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Saturday, January 30, 2010

Ace's Mistake

This whole Leno/Conan thing has been such a disaster for Leno. He has screwed up in every possible way and handled the situation with such an absence of class that I am not sure how he recovers. Most right thinking people are firmly on Team Conan. Except Ace. For some reason he is still on Leno's side in this mess. I suspect it is because Leno has let Ace appear on his show numerous times. While I agree that allowing Ace more TV time was a great decision, I cannot agree with how Leno has handled himself. The most embarrassing moment in the whole saga for Leno has been how Jimmy Kimmel has just destroyed him. First he took him down on his own show. Most recently he used 5 minutes of his monologue to call Leno out again. Kimmel's points are valid. He acknowledged that he had to talk about the situation or he himself seems like an ass and he expected that Leno would engage in some back and forth. Kimmel's worst indictment was commenting that he expected Leno would not just read off the cue cards and that he used to be a comedian.

Maybe Leno and Kimmel going back and forth will finally snap Ace to his senses since there is no way Ace would go against Kimmel. At least I hope Ace doesn't go against Kimmel. If Ace turns against Kimmel, it would be the equivalent of Turk & JD or Stockton & Malone breaking up. I am not sure I could handle them separating and it may cause me to rethink my whole position on Ace. I'm sure me talking about Ace less will delight Jessica to no end, so let's hope order is maintained and Ace turns against Leno.

I was thinking about something else today. The advent of Facebook has allowed me to re-connect with old friends, which is a good thing. This allows me to see not only what someone does for a living but also how they look. It delights me to no end to see girls that thought they were hot stuff in high school look like holy hell now. If they are also marginally employed, even better. Am I alone on that? I'm sure it makes me a terrible person. The only thing that makes me happier is when there is a really nice girl who was not cute in high school that turned out pretty. I think it is proof that karma is real. And I am not talking about Karma in Seaside Heights. Unfortunately, we all know that is very real and very terrible.

Until next time, Mahalo.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Google Ads problems

It seems that Google Ads must be confused since it has recently been featuring "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" ads at the bottom of my posts. I wouldn't mind these ads if you douchers clicked on them so I could make 2 cents. But if I am not profiting from ads for a horrible movie, I must object.
The only explanation for the ads must be my previous posts about the movie. I guess Google Ads doesn't pick up all content since I wrote that the movie was epically terrible and painfully unfunny. It's not even so bad it's funny like Fire Birds. It's just bad. You would figure with all the times I have talked about Carolla, I would have some ads featuring him or Journey.

This whole thing makes me as mad as the new McDonald's commercial with the guy that tells people not to talk to him until he has had his coffee. I promise you that if someone said something that stupid to me in real life I would punch them without hesitation. If someone was then foolhardy enough to ask, "Why did you hit me? I was just keeping it real," I would punch them even harder for being super lame. If the second punch didn't send a clear enough message and this fool then said, "Was me telling you not to speak until I have had my coffee TMI?," I would probably commit a homicide. So, let's all get on the same page and help me avoid being incarcerated for assaulting caffeine deprived individuals on the street.

I am working on a new post that will discuss a shake up in my Carolla world: Ace has sided with Leno. Shameful!

Until then, enjoy this video of Aziz Ansari's comedy. I enjoy Aziz's comedy on a different level since he looks exactly like my friend Jordan. Not sure why that cracks me up, but it does.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Blame Jonathan!

Today I need to take a moment to honor the person most responsible (or to blame, depending on your views of my writing) for this blog, my brother Jonathan. It was Jonathan's Carolla stories that got me hooked on the radio show, leading to my inability to carry on a simple conversation without mentioning Carolla. That inability led to the increasing tension with Jessica, which became this bet and blog.
Since it's Jon's birthday, he gets a special blog post (no worries Melissa, you'll get one too). Does anyone else remember those knock off colognes that said things like: "If you like Drakkar Noir, you'll love Dark Nights." That is how I feel about Jon. If you like me, you'll love Jon since he is better than me in every appreciable way: he's funnier, more handsome, smarter, more athletic, doesn't write unreadable blogs, enjoys music videos by bands other than Journey, etc, etc. I hope that isn't too much of a backhanded compliment, using an analogy about bad cologne in regard to my brother. I just always enjoyed that phrase. (As an aside, it's not like Drakkar even smelled good or was so prohibitively expensive that buying a knock off was necessary; it's not exactly like wanting an expensive watch and buying the knock off version).
It is pretty cool for me to look back at my life and realize that so many of my favorite memories involve my brother. We saw Michael Jordan from 10 feet away together, would eat unreasonable amounts of chicken planks from LJS, then go to the $1 movies, saw great concerts and recently had an amazing Vegas trip. I'm blessed to have a great brother. As the older brother, I never figured that my younger brother would have such an impact on my personality, but he did. Before you blame him for my shortcomings, realize I would be so much more unreasonable if not for him. His influence has kept me tolerable for society. Happy Birthday brother. As a special treat, here you go: 1 and 2.

