My Peeps

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

2009 FBR Open

Hello all.

Shoveling is fun.

Still no job, but opportunities are abound. In the meantime I have written another article on the bleacher report with my latest six pack.

Follow this link:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/116490-the-2009-fbr-open-six-pack

Don't forget to catch me live at 5:00 pm on hardcoresportsradio.com

Later,

BLJ

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Something Filthy and Absolutely Trashy

I was in Stop and Shop buying some groceries the other night, when I realized I needed a new Stop and Shop savings card, as the one on my key chain was barely scanable any more. As I waited in line I noticed a sign advertising, "City of Malden Trash Bags."

I was curious about these special trash bags, as they were NOT cheap. They were very expensive. You could buy ten 15 gallon bags for $10. FYI, a 15 gallon trash bag is the size that you would use for your typical kitchen trash can. They also sell the 33 gallon bags. You can buy 10 of those for $20. What a deal.

I asked the young lady behind the counter, " 'Scuse me Miss, what's the deal with those fancy Malden trash bags?"

She informed me that if you live in Malden (the municipality next door to my beautiful city of Revere) that you must throw away all of your garbage in these special bags only, or they would not take your garbage. I was stunned. I found this to be one of the most ridiculous things I had ever heard of in my life. I immediately thought of the Payola and pocket lining that was surely going on from this "scam." More on that in a moment.

After leaving the store I recalled seeing my cousin Mark over the holiday season. He owns a two family apartment building in Portland, ME. My memory was then jarred of his tale of the "special blue City of Portland" trash bags. The prices I believe were the same as Malden's prices. Otherwise they were very similar.

All this garbage talk got me thinking. Surely these cannot be the only communities that utilize these trash tossing systems. There must be others. So of course I Googled it. BTW, Google is my new favorite transitive verb. The results of my Googling were interesting.

Apparently there are over 100 communities just in Massachusetts that have some sort of Pay As You Throw (PAYT) program. I also found a town in Edmonton, Canada called St. Albert that has special "tags" placed on the garbage. Their fee structure was based on a sliding scale. One bag and one can of trash costs "x" per week, two bags, and two cans costs, "y" and so forth and so on. Their system has also been in place since 1996.

My initial outrage and skepticism of this program in Malden actually got me thinking and made me realize that these programs are actually a GOOD thing. I know, I know, $1 or $2 per trash bag is NOT a good thing. However the action it requires the resident to take is a good thing. That action is trying to force the hand of the consumer to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Waste disposal costs are increasing and many communities are being forced to pass this cost on to the resident. Since the cost for some areas is now unavoidable i.e. Portland, ME and Malden, MA they can be managed. You can buy fewer trash bags, by recycling more. If your community is hitting you on both sides by charging you for recycling AND trash bags, reform is needed.

In Revere, we recently got new recycling bins from a program called RecycleBank. Our schedule remained the same, however we now have an incentive to recycle and the new bins are HUGE and on wheels. The more we recycle (by weight) the more we qualify for rewards i.e. coupons and gift cards for various local and national vendors. It is fortunately still free to recycle here in Revere, but alas we may soon be moving towards a PAYT system.

Why would I say that? The reason is simple. People are lazy. People still will rather pay for $2 trash bags than take 10 seconds to rinse a tin can, or plastic bottle and set it aside in a separate trash can. I own a three family apartment building. I live on the second floor. My tenants above and below are both good size families, and I know that they recycle some, but not totally. Each week I haul out seven completely full 35 gallon trash cans. Some weeks there is more. I don't sift through their trash, but just from looking at some of the white kitchen bags on my trek to the curb, it is obvious there are cans, glass containers and many corrugated cardboard containers and packages, being tossed away, instead of being recycled.

I have always recycled since the mid 90's when awareness became chic. My years in Breckenridge, CO saw me toting my recycling down to the recycling center on the north side of town in French Creek a couple of times a month. I did this because I could not afford the costly curbside pick up and recycling is something I truly believe in.

There are a few lessons to be learned here. If you currently don't recycle, then shame on you. If you have kids, and you don't recycle and aren't making it part of their daily routine, then double shame on you. It should be as standard as brushing your teeth in the morning and before bed. After all, it's really their world we are all trying to make better isn't it?

