thisiswhatyoushalldo

GOP Calls For Dough – From India

I can’t believe this ill-thought-out bit of GOP mismanagement has not made the papers and isn’t what everyone is talking about. I am still stunned when I think about it. As the economy slugs along at stagnation levels equal or worse to those of 1990 – 1991 and as unemployment levels hang steady at 6%, the majority party of our nation is using outsourced telemarketers from New Delhi to raise money for the party. Now fundraising for a political party is no big surprise, nor is the fact that telemarketers are being used. But for the pro-America-all-patriotic-all-the-time-we-are-fixing-the -economy-and-going-to-create-jobs! party to send its fundraising tasks offshore and then have the gaul to call up those very Americans who are out of work and ask them to write them a check seems to be in extremely bad taste. My only answer as to why no one is making bigger hay out of this is probably because the Democrats are doing it to. I just can’t find a source to prove it.

Tickets To The Highest Bidder

People complain about high ticket prices. Football and Hockey tickets are pretty steep already and just try to get tix to a Colorado Avalanche game down at center ice. The tickets run about $65.00 to 75.00 (plus fees and taxes and surcharges) and those prices increase in the playoffs. Later this month, I am going to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Mile High. Floor seats are $79.00. And now we get news from the New York Times that Ticketmaster plans on making some more dough off the expensive proposition. They have announced that they are going to compete head-to-head with the ticket brokers and ticket auction sellers and begin auctioning off tickets to the hottest venues. Apparently, they intend on holding back the best seats in the house and demanding an auction for the tickets, knowing full well that somebody will pay $200.00 or so bucks for a front row seat to Elton John or a hockey game. Ticketmaster’s argument is that the brokers are already doing this, but the promoter, the teams, the athletes and the performers don’t get a cut of the profits when the tickets are brokered outside of a Ticketmaster operation. If money is going to be made, Tickemaster should get a piece of the pie, is the supposition.
I don’t think this bodes well for the average joe. Granted, I am not the kind of guy who goes to see a lot of big arena shows nor do I usually demand in-your-face court-side seating at sporting events. But the market will soon determine the price for tickets and the average guy may be out of luck for any show of any decent quality. Imagine the general admission seating – the first-come first-serve floor seats generally set aside for the ardent fans who put their time in waiting in line for a spot up close. This could easily be a thing of the past as the rich corporate cats will now have a chance to ALWAYS have reserved, up front seats, even at shows without reserved up front seats – because they were able to give Ticketmaster some extra dough for the privlige. As it is now, brokers can’t control that aspect of a venue and those expensive broker tickets are only as good as reserved seating for venue rules for general admission warrant. But Ticketmaster helps writes those rules and now they have a way to make it in their interest to get rid of the standing-room-only-in-front-of-the-stage action and replace it with some prime-priced tickets for the corporate cats who can justify the big dollars to see [insert performer or event here] up close without the bother of standing in line or arriving at the venue early.

It blows.

Men’s Fashion Tips

This post could also be titled “How to Dress Like Ed.” Over at The Morning News they have posted a series of basic men’s fashion articles with great tips on selecting dress slacks, how to buy a suit, what color’s of polo shirts should you have, when not to wear suspenders (Always!). And an accompanying piece on Women’s Fashion Tips. Now go out there and shop!

Men’s Fashion: Part 1, Suits

Men’s Fashion: Part 2, Dress Shirts

Men’s Fashion: Part 3, Pants

Men’s Fashion: Part 4, Conclusion

Men’s Fashion: Spring

Women’s Fashion: Fuh da Laydees

My Favorite Virus Related Post

This gave me a giggle, so I am sharing. Send Comments to: I spend a lot of my day deleting garbage emails from the SoBig virus. The subject lines of the virus are those in the post. Clever.

via defectiveyeti

Zevon’s Album Released Today

Snippets of this album are playing on the radio today. As we know, Zevon is quite literally knocking on heaven’s door. If you get the chance to see the VH1 documentary on this the making of this album and Zevon’s story, do so. I watched it over at Kevin’s last night after the depressing Bronco game.
I remember seeing Zevon at the Ogden Theater about 8 years ago. He was just great. Just him and his piano, belting out tunes, even talking requests from the audience. He kept the crowd spellbound as he told stories and jokes between songs and played an abbreviated encore because he needed to get down the road to Woody Creek to spend a few weeks with Hunter S. Thompson. They say he is be ridden now. He has lived 12 months longer than he was “supposed to.” But I worry that with the album’s release, he may finally pass.

Spookie Carnies     

In celebration of summer and days of yor, a photo collection of carnies, those socially misfit migrant carnival workers.
Carnies don’t do it for you? How about clowns? (Be sure and catch the home page here for bad clowns in the news.) Or maybe you need to create your own clown from you favorite celebrity.
And remember: Only you can stop clown porn.

Late Summer Reading

I am plodding through the second volume of Theodore Roosevelt’s biography. About 350 pages in and have hit the wall. It is well written, but after about 950 pages of President Roosevelt, I need some relief. I started picking through David Foster Wallace‘s book of essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again”, as well as beginning a re-read of “A Fan’s Notes”, just the thing to start football season. I have a ton of books in the to be read pile, and a few posted here that I want to get to. I think this fall, I will be some settling down with some good book reading time.
But what is good reading. My sister can read crime genre novels with relative ease but, with my degree in English literature, I get guilty pangs if I am only reading about the latest exploits of Patterson’s Alex Delaware of the latest Grisham. And it isn’t wrong to be lost and free inside a procedural crime book. There is a familiarity there and a sense of safety knowing the bad guy will get caught in the end – – And, but so, why can I no longer concentrate on a book much these days?
I am a veracious reader and have logged in about 20 books this year so far. Hardly a world record, but I used to read so much more. Some of it is this pesky internet. I am drawn to the blogshere and the journalistic websphere and I read the web, really read the web every day. That counts, I am sure but it isn’t the same.
Harper’s is to blame too. Oh, sure, it seems simple enough. How tough can such a thin little magazine like that be. And then blamo, bam, bam, you are stuck trying to get your head around a review by John Leonard and you head starts hurting as he throws even more at you to think about comparing Delilo to a great hamburger or casting high praise to Vonnegut and to Latin American television in the same graph.
I am often left staring vaguely into space.

And Now For Some Fun

Politics, Schmawlaticks. It is time for some world class time wasters from Catch.com. A list of tons of web-based browser games. Use the previous and next links to find all of the games submitted to Catch. It’s the weekend.