Well, someone had to pay for Tim Tebow's hospital bill

Last Thursday began as any other would: I awoke, went to my classes, ate my (pre-packed and cheap!) bagged lunch, and went to get my ticket for Saturday’s football game with Angus.

As we approached the ticket window, I decided to go to the line belonging to the fellow who had given us our tickets for the week prior. After I gave him our school IDs, though, I regretted trusting him with such an important task. After swiping Angus’ card and printing his ticket, he informed me that because my card wouldn’t swipe, I would have to high-tail it to the student union to get another one before I could have the ticket that I’d already paid for.

“So, they’ll replace it?”

“Yeah, for 15 bucks.”

Wait a second, Johnny Ticketmaster. My ID had never once swiped properly before. I watched you guys. You would try to swipe it on one machine, again on another machine, and then you would break down and enter my student identification number into your magical ticket machine, and I would have my tickets. Heck, I even watched you do it a mere seven days prior!

Upon telling him this, he simply told me to get a new card. No apologies, no explanations for his inability to deal with customers, not even a smile for the fat, hairy guy who was about to speed walk across campus in 300 degree weather.

So, after some choice words for my newfound archenemy, I went. I gave Bernie Machen $15 to replace a card that hadn’t worked since he gave it to me three years ago. I ran back to the ticket office, drenched in Eau de Peterson, gave some new choice words to the incapable one behind the window, and I was on my way.

However, leave it to me to find the silver lining. Though I may have lost $15 and gained a new (terrible) photo on my ID, I apparently have an unused vending account from years ago with $30 still left on it.

Take that, ticket tyrant! My net profit of 15 dollars has foiled your dastardly plan, and the citizens of the UF community can now sleep easier with the knowledge that you aren’t invincible.

Is not Oasis the greatest British band since the Beatles?

Just a quick thought on the Twitterverse fodder of the day: I think Joe Wilson is doing a great service to America by gradually introducing a House of Commons type discourse to the Congress. If we could get anything half as entertaining as the Prime Minister’s Questions, CSPAN could well become a legitimate factor during sweeps week this year.

Oh wait, it would be going up against Jay Leno’s new show. Never mind, I think Congress is more entertaining as it is.

The Mets are only 14 games out of the Wild Card

Another year, another idiot given the opportunity to let his voice be heard in the Alligator.

Oh, I didn’t mean this guy, I meant me.

A rare retraction

Okay, so I was wrong about the whole Billy Mays being Jesus’ right hand man thing. I imagine I should have realized something was going on when he got so excited over the iTie. No one should be that pumped about an article of men’s fashion.

Billy Mays, we hardly knew ye

Well, a couple of weeks have gone by since the King of Infomercials passed on. And you know what? I am pretty well peeved by the fact that the death of this true American hero was overshadowed by the untimely(?) death of some eccentric white woman with an affinity for little boys.

Billy Mays, you deserved better than this. In the wake of Michael Jackson’s trip to the preteen farm in the sky (or, as it were, deep below the ground in the special section of Hell), your passing garnered nothing more than a footnote in the media.

I watched Jackson’s memorial yesterday. Mariah Carey and Lionel Ritchie performed. Thousands flocked to see his gold casket. They closed down a Los Angeles freeway for his funeral procession, for Christ sake. People seem to forget the fact that mere months ago, this dude(?) was a monster in the eyes of society. I know it’s not kosher to speak ill of the dead, but in my defense Michael Jackson looked like he died 15 years ago. His heart was just catching up with the times.

But Billy Mays? There had never been a bad thing to say about this bastion of capitalism. He never slept with children. He was never a weird guy. The closest he ever came to buying a chimp named Bubbles was doing that TV show with Anthony Sullivan. He was just an honest man with a timeless beard that peddled mighty products that helped Americans every single day.

America, you sicken me. Sure, Jackson may have busted a move now and again. But his legacy seems vastly overrated. His music, in my opinion, was all right. But it was nothing compared to the stain-fighting powers of OxyClean, the adhesive abilities of Mighty Mendit, or the absorbency of Impact Gel.

In the end, though, Billy Mays’ celebrity status caught up with him. Because when God called the toll-free hotline for Michael Jackson’s kicking of the bucket, he threw in the passing of a television legend absolutely free. Just paid shipping and handling.

On Bandwagons and Blue Jays

I have been extremely derelict in my duties these past few weeks, but I have a good excuse. Two of them, as a matter of fact!

