vig-money left over from last year's hoo-haa, so we might as well go at this again. Ususally, Bokolis only listens to the NFL on the radio during my Sunday drives. I may get a few series in here and there, but I only watch during the playoffs. Given the three impending rematches, I'll have to start watching early this year.

Every Week should be Browns v Lions

2009-11-24T13:13:00.004-02:00

The Hater Nation- always get a kick out of the SoCal boys giving the Northeasterners shit; y'all had us at the weather and you've kept the hot birds and sent the average ones east- may have stumbled onto brilliance in suggesting that the Browns and Lions, on the heels of that barnburner, play for the number one draft pick on the Sunday before the Super Bowl.

I'm assuming the winner gets the pick. Of course, with two wins, the Lions would be out of this year's running, as Cleveland, Tampa Bay and St. Louis all currently have one apiece.

One hurdle is that, if this is a neutral (Super Bowl) site deal, who would show up? If it works out that no one shows up for this year's Pro-Bowl, they might consider a double-header. Even better, because no one should have to sit through 6 or 7 hours of low-level rugby for fairies- with the talent pool trained, we don't need a full sixty of an all-star game and we certainly don't need a full sixty of 2-14 or 1-15 teams- ratchet up the intensity by making both games 30 minutes.

Getting a television audience should not be an issue, as Americans fiend for the gridiron version and go through withdrawal during the lag. We'll leave it to the marketing folks as to how to fill the joint.

Dog gone; son of a...

2009-11-20T14:30:00.010-02:00

For some reason, my Yahoo page gives me Atlanta news. I see an AJC link that the University of Georgia bulldog mascot died of a heart attack. I thought it strange to see a juxtaposition of "dog" and "heart attack" and everybody loves a good train wreck, so I had to read it.

Not having gone to a D-1 school, Bokolis doesn't get the fuss over college sports. I suppose people romanticize over their alma mater for the same reason birds love Mexican/beach-themed bars; it brings them back to their younger, care-free days. In the case of the birds, it reminds them of the time(s) they got their brains fucked out in Cancun. Regardless, I'll bet there's 24-hour coverage of this down in Athens.

" 'We had no warning whatsoever.'...In fact, Uga VII had just been given a clean bill of health from the UGA vet school a week earlier." That the dog was a fat fuck wasn't a tip off, huh?

Now, Bokolis is a pragmatic guy and, conceding that they HAVE to have a mascot, I think about how they will proceed.

"Uga VII's sudden passing causes a predicament. There will be no time to find his replacement before Saturday's home game against Kentucky. So the Bulldogs will have to play without a bulldog." Apparently, they don't have junkyards in Georgia. But, I think the bulldog held on field goals.

It get's better; they have to have a blood relative as a stand-in. "...plan to have an interim dog in place for the Georgia Tech game...a thorough search of Uga VII's extensive brood of heirs will commence as soon as possible." Thankfully, they won't have to do this when qEII passes on. Queen Anne is shit-out of luck.

"Georgia has played under interim mascots before...Otto was called to fill in for his younger brother Uga IV, who had injured a hind knee jumping off a hotel bed." Uga IV was listed on the injury report, too. No doubt, this was after a romp with some fine-ass bitch. He must have taken license in the war story, saying that he blew out his knee while humping. Like Drew Bledsoe in the AFC Championship game, it was big of Otto to step up after being passed over.

"The mascots are interred in a mausoleum...in...Sanford Stadium. Georgia is the only university in the nation to bury its mascots within the confines of its stadium." Well, as long as we're treating the dogs like royalty, why not? But, wherethefuck does Notre Dame bury its leprechauns? They have a touchdown Jesus. It's not out of the realm that they'd do some shit like this. At least Georgia completes the cycle of lunacy. Bokolis was planning a Bucket List-type cremation and stash at 20,000 feet, but it's likely that I'll wind up as worm food like most.

It's ya boy Bangs

2009-11-10T22:55:00.005-02:00

So I got friends that, not unlike half the blogging public, spend all their time searching for stupid shit on Youtube. They found this guy. The guy is from Sudan and has apparently recently moved to Melbourne (Australia, not Florida). Without commenting on his flow or the audio and video production, if this is not some Borat-type put on, guaranteed this muthafucka winds up with a major before too long. He may wind up with a major regardless. If Juvenile can get a deal, anybody can. Bokolis will do his little part; but his flow speaks for itself, doesn't it? The album drops Dec. 4. Make sure you pick that up.

Maybe he can take Liz to the movies. Bokolis will be jealous.

Liz, call me!

2009-11-10T16:50:00.016-02:00

As the world has been digesting this, Bokolis has let it marinate. Meet Elizabeth Lambert...looking like JACK Lambert (Jack Lambert does have a daughter named Elizabeth...just a coincidence) and showing Kassidy Shumway and Carlee Payne who is boss. Lambert is close to Laimbeer, no? Bokolis is smitten.

I could use a bird like this on my co-ed squad. I've already got a butcher, but this one makes mine look like Lady Byng. Like Maldini, I'm a left back carrying on as a center back/libero. If I had two butchers at the back, I could get back out on the wing instead of pretending to be Baresi.