I learned to not always think the worst of a situation. Yes, paying $2 for a trash bag sucks, but the ultimate goal of what is trying to be accomplished is what is important. I think some simple information as to WHY these areas are charging for bags needs to be distributed throughout the communities. The only thing many consumers realize is that they are getting poorer by paying to throw things away. They do not realize the problems with landfills being over capacity, is directly related to people not recycling. Understanding will help promote action, and hopefully eliminate the need for a PAYT system in the future.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Bob Hope Chrysler Classic

Man, today was busy. I finally received my back log of almost three months of unemployment checks! I feel a lot better, and somewhat relieved, even though I really wish I had a kick ass job instead. At least now I can focus more on my career and a little bit less on worrying about how I am going to eat. Frankly I think Pinehurst (my cat) and Echo (my dog) are a little tired of me staring at them as they wolf down their Friskies and Store Brand (sorry Echo) kibble.

Anyway, if you want to check out my latest golf article then go here:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/113605-the-2009-bob-hope-chrysler-classic

I am hoping to post a new blog tomorrow if time allows. I really want to write something about Payne Stewart. I miss that guy.

Later,

BLJ

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

and the winner is.....

I just read something on Yahoo! written by David Zinczenko and Matthew Goulding in regards to the most unhealthy foods that you can get at food establishments in the US right now. The one I must share with you is from Baskin-Robbins.

According to The Yahoo! article Baskin-Robbins also topped the charts last year. Instead of taking the bad press to heart and removing last years gluttonous treat, they did the American consumer one better.

They made it even worse.

Last years creation was a Heath Bar shake of some sorts totalling around 2300 calories.

Child's Play my friends, child's play... This years life expectancy shaver is called The Large Chocolate Oreo Shake and here's how this bad boy weighs in:

2,600 calories
135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats)
263 g sugars
1,700 mg sodium

I have a question: Who the fuck drinks this shit? You could consume an ENTIRE 18 oz package of Oreos and only scarf down about 2400 calories.

I would love to walk into a BRICF (Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Facility) and stumble across some obscure monstrosity, ordering this monstrousity. I can imagine myself eavesdropping on the order....

BRICF WORKER: "Welcome to Baskin Robbins, how can I scale down your life expectancy today?"

MONSTROSITY: "I want the Large Chocolate Oreo Shake. (agitatedly) Can you make that with skim milk please?"

EAVESDROPPING CUSTOMER (me): EC pays for that persons tasty frozen concoction and proceeds to pour it over their head.
"I'm sorry sir, I don't know what came over me. To make up for my outlandish behavior perhaps I could make amends by taking you to Wendy's? I will be more than happy to replace your lost caloric intake by paying for two triple Baconators. I'll pay extra special attention to be sure and order you a DIET Coke to wash it down. I'd also be willing to even throw in a BIGGIE size fry out of the kindness of my heart.

Getting ready for the Sony Open....

BLJ

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Sony Open

Follow this link to see my new article on the bleacherreport.com

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/110602-the-2009-sony-open-six-pack


I hope this finds you all safe and sound. Thanks to everyone who has been providing me feedback on some of my recent tales. The abbreviation story was definitely a hit with some of you. I should have a new post up tomorrow.

BLJ

Monday, January 12, 2009

Allow me to be brief....

Are you like me? Are you looking for a job currently? If so, you may have noticed some serious changes to our vocabulary here in the good 'ol US of A. Euphemisms typically reign supreme and political correctness must be maintained at all costs. The days of being a "worker" are now long gone. The days of having a "job" are also ancient history. You are now a "technician" (regardless if the position is technical on any account) and occaisionally you can still be an employee. You now have a profession and/or a career.

BUT....what ever happened to just saying the name of a job? You can no longer be a counter or phone person. You can definitely not be a counter/phone "guy" or counter/phone "gal" anymore. For a few years you could be a Customer Service Representative. Currently, earth no longer has time for that title anymore. You are now a CSR. We all know there are no longer janitors, they obviously have been custodial engineers for eons now. I think congress will be passing legislation in 2009 to turn them simply into CE's.

I like trying to decipher some of these definitions, it is truly the FUN part of profession aspiration (formerly know as job hunting). I recently was targeting my sales abilites and trying to apply them to some various different industries. I took a stab at breaking into the XRF industry, however I had no working experience with ERP nor CRM. Darn. I wasn't sure if I was lacking in job skills, or if I actually was fortunate enough to not have developed a new disease!

That brought me to an excellent resource on the web. If you ever come across an acronym, or abbreviation that you just cannot figure out, simply go to www.abbreviations.com They have a language filter so you can eliminate any of the foul language type words such as one of my favorites: FUBAR. I think some of the baby boomer generation will find this website especially helpful. After all, the Boomers are actually finally emailing on "The Google." Some of them are actually "chatting", while even more have take the advanced and bold step forward to "texting". OMG! Just call Yahoo sometime, they'll confirm all of this. As most of us know (LMAO) a resource such as abbreviations.com shall prove invaluable to this demographic.

