Spam Spam Spammity Spam
Posted: October 15th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball, Media, Pop Culture | 20 Comments »
So here was how my day began: I woke up in the morning to find that I apparently had sent a spam email to every single person I know and numerous people I don’t really know but have had passing email contact with like Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Frank, Curt Schilling and StrippersinKC*.
*Really, heh heh, don’t know them. Not at all. I contacted them when I wrote a column once about how the stripper market goes up Super Bowl weekend. Well, it’s TRUE.
Yeah, I know. Embarrassing. Though I will say that as far as spam emails go, this was one of the spammier. Its point was to “introduce a company who trades mainly in electonric products.”
Well, hey, I love electonrics. Well who doesn’t? I’m also a relative expert on soffyware development and Fizics.* My favorite part of the email — and also, I would find out, noted baseball and and skin-care expert Dr. Rany Jazayerli’s favorite part — comes a bit later when (as the email sender) I promise to not only provide outstanding customer service and good quality electonrics but also “the price is surprising happiness to you.”
*I keep thinking of the Cheers where Cliffy is talking about what a great deal he’d gotten on beef at the Hungry Heffer, and then Norm says, “Beef? No that was Beff.” And he goes on to explain in disgusting fashion what beff is. Then Cliffy says something like, “Oh, I’m gonna be sick,” and Norm goes, “Hey, you don’t hear me complaining about my loobster.”
The price is surprising happiness to you. Rany is thinking about including that on his business card. You know, it astonishes me, it really does, that people who are smart enough to break into my email account and send out this spam email to every single person on my contact list* are not smart enough to get a decent language-to-English dictionary.
*Heck EVEN I don’t know how to send out an email to every person on my contact list.
So I spent much or my morning reading smart-alecky emails from those few friends who are still talking to me. Then I had lunch with my dear friend Mechelle Voepel who is, in my mind and most others, the premier women’s basketball writer in America and also the most insanely passionate Twilight Zone fan in the history of the world, including Rod Serling. Mechelle has started her own blog, which I linked up on her name, and we’ll have a nice involved interview with her in the next couple of weeks when we’ll talk about the blog, the Patty Duke Show*, her Women’s hoops Final Four (Connecticut, Tennessee, uh, see, I can do this too), her crazy love for the Cardinals and so on. But, really, feel free to pop on her blog now. Go ahead. You’ll love it.
*Identical cousins? Really? Is that because it fit the song better?
But they’re cousins!
Identical cousins all the way!
One pair of matching bookends
Different as night and day.
Then, I worked for numerous hours on this book I may have mentioned that I’m working on, and then I came home to watch the debate/Dodgers-Phillies game. What I wanted to do was watch them both at more or less the same time, switching back and forth so that one minute I’m watching Shane Victorino strike out swinging, then I watch John McCain talk to Joe the Plumber, then I watch Barack Obama talk to Joe the Plumber then I watch Rafael Furcal ground out to second, then I hear Tim McCarver go through all sorts of verbal contortions to make the point that it was fitting that Shane Victorino ran into the Best Buy sign because he was the Phillies’ best buy in a long time, then more Joe the Plumber talk*.
*Man, seriously, I know it’s hard to get a plumber on short notice these days, but all this talk about Joe the Plumber seemed a bit excessive to me. Of course, once they got going with it, I wish they would have kept going with it.
McCain: “Joe the Plumber, I wanna tell you, I’ll not only help you buy that business you worked your whole life for, I’ll keep your taxes low.”
Schieffer: “Would you like to respond Senator Obama?”
Obama: “I would. I’d like to say a quick word out there to Stan the Cable guy. Stan, my DVR is not working properly. I don’t know, I left the house, and Michelle was messing with it, and well, now it’s not recording anything. I know I will need a new DVR, but — and this is important, now — I have some Bears games on there already, and I’m hoping that I can still salvage those. I have not seen them yet. And I will keep your taxes low because you’re not stinking rich like Joe the Plumber.”
Schieffer: “OK, let’s move on …”
McCain: No, wait, I feel I must have a chance to respond. I would like to say something to Lisa the Maid, you know, I seem to have lost the remote control for the television. I’m not blaming you, I think that I left it in the couch or something after I watched the Cardinals beat the Cowboys the other day …
Obama: I saw that.
McCain: … but anyway, I can’t find it now. And we have that kind of TV that you can’t turn it on or off without the remote control, which I think is stupid, and I know how to fix it, and I will fix it my friends.
Obama: Senator McCain is right, we do need to fix these televisions that require a remote control to turn on and off. But if I may, Bob, I would like to say one thing to Jake and Cindy, who are supposed to mow my lawn this week. Kids, you need to edge. You really do.
