Counterpoint: LeBron James Is the Biggest Bitch That Ever Bitched

Side Bar probably shouldn't be smiling --
he can't gay marry LeBron in Florida. :-(

Earlier today, SB felt the need to comfort poor LeBron. I couldn’t have disagreed more with SB's DECISION, and here’s why ... (And, for the record, this post isn't about Side Bar being a bitch. It's about the bitch who just moved to South Beach being a bitch.)

SB, you said: “No matter what decision he made, someone was going to be disappointed.”
I say, on the other hand, LeBron James is a bitch. In this whole saga, it’s very much the journey that made him the bitch, though the destination is also quite bitch. The way he orchestrated things these last few weeks and especially last night’s new pinnacle of self-centered bullshit, “The Decision” – that is largely what made him a bitch, though to be sure, the final choice of Miami over Cleveland, New York and Chicago is bitch for another set of reasons.

SB, you said: “He hardly smiled, seemed almost apologetic to Jim Gray for his decision”
You know why? Guilty conscience. Yes, he was embarrassed at the choice he was making because he knows how shitty it is on so many levels, most especially taking a dump on Cleveland after stringing them along all this time and also by agreeing to permanently become Scottie Pippen.

SB, you said: “I have yet to hear anyone talk about the fact that he is putting team and collective excellence ahead of the maximum possible salary. That is an atypical approach for modern-day superstar athletes; perhaps it should be celebrated, not vilified.”
So his salary will now be about $15M-plus, instead of $16.6M. Big fucking difference. And as I said yesterday, LeBron James’ NBA salary is only a fraction of what Lebron™ makes. (Though maybe he did just give up $150 million, but I don’t think that’s what you were implying, so you don’t get credit. And even with that, it wasn’t his intention to sacrifice that money; he’ll lose it as a result of everyone now thinking he’s a bitch.)

SB, you said: “He had to at least make sure that he himself would not be disappointed, and the way to do that was to go to the team that was most likely to win a championship.”
Sure, the Heat are probably now the favorites to win it all next year. But had he gone to the Bulls, they certainly would have been the favorites. I think you can make a pretty damn good case that a starting five comprised of Derrick Rose, LeBron, Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, and Joakim Noah is better than Wade, LeBron (who should always be mentioned second, from now on), Bosh, Dabney and Wayne Chrebet or whatever other league-minimum guys the Heat will put on the floor to round out the team. And to further that point, if winning is all that matters, why not take an even bigger pay cut -- say, league minimum -- so the team can acquire some decent supporting players?

SB, you said: “There are only so many times that TNT can make the Heat-Lakers the game of the week.”
There are exactly two.

SB, you said: “once Bosh and Wade made their decision, LeBron almost seemed to be falling in line, not leading the charge. The build-up to this whole summer was all about LeBron. But the way it played out made his decision feel a little bit like an afterthought.”
Okay, you got that part right. See? I’m being fair.

A few more thoughts…

First of all, as a life-long Delonte West fan, I’m happy that he’s probably the most popular player in the Midwest right now. Way to go, Delonte!

Fuck this whole going-to-charity nonsense, too. It was the Boys and Girls Club…of Greenwich, Connecticut. LIKE THEY NEED ONE OF THOSE IN FUCKING GREENWICH.

And I thought pessimism was a Mets fan’s default state. I can only imagine what it’s like if you’re from Cleveland. Actually, no, I’d rather not imagine that.

Can’t WAIT to see the Heat’s first visit to Cleveland next year. I thought when Johnny Damon went back to Fenway after signing with the yankees that the reaction was rough. Bring the Kevlar, LePippen!

What I also can’t wait for? Carmelo.

And not a single word of thanks to the people of Cleveland? He pretty much gave them an hour-long kick to the balls. That’s really what it must’ve felt like if you’re Joe Unemployed Guy at the bar in Cleveland – like you just got kicked right in the balls for an hour. (A ha! Perhaps THIS is why SB identifies so closely with LeBron.) Now, normally I’m all for disparaging anything to do with Ohio or its residents (except Kenyon, shut up, LJT), but even I have my limits. What LeBron did was just sadistic.

