I forgot to lock my computer today when I wandered away from my desk. Here is the resulting mass email, subject: “Moving On…”

After two years of service here at ESPN.com, I have decided to move on and pursue my life long dream of winning Dancing with the Stars. The dynamic tandem of Ru Paul and myself will be fox-trotting, waltzing, and cha-cha-cha-ing our way straight to the top. Please be sure to text in and vote for us starting this September on ABC.

One would think that after 2 years and twenty or so of these ridiculous emails I would learn my lesson. Apparently, not so much.

 

Today I decided to jump on the Twitter bandwagon.  So far, I am truly unimpressed.

I used to use Twitter for the ever-popular “Overheard at the Office” section of Skaboom.net, but killed it when the level of vulgarity got just a bit too high.  I returned to my account today, in hopes of cleaning out all of the absurdities that were there, and starting fresh…  Apparently, deleting the 15 posts that were there was just a little bit too much for Twitter to handle.

Needless to say, I deleted and re-created skaboom on Twitter

Sure, Twitter gets a ton of traffic, which obviously explains its many issues.  Maybe it’s just me, but if my site scaled that bad, I think I would just take it down.

Come on now Twitter - Lock it up.

 

So my grandfather has discovered the internet… which of course has led to an inevitable abundance of email forwards.

I thought this one was mildly amusing and I should share it. Please Enjoy

Subject: Home Depot

Charlie was fixing a door and found that he needed a new hinge, so he sent his wife Mary to Home Depot. At Home Depot, Mary saw a beautiful bathroom faucet while she was waiting for Walt, the manager, to finish waiting on a customer.

When Walt was finished, Mary asked “How much for that faucet?”

Walt replied, “That’s pewter and it costs $300.”

“My goodness that sure is a lot of money!” Mary exclaimed. Then she proceeded to describe the hinge that Charlie had sent her to buy, and Walt went to the back room to find it.

From the back room Walt yelled, “Mary, you wanna screw for that hinge?”

Mary replied, “No, but I will for the faucet.”

…This is why you can’t send a woman to Home Depot!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

So last night at around 10 pm I got to my apartment, only to find my street blocked off by a cop car. Huddled behind the cop car were two police officers, one in complete armor. At first I thought nothing of it… I live in the pit of New Britain. There are cops around all the time. After all, there is a reason it is called hard-hittin New Britain. I figured it would just be another brief standoff.

Oh how wrong I was.

At about 11:15 pm I heard the first shots. I had stopped paying attention to the police shortly after I got home, because as I said the cops near my house isn’t something out of the ordinary. But there it was, the unmistakable pop pop pop of gunfire.

After about five minutes of silence I figured the trouble was over, so I peaked my head out the window of my kitchen to see what the hell had gone on.   Apparently the trouble was only beginning.  One cop car and two officers had turned into three cop cars and about 10 officers all sporting full armor.   I thought maybe the action was about to pick up and the cops were going to make a move, but not so much.  Apparently someone was trying their hand at negotiating… a full-on brute force attack would have been way more exciting.

Around 12:45 business started to pick up again.  Apparently negotiations hadn’t gone so well, and now the swat team was on the scene, complete with their armored Hummer.  The swat team really looked like they meant business.  One guy had an attack dog, another guy was cruising around with a sniper rifle, while the rest of the team had assault rifles.  After 15 minutes or so worth of planning, several groups of three went scurrying down the street, including the sniper.  They all were huddled behind a car 2 houses or so down from mine.  Then the shooting began…

I’m not sure whether swat decided to make its move, or if someone shot at them first, but I watched out my window as the third floor of the house down the block had an assortment of things shot at it.  Guns were firing, windows were breaking… it was chaos.  Every so often what I can only assume was some sort of flash grenade lit up the third floor of the house with a loud bang.   After the shooting subsided, the swat team loaded up their tank and cruised down the road, shining their spotlight at this house, and yelling instructions.  For at least 45 minutes they were in front of the house, instructing over the PA first in English, then in Polish.

According to reports this morning, the cops used teargas, I couldn’t really tell, but at 3 am a man wearing no pants was dragged out of the house and put into a cop car. Five minutes later, a women was hauled out as well, and the ordeal was over.

…

Check out the news report here.

…

Just an average night in Hard-Hittin.  I suppose I should be happy that I’m moving… but I kind of think I’ll miss all the excitement.

 

So, apparently the fake coyotes aren’t working as well as expected…

At least we tried.  George, his bitch, and their kids ain’t scared of no fake-ass coyote.

 

For a long time I was in denial about Barry Bonds and steroids. As he was bashing hoping runs and setting records, everyone talked about how he was on the juice. I, on the other hand, sat back thinking to myself “There’s no proof of this - he’s just a great athlete”. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I guess that was just the idealistic kid in me, wanting to believe, hoping that arguably baseball’s best player ever wasn’t tainting his legacy by cheating.

Well, Barry, you’ve ruined it for me. Asshole.

No longer will I have any sympathy for you as you complain about the media giving you a hard time… about how you’re just trying to do your job. You cheated at baseball. Everything that was good about your accomplishments - you screwed it all up. Your records and everything else you’ve done for baseball? It doesn’t mean shit you cheating bastard.

And if all that cheating was enough, then you lied about it… TO THE GOVERNMENT.  You stupid buffoon.   I hope you’re found guilty of every one of the 15 charges you face.  Dumbass.

I was foolish to be your fan Barry Bonds. You cheated and now I hate you.

 

I recently rediscovered a card we all received at work a few months back: supposedly a morale booster

Essential Piece

Isn’t it a wonderful thing that we’re all different?  Each of us has strengths and skills to share.  And when we link our individual strengths together we’re invincible

I feel inspired - Don’t You?

 

Parking at work has become a problem.  Don’t illegally park your industrial equipment, or our stupendous parking enforcement team will promptly deliver you a ticket.

 

Another day - same old story.  The ESPN.com WebSlingers suffered their second straight defeat today, falling this morning to the Stats & Analysis team. The Slingers battled hard (all twenty or so of them), but again fell victim to the mercy rule, falling behind by 10 runs in the 8th inning.

As if taking it on the chin from the damn Data Group wasn’t enough, this mornings ass-whooping ended with the sudden departure of our umpire. Following a rough day of interesting strike calls, the unnecessary holding of the runner at third base in order to prolong the inevitable mercying seemed to put him over the edge - he called game over and scurried away before anyone could argue.

As for me - today I became the first to fall guilty to the 2nd foul ball with 2 strikes rule… Following an unfortunate line drive out of play, I was done - I think it’s scored as a strike out… Oh, and I’m pretty sure my ERA is nearing 50.

Go Team.