Maybe Trump should hire the Smoke Monster to help him fire people!

Its been 3 full days since the finale of Lost was shown. It has also been 3 full days since the finale of Celebrity Apprentice 2. I watched both, and while I would love to have those 7 and a half hours of my life back, I can conclude some observations from the comfort of my cozy couch.

For starters, Lost was a complex story of love, life, interaction, spirit, adventure....ahh who am I kidding, I have no idea what that show was about. I thought Lost was about a bunch of people stranded on a desert island. How they made 6 seasons out of that premise is beyond me, since it mirrored a little show I watched growing up called Gilligan's Island. Now on that show, the Professor could only make so many things with coconuts before you knew the show had “Jumped the Shark.” But I digress.

Speaking for the regular guy, of which I include myself in that category (despite 2 advanced degrees, a National Publication and well over 100 friends on Facebook), I would say the exact same thing after each show - What the f**k?!?!?! I had no clue what I was watching. I would even surf the net to see what others interpreted from each episode, only to realize I was better off researching how come that show Community is still on television, since neither made sense. People had crazy allegories of religion and scripture whereas I saw a fat guy on a desert island never losing weight and lots of people who probably reeked like ass from not having soap. It was a hopeless cause, but for some reason I kept watching.

Now Celebrity Apprentice on the other hand, I got that premise. I understood how that show worked, and the key takeaway messages the viewer should have gotten - Trump is God, and fake boobies imply respect.

Episode after episode, the players would go through crazy challenges with business implications. In real business, you fire those people who are both expendable and the cause of failures. In Trump's world, you fire whomever you gosh darn feel like, since its your show and you run it how you please. Who cares if you are a micromanager or a poor communicator - you're hot and you can score lots of dough for charity, so we shall keep you.

So on Sunday you had the end of what will likely be one of the more baffling shows ever made at the same time as the end of the show with some of the most baffling decisions ever made. I still don't understand what Lost was trying to tell, me, but if you mixed the two shows together, watching the fired employees get nabbed by the smoke monster - now that’s good television. Or how about sending Don Jr. to the Island to sneak up on the castaways, observe and provide valuable feedback like "Looks like they may be on the track." Hand me the Emmy now.

By the way, anyone else think you could have saved the 2 hours from the Grey's Anatomy finale if you had proper security to ensure people could not randomly walk around a hospital of their own free will like every other hospital in the world (you know those lovely sliding doors you cannot pass through)? Me too.

The doctors had Shepherd on the operating table, wearing their bacteria free masks and gloves, only to have crazy gun guy come strolling into the operating room, waving his gun and shooting another guy. According to CSI, the DNA will be flying all over the place, and would clearly jeopardize the cleanliness of the facility. But that’s OK, we can still fix Derek and sew him up. He'll be fine. By the way, the next time I see a guy pointing a gun at another guy, I'll be sure to run at the guy having the gun pointed at him to see how that works out for me.

I gotta quit watching so much TV.

Bucket List Revealed

I, like many people, have a number of items on my bucket list. While I guarantee it may take some time, I have full confidence I will cross all these items off my list at some point in time:

- Jam with my all-time favourite band Loverboy in a fan frenzied stadium filled concert. I can be the next Mike Reno, right down to the tight red leather outfits and sweatbands, hopping around like someone just lit my pubic hair on fire.

- Get drafted into the NHL. Despite being overlooked the past 25 years, and not being on skates in 3 years, I trust there is a scout out there who will recognize my Gretzky-like stickhandling talent and invite me to their team. And when they do, I will score a goal then ride my stick down the ice like Tiger Williams.

- Touch a fake boob. Ivanka, call me!

- Visit Switzerland, climb the Alps and sing "The Hills are Alive" while dancing in my lederhosen. Bonus points if I can ski down afterwards, like James Bond, with crazed spies chasing me while firing rifles, poison laced arrows and other cool spy stuff

- Develop the first vehicle that can fly, so I can easily avoid all those idiot drivers who get in accidents in the worst possible places. Hey, if it works for the Jetsons….