And thank you, Kevin Durant. Much as I hate when people get all moralizing and shit when it comes to star athletes, the two ways that LeBron and Durant handled their contract situations couldn’t have contrasted better. Durant = class. LeBron = bitch.

LeBron, allow me to address you directly for a moment. Everyone now wants you to fail. Sure the Heat may have some new fans, but that's because no one has ever given a shit about them before. Except for maybe a few randoms -- and they already like Dwyane Wade better anyway. Have fun being Garfunkel the rest of your life, you bitch.

And finally, props to LJT for pointing out that if you’re still on the fence about whether LeBron is as big a bitch as I’ve made him out to be here, please consider his dumbass Abe Lincoln beard – which no one can blame ESPN for.

Best Facebook comment ever?

(Disclaimer: This particular post may only hold meaning to those who went to our high school. Oh, and Side Bar, too, I guess. He lived in our town, so he'll probably get it too. Side Bar, for those who didn't know, went to a private school because he was better than us. Also, I'm going to rip on him repeatedly in this post, so maybe you should read it just for that. It's gonna drive him mad. You might even say, "schizophrenic." K-Bye!)

Now, we all know how Side Bar hates Facebook because he's a friggin' old man (Just look at his hair. Zing!) who also hates children and ice cream and sunshine and "things that are fun," but I felt I had to report this.

Chuck and LJT have access to this photo because they're on Facebook, but for Side Bar's cranky, old sake, I'll post it here:

That's us (and our esteemed friends AWD and Lumpy) outside Carmine's two Fridays ago celebrating Queen's Quest's "Bachelor Party." (I owe a drink to whoever figures that out first.) This picture was uploaded to Queen's Quest's Facebook page. One feature Facebook, uh, features is "tagging" photos. Side Bar, pay attention: You drag your mouse over someone's face in a picture and identify them, presumably so that other people can search for pictures of you.

Another Facebook feature is that it sends you messages when you've been tagged in a photo. And yet another is that folks are allowed to comment on these photos. And finally, if someone does in fact comment on a photo you're in, Facebook alerts you to that as well. It's amazing, isn't it? Though, yes, not as cool as color TV, right, Side Bar?

Anyway, I occasionally receive these messages from Facebook when someone comments on one of my photos, or someone else's photo that I'm in.

This afternoon, I received a delightful email from Facebook. Apparently, Queen's Quest had tagged me in the above photo. (LJT and Chuck, did you get this too?) Due to the anonymity principle of this widely read Web log, I won't type the name of the person who made the comment, but I'll post a screen shot of the Gmail message. I highly recommend you download the photo, because you need to read the comment. Upon downloading it (Stop me if I'm going too fast, Side Bar. If you need help operating basic photo software on your computer-machine, call me.), zoom in and read the name of the person and what he said. (You might be able to just click on it, too. Try that. Side Bar, that thing to your right is called a "mouse"...)

The basic situation is: Queen's Quest uploaded this photo, then tagged me, LJT, Chuck, Lumpy, and AWD. She didn't tag Side Bar because (have I mentioned this?) he's not on Facebook and can't be tagged. But instead of writing AWD's real name, she wrote someone else's. Someone very funny. A real person we all remember from high school. So in case you didn't get it, the person she named in the tag obviously isn't the person in the photo. Well played, Queen's Quest. Apparently, this falsely tagged person received a Facebook message and, well, disputed its honesty.

Now, granted, I can't be sure if he was serious or not. But goddammit, that is just about perfect. I'm not gonna say I shit myself because when people say that, it's always stupid hyperbole, but when I saw that comment, I totally shit myself. We all remember what happened to that poor kid. I'm half-amazed he's still alive, much less still in North Jersey (says his Facebook profile). I figured he'd've moved somewhere far away, like Central Jersey or something. (For y'all who don't know this kid -- he was that kid you knew in high school who got picked on mercilessly. He had a really weird voice, a weirder name, and the weirdest face this side of post-bullet-to-the-face Mary Joe Buttafucco.)

