And I don’t mean the Miami Heat, although their loss in the NBA Finals caused a lot of pain in Miami… Just a quick look at the headlines over the last few days shows some disturbing trends. Is it all heat-related, or are people just plain goin’ crazy? Farm Thieves Target Grapes, Bees Bees? Really? How badly must your brains be boiled to burgal some bees? I can see the Bee-thieves now in a Honey-colored van staking out the beekeeper’s digs… “Oh, man–it’ll be Honey-Nut Cheerios for years to come once we snatch them bees!” Who tries to steal something that can sting them? Screw stealing cars, jewelry, or electronic equipment–there’s liquid gold in them hives! Stunned Straphangers Look On As Women Brawl Over Seat On L Train In Brooklyn I take the subway almost every day, and it’s like a sauna in some of the stations. But the cars themselves are usually very comfortable with very strong Air Conditioning keeping you cool. But not cool enough for these two fine ladies. Brawling over a seat on the subway? I’ve sat on those seat–they’re nothing special. So they’re duking it out while one of the kids in a stroller goes rolling away on the subway. Heat will make you do that, apparently. I’d guess this fight wasn’t really over a seat–probably more like someone dissed somebody’s baby-daddy or something like that. Now they’re YouTube Superstars… Men Use Tin Foil, Ladder To Scam Gas Station Not sure if this one’s really heat-related but I find it so fascinating that I had to include it. Basically, two dudes climb up on the roof of a gas station / mini-mart, put tinfoil over the satellite dish that transmits credit card information, and then go on a shopping spree. The credit card seems to work, but the information is never received by the processing company, and the cashier at the mini-mart has no idea this is going on. Two points: 1) Amazing how crafty and innovative people can be when it comes to theft. 2) All this craftiness and innovation and you hit a gas station mini-mart? Why not a Macy’s or a Tiffany’s? Thieves Snatching Natomas Storm Drain Grates Another genius job. Thieves stealing cast-iron storm grates in California. I guess they’re just taking everything that isn’t literally nailed down as California spirals into the abyss. Value of each storm drain after melting down the iron: 1¢. Cost to replace the storm drain: $63. I don’t get it either. Man allegedly fires gun after girlfriend rejects proposal I guess this feller’ aint takin’ no for an answer. Some people take the meaning of the term “Shotgun Wedding” a little too literally. I hear the bride will be wearing a stunning dress from the Donna Karan Kevlar collection. Send your cards, flowers, and shotgun shells to the Hobart, Indiana Mensa Chapter.

Keep your cool, kiddos! -MM

Original Story here http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/12/no-small-fries-restaurant-bans-kids-under-six-years-old/

Ah, what a spot of good news!  Here’s a win for adults tired of having to deal with the far-too-common annoyance of out of control children in public places.  Finally, a restaurateur with some common sense! 

“Beginning July 16, 2011, McDain’s Restaurant will no longer admit children under six years of age. We feel that McDain’s is not a place for young children. Their volume can’t be   controlled and many, many times, they have disturbed other customers.”

Oh, I wish I was closer to Monroeville, Pa. so I could frequent this fine establishment!  Now, for all of you parents with small children who are “offended” by this sentiment–get over it!  There used to be a time, technically not so long ago, when children were taught how to behave in public–and if they couldn’t, the parent would remove them.  But now, “Social Embarrassment” or “manners” are a thing of the past so rather than allow out of control kids and their self-centered parents ruin the dining experience of adults, the owner of this restaurant has instituted a policy to enforce simple common sense and courtesy.  Pretty pathetic that you have to have rules about common sense and courtesy, huh?

But that’s America in 2011.  A nation of self-centered jackasses and nincompoops worshiping Snookie and getting tattoos all over their bodies, including their faces.  Aren’t they soooo cool?  Gee, wonder why they can’t get a decent job?  That’s OK, here’s your Food Stamps and Section 8 Housing Voucher–the “squares” will pay your way, Fonzie!   Hey, you deserve it, you’re special!