Anyone who has ever played sports with birds knows that, unlike the guys, who know the unspoken code to not bring outside stress to the pitch and are there to get away from it, birds take their issues to the pitch and out on whomever is there.

Not wholly unlike the tobacco companies running anti-smoking ads, the self-proclaimed "world wide leader" glorifies this behavior by airing it (including two slo-mo shots of the hair pull). None of us need to be reminded that this behavior is unacceptable, but we've now seen that at least one player pretty much got away with it for 90 minutes (suspension? well, the season's over, isn't it?)...and ESPN got a cheap pop out of it.

Disregarding the cheap shots, Lambert committed at least two red card offenses during play. That the referee let those go no doubt spurred her on. The booking, which came late, was for a comparatively light offense.

Not that I'd feel sorry for either of the BYU birds. Shumway didn't forget to embellish on that hair pull; it surely had Drogba practicing in the mirror. Whether the referee sanctioned Lambert is not relevant; they baited her, so they have to accept the reaction. I imagine Shumway is going GI Jane for the rest of BYU's season.

If they let the kid from Oregon come back for a post-game sucker-punch and subsequent tirade, they can let Liz here come back for some in-game antics.

And, certainly not least, if this bird is so rough in a football match, imagine what a tiger she must be in the bedroom (and all over the house, for that matter). Liz, if you're ever in the Apple, you know ;-/

Vicious Cyclist

2009-11-03T21:16:00.018-02:00

On the day the Apple will re-elect a carpetbagging cunt from Boston, Bokolis figures he'll talk about one of the fruits of his labor. The ubiquity of bicyclists has been brought about by the Mayor's continuing efforts to emasculate the city and create more traffic in places where there wasn't enough of it.

The cafe-style seating by Herald Square and by 14th and 9th is bad enough. but, we've now got bike lanes all over the city, even on side streets. Just about every street south of 14th has one.

Given such impetus, the cyclists have their cunts up in the air. They don't follow the rules of the road, they drive in your blind spots, think you're supposed to see them and have the balls to talk shit on top of it. I tell them- cause these muthafuckas gotta learn- when the train's coming, get the fuck off the tracks.

Tangent alert!
Global warning and greenhouse gases be damned, Bokolis drives just about everywhere. While I have no problem running the equivalent of a few miles on a soccer pitch or 15 or so miles on the exercise bike, walking 3 blocks to my destination is out of the question. Even when hopping around in the city, unless the prospect of finding parking is so daunting, I will drive to the next stopoff. These 20-something birds look at me like I'm the type of guy who would kick their puppy...with that air of, damn, I might have liked this guy, but that is such a dick move. I don't explain myself because I don't give a fuck. Once you start reacting to birds you're done being a man. It's all good, though, because birds like that don't shave their box (what about those greenhouse gases, right?), meaning they were never in play.
/tangent alert

Most people would bemoan the lack of a legislation reining in these jagoffs; not Bokolis. The last thing Bokolis wants is more rules. I might just be pissed because I can't hammer down in the city like I'm used to.

That extends to enforcement of such rules, even for these muthafuckas. So, I was disgusted when I got an e-mail this morning (from the same homeboy...it may seem that Bokolis only has one friend...as I've explained, I keep them electronically limited...just one friend with my work e-mail) that a friend of mine was ticketed for running a red light while on her way to work...on her bicycle.

Boy, those are some desperate cops. With all the shit going on in Brooklyn, is this what they're enforcing? For taking a bite out of the working man's ass, they should be embarrassed. Williamsburg has already got Skid Row written all over its future. Perhaps they'd like that neighborhood (not Williamsburg) to go back to the way it was, when thugs, thugs who had no problem clipping one of them, rolled chumps in the streets.

She should have never handed over ID. I've always felt that, most of the times a cop gives you a ticket, you've been hustled. This is no exception. That would drive me crazy. I definitely would have gotten into a confrontation because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't.

Aside- Now, you may use one of those PBA cards that your cop friends give you. Using one of those would go against a lot of Bokolis' principles. Besides, as I used to tell my cop friends (back when I had them) when they'd offer a card, they don't want me telling other cops that I know them. I'm a true friend.

But, as it was said in a bad movie, there's no such thing as a cake walk in Brooklyn. In this case, it's one more reason not to bike.

Not so cut and dried

2009-11-03T20:59:00.004-02:00

Same homeboy from previous posts, e-mailing me about having conflicting feelings on who should win. He now would prefer that the philthies win because he won't have to hear it from their fans like he would from Yankees fans.

He was offered a ticket (at face value) to Game 6. He asked for advice on what he should do with it. I told him either go or pass. Then we got into the series. Here's most of what I mustered, left clean for Corporate Big Brother's filters.

The best result would be for the Yankees to get shut down by Petey. They would be soiling themselves with angst at the prospect of a Game 7.

For me, the indignity of a city with a severe second-city complex putting one over on NY far outweighs the fallout from a Yankee victory.