I think he was serious. I also must give serious dap to Queen's Quest for tagging our boy AWD with that guy's name. (AWD, like Side Bar, also isn't on Facebook because he's scared of newfangled nonsense like cellular telephones. In fact, he's not even on Gmail. Can you believe it? He actually has both Hotmail and Yahoo email accounts, but not Gmail. Hotmail! I didn't even know that was still around! AWD is slowly figuring out this World Wide Information Superhighway thing, though -- once he figures out how to get "12:00" to stop blinking on his VCR. Okay, that was pretty cliched. Sorry! Still friends?)

But think for a second: When [the guy in the picture, I can't even think of a good nickname; what's better than his real name?] received the message from Facebook that he had been tagged in a photo, then checked it, and saw AWD instead, what was his actual reaction?

I think it was "That's obviously not me."

Finally, the Internet has an honest commenter.





P.S.: Side Bar has old, wrinkly balls. That's why he likes kicking people in the balls. He's jealous of their young, supple balls. Because his are old. And wrinkly.

Side Bar is not a dick

Also a dick.

This post was originally going to be a comment in response to Side Bar's assholery. But the comment just kept growing, and it soon became obvious that I would have to let go and see what form it took. I was hoping it would take the form of Voltron. That, or a cheerleader in one of those, you know, cheerleader outfits, but... (sigh) ...it's just a post.

(Which reminds me, why hasn't one of us posted something about that conversation we had about how ridiculous Voltron was?)

[For some context, you should read Side Bar's recent post and check out the comments. I made one and for whatever reason, Side Bar decided to tear me a new one in response. Why? Because he's a dick. Here, I reply.]

Here we go again.

Last time you "grammatically bitch slap"ped me (again, be sure to read the comments), you had simply misinterpreted a joking response as some sort of attack on you as a person (and, more specifically, your aptitude with the English language). I thought I had cleared that up but, alas, you're overly defensive nature has reared its ugly face once more. That, and you're a dick.

So you chose to go with the second definition of "schizophrenic" both times. That made me wonder something: What did the first definition have to say? After all, when someone says something, he's generally going for the first-definition meaning; otherwise, it's incumbent upon the speaker to clarify, agreed? I mean, if I were to, I dunno, call you a "dick", I would clearly be referring to the first definition (using your references):

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dick

1. A detective.

NOT:

2. Vulgar. Penis.

See? Why in the world would I have referred to you as a "dick" if I had meant the second meaning? Clearly, if I call you a “dick”, I mean that I think that you investigate murders like Jerry Orbach. If, for whatever reason, I thought you were a “penis”, it would be my responsibility to make that clear.

As for your second reference, the esteemed “freedictionary.com”, here's what they have to say:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dick

1. Chiefly British: A fellow; a guy.
2. Vulgar. A penis.

Again, my point is made. Although in this case, when I call you a “dick”, I do it in a British accent, and I mean that you're a fellow, a guy, a dude, a bro, a brah, a homey, my boy, etc... But if I meant the latter, it's on me to make that clear. Otherwise, how are you, the listener, supposed to figure out what the hell I mean? If you look a little further, the third definition says:

3. Vulgar. A person, especially a man, regarded as mean or contemptible.

Now, I certainly would never mean that, would I?

Side Bar, you wrote a very nice piece on the Mets' current situation. I particularly liked this part:

"The only thing they can do consistently is play inconsistent baseball."

Wow. That's effing brilliant. I've never seen anyone play “consistent” off “inconsistent” like that before. (Google it.) In fact, I'll bet that if you look up “inconsistent” and “consistent” in, like, an online dictionary or something, you'll find that they mean the opposite thing. Nice, dude. Antithesis. James Joyce, your Irish brethren, would be proud.

So apparently, the Mets are playing "inconsistent" baseball – meaning you never know how well they're gonna play. Good sometimes, and bad sometimes, right? And if they "consistently" do that – meaning that you know they're going to do that – uh, does that mean that they're...wait, I'm lost. If you never know if they're gonna be good or bad, but you always know that they're either going to be good or bad, does that make them inconsistent or consistent? You could say that they're inconsistent – good and bad, randomly. And you could say that they're totally consistent – good and bad, randomly. So...you never know if they're going to be good or bad ("inconsistent"), but you do know that they'll be either good or bad ("consistent").

