There’s an old joke that goes like this:

Q: What do you call 5,000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

A: A good start.

And this schmuck is why that joke exists:

Read: Tearful Testimony in $54 Million Pants Lawsuit

The guy wants $54M for a pair of lost pants, and he’s so upset about it that he broke down in tears as he questioned himself on the stand about his ordeal. Yes, you read that correctly. You have to love the author of the news story; clearly he was having a ball with this one. Best line: “The business owners claim they have his pants, but he’s pressing ahead with his suit.” Ba-dum, PISH!

So, after eight absolutely fantastic fucking seasons, The Sopranos run has come to an end. The finale was a mixed bag, and the salt in the wound is that the lame-ish ending is followed by the premiere of a fucking surfer show.

The Sopranos has entertained me on so many levels it will take much more than a blog post at this hour to explain it. Suffice to say, the lingo brings back memories of my youth and my quote database is proof of that. The first time Brenda & I watched the show we were in a hotel room with HBO and after 15 seconds of the opening sequence, where Tony drives through the Lincoln Tunnel, past the Hoboken exit, and then onto the NJ Turnpike and past the oil tanks in Linden (Drive Safely!), we were hooked. The show went on to document the North Jersey Italian-American experience, and I’m not (just) talking about the mob shit, I’m talking about the manigoot (manicotti). The lingo, the mores, the food, the clothes: when I watched The Sopranos it was like a visit to Aunt Mary’s house; the only thing missing was the pinch on the cheek.

But you can’t run a crew these days without some strife, and Tony made his bed, sure as shit. So after last week’s mayhem we were on the edge of our seats for the finale tonight. I haven’t been this upset since the end of N.Y.P.D. Blue, but Brenda & I pulled up a chair and dutifully watched the end of what is probably the greatest TV Show Ever tonight, and had a good time with it.

The finale was a mixed bag. (Spoiler alert, whatever…) Phil Leotardo’s demise was great theatre, and that cocksucker got what he fucking deserved. But the fake foreshadowing with A.J. was very annoying. When his car caught on fire I thought for sure he was caught in the crosshairs, and was gonna be the victim of a car bomb. But, no. When he started driving the BMW and backed up to the camera sporting a NJ license plate with the letters “RDX”, I thought for sure he was going out in a blaze of glory. But, no. Vague talk of indictments on the way led us to a final scene at a diner with a shifty patron headed to the bathroom and we have to assume he didn’t come outta there with just his dick in his hand. As Meadow heads for the door of the diner, some black dudes enter, another reminder of the gas station scene where Phil’s head goes out like a grape, aaaaannnnnd, scene.

Scene! Not even fade to black, just black. Black, credits, that’s it, thanks for coming, motherfuckers.

Draw your own conclusions, I have mine. Bottom line, The Sopranos is over, one way or another, end of story.

Fuck.

P.S.
I realize David Milch is behind the new series “John from Cincinnati”, which is being groomed as the Sopranos replacement. Milch is the genius behind N.Y.P.D. Blue, my last TV tragedy. But I’m thinking that “Entourage” and “The Wire” have more of a chance of retaining my HBO subscription money than this new surfer bullshit (that I’m about to watch).

P.P.S.
Is Frank Vincent like not the most typecast tragic mob guy in all of mob cinema?! Like gosh! And I even saw “Ten Benny”, so I know what the fuck I’m talking about.

The latest evidence of Outlook’s suck-osity (right-click and select “view image” to see at full resolution):

So, my fabulous weekend came to an abrupt halt this morning, quite literally. As I was flying though the air, I thought, yep, weekend’s over. Lemme back up a bit.

I was riding to work, about to join the Foothills bike path when this dude making a right onto the Boulder Creek Path decides he’s just going to use the entire bike path to make his turn. Problem was, I was thinking I might just use the right half of the path myself.

We collided, I went flying up and over him and ended up on my back, thinking “what the hell just happened?” By the time I got to the office I was a little light headed and was starting to sense that I’d done some things that are definitely gonna hurt in the morning, and the collection of scrapes and bruises all over my body are testament to that. Worse than that is my right index finger, which apparently acted as cushioning for my brake lever when it slammed into the other bike. It’s swollen, purple and stings like hell, four hours after the incident. Gonna go get it looked at, I think.