They really messed up by starting Burnett yesterday. I could tell from the first pitch that he didn't have it. I was 100% sure after the first batter.

We didn't discuss it, but I was an advocate of starting Gaudin over lining up Burnett, Pettitte and CC to go on short rest. Punting the game would have been a more viable option, especially with a soft bottom of the order. The only issue with Gaudin would have been if he would have been knocked out so early so as to tax the bullpen. With a day off, that wouldn't have mattered and, as it turned out, he couldn't have done worse than Burnett. Knowing that he would only have to go 4 or 5 innings, I'm sure Gaudin would have done no worse than 3-run ball. That 3-run ball might have won them the game is beside the point.

They'll make the argument that, as it turned out, they had the tying run up twice...yeah, after being down by 6 going into the 8th. That's like being down 4-0, scoring 1 in the 88th, two more in stoppage time, have time for one more long ball from your own end with the keeper in the box, having it cleared out, the final whistle blowing with your opponent running toward your empty goal, and telling me you had a chance to salvage a draw.

On short rest, it's no guarantee that Pettitte's stuff will be any better than last time. The question is, will Pedro's smoke-and-mirror act work twice? As it is now, if they lose again tomorrow, they'll be saying, we got CC in Game 7, but, inside they'll be nervous. They'll be $h!tting bricks when, down by two in the B8 of Game 7, they see Cliff Lee on the mound for to get the last 6 outs.

Don't hate the player, hate the fan

2009-10-26T16:17:00.004-02:00

The Yankees fan lashes out to insulate from his misery and insecurities. Miserable bastards that they are, they cannot enjoy victory without you feeling as bad as they would have had they lost.

Had the Angels gone all the way, their fans could have gotten through the rest of their days from the magic carpet ride, especially given the Adenhart situation. If the philthies went all the way...bad example; the philthies fan didn't know that his team had won until a fan of the other team was finally able to congratulate him before he got punched in the face.

For the Yankees fan to go on that magic carpet ride, you'd have to replicate 1996, which followed over 10 years of a pretty-much garbage product. At that point, most of those assholes were still waiting on the line to jump on the bandwagon.

For them, winning the World Series is typically a slightly better than break-even event. Anything less is a disaster. They have all that firepower, yet whinge about needing to sign Mauer after next season. And, as evidenced from the talk shows around here this past weekend, winning this World Series wouldn't even get them square because they've had to endure two Red Sox championships and the indignity of blowing a 3-0 lead to them.

So, when they lash out at fans of the losing teams, they are simply projecting their own misery onto the rest of us.

I gotcha demons right here

2009-10-26T15:29:00.004-02:00

As Bokolis has told many people, too much firepower. Continuing on the previous post, my buddy agreed that, with Pettitte and CC against Saunders and ??, it was a moot point.

Girardi again tried to squeeze more outs out of his starter. It was almost a carbon copy of Game 5. He got an out (just about) in the 7th, followed by a hit, at which point he went to Joba, just like Bokolis (see last post) would've done in Game 5. Of course, it seems like a much smarter idea when Joba comes in and gets two outs from 7 pitches. It also helps when Jeter boots the grounder and it goes straight to Cano, who was on the bag.

While the Yankees got the breaks and the bounces, they have too much firepower. I see them as a half-notch below a super team (not playing especially well and with a middling manager) that, despite blunted firepower- 2 HR in three games, one of them a short porch special- because the ball is not carrying, took all three at home.

The ending would have been much more interesting had the halos not flubbed the two SAC bunts. Mo wasn't that sharp and I thought the halos were on him. Having scratched out one, they must have felt they could get one more. But, I see all the mistakes they made as their inevitable succumbing to the pressure of having to play against such a strong team. While you can argue that they could/should have won Game 2, I could argue that they shouldn't have won any. So the two games Girardi gifted them is probably a good result in the end.

Moving on, it's not impossible for the philthies to win here. They are the holders and can match up firepower closely enough. They even have a horse that can match CC and there's no indication that the Yankees will play much better than they have. But, the philthies are going to find out the hard way that they're not playing the Mets. Uncle Chollie's bad moves figure to, at the least, neutralize Girardi's, they have no idea what they'll get out of Pedro and Hamels and I have no faith in anyone in that pen...to the point that, assuming that they could get Lee out after 7, I'll spot the philthies a 2 run lead after 7 in every game and would still bet on a sweep.

I'd want some odds, though. Yankees in 6, carbon copy of the LCS.

Demons?

2009-10-23T15:06:00.007-02:00

One of my homeboys, a Mets fan who holds far more venom for the Yankees than I do, e-mails me asking if I think the Yankees will be feeling the demons of '04 creeping up on them if they lose Game 6. What follows is what I could muster.

The Yankees lost both games because of Girardi, who is apparently a graduate of the Willie Randolph school of pitching management. I've been saying for years that, except for a LOOGY, (and in a BIG spot at that) these managers are crazy for shuttling pitchers in and out during innings like they do. He totally mismanages Joba and Hughes and he's a muppet for trying to squeeze extra outs from his starters.