Seriously, you’d never have to have such rules just 20 years ago–people still had a sense of dignity about themselves.  But not now–oh no, no way!  Try and tell Slobbo McGuillicutty and his baby-momma to keep their kids under control and you’re angling for a beating, yo!  How dare you “diss” Slobbo!  So, Slobbo and the baby-momma make spectacles of themselves while everyone’s evening is ruined.  But that’s a good night for Slobbo and the gang–they busted up your nice night real good!  What a great country we live in!

Now, many people might say “I teach my kids manners and they’re always well behaved in public” – maybe so, but that’s not good enough!  Since there are so many others who refuse to discipline their kids, everyone now must suffer.  This is what happens when society breaks down.  Common courtesy and social graces disappear, and rules and laws have to be adopted to keep people from killing each other.  Wonderful.  Some might think this is a bit draconian–really?  You can’t even smoke in a BAR in most places in this country and you think this is draconian? Just be quiet.

And it’s not just the kids–their parents can be just as awful in their behavior.  How many times have you been in a decent establishment only to have a group of “Fellas” next to you dropping “F-bombs”, “MF-bombs”, and (especially here in NYC) “MF’n N-word bombs” as if they were talking about the weather?  Real nice if your trying to have a civilized time with a date, or perhaps your elderly parents or grandparents.  Apparently, public vulgarity is the new “black”.

Hopefully one day we can lure all of these “types” of people into one area with the promise of “free stuff” and the vulgarity they can muster–someplace nobody likes and is a dump anyway, like Detroit–and when they’re all in, put a big wall around it and never let them out.  We can air-drop food and supplies every month and watch them fight it out for the provisions on TV via Pay-Per-View.  That’ll solve the debt crisis right there. 

So parents, take your kiddies to Chuck-e-Cheese or McDonald’s and let them scream and yell all they want while you’re zonked on Ambiens….just don’t take them to decent restaurants and adult establishments–oh, and spring for the couple of bucks and hire a sitter the next time you go to a movie for God’s sake!

-MM

This is a fitting post for the upcoming 4th of July weekend-basically this distinctly human trait of ruining anything that’s good.  Look at our own country; had a great thing going then we all just sat back while politicians raped the treasury and bribed certain segments of the population with other people’ s money in exchange for their votes.   We are now so far in debt it will be impossible to dig out.  For those of you thinking a “recovery” is coming, well get over it.  Massive poverty, riots, and the breakdown of society is already here and it will continue to get worse.  There is no solution.

Now that I’ve brightened your day with a clear-eyed assessment of how people will destroy anything successful, let’s turn to an everyday example that everyone can relate to: Facebook.  Facebook, the mega-successful upstart start-up that made its’ shady creator billions is currently imploding.  Many of you are probably thinking “huh?”–but you just haven’t noticed it yet.  Everything that made Facebook great is being taken away in the pursuit of a couple of extra advertising dollars.  Well, enjoy those extra ad dollars FB; you’re gonna need them!

 As most FB users know, FB has a really bad habit of “changing” features and formats.  Usually for the worse.  But most times these changes are announced, so yeah it’s annoying but it’s usually temporary, or the changes actually help.  There’s also other problems like the incredible amount of spam and viruses that the FB team seems to tolerate as they chase those advertising dollars.  At least one of my friends gets a virus or hacked every single day, and apparently nothing is done about it.  I protect myself by never answering poll questions, opening applications, or playing any type of Facebook game.

But what has prompted this little tirade of mine is what happened to me yesterday with Facebook.  Now, already I was a little miffed with the previous redesign–the one where they made “Top News” your default feed and you had to manually click on “Most Recent” to get your chronological news feed.  But yesterday I signed into Facebook and my “Most Recent” button was gone and replaced with “Questions”–as if I want to be making poll questions for people to answer.  Answering stupid made up poll questions is the type of thing that most people with an above room temperature IQ avoid, thank you very much.  At first I thought my Facebook was broken–tried clicking around, tried resetting my account settings, etc, with no luck.  Then I Googled “Most Recent is gone” and found out what happened…