I hope the other guy is alright. He seemed fine, but so did I at the time. My trusty On One commuter bike is fine; the front wheel is a little out of true and the saddle lost some leather, but otherwise it’s ready for more action.

I also think Boulder is rubbing off on me; instead of ripping him a new one for ruining my morning, I showed genuine concern for the guy, even after he fully admitted the crash was all his fault. If this was Jersey, I’d have been spewing expletives before I’d even landed.

What a bunch of idiots these guys are. With the Floyd Landis Show currently unfolding at Pepperdine University, complete with tales of Greg LeMond’s weenie and an obsfucatory defense that would make Johnnie Cochran proud, now it appears that Oscar Pereiro—the man who finished second to Landis in the 2006 Tour de France and the man who stands poised to claim a belated yellow jersey if Landis is proven guilty of cheating—is also mixed up in the Operation Puerto scandal, the scandal that has already forced Jan Ullrich out of the sport and brought Ivan Basso into the darkest point of his career (and hopefully will rid the sport of Tyler Hamilton once and for all).

Doping has been going on for years, this much is clear. For me, the wake-up call was in 1990 when I read A Rough Ride, by Paul Kimmage. Kimmage, a former pro, saw first hand what was going on and was one of the first to come out (after retirement) and say how dirty the sport of cycling was. But business as usual remains the order of the day, and it only seems to have gotten worse. The Festina affair and then Marco Pantani have come and gone, and then the biggest mess of all: Operation Puerto blows up the ‘06 Tour, and then Landis with the manufactured testosterone coursing through his veins.

Puerto is kicking some major ass; Ullrich, Basso, Hamilton. And now with Perriero implicated, we have the loser-was-doing-it-too scenario. Which begs the question, “where does it end?” It sure as hell seems like no one is clean in the sport. And what pisses me off is that they all take us for a bunch of fools, with their explanations for all these drug test failures. Landis has the Jack Daniel’s defense, Hamilton has the hilarious chimera defense. But so far my favorite is the latest from Pereiro:

“...if I have to use DNA to demonstrate my innocence, I will leave cycling, because it’s obvious that cycling like that isn’t worth it.”

Cycling like what? Like an honest competitor? Like a guy who has nothing to hide? Or do you mean cycling under a system that has an ironclad method of catching all the dopers? Yeah, proving you’re not an outright cheater (and a contract violator and a fraud) via a simple drug test, remaining in the sport you supposedly love, getting paid to race a bicycle—just isn’t worth it. What an ass.

I don’t know what the answer is—and cycling sure as hell isn’t the only sport that is completely suffused with drugs—but I’m just sick and tired of these guys offering lame-ass excuses for their results. In some ways, Ullrich has shown more stones by “retiring” than any of these other guys with their nonsense.

Much as I’m enjoying watching Alberto Gonzales go down in flames, the rabid scenes in the Senate last week were quite tiresome. Seriously; Nancy Pelosi with foam dribbling from her jowls is incredibly unappetizing. All these donation-collecting suit monkeys crawling around Washington are the same: they only show some stones once it becomes clear that the only idiot in town bigger than Gonzales is Bush. I’m sick of hearing them all talk, from both sides of the aisle. And I have a proposal to fix this:

If I can find a quote from a mob movie that fits the situation, the quote shall serve as hearing, trial, verdict, end of story. No op-ed pieces, no press conferences, and for damn sure, no Hillary. And so, here we go:

In the matter of All Concerned and Even Remotely Intelligent Citizens of the United States of America versus Soon-to-be-former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I, mob movie buff Rob Guglielmetti, refer this entire dealio to a single quotation from the film “Casino”. I will make the opening statements, in the form of a scene synopsis, and then hand it over to Robert DiNiro, playing the role of Casino Manager Sam “Ace” Rothstein, who shall preside over this case.