- Write a sitcom or drama a la Chuck Lorre, which I can sell to a major network, thereby allowing me to write my blog at the end of each show and get paid for it. I'm convinced the musical/police crime drama will work, or maybe a talking alien sitcom. So long as I can cast Ted McGinley or Jim J Bullock, it will be a hit.

- Drive a cab - honestly! I can smell bad and drive erratically like the best of them

I’ve been working on these for quite some time. If anyone out there can help me out, I’m open ears.

Sideline Therapy

Its been a wacky week, as I am sure many of you have had at one time or another. Sadly, blogging took a back seat, but I am back, refreshed, ready to type for my avid reader(s). You can't stop me now!

I last blogged about soccer, specifically women's soccer. Yes, I know what you are thinking. You dawg Rusty! Coaching women's soccer! I'm sure you have ulterior motives for that choice, right? Well no, actually in my 17 years of coaching, I have never dated a player. Have I coached some attractive women? You betcha! I've coached women who have been models, fitness trainers, gymnasts, figure skaters, hot nannies (think Elin Woods), playboy playmates, porn stars and Ivanka Trump. OK, I lied about those last 3, but it could happen.

I've also coached cross-dressers, women who look like men, and even women who ultimately became men. Its not about how they look, as I view them all more like little sisters....little sisters who like to kick balls and wear sports bras - not that I've been noticing of course.

So we had a game this week. I'm on the sidelines doing my coach thing, you know, looking all cool and important and making notes about stuff so I don't forget. The game is a bit dull, so my mind wanders to other topics... man, does my ankle hurt. I wonder why it is still hurting? I think I need to stop at the drug store on the way home. Wow, look at that cool boat on the water - I wish I had a camera. That is one ugly dog. I wish I was not allergic to dogs. I want to throw a Frisbee into the ocean and see if my dog would jump in and chase it. I bet that ugly one would. How long would it take me to swim under that bridge and back? I bet I could do it if I had flippers on my hands. I need something to eat. I'm thinking Chinese food. Yeah, fried rice would be nice right now. I hope I have some cash in my car. I know I have a lot of coins. I need to wash my car. Then WHAM! We scored!

Clearly, I'm in pretend mode now. After finding out who scored, I decide this would be a great moment to scream out to everyone:

“That’s how we do it ladies!"
"Well done, just like in practice!"
"Keep up the pressure team!”

I felt like one of those morons at golf tournaments who would scream out “You da man” every time Tiger Woods would drop a putt. If there’s was a list of random things to scream at soccer games I’m sure I screamed out some of the top lines. And without cue cards too! I read that professional athletes often never see who scored for their team, as they are too busy drinking Gatorade or being obstructed by the cameramen, refs and coaches blocking their view. I figure most of them are actually eyeballing the stands for skanks, but thats purely a guess.

Feeling so much better about what I shouted, I decide this would be a great time to identify to my substitutes on the sideline how important it is to be in the right positions and to persist through adversity...yadda yadda yadda. Was it applicable advice? Of course. Was it based on what I saw - heck no! Could the players tell I did not notice what had just happened? Well I, like most men, naively think women don't notice stuff like that, so the answer was most likely yes they noticed.

We would go on to score 2 more, and lead 3-0 at half time. Then the other team quit. Yup, I said quit. They decided that since 5 of them were injured and should not have played, one thinks she's pregnant, one is real tired from a long day, and one is angry at another one, they would not be able to hold it together for the second half, and would rather leave. If you think this is odd, its actually not the first time this has happened to me. But you certainly don't expect it. We decided to play with ourselves, errr play an inter-squad game to fill the time.

As I was driving home, proud of the fact we won another one, I started to ask myself, why do I enjoy coaching women? Is it because they are better listeners than men from a coaches perspective? Perhaps. Maybe its because they are easy to be around, easy to talk to, easy to teach, they always listen to my crap? Speaking of crap, darn, I forgot to buy that Chinese food.

I’m Rusty and I like broccoli!

