The Bag to go with The Shoes

Okay, so now that I'm working and being steezy and so forth, I had to pick up some new gear- a few pairs of jeans, a polo or two, all that good shit. Anyway, a gray area purchase that I made was a pair of sneakers from Undefeated in Silver Lake. The store was great-- an all around fun experience and with a generously stocked sale rack I was able to find something even I could afford. Anyway, while I may aspire to be like Russel Simmons and fresh to death it every day with crisp, shoes shelved for a lifetime after only one wear, that isn't a possibility for me, or probably for him anymore, now that Kimora has walked off with half of his loot, and possibly all of the left foot shoes. Look at me, namedropping people I saw on MTV Cribs, what a pro.

Anyway, so the point is, Undefeated sells products that are a tough combination of long product life cycle, low necessity, and high(ish) price. Plus, the store I went to was in Silverlake, which meant that parking was an impossible bitch. Basically, they need a way to stay top of mind, when there are a thousand other cheaper places to buy shoes, many of whom have more money to spend on advertising.

They came up with a pretty simple solution. After the dude rang me up, the slipped the box into a sturdy looking bag, and sent me on my way. I was pleased to discover that the shopping bag was of the sort environmentally conscious folks use to carry their whole-foods groceries-- namely, made of durable, reusable synthetics. The first thing this did was to validate my purchase price. Nothing is worse than a shitty bag, particularly when you've just exchanged several shekels for what amounts to a luxury item. Beyond that though, I'll keep this bag, and put shit in it when I go grocery shopping or whatever. It's sweet looking, and it doesn't have a smug message about the environment on it.

Well played, Undefeated, well played.

Getting Pumped

People often ask me how, facing unemployment, basement dweller status, I manage to stay so upbeat-- how I muster up the energy to tear apart my enemies and attack the day like a hungry dog. It's true that from the surface, the odds are stacked against me, and yet like a salmon swimming up against the current, I soldier bravely onward. The secret to my success isn't exercise, since I can't face that until late at night, nor do I rely upon prayer or a hearty breakfast, since I don't get hungry until around noon-- the correct time for a human being to be up. Instead I look back to the old masters for inspiration, and every morning I watch the following videos:








When I see these high levels of badassery and douchebaggery I know I can succeed as long as I turn myself into a high operating hate machine.

Love

Ace

Embrace All Things Unholy: A Plan for the Raiders

So I was watching the Chargers play the raiders on Monday Night Football and the announcer was kind enough to warn me that any accounts of the game that I give without the express written permission of ESPN and the National Football League will land me in the slammer, but suffice it to say, the night did not end in a resounding defeat for the Raiders.

Growing up in So Cal, not giving a soupy green shit about sports, I don't have fond memories of watching the Raider game with my pops, or anything like that. All I remember, and all I have seen about the Raiders is a bunch of trashy fans who are pretty far down the totem poll, even for NFL fans. The team used to be epic, but now sucks. It's soft of defense, soft on offense, and plays in Oakland. In fact, in Monday's game, their pitiful stadium still had a dirty baseball diamond in the middle of the field. PA-THETIC.

Anyway, apparently the Raiders used to be good, way back when they were coached by John "Frank Caliendo is a hack" Madden. They were renowned in the NFL for punishing, dirty play. I think that, in order for the chargers to return to glory, they need to return to their roots. Now, admittedly, my plan will take some time to enact, but bear with me.

1. Draft every troubled player in the NFL:
A great start would have been making a generous offer to Michael Vick, one of the most maligned figures in the Modern NFL, and T.O, a guy who is out of his damn mind, but can still move the football better than anyone. Go ahead and google "Raiders Fans" and tell me if you think these people could give two shits about animal cruelty. When Plaxico Burress gets out of jail, give him a place to go. Every time a player is involved in a crime, let it be known that he can find a home with the Raiders. Vick and T.O are both likely to have good seasons, and the owners and coaches of teams who banned them will be kicking themselves come playoff time.

2. Send scouts to prisons looking for players:
Okay, this is MOSTLY a PR move, but imagine the buzz, "Raiders Looking for a Few Good Murderers." It's kind of like the inverse of the premise of that crappy Mark Wahlberg movie about the Eagles QB. So anyway, pick up like 5 players, on the cheap, and only play the best couple, but put them right on your O and D lines. Again, this is for buzz, but when the other guys hear that they are facing convicted murderers, its likely to have some effect.

3. Go for every fourth down inside the 40:
This is a simple one, and one that will play to the strengths of your punishing new quasi-lunatic linemen. I honestly think, from having watch USC go for so many 4ths, that it sets the other team's defense off balance, and by forcing them to play one more set of downs it will wear them down. I know the safe move is to go for the safe three, but it's not like the Raiders have been losing a lot of games by 3 points, is it?