The scene in question is the one where Don Ward—a real dope who was handed a job as slots manager because he had friends in town—was on-duty while three four-reel slot machines paid off huge jackpots in a matter of minutes. Mr. Rothstein is understandably pissed, feeling this had to be the result of a scam, a scam that Don Ward simply had to be in on. The People argue that this scam mirrors the firings that Mr. Gonzales is having such a hard time recalling precisely what he’s been told to say about the matter. Ace wishes to fire poor, dumb Slots Manager, and Don, understandably, resists, claiming ignorance. But all he can come up with in his defense is a simple “This is not how you treat people”. And with that introduction, I turn this matter over to Sam Rothstein. Ace?

Listen, if you didn’t know…, you’re too fuckin’ dumb to keep this job. If you did know, that means you were in on it. Either way, you’re out. Get out!

I believe this matter is adjourned. Al, pack up your shit and get the hell out of town.

Working for a sustainable design consultant, as I do, I am continually exposed to exciting and interesting individuals with progressive views and ideas. The climate change crisis is real, and I’m excited to be helping in some small way to affect architectural design in a positive and sustainable way. But the sustainable message is bubbling over into my colleagues’ email signatures, as evidenced by a recent email, which carried the following message after the author’s signoff:

“please consider the environment before printing this message.”

What a great idea, to follow every email message with a smug, self-satisfied, holier-than-thou little dig at your own client, I thought! That’s not condescending at all! So this evening I sat down to draft my very own “green email signature”. I’m very excited about my drafts so far:

• Like, don’t print this, OK?


• Printing this message kills trees. Print is murder!


• Please consider filing this email in an email folder and refraining from printing it, since that would be redundant and a waste of space, time and paper. Just make sure you back up your hard drive, you idiot.


• Please respond to this email as soon as possible, as I am soon unplugging all my electrical devices and moving to the woods. And this should go without saying, but you should NOT print this message, since the more you print, the less woods I will have left to live in. Again, please hurry.


• You know pal, you really should think about what you’re doing there, with your mouse cursor on the “print” button; don’t you realize that trees are a precious and beautiful resource? You already have the material, right there in front of your oil-thirsty face, in digital format. You should read it on your monitor instead of wasting precious paper to print out what you already have, you heartless bastard! I can’t believe you could be so stupid, you PAPER WASTER! Of course, by reading it on your monitor you’re running your computer which consumes about 450 watts of power while it’s running whereas you could print this out on a few sheets of paper and power down. Hmmm. Let me think about this for a second. I’ve got it! I’ll just bet you don’t do two-sided printing, thereby wasting TWICE as much paper as I do when I print things duplex (even though I almost never, ever, print things, because I am pleased to consider the environment before doing so)! Oh you climate change accelerator, you! I hate you! Yes, far better that you read this on screen, especially since you don’t have a duplex printer. Come to think of it, you should really get a duplex printer; I can’t believe you don’t have one of those! Jesus, you are a resource hogging pig! Aren’t you glad you have me to help you think about these issues? By the way, how many miles per gallon do you get with you car? You DO drive a hybrid, don’t you? Put that hamburger DOWN, dammit! LISTEN TO ME!!

Good morning Rob, Outlook here. Guess what? I still suck.

The other day I signed and emailed a message to Congress calling for action to solve the climate change issues facing the planet, and sent it to Al Gore as part of his presentation in Washington. Yesterday, I got this thank you email:

Dear Rob,

Thank you!

By 10:00 AM yesterday, as I took my seat in the hearing room, an incredible 519,414 people had signed our message to Congress demanding immediate action to solve the climate crisis.

All of those boxes chock full of your messages, sitting right next to me as I testified, were a fantastic show of support and one that is already having an impact as our Representatives and Senators begin to debate solutions to the climate crisis. In fact, so many people signed our message in the 24 hours before the hearing, we are still working on printing them.

Still working on… printing them.

JFC, this is why no one takes this shit seriously, even though they really, really should. Al, do me a favor, and start walking the fucking walk. You of all people can’t afford to generate more fodder for the right wing and their oily-eyed shortsightedness and agenda, m’kay?

Besides, if all you want is a big old pile of papers as a symbolic prop, just fill a box with recycling; the right wing won’t know the difference, since it appears half those morons can’t read, anyway.

Outlook Sucks. The reason for its suckiness is unknown. (Right click and select “View Image” in the image below to read the full error message.) It’s sad when it takes such a large dialog box to say “our software is garbage and we don’t even know what’s wrong with it.”