Hi, I’m Rusty and I like meat

I'm always intrigued at how some people introduce themselves, including the small talk initiated when first meeting someone. Last night, at my soccer game, I asked all the players to introduce themselves and tell everyone what position they play on the team, given we have a number of new people who don't know everyone.

The first person to speak, a player I have coached for at least 6 years, immediately spouts out " Hi, I'm Millie, I play goalie and forward, and I like meat." This is a G-rated blog, so we'll all assume she was referring to food. Of course, what ensued for the next 14 people was a quick hello, and their status on meat consumption. Hilarious, a great ice-breaker, but at the same time, very unusual.

For perspective, recognize this is the same player who once showed up to a game wearing a bright tangerine orange hoodie with the name "Kristin" emblazoned on the back. When I asked her why she was wearing it, she said why not, since it only cost $2 at some thrift store.

Watching the Celebrity Apprentice this past weekend, "The Don" decided to introduce another sibling into the show mix. Apparently, there are more of them. Who knew? The newest Trump to grace this show was Eric, the third child he had with Ivana. He also has the same unique comb over hair, and bears a striking resemblance to Donald, more so than other older 2 kids. I had to Google him to find out he is an Executive VP in the Trump empire (gotta love that nepotism), 3 years young than Ivanka, but at least 25 years older than her boobs.

When Don introduced Eric, he said something to the effect of "This is Eric, my other son. He is a Georgetown graduate." Well good on you Eric. My opinion of you has already been altered. Not.

As a side note, both Ivanka and Donald Jr. were Wharton Business School graduates, which Don Sr. ranted and raved about way back when since he of course is an alum of there too, and clearly, that school is "the BEST". So I guess either Eric is the black sheep of the house, or perhaps spent more time avoiding the legacy of the other family members. Not that Georgetown is a bad school. But its not Wharton, which Don seems to believe creates business gods. As an aside, I went to the same school as Alex Trebek. What is "Bazinga!"

So why is it important to share school affiliation with an introduction? Do people from Harvard tell everyone they went there? Perhaps, but in the first sentence out of their mouth? Maybe by sharing that, you are attempting to justify the credibility of your child, as if to think the son of Trump is nothing more than a disciple the great one, and would be lucky to be working at Mcds if not for the Trump name. Donald is a wee bit of a braggart, so I expect nothing less, but at the same time, who are you really trying to impress. Now if Donald had said something to the effect of "This is Eric. I've ignored him on this show for 8 seasons, but we've run out of people who still like me", that might have caught my attention. Not as much as Ivanka's fake rack (can you tell I am still obsessed by that).

When I meet people for the first time, I usually say something to the effect of "Hi, I'm Rusty. Pleased to meet you" looking them straight in the eyes boxer style, while trying to give the grip of death to their hand as a reminder that they met me. Better to be gripper than the grippee I say. If someone tried to shake my hand back just as hard, I refuse to let go until they do. We could stand there for days, but I rely upon my higher pain threshold to win that one every time.

I guess I’ll have to change my intro. “Hi, I’m Rusty and I like meat.”

The Eagle has Landed

I know I was in the middle of my LA trip update, but I must take a detour to talk about something different.

Yesterday, while at soccer, I saw and heard the most horrifying thing. At the field, there is an eagles nest. Its fairly obvious, and periodically, you see the eagle sitting there checking out our lovely ladies teams kicking the ball around. He’s a pretty good fan, making little noise and while flying around every once in a while, never flying anywhere near us.

On the other side of the street is a food wholesaler, produce and dry goods mostly. As such, there are a large number of seagulls which hover around the food place. I'm sure they see us over at the field, but thankfully, they have avoiding visiting our area to drop a dump on us or whatever it is seagulls do when they are flying around.

So yesterday, we hear a huge screaming from some seagulls. When we look up, we see the eagle, flying back to its nest, gripping a captured seagull in its talons. Other seagulls are screaming their heads off and somewhat chasing the eagle, but clearly being scared, fly off in the other direction for fear of being the next meal victim.