Apparently the geniuses at Facebook decided to “experiment” with a “new feature” on about 1% of FB users, without telling anybody first.  Great.  Now if I was asked if I’d like to participate in this little exercise in nonsense I would have said no.  But if they just did it anyway, but let me know prior to doing it and asked me to send them my feedback about these new “features”, I wouldn’t have had a problem with that.  I don’t think anybody would have a problem with that.  But no, that’s not what happened, instead I got my FB fuxxated and no way to get it back.  There are now user groups dedicated to this “experiment”–some people are getting there FB “back” after a few weeks, some after a few days, some not at all.  Many people claim to have deleted their profiles over this.  I’ve personally emailed FB about this issue and how bad it is and have received nothing back but an automatic canned response.  How stupid are these people?  Very!

Just so you’re aware, what has happened is that “Most Recents” is gone.  Now your news feed is a jumbled mess of out of order posts you’ve seen dozens of times already.  If you scroll down about halfway through your screen you might see a gray bar that says “Most Recent” on it.  It is very difficult to see and you will scroll past it multiple times before finding it.  This is where your chronological feed starts.  Pretty stupid huh?  “Hey, let’s scroll through all these posts I’ve already seen 15 times already until I get to the chronological feed” – yeah, that’s what people want to do.  Also, to make it even worse, they’ve removed my Events and Birthday Notifications from the right hand side and have replaced it with a Twitter-like “Happening Now” feed consisting of what your friends and what their friends are doing.  So, if someone you don’t know comments on a post by someone you know, you’ll see the comment from someone you don’t know.  You won’t see the post that he was actually commenting on, but you’ll see the comment.  From people who aren’t your friends.   Again, how stupid are these people?  Very!

So if you use Facebook quite a bit like I do, prepare to have your experience ruined.  Honestly, it’s practically useless for me now.  In fact, my FB iPhone app won’t even work right now–just gets the same posts from days ago and it will not update.  Great job, Facebook. 

For those that might think, “Well, you can’t complain–FB is free!” I’ll say it again in a slightly different way….How stupid are you?  Very!  Business models that depend on advertising that do not keenly and closely listen to their “customers” (yes you are a customer–you are the one that brings in ad revenue for them) do not last long.  It’s just the way it is.  So, for this and other reasons, I don’t see FB lasting more than a few more years as a massively popular social networking site.  Between the spam, viruses, hacking, privacy issues, and the endless “need” to change things that already worked fine, the writing is already on the wall–er, on the “Top News” feed.  I think I’ll just change my FB profile to my website address–if you really want to contact ME, that would be the place to go.

-MM

I’ve been battling to set up a new system at my office for weeks now and it’s just been a giant headache! First going form Entourage, then over to Outllook, now trying Google Apps, with sales reps telling me one thing, then tech guys telling me something totally different–I just want to throw all of them right in the garbage! What a scam!

I tell you, I think computers are ruining our lives–they’re just a huge time waster except for getting news stories, checking the weather, watching videos of cute kittens, porn, skype-ing people overseas for free, online video games, porn, saving on postage by using email, facebook, keeping all of your personal papers and information in one convenient place, fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy porn, instant access to recipes for the cooking-challenged, videos of men getting kicked in the crotch, blogging, porn, excel spreadsheets that do the math for you, ordering bowling shirts, sending the Mets ownership hate mail, photoshopping my boss’s face on the butt of a jackass, porn, more recipes, movie reviews, instant traffic updates, booking discounted airline flights, videos of dolphins playing with cats, porn, starting global geothermal nuclear war by accident, online banking, celebrity mugshots, and porn.

Except for that, computers are pretty much useless….

The NCAA Championship Game….what the Hell was THAT?!?

Well, that was the worst championship game I’ve ever seen… the UConn Huskies defeated the Butler Chuckers 53-41 in a game that had to have had the other 62 participants in the tournament thinking “Are You Kidding Me?!?!” At halftime, the score was 22-19…I thought football season was over a long time ago. With brick after brick being offered up by Butler, the boredom got so bad I started flipping around… oh, a re-run of Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” on PBS….flip some more; hey an episode of “King of the Hill” I haven’t seen in quite some time. Finally, I started thinking that anything would have been a better match up to watch than this…so I constructed my own Final Four scenarios which would have been much more exciting.