You can argue whether he should have sent out Burnett for the 7th. But, Girardi's rationale was shyte. He said that Burnett had only thrown 80 pitches through six, so he was good to go. Either he was now spent at 89 pitches (BS), or he preferred that Marte face Figgins and Aybar (more BS). Maybe he didn't want Burnett to go through the order a fourth time (even though that's pretty much why you signed him). But, if Girardi was going to send him out, he should have stuck with him...especially since Figgins was about to give him a free out. You have the option of walking Abreu and taking your chances against Hunter with Burnett, who had the ground ball working, rather than Hughes, with a two run lead and the DP in order.

He also messed up by playing Jeter- who is known to cheat to his left because his range up the middle is weak- so far in the hole against Vlad against a right-handed power pitcher.

Bottom line is, if you send him out there, the inning is his. He's either going to get out of the inning or leave trailing. The perfect example was the top of the inning, when Scioscia took Lackey out after 6-2/3 when Lackey hadn't given up a run. You saw Lackey's reaction...and you saw what happened. It's really too bad that their season didn't end that way, because it would probably have facilitated Lackey's free agency (to Flushing, God willing).

They got all they needed from Burnett, especially after a rocky 1st. Once they got the lead after a long T7, that should have been it. I would have sent out Joba to start the 7th with the lead, but really have no problem quickly pulling him because I think the way the Yankees have handled Joba has made him useless for the playoffs. Joba, Hughes, the LOOGY (you shouldn't be using a LOOGY to pitch to Abreu and to turn Figgins around)...the objective is to get out of the 7th any way possible because, once you get to 6 outs, with the next day off, Mo is in play.

The point of that rant is that they gave away two games, whereas the Red Sox took all four. Even if you see parallels, the Yankees have Pettitte and CC lined up, and the Angels don't exactly have Pedro and Schilling lined up and they don't have Ortiz and Manny steroid-up batting 3 and 4. And, if there were demons, I'm pretty sure CC could eat them.

It gets better...they did it again

2009-10-21T14:29:00.006-02:00

What have we done to deserve such comedy? After enduring Phil Cuzzi's rather horrid fuck-up, Tim McClelland, with Jorge Posada and Robinson Cano as supporting actors, easily trumped Cuzzi.

Top of the 5th in last nights Yankees-Angels Game 4, 2nd and 3rd, one out, 2 already home on A-Rod's HR and Yankees slapping around Angels pitching: Swisher hits one back to the box. Posada, seemingly purposely gets hung up between 3rd and home.

With one out, the slow as dogshit and lazy as a dog Posada was going on contact- a bonehead play, but not relevant here. In breaking on a comebacker, it seemed his logic was that it was worth getting his ass off the basepaths to get Cano over to 3rd.

Uhhhh, Jorge, it's really only worth it if Swisher also gets to second. You force the catcher to throw back to 3rd and have the 3B haul ass to chase you home. But, no matter, you lazy cunt, we'll go with your logic.

Posada, after waving Cano on, apparently losing the battle with his ego, retreats back to 3rd to die. In doing so, he obviously forgot that Cano has the baseball savvy of a doorknob and that he'd be confused as to what to do when two players converge on the same base. Posada also showed his lack of baseball savvy by not considering that he, and not Cano, is entitled to 3rd base. With both of them standing on 3rd, Cano would be tagged out, defeating Posada's "point" of getting hung up.

Of course, reality played out even better than theory. Not only does Cano decide not to set foot on 3rd, Posada deliberately overruns the base. As the picture above- apparently owned or some shit by Getty images- shows, neither of them are on the base, and Angels catcher Mike Napoli tags both of these muppets.

This was far too much for McClelland to process. He called Posada out and Cano safe. To make things worse, they now show replays at the ball park (I know I don't go to many games any more but, whenthefuck did this happen?), so the fans went apeshit.

Mind you, this was on the back of ruling that Swisher left early on an apparent SAC fly by (Melky?). Replays showed that McClelland was not looking at Swisher when he left 3rd and was not in good position to see both the catch and the tag-up. This was minutes after the 2nd base umpire blew the call when Swisher was picked off.

No so quick stories: Back in the day when Bokolis played ball, two of the umps were ex-Major Leaguers. It was mind boggling how many close calls these guys missed. They we're worse than some of the other shlubs that were umping just to get out of the house. One time, our opponent tried to turn two on a ground ball. They got one out but the other reached. I don't remember who was who; all I remember was that the ex-ML ump blew both of the calls. I was coaching 3rd. I said to their 3B that he blew both calls. He thought about it for about a second and a half, then agreed and chuckled.

Another time, there was a similar play to McClelland's, involving the other ex-MLer. I'm again coaching 3rd. I set myself up to watch the play, the runner on 3rd AND the ump, who I saw was not watching the runner. Of course, he blew the call. I lace into him and let him know that I was looking right at him and know that he didn't see the play. He got tight, telling me to "shut the fuck up."

