BillyStyle

Has anybody noticed this? For the past handful of years, Major League Baseball seems to have two seasons: Baseball Season and Steroid Season. There is no off season, which is a shame, because baseball just doesn’t quite cut it anymore.

There were a few years where I was into baseball, then I completely lost interest. That’s fine that it’s something that people enjoy, I can understand that people have different tastes than me. What I do have a problem with though, is the media’s infatuation with the soap opera that is now pro baseball. I am a fan of the NBA and NFL, and other pro sports, so I check ESPN’s website often. Baseball stories take up possibly half of the front page stories. They cover a couple dozen sports, and pro baseball hogs the attention for some reason.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that nobody really seems to care about the integrity of the game. They seem to solely be interested in the gossip of the whole thing. If this doping problem were to happen on such a large scale in any other sport, people would say the league is a joke and attendance would severely suffer. But baseball is America’s past time! So who cares that it’s filled with a bunch of cheaters, I can still go to the game and get drunk and pick a fight, woo!

That was dumb. The end.

Sorry, there’s no story about farting and cigarettes, but the title has to do with my thought that I’ll get to after a short ramble. I live in a condo which is connected to some other condos. They are just side by side, no stacking going on. This time of the year, I love to leave the windows and sliding doors open at night to let in the fresh, cool air. Most nights, from about 9 pm to 1 am or so, about every half hour, cigarette smoke invades my home.

It seems to fill up my entire condo, and by the time I smell it, it’s too late to prevent further invasion, for most of it is in here by then. They’re the nasty smelling ones too. I don’t like any cigarette smoke, but some is more tolerable than others. These ones smell like cigarettes that are half rotted and should be incinerated instead of smoked. I’m pretty sure it’s my neighbor to the south of me with whom I’ve never really spoken. I like my hermitness, so I keep hidden from my neighbors mostly. I’ve heard her hit our common wall once because I was playing some music loud late at night. So we both have our pollution, but hers happens much more frequently and causes cancer.

Now, about the post title. I compare cigarette smoke to the worst fart ever. It lingers way longer than a fart, the smell is comparably offensive, and it causes cancer. At least with farts, you can wave them out of the air in most cases, and if not, just move to the next room and wait for it to dissipate. Whenever I see people smoking in a public place, I liken it to someone with the worst gas ever, just standing there proudly letting it flow freely and fanning it all around for everyone to smell. It’s the same principle, only much worse.

Maybe because people don’t choose to have gas, they try to hold it in or at least be sly about it and let it out where nobody will notice. People who smoke chose to start smoking and must be more proud of it or something. It really seemed to me that smoking would have started disappearing about a decade ago and eventually be something rarely seen except among rougher neighborhoods. It blows my mind when I see young people smoking. My whole life, the dangers of smoking have been publicized to the point where everyone who understands English should know what it does to you. Yet people continue to start smoking.

Anyway, I guess I’ll end my rant here. I’m sure if some smokers came across this page I may have offended them, but they all offend me with each puff (in regards to this post I’d say this is a different kind of offense taken), so as the British say, piss off! (Haha, love that saying.)

Well, I got some quick replies on that last post about the one thing Stephen A. Smith said. Naturally, there are more people out there with the same feelings toward him as I have, most likely much stronger. My disapproval of him is more of a dislike for all in-your-face, shock style sports analysts. I generally mute the television when these guys come on because they give me a headache. I don’t have as much specific critique as do others, but here are my problems with them.

Ever since Jim Rome grew very popular, most sports networks have tried to find another Jim Rome, or a sports analyst who will not back down from his opinion about athletes, teams, and other issues in sports. I never watched his show much, but I like a guy who stands by his opinion. This idea has grown into something much worse. Now the idea seems to be to find anybody with a columnist/analyst background, an opinion, a loud voice, and they must be as obnoxious and arrogant as you can find. They have escaped the boundaries of their own shows and now show up in mainstream programs, such as NBA Shootaround (Stephen A’s second home), invading the calm, humorous, considerate style those shows used to share. PTI (Pardon the Interruption) is a popular show on ESPN; that’s fine. I don’t watch it. I know it is just two guys with opinions yelling at each other about issues that can be discussed in an orderly fashion, so I avoid it. It bothers me to see those style columnists bleeding into other programs.

There are so many great play by play guys, color commentators, and analysts out there, it is sad to see these guys coming in and ruining sports shows. Stephen A. does have a columnist background and currently writes twice a week for the Philadephia Inquirer, but I have yet to hear any well spoken bits of information come from his mouth, only empty guarantees, waffling, and lots of yelling and screaming. True, the viewer these programs are trying to attract are used to ADD style programming, where there needs to be bright colors, quickly changing cameras, and loud noises to keep them tuned in, but it’s getting old quick.

