Barry Signs with the Giants

Not that Barry, but Barry Zito. It cost them a bundle, but now the Giants have an ace that can pitch the way the Jason Schmidt did not, in his last two disappointing seasons.

Driving on Christmas Day

We drove 180 miles to Newman, California and back on Christmas day. Our drive was relatively uneventful, but one thing we found is that bad drivers don't take the holidays off. We witnessed a broad range of bad drivers including NASCAR wannabes zip-zagging from one lane to the next, to slow-driving ass-holes who don't understand the concept of moving to the right lane on a two-lane highway.

The NASCAR wannabes are easy enough to deal with. Just get out of their way and hope that they don't cause an accident right in front of you. There's no need to place yourself in jeopardy by trying to keep them from cutting you off.

The slow-driving ass-hole is another thing altogether. Highway 5 is a two-lane highway with a speed limit of 70 miles per hour. The proper driving etiquette for two-lane highways requires drivers that drive below the speed limit to move to the right lane. If you are in the left lane and someone comes up behind you and flashes their headlights, the polite thing to do is to either speed up, or move over and let them past. But this one ass-hole we encountered lacked any notion of proper driving etiquette.

He chose to poke along in the left lane and forced several vehicles to pass him on the right. Not an easy thing to do when there is traffic. So when we came up on him, there were too many cars on the right to allow us to pass him on the right. We flashed our headlights and instead of speeding up or moving to the right, he chose to spray us with windshield fluid. When we sounded our horn, he hit his breaks. Now keep in mind that this was on Christmas day AND he had his family in his car. But being an ass-hole was more important than the safety of his family.

Traffic did clear up enough for us to finally get past him on, on the right of course, but not before he tried to cut us off by straddling the line and drifting into our lane. Fortunately, our car was more powerful than the piece-of-shit Kia he was driving, and we left him behind with no further incidents.

As his car receded in the rear-view mirror, my silent farewell to him was "Merry Christmas motherfucker. You keep driving like that, and you and your family won't even make it to the New Year."

Nuggets, Knicks Brawl

It's not right that Isiah gets off scot-free while the Nuggets lose their top-scorer for 15 games. Isiah is a punk. He's always been a punk from his earliest days as one of the "Bad Boys" in Detroit. The thing that always aggravated me the most about him was how many cheap shots he got away with because he was always perceived as a nice guy with a friendly smile. Now he's teaching his players the same thing; if you can't beat your opponent with skill, you bully them with cheap shots and dirty fouls.

I have no respect for Isiah Thomas as a player, coach or human being. The sooner he's out of a job and out of the NBA, the better.

Acting in Love

Would someone please tell me why this is a news story on the AP? You'd think that on-screen kisses meant anything. It's not as though Jolie is going to fall in love with her co-star and break up his relationship and, .... uh, ... never mind.

Model Minority = Easy Target

I've never liked the term "model minority", and I share that sentiment with most Asian-Americans. The main reason most Asian-Americans don't like the term is because it marginalizes the real struggles against racism that we face nearly every day. Because we're considered the "model minority" people tend to think that it's alright to make racially denigrating remarks, or poke fun at our ethnicity.

That's why Rosie O'Donnell can't understand why making fun of the Chinese language is such a big deal. It's not as though she used racial epithets. She was just saying "ching chong". On her blog, she makes references to how people make fun or her Irish heritage as though that excuses her "joke" about how Chinese sounds. Sorry, Rosie. That's no excuse. You still pass as white. We can't.

If you really think that what you did was no big deal, why don't you try to speak a little Ebonics when you talk about an African-American who makes the headlines sometime? After all, it's just a joke right?

Reality Hits Hard

The Niners playoff hopes were severely dashed this past week when the sub-par defense allowed Brett Favre to look like Brett Favre once again. That's what happens when you can't pressure a quarterback. If you give any QB in the league enough time, they'll find an open receiver and make good throws.

So the rest of the season will be an effort to regain respectability, and maybe win eight games for only the third time this century.

Another Year of Bonds

Unbelievable!!! The Giants proved once again how uncommitted to winning they really are. Giving Bonds $16 million for one year in case he breaks the record? Ridiculous. Bonds averaged 293 at bats the last four seasons. At $16 million next year, that's $54607.51 per at bat. I don't care if he hits a hundred home runs, he's not worth $16 million for one year. I doubt that any player in baseball is.

The Bonds Market is Still Up?

It sounds like Barry's agent is a little juiced as well. If what he said was true, then why haven't they signed with another team? Surely there are teams willing to give a soon to be 43-year-old man $18 million to play for them. After all, Texas once gave a player a quarter billion dollars to play for them. Maybe Barry should snap his fingers already and get back to the gym and juice thing.

The Fall of Customer Service

I saw yet another example of poor customer service last night on "60 Minutes". The founder and CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings was being interviewed. During one segment he was asked about the lack of a toll-free number for customers to call for help. Hastings spent several minutes searching his own site for a number without success. Appearantly, Netflix prefers to communicate with customers via email only.

After such an embarrassing moment, you would think that Netflix would remedy the situation and display a toll-free number prominently on their site, but they haven't. The only number I could find was to the corporate headquarters. It's a shame because everything else that they do is really great.

The convenience of the site is the reason we signed up for the service in the first place. We got frustrated with our local video store because we often found that the latest movies we wanted to see were available as two-day rentals that had to be returned the next day to avoid a late charge. Not the the kind of experience you want after having packed the baby into the car to get to the store in the first place. It's far better to get the movies you want without restrictions.

But what about Blockbuster, you might ask. They eliminated late fees altogether. That's true now, but a few years back I was a Blockbuster customer, and I was charged several bogus late fees for videos that I returned to the drop box. In one case, Blockbuster even referred me to a collection agency based on a video that I "hadn't returned". I resolved this issue by going to the store personally and finding the so-called unreturned video on their own shelves. Even after that, I had to threaten litigation in order to get their collection agency off my back and clear my name.

You would think after that experience, I would never go to Blockbuster again. But I did. I had moved and wouldn't you know it, right across the street was a Blockbuster store. I convinced myself that my experience was an anomaly particular to the one store I used to frequent. So I went in and rented a couple of videos. I returned them on time in the drop box before the store opened on the day they were due. But they somehow neglected to record the return on time and charged me a fee. I demanded to see the manager, and she refused to waive the bogus fee. I was furious and I walked out there declaring "never again".

So using Blockbuster.com was never an option. I don't care if they're cheaper or have a bigger selection. I refuse to use them ever again. That's what poor customer service can do a for a company. So Netflix better get its act in gear and get that call center up and running. You can bet their competition saw the show last night and are working on their own call centers.