Seeing all of these abbreviations and acronyms says a lot for our creativity and out desire for efficiency, or does it? Take for example my pursuit of the sales opportunity in the XRF industry requiring some ERP and CRM. Seeing as though I had no clue what any of these three things were, I felt slighted, outclassed, somewhat miffed and ultimately challenged. So rather than do what the average joe would do, and move on to the next posting, I decided to investigate and see what career and industry I was possibly missing out on. Perhaps in learning some of these "secret codes" I could afford myself much more lucrative opportunities in the future by being able to speak the newly learned terms!

Turns out the job was involved in the X-ray Flourescence Industry (XRF) requiring experience in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relatonship Management (CRM). GMAFB! (this is my own original that has not yet made it to abbv.com) It took me about 15 minutes to find abbreviations.com and another 2 minutes to educate myself on the terms. Not so efficient in my opinion, as they could have just spelled these terms out in the first place. It would have taken someone less time to simply type out the extra 71 characters, than for me to have to search all over the WWW to find the answers, not to mention the numerous others that may have been confused by the cute buzzwords and did the same thing.

WTF? (Look it up you obviously have time)

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

eSpresso

I need to rant for a few minutes about a beverage that I enjoy. First of all, I feel that one of the best times to have an eSpresso is after a filling or large and delicious meal. I also like eSpresso as a mid day pick me up, but favor the aforementioned scenario. Sometimes I like my eSpresso with some lemon zest and Sugar in the Raw. Sometimes I just like it straight up, just like my coffee, hot and black.

Have you ever had a Frappucino from Starbucks? Although unhelathy and overpriced, these eSpresso based drinks are well worth the hours shaved off from your life expectancy and a couple of bucks. My favorite is the caramel one. By the way, those bottled concoctions from Starbucks that you can buy in grocery stores also marketed under the name Frappucino are simply not the same thing as ordering a vendi from the overly liberal and usually overly friendly barista at the actual Starbucks shop.

Thank you to the Italians for roasting and bringing us these energetic little beans of glory into our lives. I would also like to send out a BIG NO THANK YOU to those of you out there (especially in the foodservice industry) who insist on calling this beloved nectar of the gods eXpresso. Where the hell is the X coming from? Who started this trend? Why? Is it easier to say a word that you are famliar with such as "express", and then simply attaching a long "O" to end rather than force your brain to actually LEARN and COMPREHEND an entirely NEW word.

For those of you who are insistant on calling it eXpresso, I ask of thee, doth thou speaketh of an entirely different beverage? Perhaps eXpresso is actually a concoction I am not familar with. Maybe it brews quicker and more efficiently than eSpresso. Maybe you can drink it faster. Perhaps it has even more caffeine sending you on an express path to a heart attack quicker and more efficiently that espresso? What if you name was Kyle and I kept calling you Karl? You probably wouldn't care for that much would you? That being said, just think about eSpresso's feelings, the next time you stamp an unnecessarily extraeneous "X" into its precious name.

People it's pronounced eSpresso. The "X" is SILENT! Oh yeah, wait a minute....THERE IS NO FREAKIN' "X" to begin with! Please, I beg of you imaginary X creators, stop with the eXpresso shenanigans or I will be forced to take this to an even higher level of rage. I may even have to call Sports Rage to "vent my rage" over this matter even though it is totally unrelated to sports. My level of rage is clearly "Morency" right now. Maybe I shouldn't have had that double shot after dinner tonight.

Monday, January 5, 2009

The Six Pack Challenge

My good buddy and tv/radio personality, Cam Stewart and I will be starting another season of our Six Pack Challenge on Wednesday this week. Tune into to Sirius Channel 98, or log into www.hardcoresportsradio.com between 4 and 6 pm to catch the PGA six pack segment live on the air. You probably are wondering, what the hell is a six pack challenge?

The six pack challenege is a competition between Cam and myself to see which of us can pick six mens PGA golfers for a tournament, and cumulatively tally the highest earnings. From there, I keep track of all our stats for the whole year. The "catch" to our six pack is fueled by a gambling mentality. We cannot pick Tiger Woods each week, in fact we never can pick Tiger Woods. We can only pick golfers that have published odds of winning that weeks tournament of 20/1 or higher.

Last year both Cam and I picked 6 winners over the year. This year we will do better than that. Anyway, I will also publish an article to thebleachereport.com and post the link here shortly that shows my six pack for the Mercedes Championship.