Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Black Sunday


I really wrestled with the title of this blog post. Like many great writers, I don't give my work a title until I have completed it. This time though, two titles came to me at the same time. The other title was "A Black Sherriff?" made popular in the classic Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles. Now I am assuming that you can begin to guess what the subject matter of this blog post is going to be. Yes, it has something to do with the color black. And I can assure you that here at Jordon's Deep Thoughts I never shy away from being politically incorrect, just see my award winning coverage of September 11th and Hurricane Katrina.

As you all should know, this upcoming Sunday is Super Bowl XLI (41 for the Roman numeral impaired readers). Now, my collegues in the media feel the need to write countless stories about two subjects, both associated with blacks and the NFL. It is these two subjects that I will spend the next few paragraphs venting about.

First, unless you have been living under a rock...or don't want anything to do with sports...you know that this is the first Super Bowl to feature a black coach (actually both coaches are black). Personally, the fact that these coaches were black didn't even occur to me until the media brought it up. This was the same as a couple years ago when Donovan McChoke led the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl. The media quickly said that he would be one of the first black quarterbacks to take his team to the Super Bowl. I think a lot of people have become color blind. They see a lot of these black athletes as simply athletes and only when the media reminds them of their color do we say, "Oh yeah, I guess he is black but so what?" If these minorities want to stop being discriminated against, stop reminding everyone that you are, in fact, a minority. Even Kobe Bryant was quoted recently as saying, "Hopefully there will come a day when we just look at them as coaches and not black coaches." Umm...Hello...that was your big chance idiot and now you haven't made any progress because you fell right into the media's trap. Congratulations.

Second, and this one really pisses me off. Being an engineer with some common sense, I like to use numbers to explain things and support my arguments. The sports media, specifically in football, is always talking about the hiring of minority coaches. Personally, I feel that the most qualified candidate should get the job and I don't think that view is racist in the least bit. I read a book entitled The End of Racism by Dinesh D'Souza where the author speaks of the idea of "fighting racism by practicing it." This all goes back to affirmative action but I am not about to tackle that idea in one blog post.

Anyway, my point is that the media says there are not enough black head coaches in the NFL. I just checked, last season there were 7 black head coaches in the NFL. There are 32 teams. That comes out to 22%. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the percentage of the U.S. population that is black is 12.3%. If you do that math that means there should be 4 black head coaches.

Translation: quit your complaining and everything will be fine.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is my blog, if you don't like it or agree with it, don't read it. But please leave me a comment!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Hail To The Bus Driver

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This blog post was originally posted in an AOL Instant Messenger away message in 2000. The details have been changed to make it more understandable to my readers from so many different backgrounds. (I have people checking out my blog from Austria, Spain, and Sweden) Only those attending The Pennsylvania State University would have understood the original post about The Loop.

Remember in elementary school when you were riding the bus to school and all of the bus drivers would wave to each other? Do you think they are really friends? I would bet every bus driver is a walking time bomb waiting to go off. Imagine driving around 40 screaming kids 6 times a day (elementary, middle, and high school AM/PM). Those bus drivers probably hate everybody.

Also, do you think the drivers of the regular school buses shun the drivers of the short buses? And remember those buses with the seat belts? How about the buses with five across in the last row?

I'll also never forget when my friend Mike tied Owen Murphy's shoelace to the seat and he couldn't get it untied before his stop came so the bus driver made him go all the way back to the bus garage where she cut his shoelace. And then he had to walk home in the pouring rain instead of getting dropped off near his house. So that confirms it, bus drivers are just angry people who are friend with nobody, not even their co-workers.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

What's In A Name?


In case you didn't know, I have moved to the Stamford office. If you don't watch The Office on NBC then you won't get that joke. But seriously, I did move this past week to a lovely new apartment in Stamford. It's the 6th place I've lived in since moving to Connecticut only 16 months ago. Talk about staying mobile. This only adds 5 minutes to my commute so I can still make it to work in about 30 minutes which is fine.

Anyway, I was driving to work this morning and happened to glance up at one of the signs above I-95.

Quick sidenote: Did you know that in California people say "The 5" instead of simply "5"?

So, the sign said Connecticut Welcome Center, 1 Mile. I have seen these signs a number of times all over the country but I can't say I remember thinking to myself, "I better stop, maybe there will be people in there who will be happy to see me. Maybe give me a small 'welcome gift bag' of goodies only found in that state." From what I can remember from all my stops at rests stops I don't remember anything like this. No balloon arch that says, "Welcome to (Insert State Here)". No cute girls handing out gift bags while wearing some sort of local attire. Usually it's just a dirty bathroom with a couple of vending machines. I think we should start writing out congressmen and state DOTs to remedy this clear violation of advertising integrity. Who's with me???

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Mmmm...hamburgers


Happy New Year everyone!!! Hope you and yours had a pleasant holiday season...now go join a gym and get rid of that extra weight you gained. I spent last week gallivanting around Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg). It was amazing. The one thing I noticed while there, besides how hot the prostitutes are in the Red Light District of Amsterdam, was how hot the non-prostitutes are. I would say 99% of the women there are over 5'10" and weigh no more than 125 pounds. Lots of eye candy to go around.

I also realized why the women are so much different there than here in the U.S. and A. They exercise...all the time. Instead of driving to your favorite supermarket or to the Starbucks drive-thru, they ride bicycles. Seriously, they were everywhere. The even have their own lane on the road. The parking lots were filled with bicycles instead of big SUVs.

This experience reminded me of a post I was going to make a few months ago but never got around to it. I was in Burger King and saw something that me very embarrassed to be an American. Here's something interesting for you to ponder:

Gillette introduced their first razor in 1901 (1 blade); the Trac II razor in 1971 (2 blades); the Mach 3 in 1998 (3 blades); Schick introduced the Quattro in 2003 (4 blades); and Gillette countered by introducing the Fusion in 2006 (5 blades). That comes out to 1 additional blade every 25 years or so. Seems okay.

Burger King sold their first hamburger in 1954 and they just introduced The Quad. What is The Quad you may ask? That's right, a hamburger with 4, count 'em, 4 patties. That comes out to 1 additional patty every 15 years or so. Seems okay.

What have we come to as a society? At this rate, by the time I die (100 years old by the way), I will be shaving with a razor with 8 blades and eating hamburgers with 10 patties. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, most girls like a guy clean shaven, right? Too bad they don't like guys who weigh 500 pounds. Most people think the government should probably do something, I say use some common sense and stick to the Mach 3 and Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Mmm, that sure does sound good right about now, doesn't it?

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