The National Championship of Condiments, Final Four

After a grueling few rounds of single-elimination competition, there were some surprises (bracket-destroyer Relish upsetting Salsa to advance to the Elite 8 comes to mind) but as predicted the Final Four came down to the pre-tournament favorites, Ketchup, Mustard, Salt, and Pepper. Here’s how the tournament finished….

Ketchup took on Pepper in a close contest. Although Pepper had the advantage of being a long-time powerhouse, Ketchup was able to neutralize Pepper’s bench-depth with an outstanding and creative game plan, which was able to beat Pepper’s classic sneeze-inducing defense. With the game tied at 86 with 3 seconds left, Individual Single-Serving Ketchup came off the bench and sunk two free-throws to put Ketchup up by two. With 3 seconds left, Pepper called a time out and devised one last play. Pepper tried to inbound the ball, but Squeeze Bottle Family Size Ketchup poured himself all over the court and drowned Pepper’s last second hopes, sealing the victory for Ketchup 88-86. Ketchup advanced to the Championship Game.

Tournament favorite Salt advanced over Mustard in a lopsided 98-66 contest. Salt opened the game with a 18-2 run, and never looked back. Mustard’s outstanding point guard Dijon was not a factor at all, and finished the game with only 12 points. The Spreading Yellows were over matched, with All-American forward Honey Mustard sidelined with bad case of the runs. Salt’s outstanding freshman center Sea Salt dominated the boards yet again in this easy victory. Salt advanced to the Championship Game.

The Championship Game was a classic, with perennial favorite Salt taking on the upstart Ketchup team. Ketchup’s razzle-dazzle offense pitted against Salt’s smothering defense and inside dominance. The game went back and forth, and neither team never led by more than 3 points throughout the contest. Salt’s freshman sensation Sea Salt had the best game of his career, besting Ketchup’s All-American center Sugar-Free Family Size. It was a close game until the end, but it seemed that Salt was the better prepared team; almost as if they knew what was coming. This makes sense when you realize that Salt is a critical ingredient in Ketchup. In the final moments, Ketchup attempted it’s patented “Smother Defense” but tournament MVP Loose Shaker of the Salt team was able to cover Ketchup completely, drying out their defense strategy while leaving a bad taste in Ketchup’s mouth. Final score, 92-89 with Salt winning the Championship. After the game, the Salt team engaged in its’ traditional Championship celebration; going out to the parking lot and pouring themselves over slugs, while the Salt’s ecstatic fans cheered them on. What a game!

The National Championship of Alcohol, Final Four

After stumbling through the brackets, we’ve ended up with our Final Four of Beer, Wine, Tequila, and this year’s Cinderella team, Jaegermeister. With some other surprises (a Whiskey forfeit in the elite 8–hungover) the tournament favorite Beer dominated the competition, winning each game by more than 10 points. Would this be Beer’s year again?

The first game pitted Wine vs. Tequila. It was a back and forth contest, with Eastern Conference MVP Cabernet leading the scoring. Tequila kept pace, though, with a great combination of shots, poppers, and mixed concoctions that kept the Wine team off balance for most of the game. By the last 5 minutes of the second half, Chablis, Cabernet, and Merlot had all fouled out–Merlot actually was ejected for launching a tirade of obscenities at referee Jose Cuervo Mezcal– Merlot was convinced was favoring the Tequila team with his calls. Oh well…as they say “en vino veritas”. With three of its’ starters on the bench in the final minutes, Tequila downed shot after shot to seal the win 74-65, then took a much deserved siesta.

The second game featured tournament favorite Beer versus the upstart Jagermeister crew. It was no contest. The combination of Pilsner, Ale, and the speedy Ultra-Light took looked completely unprepared for the assault of Jager bombs and the pinpoint accuracy of Jagermeister’s All-American point guard, 6 foot Redheaded Nazi. Although Beer’s dominate center Boilermaker was a force throughout the game, Jagermeister countered with 3 point Jager bomb after Jager bomb. The Beer team looked unprepared and winded, and with ten minutes left in the game had fallen so far behind they simply gave up. The Jagermeister’s cruised to an easy victory 88-54.