As an NBA fan, I have to praise TNT for avoiding any shock style analysts. They stick with good quality content coming from rational people with plenty of basketball history. I enjoy listening to comments by many guys including all the TNT staff, Doug Collins, Hubie Brown, Tom Tolbert, Kevin Harlan, John Thompson, Steve Jones, and even Bill Walton (although I can understand how most people wouldn’t like his asinine comments, I find them very comical now that his sidekicks are calling him out on his overuse of superlatives).

I’m a rational person. I don’t need to be yelled at about why a basketball player should be rated higher than another. Greg Anthony and Scottie Pippen seem to voice their opinion with calm control. Maybe Stephen A. was raised by deaf geriatric people and he can’t help but yell, I don’t know. But I wish he would just calm down and listen to somebody else from time to time.

No, I’m not a workaholic, I don’t drink while on the job. What you say? That’s not what a workaholic does? I beg to differ!

Unfortunately, the word workaholic has become commonplace amongst the masses. Let’s take a look at what comprises this horrific monstrosity of a “word” shall we? It is sad, but Webster has this word in the dictionary. From Webster:

Etymology: work + -aholic, alteration of -oholic (as in alcoholic)

Part one: Work. Work is the root of this mutant freak of a word, that is fine. Part two: Alcoholic. For starters, the aholic part for some reason changed the O to an A which makes no sense. Now to dig deeper into the word alcoholic. Let’s see what was changed about the root word to make it addictive in nature. The only change is an added ic. So alcohol becomes alcoholic, simple enough.

Now, someone who works so much that it’s comparable to the drinking habits of an alcoholic. Some genius decided to mesh the two words as workaholic which bothers me to no end. When I hear that word, I think of somebody who just can’t stop drinking while on the job. This is because it’s alcoholic not alcoholaholic.

I submit that if we are going to compare working to drinking (a horrible comparison that is a whole other story), the word ought to be workic. That’s right, simply workic.

He can’t leave the office; he’s a workic.

I’m a bit of a workic.

She was the top salesperson of the quarter. She’s quite the workic.

There, isn’t that nice? No implications that the person has a problem identifiable with that of a compulsive drinker. From now on, I urge you, the reader, to simply add an ic to words to make them addictive. Let’s not make everybody with a passion an alcoholic.

I got a response today from my complaint about the Q-tips. Here tis:

Hello,

Thanks so much for writing!

We do apologize for the experience you had with our product. Please
understand that the condition you’ve reported does not represent our
usual quality. We will forward your comments describing your experience
on to our Brand Manager and Quality Assurance staff.

We will certainly forward you a replacement coupon.

We again apologize and thank you for your interest!
Your friends at Unilever HPC

I’m a picky person with some things, not with others, as most people probably are. One of the many things which I am picky about are cotton swabs, commonly referred to as Q-tips, which is the brand I prefer. I prefer Q-tips because they have a stiffer shaft than all other brands I’ve used. I like the stiffer shaft because when I use them, I like to be able to apply pressure to things on the side of the cotton swab because I’m usually trying to wipe something off the side of another thing with the swab (duh).

Anyway, I enjoy doing things simply based on principle. I realize that Unilever Corporation (Q-tips parent company) will even notice anything a single consumer has to say, but alas, here is what I’ve done. I went to their website and filled out a contact form explaining my frustration. Following is what I wrote in the contact form, including the whole reason I am writing this specific post. Enjoy!

I’ve long used Q-tips because all other cotton swabs I’ve used have a weak shaft. Q-tips have always had a stronger shaft so they don’t bend as easy.

I recently bought a box of Q-tips, and noticed the shaft is softer and the whole swabs are slightly shorter. I’m a picky person, and this bothers me. I realize it’s probably saving tens of thousands of dollars, and that my opinion really doesn’t matter, but I just wanted to know if this is a permanent change.

If it is a permanent change, I am requesting to change it back to how they were before, good and strong. Tell ya what, I’ll meet you in the middle, you can keep them shorter, but give me the stiffness back.

You know when you’re really trying to get some good circular action on that Q-tip and the blasted shaft just keeps bending so you can’t put any pressure on the end? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Q-tips used to be the good stuff, but now, there is no advantage and I might as well save 17 cents or however much less the generic brands are.

If a person read this, I’m impressed. Thanks for your attention. If you have the same feelings as I do, do what you can to fight for the little man. Otherwise, enjoy giving me a cookie cutter response.

Regards,
Billy Park
billystyle@gmail.com

I bought some of these today. I’ve long been a fan of the classic peppermint style Ice Breakers mints in a tin like this. I got the purple one in the back there. The flavors are Berry Splash, Strawberry, and Raspberry Lemonade. The Berry Splash is just superb, the Strawberry is good as well, starting to get toward the sour side, then the Raspberry Lemonade is the most sour, which really isn’t too powerful, just sour enough and rather tasty.

I am sitting here eating these right now, and I’m remembering that when I eat sour things, my face gets hot. I’ve asked around, I’m the only person I know to whom that happens. I had to get up and get a tall glass of cold water to accompany these mildly sour candies. Neat huh?