I’m Buying A Gun
All I ever wanted was a mailbag. I have a podcast, but if the rumors are true, so does every white man. Podcasts cannot be special anymore. What really lifts you out of the shit is posting an email exchange and then passing it off as entertainment.
That’s earned though. You don’t just get handed a mailbag or advice column or televangelist ministry. People need to know they can trust you, so here is a medium post about demanding respect which is under no circumstance to be looked upon as the unhinged bellowing of a desperate man.
- Major League Baseball’s Push Notifications: Like A Boss On Fleek
I keep push notifications on for a lot of things. It’s a good way to feel like you know everything. Not because you click through and open the app and read the story, but because you get to say either “Yeah, I know” or “Who cares?” which are two delightful and really very American phrases.
Major League Baseball abuses this privilege. Screen Time informs me I received 20 push notifications Wednesday from MLB At Bat and those all came on a day with a 1–0 Mets loss. If there had been any offense in that game the number would be much higher.
For obvious reasons, the notifications they send out are skewered towards the youth. Tired of hearing about how they’re an old man sport, MLB did what every brand does, go full Brands Saying Bae. It would be hypocritical of me to complain too hard about this. Just like a lot of other people I complained about baseball being stuck in the past, and it’s not entirely clear for 116 year old organizations how to appeal to millennials and Gen Z without pandering, which is why I get notifications that say “Vlad Guerrero Jr. has arrived in The Six”.
It’s also odd when they send out the more serious notifications because of the sudden tone shift. You go right from “Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil are besties and it’s adorable” to serious information about Corey Kluber getting hit by a line drive. I am holding out hope for “That ultimate sacrifice tho…” on Memorial Day.
- Fanatics Brand Merchandise Are Elaborate Fakes
Fanatics really make it a point to let you know their stuff is officially licensed and I don’t see the appeal of this when your jersey has no Nike or Adidas logo on it and people will absolutely call it bootleg regardless.
I am a mark for sports apparel brands. Arsenal are switching from Puma to Adidas this summer and I’m genuinely ecstatic. I am going to drop $70 on 3/4 length track pants at the first chance I get and never wear them out of the house. I get that Fanatics sells stuff that looks near identical to the real thing. You can get a basketball jersey for $70 instead of $110, but in the end you are throwing down $70 on a fake jersey.
Aren’t they all technically fake? Does anyone really care? I am in no position to tell anyone what is a responsible or necessary way to spend their money. As I look over at my closet the nicest thing in there if we’re just going by sheer dollar amount is a Pat Mahomes jersey. A gift, admittedly, but it is something I can never wear anywhere no matter how much I love it.
Being a sports fan is just such a massive waste of money and literally everything is a luxury purchase. If you’re going to spend a week’s grocery budget on an ugly shirt that gets you yelled at, get the more satisfying item. I have $150 worth of Mets hats and I suspect that puts me somewhere around the 30th percentile.
On the subject, this is fucked…
- Get Hair Restoration
Sam Darnold was in the Mets locker room the other day and a picture of him and Pete Alonso was posted to the Mets instagram and I was struck by how weird these guys look considering they have the potential to be Sports King of New York one day. Drew Magary wrote the other day, correctly, that playing in New York is meaningless these days but I can’t imagine seeing Sam Darnold’s gigantic face in commercials from my Tri-State Ford Dealers for the next 15 years.
Pete Alonso isn’t as naturally hilarious as Darnold, he’s just losing his hair. These things happen. It’s happening to me! Perhaps not enough for me to talk about it as much as I do, but enough that I think about it near constantly and worry about becoming a weird permanently young guy to compensate. Alonso couldn’t have predicted that he’d start this hot and get this much attention. Is he self conscious about his hair? Probably not as much as me, but if I was making the $550,000 he’s making that’s the first thing I do.
You will be made fun of for being bald. Half of Curb Your Enthusiasm dialogue let us know this. You will also be made fun of for getting hair restoration but you know what? You’ll have hair! Adam Levine got hair restoration(allegedly). Think that didn’t work for him? Ask your aunt.
(While researching celebs who got hair restoration I found this on hairlosstalk.com. Please enjoy.)
- Just steal
I don’t have a cable line that runs to my bedroom. I have an Apple TV, which is great unless you’re watching anything live. If you’re watching anything on the NBC or ESPN or Fox app, it will be about a minute behind whatever is happening on the over-the-air broadcast so if you’re watching something while also following it on twitter it will be spoiled for you. It’s completely unrealistic for me to put my phone down while watching television. Do not suggest I do this.
Watching the NBA playoffs on the TNT app has been a living hell. There’s issues logging in, it occasionally skips back 30 seconds, it occasionally starts fast forwarding to compensate for the skipping backward. Complaining about this to TNT is pointless because they already have my money by way of Verizon. There is no reason for these companies to improve their apps. WWE Network works because that’s the whole package. What does TNT care if their stream sucks? As long as the cable feed is okay there’s nothing to worry about.
Does it count as stealing if I watch an illegal stream even as I pay for cable? My friend recently got a ticket for jumping a turnstile despite paying for a monthly unlimited Metrocard. He went to court to fight it and beat it on a technicality because the officer checked both the AM and PM boxes on the ticket, so we’ll never know if that argument is valid.
And speaking of Turnstile, I’ll be there to get my jaw broken by a spin kick Sunday night at Brooklyn Steel where security will smell your cigarettes and throw away your juul pod. I hope a sinkhole opens beneath it, but not until after the show.
Goodbye.