It relates to McClelland because of McClelland's reputation. McClelland is a big guy, even by today's standards. In his earlier days, it was understood that he could kick the shit out of most players. So, even when he blew his fair share of calls, no one fucked with him. Scioscia, who hit the bigs about the same time as McClelland, didn't give him shit in the argument, in situation where he needed to get ejected.

Neither Joe Buck, who is as clueless as he is useless, and Tim McCarver, whom the game has passed by, had the balls to say that McClelland's call on Swisher was a make-up call for the botched call on the pick-off.

It's probably for the best. Another story: I once got into it with the (first) ump from above. I watched him botch a play from the on-deck circle where, similar to the first play above, there were multiple things going on and he blew both of them, ultimately calling my guy out when he was safe on that play, but should have been out earlier in the play. I walked through the play and asked him what he saw...took about 10 seconds. When he gave me a shit explanation, I took the first pitch and muttered "make-up call." He called time and, with me smiling, proceeded to ream me a new one.

The experience was worth it; Bokolis learned that officials, whether umpires, referees or judges, are as lazy, if not lazier, than the next guy, and call whatever the fuck they want. There is a lot of shit they don't see, so you have to pick up on that in your argument. Your argument should involve gaming them for the next call. If you think they have it for you, then you stand up to them.

God is a Yankees fan

2009-10-10T11:47:00.008-02:00

The Yankees went up 2-0 in the ALDS, defeating the Twins 4-3 in 11 on Texeira's game winning HR to lead off the Bottom 11th. That it was game winner, as opposed to game tying (or merely getting them closer) shot, has much to do with a blown fair/foul call on Joe Mauer's fly ball down the line during Top 11.

those pictures may be owned or something by Getty images. Hopefully, they won't get too bent out of shape that I'm using them here.

As any Yankees fan- probably one of those guys that screams at you to take off your hat during God Bless America, or screams at a guy in a military uniform to take off his hat during the national anthem- will tell you, they are God's team and they would've won anyway. Though God had nothing to do with having Mijares in the game, God must have seen to it that some (DNA) got in Phil (s)Cuzzi's eye at just the right time. See the kicked up dirt a little below and to the right of center: that's where the ball bounced.

Of course, this is just the latest and a glaring example of a blown call that everybody could see. If you were focused, you saw it fair live; calls don't get worse than that...and they blow a lot of calls.

That will surely drum up renewed calls for expansion of instant replay. Whether the umpires make the call from a viewing booth- which should be in open view, between the end of the net and where Giuliani sits- or it comes down from a command center at MLB (someone Bokolis knows has offered himself up for the job), it's not that hard to pull off. I could draw out the logistics of how it should be done, but that misses the point. Until proper replay is set up, the whole thing is little more than WWF (I use the erstwhile name, not whateverthefuck they call themselves now).

Now, if Cuzzi and C.B. Bucknor- who blew at least 3 calls at 1B in Game 1 of halos-sox- were on the same crew, I'd think that every call- every dust-off of home plate for that matter- would be subject to video review.

Keepin' it Real Goes Awry

2009-09-13T04:24:00.022-02:00

Continuing on an earlier theme, Bokolis takes a slightly more than passing interest in tennis. The draw for me, aside from the bodies on these birds, is that you're on the clock, alone; no coach and, the cunt moves notwithstanding, no strategy session timeouts.

So, I've written about Williams Brother Serena being the pimp of women's tennis. This past evening, she tried to pimp-slap someone with a trust fund, so to speak. Of course, her target is not part of the game, so she effectively got herself DQed, sending Clijsters to the final.

Aside - Clijsters is a personal favorite of Bokolis. Her old man was a footballer and she was built like the proverbial brick shithouse, albeit less so nowadays. She actually seems to be in better shape than before she gave birth. Big up yourself Kim, I'm happy to see you back, but this isn't about you.

I'm pretty sure I saw Serena flash the Wu-Tang sign at some point. Bokolis will break it down worthy of Serena's pimp hand.

The high-brow world (READ: mainstream media) will overdramatize this tirade as a "meltdown." They will show the clip and bleep out the bombs so as to make it appear bestial, as if she lost control and was really on the brink of shoving that ball in the official's mouth. It's being called an "ugly" display.

This is because we're slowly turning into the English that are turning into the French. And, we are NEVER supposed to question authority, much less ream them the occasional new one.

Jehovah couldn't have been too happy with her vernacular (check the handbook; I'm not up on how they take to cuss words and swearing to God), but, of course, that's all bullshit. What's ugly, apart from that troll (and Serena, for that matter), is that, on the grandest stage, this is who is officiating.

Tangent Alert!
This isn't the first time I've seen a Black person use this tactic when a call goes against them. I'm not saying that this is unique to Blacks (White people probably do it too; they're probably more cunty about it) and I'm not saying it's done just because of one inopportune event. I AM saying though, that they got that shit down good. Having grown up in the 'hood, I've seen it done enough times to know it's a contrived tactic, good old-fashioned intimidation. Until I figured out the gimmick, it worked on me a few times. Both before and after, I've seen it work on many other people.