First, like the rest of the state, I have been glued to the television watching the Orlando Magic try to get the big orange ball into their hoop.

I’m actually kidding.

In reality, I cannot stand that all of a sudden folks are jumping onto the Magic bandwagon just as fast as they did with the Rays last year. Now, I understand that there may be some hardcore fans of Orlando basketball, but from an admittedly cursory look at Facebook status updates and newspaper coverage, it seems to me like that most of my comrades from the Tampa Bay area have either been very secretive about their allegiances or this is another case of spontaneous bandwagon jumping.

Don’t get me wrong. I have been watching the games and I would like to see the Magic win it all in the Finals, but I find it humorous that folks can get so enthusiastic one week about something that they didn’t know anything about the week prior. And to anyone reading this who has had a legitimate love affair with the Magic prior to this playoff run, please forgive me and remember that the bandwagon tirade doesn’t apply to you.

A side note, though: Dad and I were discussing the extremely amusing prospect of starting a short basketball league wherein all players must be 5’7” or shorter. But that is neither here nor there.

The second reason that I have been so suspiciously absent is that I have begun my second tour of duty in Dunedin. Much to my delight, we still have many of the regulars, but Calvin doesn’t show up any more. Maybe he got promoted to AA.

I will now leave you with a video of the great D-Jay busting all sorts of moves this weekend. If you are in town, be sure to come out to a game. The $6 tickets and mascot revelry makes up for the abhorrent play of the team.

One Awesome Thing And One Not Awesome Thing

Awesome: Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel. Just in case 30 seconds of Billy Mays screaming at the top of his lungs and smiling like a forty-something housewife at a Botox treatment is just too short a time to fully appreciate his greatness, this is for you. And he’s based out of Tampa, which makes it the second ridiculous show like that to come about in my backyard, after the short but hilariously ill-fated Hogan Knows Best.

Not Awesome: Daytona Cubs Centerfielder Anthony Campana. Ian and I went out to the Clearwater Threshers game last night, and after 13 and a half innings, the score was tied. After walking two batters to load the bases with one out, Clearwater’s Fidel Hernandez flied out to centerfield, where Campana did a double-pump and never even parted with the ball, allowing the man on third to tag up, score and win the game. I know this isn’t particularly interesting, but I looked and there doesn’t seem to be a formal account of Campana’s epic failure on the Internet. I just feel that this should be documented lest he ever become anything in the realm of baseball.

So, it took me a month to formulate a new opinion?

I know I have been very derilect in my writing duties, but school, work, and my devotion to Spring Training are killing me nowadays. Maybe I will return next month. Moving on, a random observation.

You know what’s stupid? Kids who wear those army-type ball caps. Dude, I realize that you are a twentysomething who hates the machination of society or something, but the mere fact that you feel the need to wear that shows me that you care more about appearing like a revolutionary intellectual than actually, you know, thinking about stuff.

Escalating Conflict

You know, folks in this dog-eat-dog world need to embrace the little things in life that can provide a well-deserved breather.

I realized this today when I was in Library West on campus, proceeding up to the second story to use one of the (inexplicably often broken) water-free urinals on the second story. For those who avoid the library like the plague due to the masses of gabbing sorority chicks and braniacs, to get to the second story of the library one must first proceed up an escalator to get to the meat of the building.

It seems that whenever I’m making my way up these escalators, there’s always some toe-tapping kid behind me who takes exception to the fact that I remain sedentary on the escalators, waiting for the magical moving steps to whisk me up to the next level.

When this happens I feel sort of pressured to treat the escalator like an immobile staircase and climb it like some sort of health nut. Naturally, I do as I am tacitly expected, thus exerting myself – though unnecessarily – so that I can minimize any awkward feelings from the folks behind me.

Now, I’m not really overly concerned with the sacrifice of motion that I make for these people. What I’m most disturbed by is the fact that these people cannot fathom the notion of merely relaxing for ten seconds and letting the wonders of modern innovation make their lives a smidgen easier.

I think the world would be an infinitely better place if people would just accept any gift of mechanized relief that might arise in their path and take comfort in the wonders of the twenty first century.

Spring Has Sprung… Finally.

Ah, it has been four months too long. Not going to dwell on the splendor that Spring Training brings since I’m sure everyone knows my thoughts on that by now, but I just wanted to point out that this photo is awesome:

(Click for a link to the original. Props to Marc Topkin at the Heater Blog and Dirk Shadd of the St. Pete Times.)