I'm not sure what that all means. I'll leave it to Chuck to parse my logic. But I can say this for a fact: What you, Side Bar, said was cliched as fuck with a cherry of meaninglessness on top. I'm sure you're gonna get all lawyerly on me and pick this apart, but hey, after all, you're a dick.

I consistently expect that from you.

P.S. Just to pile on, you also wrote this:

“[T]he Mets do not have a single relief pitcher who can consistently be called upon to get outs in a tough spot.”

You use “consistent” like Joe fucking Morgan?

Hey Peter Man! (UPDATED)

Well you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, he's broke, don't do shit.

-- Lawrence, Office Space

So I finally got around to quitting my job, and now I have a new job. In theory, this new job will provide a bit more stability in terms of hours, and give me less of a reason to bitch and moan about how hard I work. Hope springs eternal.

That's not really the point of this post, however. Instead, in between old job and new job are five weeks of no job (yep, five weeks). While I have always had all sorts of grand plans for what I would do in between jobs (hike Everest, volunteer for a campaign, work with the poor in Bogota (New Jersey, not Central America), etc., etc.) I am becoming more and more enamored with the idea of doing absolutely nothing.

Now that's not entirely true, because I have already scheduled a few weekend trips to Florida to golf and/or hang out, and Meg and I are going to the Dominican Republic at the end of February, but other than that, I really have nothing planned. Now I may look back on this time and think it was not well spent, but waking up at 11 to catch the new Price is Right (which is, alas, awful; a mere shell of the Bob Barker days), lounging around NYC all afternoon, and baiting Open Bar into ludicrous drinking excursions on a Monday seems like a pretty much can't miss idea. Stay tuned.

Update:

For the record, I normally only go back and edit posts other than my own (except for LJT, because he can't spell and has horrible grammar and he told me it's okay. By the way, anyone know of any open jobs for a dynamite copy editor?), but I felt the need to post this little Gchat Side Bar and I had soon after his post. What do y'all think?

Side Bar: yo we should do some sort of drinking game or drinking event and document it over the course of the day on the blog. it would be hilarious as we got more and more drunk.

Open Bar: sure. you gonna bring the laptop with us as we bar hop all day?

SB: yeah . . . I was struggling with that.

maybe some sort of blackberry where we email it to LJT and he posts every hour.

OB: I could definitely bring a notepad where we write shit down as events progress. do you have a camera phone for visual documentation?

SB: I have a digital camera . . . if we have a laptop we could upload the pictures.

OB: we can do that afterwards. unless you're married to the live-blog thing

SB: I think the live updates would be funny, but so long as we have documented it correctly, it will be the same effect.

no one is going to be reading it in "real time" anyway

OB: we could incorporate an hourly visit to some internet cafe (and also document the increased annoyed-ness of the owner)

SB: I really, really like that.

OB: poor guy

SB: it's not his fault we're so drunk

OB: we should just give him $50 at 10 am and smile deviously

SB: are you volunteering me for that donation? let's save that for the IPAs

OB: i was actually thinking some kind of wager for the day. whoever wins, pays

I meant loses, pays

SB: an interesting proposition

I also think it would be funny to go to Shea like a month early and pretend to have tickets and start asking when the game starts/

OB: and then get increasingly irate every time some guy tells us IT'S FUCKING JANUARY

SB: and then be sorely disappointed when the security guard tells us to beat it

lol

that would be fantastic

we would need a video camera for that

OB: i have a tape recorder and microphone, which is easily hidden

SB: wait . . . the more I think about this, it could be fantastic . . . we go out there pretending that we are being videotaped, have bogus tickets made up for the event . . . tape people's reaction to us being so crushed when we find out we've been had

sh*t. gotta run. talk soon.

OB: i'll think on it...

Sent at 8:01 PM on Thursday