End of Tangent Alert

How do most people act when they have to take shit from people who don't know what it is? More to the point, if you were a professional athlete, and you had to take shit from someone like that troll...hold on. Whether Serena stepped on the baseline is debatable at best. You can't tell me that the troll could even count her own fingers in front of her face, let alone make line calls at a Grand Slam event. And you can't tell me that she is capable of critical thought. This was disproved when she made that phantom foot fault call on a second serve at 5-6, 15-30. In that situation, the server would have to be stepping just about at the service line for you to make that call.

We may selectively bite our tongues with our bosses but, depending on our capacity for confrontation, will set it on some chump that is either, fucking with us or too stupid to be out there. Because, rightly so, if someone is at the pinnacle of their profession, why should they expect to be around people at anything less than the pinnacle of theirs? So, is Serena supposed to sit idly by while some troll interjects herself into the match?

The prevailing sentiment is that the tirade cost her the match. The tirade didn't cost Serena the match. Clijsters whupped her. The tirade happened to come on match point. We are the victims here. We were robbed out of seeing Serena try to battle out of that pickle...and, you just know she would have fought like hell to save that match. In the end, Bokolis has to give Serena credit for taking the ruling in stride.

While Serena dials it up for the majors, tennis is just another thing in her life. As such, she may not have qualms about pissing away a major to stomp someone the fuck out. Whether it was that, or Serena merely standing up for herself, this was a tactic, not a meltdown.

Kicking a Dead Horse's Ass

2009-09-11T12:59:00.005-02:00

Lifted this from Barry Ritholtz' site, complete with symbolic posting time. 9/11 is as good as time as any to point out how Dubya crashed the Bus. In my view, it's symbolic because Bokolis sees Obama as the second plane.

Baby Bush: The Worst President in History?
By Doug Casey

I recognize that I’ve antagonized many subscribers over the years with “Bush Bashing.” In the January TCR, just after OBAMA!’s election, I said I wouldn’t mention Bush again, his departure having made him irrelevant. I only feel bad that he and his minions will apparently get away scot-free with their crimes; better they had all been brought up before a tribunal and tried for crimes against humanity in general and the U.S. Constitution in particular. But that is objectively true of almost all presidents since at least Lincoln.

Most of our subscribers appear to be libertarians or classical liberals — i.e., people who believe in a maximum of both social and economic freedom for the individual. The next largest group are “conservatives.” It’s a bit harder to define a conservative. Is it someone who atavistically just wants to conserve the existing order of things (either now, or perhaps as they perceived them 50, or 100, or 200, or however many years ago)? Or is a conservative someone who believes in limiting social freedoms (generally that means suppressing things like sex, drugs, outré clothing and customs, and bad- mouthing the government) while claiming to support economic freedoms (although with considerable caveats and exceptions)? It’s unclear to me what, if any, philosophical foundation conservatism, by whatever definition, rests on.

Which leads me to the question: Why do conservatives seem to have this warm and fuzzy feeling for George W. Bush? I can only speculate it’s because Bush liked to talk a lot about freedom and traditional American values, and did so in such an ungrammatical way that it made him seem sincere. Bush’s tendency to fumble words and concepts contrasted to Clinton’s eloquence, which made him look “slick.”

I’m forced to the conclusion that what “conservatives” like about Bush is his style, such as it was. Because the only good thing I can recall that Bush ever did was to shepherd through some tax cuts. But even these were targeted and piecemeal, tossing bones to favored interests, rather than any principled abolition of any levies or a wholesale cut in rates.
Is it possible that Bush was actually the worst president ever? I’d say he’s a strong contender. He started out with a gigantic lie — that he would cut the size of government, reduce taxes, and stay out of foreign wars — and things got much worse from there.

Let’s look at just some of the highpoints in the catalog of disasters the Bush regime created:

• No Child Left Behind. Forget about abolishing the Department of Education. Bush made the federal government a much more intrusive and costly part of local schools. Project Safe Neighborhood

• Project Safe Neighborhoods. A draconian law that further guts the 2nd Amendment, like 20,000 other unconstitutional gun laws before it.

• Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. This the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ and will cost the already bankrupt Medicare system trillions more.

• Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Possibly the most expensive and restrictive change to the securities laws since the ‘30s. A major reason why companies will either stay private or go public outside the U.S.

• Katrina. A total disaster of bureaucratic mismanagement, featuring martial law.

• Ownership Society. The immediate root of the current financial crisis lies in Bush’s encouragement of easy credit to everybody and inflating the housing market.

• Nationalizations and Bailouts. In response to the crisis he created, he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and passed by far the largest bailouts in U.S. history (until OBAMA!).

• Free-Speech Zones. Originally a device for keeping war protesters away when Bush appeared on camera, they’re now used to herd.

• The Patriot Act. This 132-page bill, presented for passage only 45 days after 9/11 (how is it possible to write something of that size and complexity in only 45 days?) basically allows the government to do whatever it wishes with its subjects. Warrantless searches. All kinds of communications monitoring. Greatly expanded asset forfeiture provisions.