Special shout outs:
1. To my favorite anonymous Canadian reader: Congrats on the job. I hope it's something enjoyable and inspiring. And that they don't block this site so you can read this at work.
2. Everyone needs to visit Got to get it ON! It's a website chronicling Carolla's appearances and related material. The guy that runs it is truly doing the Lord's work. Plus there is a game on the site that allows you (as Carolla) to box Donny, his assistant. While it is not as challenging as hitting Tiger's mistresses with golf balls from various distances, it's always enjoyable to punch a hippie.
3. Lastly, to my exceeding gracious and understanding bride. She puts up with more than any woman should endure, from my ridiculous theories, minor occurrences that lead to 10 minute rants and a never ending string of songs that I make her listen to in order to guess the 10 second segment of the song that makes it amazing. She's gotten really good at figuring those out. If you want to play the at home version, here's a song: Which segment is the kind of song Gregg would write if he could write songs?

As always, thanks for reading. Until next time, Mahalo!

Friday, January 15, 2010

This is how rich I would be

After spending even more time thinking about the ability to call my past self, I started to wonder how much money I could have made. I figure the most money I could muster at 15 would be 100 bucks, but the bigger problem would be finding a degenerate to place the bet for me. I also had to make some assumptions on odds since I couldn't find historical odds. Based on current odds for 2010, I estimate that the average eventual champion would be about 8-1 at the beginning of the year. So assuming that I could find a gambling fiend to place my bets while still underage, here's the payout:

1994: $100 bet at 8-1 = $900 (800 from the bet, plus the original 100 I bet); pay degenerate $100, save 300 since I may not fully trust my future self yet.
1995: $500 at 8-1 = 4500; pay degenerate 200; save 1000 (1300 total)
1996: $3000 at 8-1 = $27,000; pay degenerate 500; save 6500 (8800 total)
1997: $20,000 at 8-1 = $180,000; pay degenerate 5000; save 25,000 (33,800 total)
1998: $150,000 at 8-1 = 1,350,000; no longer pay degenerate since I am of legal age to bet; save 550,000 (583,800 total, which is now in a money market earning interest to pay my living expenses)
1999: 800,000 at 8-1 = 6,400,000; save 4.4 million;
at this point, I am not sure if a casino will allow you to book a bet for more than 1 million, so 2000-2004 is as follows:
2000-2004: 1,000,000 at 8-1= 9,000,000; save 8 million for google fund;
So in 2004 when Google IPO's I have 40 million to invest at the price of $85, which equals 470,000 shares. Let's say I am a coward and sell when it hits 600, I would now have 282 Million from google, plus a guaranteed 9 million until 2009 from the hoops bets. I'm pretty sure I could live comfortably on that.

At that point I would have no need to gamble anymore. So if someone out there can bend the laws of time and physics let me know. We could be really rich.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Time Machines

For some reason I have been thinking about time travel a lot lately. It could be because of my DeLorean key chain. But I think the real reason is that I read a Chuck Klosterman essay where he talked about time machines. The most interesting part to me was Chuck talking about the possibility of a telephone to the past where you could talk to your past self for 15 seconds. I have been thinking about what I would say to my 15 year old self if given 15 seconds. Here goes:

Present Gregg: Gregg, this is future you. Write this down...

Past Gregg: I'm confused, if you are from the future, then this already happened and I don't remember it, so it didn't really happen. And if this call really did happen, then it doesn't matter what I do, since it is already done. If this was really me in the future, I've probably seen Back to the Future Part II 30 times by now and know you are going to give me sports results like Biff.

Present Gregg: Shut up. we're running out of time...

On second thought, revised plan:

Present Gregg: Gregg, this is future you, be quiet and write this down:
Men's Hoops, start in 94 Arkansas, UCLA, Kentucky, Zona, Kentucky, UConn, Mich State, Duke, Maryland, Cuse, Uconn, UNC, Florida twice, KU, UNC. Bet big. Invest in Google, huge.
And your wife is hot.

To me this seems like the perfect information to give my past self. I give myself sure fire winners so I can make some money, while simultaneously letting my future self know that my future wife is hot. That way, I can live my life unencoumbered by concerns about my future since I already know I'm rich with a hot wife. That's a Michael Scott Win/Win/Win situation.