Schieffer: Fine. Next question is to you Senator McCain. Why is your Health Care plan better than his?
McCain: One last thing, Joe the Plumber. I keep shaking the little flusher lever, but the toilet keeps on running.
ANYWAY, i didn’t get a whole lot out of switching back and forth between the debate and the game. I will say, though, that one thing I noticed is that, realistically, the debate and baseball games are covered precisely the same way. There’s a pregame show. There’s a postgame show. There’s often curious analysis. And when it ends, everybody shakes hands. Both is surprising happiness to me.
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For once I feel glad that I did NOT receive an e-mail from you. I was spared, huzzah!
Here’s what you missed in baseball: The Phillies jumped out to an early lead, the Dodgers looked uncertain, the Dodgers made a lot of pitching changes, the Phillies scored more anyway, MannyBManny hit a home run that was kind of fun but ultimately meant absolutely nothing, and Rafael Furcal changed his market value dramatically by committing three errors in one inning.
Rany Jazayerli’s decision to go to medical school is the biggest waste of baseball writing talent ever. And you can TELL HIM that I said so. Noted skin care expert. Feh. Who needs ‘em? What we need is more intelligent baseball bloggers and BP analysts.
Every day I hope to get an email from you and today you send one to all but me. Oh the shame.
“Noted skin care expert. Feh. Who needs ‘em?”
Heh, Seinfeld acted the same way once. “Pimple Popper, MD!”
Turns out he had forgotten about skin cancer.
Great stuff. Do you know if any of your friends, Gladwell or the strippers tried to order your electronics?
I hope the Nielsen ratings reflect that a huge percentage of debate viewers had the ballgame on in their picture-in-picture.
Also, tonight’s moderator was “Schieffer.”
Aah Glenn, I think it was electonrics that were being marketed — and strippers supply their own surprising happiness.
I saw the title and thought this was going to be about Shane Victorino and PETA. Now that would be a funny column.
You are a breash of freth air!
The best part of the Patty Duke song is the line about Cathy: “A hot dog makes her lose control.”
If they ever do a remake of this show, I don’t think that the line is going to be a part of the theme song.
Depends on what type of hot dog it is. Maybe she liked Ballpark Franks because they “plump when you cook’em.”
Joe, I didn’t get any spam from you either.
In better news, I got to be on the J.D. and Dave radio show yesterday in Houston. These are two of the Astros announcers and their show is a lot of fun. Check it out. They ask some impossibly crazy trivia questions, too. I ended up winning when Geoff Blum bailed me out, but I still don’t know what the prize is. Ha.
http://www.790kbme.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=jdanddave.xml
I’m not forgetting about skin cancer. I am merely saying that baseball is more important.
“John McCain wants to talk about Lisa the Maid and his remote control, but here’s what he *won’t* tell you …”
Today is my birthday and was disappointed that you didn’t email your best wishes. Now that I find that you spammed/mass emailed your friends, I’m doubly bummed. Mark your calendar for next year, please.
“Obama: I saw that.”
Joe, you crack me up.
In my man room, I have recently set up a second tv, so that I can watch two channels at the same time. It is the most fantastic experience- controlling two tv’s, flipping channels adjusting sound up and down on both. Really good fun, and the doubling the stimulation, I highly recommend it. I almost prefer watching sports with the sound on mute most of the time anyway.
Nothing happening here.
Obama watches Bears games? Maybe, but I thought he was a BIG basketball guy. Maybe he’ll go one on one with Bobby Knight at the White House sometime (they must have a bball court there, no?) in the next 4 years and Knight will continuously post him up down low using all of that Knight heft. Plus after awhile the cigarettes will cause Obama to be dragging his butt to keep up with the hefty Knight. Then Bobby will say something about Obama’s big ears and the media will crucify Knight yet another time…Is this a dream?
Joe, you are the greatest…
“I’m not forgetting about skin cancer. I am merely saying that baseball is more important.”
OK.
I bet Rany returns when his children are older!
Damn it, Joe! I guess I’m not even in your email list.
I just sat here a laughed out loud at this little debate highlight. I really needed a laugh.
Thanks,
The truth about Joe the plumber.
1) He not actually buying a plumbing business, despite what he said before. He’s just kinda thinking of doing it some day.
2) The business in question does not net $250,000/year. Gross, maybe. But not net.
3) He’s not a plumber. Not a master, not a journeyman or even an apprentice. Rather, he works for a plumber.
I wish that this was just a joke, but it is true.
Stan the Cable Guy, on the other hand, is the real deal.