• The War on Terror. The scope of the War on Drugs (which Bush also expanded) is exceeded only by the war on nobody in particular but on a tactic. It’s become a cause of mass hysteria and an excuse for the government doing anything.

• Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush started two completely pointless, counterproductive, and immensely expensive wars, neither of which has any prospect of ending anytime soon.

• Dept. of Homeland Security. This is the largest and most dangerous of all agencies, now with its own gigantic campus in Washington, DC. It will never go away and centralizes the functions of a police state.

• Guantanamo. Hundreds of individuals, most of them (like the Uighurs recently in the news) guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are incarcerated for years. A precedent is set for anyone who is accused of being an “enemy combatant” to be completely deprived of any rights at all.

• Abu Ghraib and Torture. After imprisoning scores of thousands of foreign nationals, Bush made it a U.S. policy to use torture to extract information, based on a suspicion or nothing but a guard’s whim. This is certainly one of the most damaging things to the reputation of the U.S. ever. It says to the world, “We stand for nothing.”

• The No-Fly List. His administration has placed the names of over a million people on this list, and it’s still growing at about 20,000 a month. I promise it will be used for other purposes in the future…

• The TSA. Somehow the Bush cabal found 50,000 middle-aged people who were willing to go through their fellow citizens’ dirty laundry and take themselves quite seriously. God forbid you’re not polite to them…

• Farm Subsidies. Farm subsidies are the antithesis of the free market. Rather than trying to abolish or cut them back, Bush signed a record $190 billion farm bill.

• Legislative Free Ride. And he vetoed less of what Congress did than any other president in history. The only reason I can imagine why a person who is not “evil” (to use a word he favored), completely uninformed, or thoughtless would favor Bush is because he wasn’t a Democrat. Not that there’s any real difference between the two parties anymore…

As disastrous as he was, I rather hate to put him in competition for “worst president” in the company of Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, the two Roosevelts, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon. He is simply too small a character — psychologically aberrant, ignorant, unintelligent, shallow, duplicitous, small-minded — to merit inclusion in any list.

On second thought, looking over that list of his personal characteristics, he’s probably most like FDR, except he lacked FDR’s polish and rhetorical skills. I suspect he’ll just fade away as a non-entity, recognized as an embarrassment. Not even worth the trouble of hanging by his heels from a lamp post, although Americans aren’t (yet) accustomed to doing that to their leaders.

Those who once supported him will, at least if they have any circumspection and intellectual honesty, feel shame at how dim they were to have been duped by a nobody.

The worst shame of Bush — worse than the spending, the new agencies, the torture, or the wars — is that he used so much pro-liberty and pro-free-market rhetoric in the very process of destroying those institutions. That makes his actions ten times worse than if an avowed socialist had done the same thing. People will blame the full suite of disasters Bush caused on the free market simply because Bush constantly said he believed in it.

And he’s left OBAMA! with a fantastic starting point for what I expect to be even greater intrusions into your life and finances. Eventually, the Bush era will look like The Good Old Days. But only in the way that the Romans looked back with nostalgia on Tiberius and Claudius And then Nero. And then the first of many imperial coups and civil wars.

Adebayor, Adebayyooorr...

2009-09-03T18:34:00.006-02:00

Because I wouldn't go near the site on my own, here's some shit a friend sent me from Fox Sports.

"Manchester City are reportedly planning to raise their concern with (fmc)
officials about a racist Emmanuel Adebayor chant...City are aware of an Adebayor
chant circulating on the internet."

That would be this one- there are others- sure to be taken down any minute. Before we get to the racist aspect, "...circulating on the internet..." Uhhh, like the Internet just hatched up this chant. Like, because everybody learned it on the Internet because, like, nobody was watching the match that day when a whole section of the stadium serenaded him whilst he was stretchered off.

Give me a break; this was all down to a bunch of possibly liquored-up Yids looking to flip the script on the Gooners. If the "Internet" had thought it up, it would have been far more creative.

I wonder if this is typical high-brow cunt semantics.

Only the targets get to decide on the racist nature of the slung mud...apart from Bokolis, of course. Certainly not some cunt club official, not the FA, or Sepp Blatter or Platini. Well, they can, but who gives a fuck.

So, just how racist is this? This aught to be fun. Maybe, not as much fun as Chris Rock delineating the acceptable use of the word "nigger" by White people, but he mailed in Kill the Messenger, so you never know.

Here's the deal. One of the characteristics of racism is that the shit is slung down the social ladder (I would use the term "human hierarchy," but that would acknowledge the existence of a hierarchy and "social ladder" makes for a better metaphor). That's why, when Black people say that White people can't dance, jump, etc., nobody considers it racism. People that blanket the term on any shit thing that happens are implying that Adebayor is not only further down the social ladder from the slingers, but that he is further down the social ladder from the blanketers themselves, admitting (without acknowledging) their own racism.

Adebayor, in a football shirt, is in no way down the social ladder from the patrons, who are marks. Adebayor is the bigger man, so the marks' taunting means nothing unless Adebayor makes it more. To do so, he would have to sink to the marks' level.