The Championship game paired Tequila vs Jagermeister. This was a fast and furious game, with Tequila’s point guard Sunrise nailing 3 pointers, and Jagermeister’s 6 Foot Redheaded Nazi countering with Jager bombs of his own. The game swung back and forth, until the final 5 minutes when the Jagermeister team suddenly looked disinterested and distracted by cheerleaders and the food vendors at courtside. Sensing something wasn’t right, Jagermeister Head Coach Area 51 called a time out, and consulted with the officials courtside. After some confusion, replays clearly showed referee Jose Cuervo Mezcal had spiked the Jagermeister team’s refreshments with alcohol-drenched Mezcal worms–a clear violation of tournament rules. The Tequila team was forced to forfeit the game, and the upstart Jagermeister team was declared the tournament champion. No one remembers the final score. Jose Cuervo Mezcal is now under investigation by the International Distilled Spirits Association, and the Tequila team has been banned from playoff competition for 4 years.

Hey, this was a lot more interesting than that “Dog” of a game last night!

-MM

Here in NYC, we have quite the selection of premium “Bowling Establishments”. From Bowlmor Lanes, to Lucky Strike lanes (Bobby DeNiro’s favorite), Chelsea Piers, Frames at the Port Authority–all of them have one trait in common: great places to bowl, but very expensive! But everything’s very expensive here, so nobody’s surprised. But, it’s difficult to keep a regular bowling schedule when you’re a marginal celebrity with a day job, so what do you do to get your bowling fix when you can’t (or can’t afford to) hit the lanes?

Enter Action Bowling, a free app for the iPhone….

This is a cool little app by Kronos a the right price–FREE. There is a paid version, but how about buying some shirts from Bowling Concepts before I go on a mad iPhone App spending spree, OK?

After installing, the game comes on and has limited options, which is good. Keeping it simple is always best for iPhone games. The music is easy to turn off (do it!), because the sound effects are really good for a free app. You start off looking down your lane, with your ball at the bottom of the screen.

With your finger or thumb on the ball, a little back motion then forward gets the ball going, the “harder” you “throw” the faster the ball goes. Sometimes when you have a full rack of pins, the ball goes a little slower–probably a program / graphics limitation, or perhaps I should clear out all those voicemails from Charlie Sheen I never listened too (why bother? it’s always the same thing–winning, winning, winning) but regardless–it’s not a big deal.

As for the actual rolling, you can use english both ways – it’s very tricky, but that’s what makes the game fun, challenging, and great for repeat plays. After a few frames, I rolled my first “real” game–a 145. Obviously, the Sun was in my eyes or something. But this is a fun game, challenging, and something that will speed your time on the Subway, Ferry, Bus, or as a passenger in traffic. As usual, I wouldn’t recommend playing while operating a motor vehicle–plus you wouldn’t be able to down a beer after a strike.

Are there any other apps out there worth checking out? I also love Darts by Fictorial and Strike Night by Backflip Studios. Remember those “bowling” games in the bar back in the day? The ones where you chuck a metal puck down a “lane” and the plastic pins fold up depending on how many metal rods on the lane your metal puck contacted? Yeah, that’s the one.

Oh, and of course, all of them are FREE!

Motzie gives a thumbs up!

I’m not sure I meant it exactly like that.

Here are some things that I know about you. Since you’re reading this blog you are highly intelligent and a person of incredible taste. You are also very likely incredibly attractive; dare I say, breathtaking?

You are also hip, with it, cool and whatever outdated phrase that means you aren’t – outdated, I mean.

*Sigh* this doesn’t seem to be going very well. What I’m trying to say is that if you are reading this blog then you are probably a person with taste and sophistication. And that means that you are exactly the right kind of person to become a Facebook fan of BowlingConcepts.

So, just scoot on over to the BowlingConcepts fanpage on Facebook and join.

Not on Facebook yet? Hmm, maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.