4. Free beer to the loudest section:
At home games, let it be known that you will reward the loudest and rowdiest section with free beer. If you didn't google 'Raiders Fans' last time, go ahead and do it now to see why this is a great idea.

5. Don't worry so much about the fouls:
Budget about 50 yards of penalties into your defensive game plan and then just let them wail on the offense. This goes to my point #3 as well. The Raiders don't usually play in close games, so if your goal is to shake up and injure the other team rather than to win, then it becomes easier to accept getting a couple penalties per game for late hits. The point is, the Raiders should be content to ride out a season or two nearish the bottom, if it means establishing an identity as the scariest team to play against.

The Raiders were, I believe, second from the bottom in 2008. That means they beat the Detroit Lions, who managed to lose every game they played. When you think about the Lions you think about a bunch of sad sacks, but when you think about the Raiders, you will, if my plan goes correct, think about a bunch of savages who would rather hurt the other guy than score. If everything goes according to plan, the Raiders will either get some respect back, or be kicked out of the league, thus opening up the chance of a Pro Team coming to LA, or better yet, the NFL just bumping the USC trojans from the NCAA to pro status like they should have done years ago.

Life's not too short, it's too long

I hate the expression, "life is too short." You know, some jagov is always saying, "life's to short to stay mad over the small stuff." that's bullshit. Don't get me wrong, I usually enjoy kicking around the ol' mortal coil, it's just this particular construction has always bothered me. Life isn't too short to waste on a crappy job, it's too long to spend doing something you hate. If you hate your shit job, you're still going to work about 260 days a year at it.

260 x 30 years / 365= 21 years

That sounds like a long time to me, matter of fact it sounds like like a jail sentence.

Anyway, that's an example of something that was too long for twitter, but probably too short and dull for this blog. Anyway...

Fucking Kanye

It took a special and important moment to get me out of my self-imposed exile. It wasn't MJ's death, the dow passing 9000, Clinton nabbing some Chinese babes from China, or even USC's victory over Ohio State. What brought me out of my slumber was a special moment.

I felt a great disturbance in the lulz....
























You know what happened. I know that my blog is far enough down the internet food chain that I can't possibly be breaking this story twelve hours after it happened. I know you know because everyone on my facebook changed their status, without having the self awareness to know that watching the VMA's is for fourteen year olds. I was off playing Madden 08 because I'm broke, but I felt the aforementioned phenomena, and knew something was afoot.

When my douche sense is tingling, I follow it, so I dropped my wiimote and I ran to the nearest internet and watched the video. I received a call during the video and as we were talking-- me keeping one eye on the action-- she suddenly says, "hang on, my roommate wants to show me something." I knew what was up, so we both watched as Kanye West, charged the stage like a heroic knight charging the castle, ready to save the princess.

George Bush didn't care about black people, and Kanye West doesn't care about white chicks. He acted like he didn't know who Taylor Swift was, which is how I would act, because I don't know who she was. I thought she may have been the high school musical chicks, but not the one who was naked twice, but that's not the case. Apparently she's just some chick. Anyway, Kanye grabs the mic and heroically starts yapping away. He probably knew it was an incredibly rude and childish thing to do, or maybe he didn't because since his mom got pwned by a bad stomach staple, he's reverted even deeper into a child. Either way, it didn't matter. Some things are bigger than manners. Kanye saw a tragedy about to happen, and he couldn't let it go on undeterred. You wouldn't think it was rude if the passengers on your flight stormed the terrorists attempting to hijack it-- would you?

Kanye saw that the entire world-- even just for a few seconds-- was being deprived of his opinion, and he couldn't let that shit go.

This is basically the idiot's version of another epic douche moment from earlier this week:



Basically, it looks like other assholes of the world are out there stepping their game up, being impossible assholes, and they've pretty much just taken the rock to the hole, and said look, Infinite Steez, it's your move. Alright internet, I got this. Hail Satan.

Nevermind, I have a few jobs lined up:

Don't worry everyone, I have a few gigs in my future, all found through craigslist




























Plus I found that dude whose number I lost:

Salary Expectations

I love it when a job asks me what my salary expectations are. I haven't been paid for work in like ten months, and that wasn't much either. I expect to be paid, that's it. Companies should just come out and be like-- hey, we're gonna pay you like $20K a year, or whatever, and if I want to get paid that much I'll apply and if not I'll keep looking. They do this-- obviously-- so that they can take the best combination of qualified and willing to work for peanuts. If the job goes for $30 but the person will do it for $20, they can basically take advantage of the lack of knowledge of pay structure.

Then again, this might be a great strategy that people can apply to their lives, like dating for instance. On a first date, the chick can just say-- "hey, what base do you think you'll be getting to tonight," and if it were me I'd be like, uh, I think that first base is definitely reasonable, but second is not by any means out of the question..." Meanwhile, this chick was totally down for anal and now I'm getting gypped.

TL;DR-- Asking someone what they expect is a great way to make them look like an asshole.