Before anyone runs off thinking they have license to sing, consider the point about the target. Good luck convincing your Black neighbor, co-worker, etc., that they shouldn't take it as racist.

Now, if that song is sung to Adebayor while he's in jeans and gators, you lose the luxury of slinging insults without accountability. Besides, if you go around doing shit like that, you have other shit going on that you need to address.

But, leaving aside all the qualifications, is it racist? Here's the text:

Adebayor, Adebayor, his dad washes elephants and his mum's a whore.

Nope. Hey, this a lot of things- which I'm not going to discuss, but calling it racism is lazy. I presume we're on the same rung of the social latter these days, so you'd have to be kicking someone down the social ladder. Unless you're implying that he has no choice but to wash elephants, telling an African immigrant that his dad washes elephants (presumably in Africa) does not do that.

That said, if you're a descendant of people that used to trade humans (or accepted it), understand that you don't get to say shit like this. Granted, it's easy for me to say because it wasn't none of my ancestors. If you go around slinging shit like this or the Sol Campbell song (Sol, wherever he may be, doesn't realize that, as long as he shows that it gets under his skin, it's never going to stop), there's a pretty good chance that, for many other reasons, you're racist.

Are You Ready for Some Foootbaaaalll!!! 2009-10

2009-08-29T17:48:00.009-02:00

Normally, Bokolis doesn't care about the part of the football season played before the group stage of the Champions League. But, the FAs insist on starting the season earlier and earlier each year. The EPL is going to be at least 5 games in before September and they are playing a Milan Derby in August. I know we're in a WC season, but c'mon.

Anyway, I've had to adjust accordingly. This is a new era for the red and black fist, so I've had to assess the damage. Well, I've already assessed the damage; I'm just logging my assessment.

Maldini has finally been allowed to go home and they cashed in Kaká, so Ancelotti correctly figured that this would be a good time as any to get the fuck out of there. So, were left with a Ninja Turtle in charge...errr, yeah, but may as well be. They are now left with a bunch of second rate Brazilians who may as well be on holiday. Just like Milan floundered when Baresi retired, so too will they now. It may be worse now because there are no winners left. Well, there's Gattuso and Seedorf...exactly. Nesta is the only one that so much as masquerades as a quality Italian defender. Ambrosini swears he's good enough to play more than part time. Pirlo is the new Albertini; utterly useless.

We turn to Liverpool, which have, in Tom Hicks, roughly the football equivalent of the Wilpons as (one of) its owner(s). Because, like most deals where Dubya is the seller, it was probably a rigged deal, Bokolis won't go so far as to say that, having purchased the Texas Rangers from the second dumbest man on Earth, Hicks is indeed the dumbest man on Earth. He may be, but I won't let it enter into the analysis.

Like the Wilpons, Hicks and Gillette were keen to cash in on the new stadium payday.

As with the Wilpons, a funny thing happened on the way to the windfall. Both were stung by the prevailing economic conditions. Wilpon's attendance was hurt by the Wall St. set having fallen on hard times, a shit team and its plight and falling victim, to the tune of, depending on who you believe, anywhere from $300MM to $700MM, to Bernie Madoff. The credit shitstorm led to the financing pool drying up on Hicks and Gillette.

So, while Wilpon managed to get his homage to the Brooklyn Dodgers completed, all Hicks and Gillette have is a deed and (can someone go check) broken ground. Liverpool supporters are seething and they want the Yanks to go home, ostensibly in favor of some Dubai group (as if having some nouveau riche Arabs as owners should inspire confidence in management).

What's worse for Hicks and Gillette, they put in place short-term financing, figuring they'd have the place built by now. Those notes are now coming due and they don't really have the scratch. That means, of course, that they've had to sell off some talent. Most notably, while Madrid were throwing around money, Xabi Alonso was sold off for 30 million. That's quid.

Of course, they couldn't replace him, so they're stuck for creativity in midfield and they didn't have any wing play to begin with. This creates messes on the field. And, when those messes are created, Stevie G relegates himself to running around to clean up. He does it just fine but- talk about misplaced resources- it comes at the expense of destroying any semblance of flow.

Nonetheless, I figured that they could do enough so that, with Poof-naldo also moving to Madrid, the filthy manc cunts (fmcs) would slip even more, that Arsenal and Chelski would not gain enough to put the League out of reach. The fmcs have indeed slipped but, after seeing today's match with Arsenal, Fergie must have also taken out a line of credit on his deal with the devil.

So, it's not even September and it seems that both leagues- never mind the Champions League, which is what matters most to Bokolis- are already fucked. Since the fmcs have equalled Liverpool's 18 Leagues and stand an excellent chance of overtaking, the final piece of shit-talking is, what the fuck took you so long?

Who's the pitchers in this game?

2009-04-12T23:56:00.006-02:00

For Zach and Lozo.

George Brett kicking it about shitting himself, which may be an after-effect of his infamous hemorrhoids, which itself might or might not be an after-effect of his long rumored switch-hitting.