So for the next 30 minutes, we hear the captured seagull screaming for its life as the eagle has its way. Needless to say, they were not playing cards. Probably the most mortifying thing I've heard in a while. I half debated throwing a rock or something, but realizing that the same eagle could chase us, or worse, I would miss wildly and peg off some kid on the teeter-totter, I thought better.

What a way to go though. Flying around, minding your business, looking for yummy lettuce and tossed out fruit, only to be captured mid-air by some other meaner bird, who takes you home for dinner. Chasing salad to being the salad.

At the same time, most people have difficulty swatting flies. Can you imaging trying to catch another bird in mid air, especially given how well birds turn and change directions. I’d be that eagle flying around chasing only to hit a tree by accident or better yet, flying into an electrical wire and zapping myself.

I’m off KFC for a while I think. Nah, I’ll still eat it.

I met a guy who was an extra on Ghost Whisperer!

Well I took my therapy on the road this past week, visiting beautiful Los Angeles California. My brother had suggested a quick trip to LA to catch some hockey and enjoy the better weather. I jumped faster than David Lee Roth (see original Van Halen for you youngins) and I was California bound.

Now this trip was not my first visit to LA, nor will it be my last. At the same time, its always interesting to see in person the city you tended to watch so much of from TV, Movies etc. Before we even got off the plane at LAX, it was hard not to eavesdrop on the types of conversations I would be experiencing in La-la Land. In one word - fake - like the many sets of boobs I saw. Talk about listening to a whole lot of "well you've gotta go to this place, it is to die for. So divine. I'm real good friends with this guys dog's groomers drivers pizza delivery guy. He can get us a deal!" Ugh. Maybe I could go without listening to people on this trip. Oh the foreshadowing of things to come.

The other part about landing in LA is immediately seeing paparazzi hanging around waiting for important people to come by. Clearly, none were on our flight since these same photogs decided they would rather change film and drink coffee than come to our gate. A while later, we saw them move to a different gate, cameras ready. But for the life of me, I could not tell who they were trying to photograph. Put sunglasses and a toque on and everyone looked mysterious to me now. I told a whole bunch of tourists it was Brad Pitt and Angelina, so they took off, allowing me quicker access to the bag dispenser. We would see paparazzi at many other locations on our trip, but try as I might, they never looked my way. I guess I need to work on my celebrity, or get on a reality show or have a sex tape or something.

We did a lot of things in 3 days, more than I can fill in one blog, but one of the highlights for me was taking the ever popular Warner Brothers Studio tour in Burbank. For those not in the know, Warner Brothers (WB), they of the Looney Tunes and Bugs Bunny fame, run one of the most historical and successful production studios in LA - home to many shows and movies too numerous to mention here. If you watched it on TV and liked it, it was likely made at the Warner Brothers lot. Unlike TV studios like CBS or NBC, WB offers studio space to anyone regardless of affiliation, and hence attracts all sorts of productions which for whatever reason are not made at the actual TV station site. For example, Friends, which was a huge NBC success, was filmed at WB Studios, not NBC Studios as you might think. Something about Jay Leno's ego or something. I dunno.

So the tour involves a guided tour of the lot. They put you into these little trolley carts of 13 people max. One person gets the honour of sitting beside the tour guide, while the remaining 12 people sit in one of the four 3-seat benches in the back of the trolley. For the life of me, I could not figure out why they made benches 3 abreast instead of an even number. I guess they assume everyone travels in 3s, or perhaps they were hoping for group interaction. Its the LA way I guess. We had the luxury of sitting behind these two gay Turkish dudes, who dressed identically (crew cut, denim pants and jackets, white T-shirts, black boots and tinted sunglasses). Think gay Scarface. By the way, I keep stressing the gay part because I've never seen 2 men so gropey. Get a room fellas! I'm almost positive these 2 guys were trying to find a secluded place on the lot to engage in some frivolity. Our tour guide was regularly looking for them, since they always seemed to wander off and never wanted to look at what we were all looking at. Besides, who would not want to have some secret nooky on the set of Two and a Half Men, right?

The worst part of our Turkish friends was their English was not great. As such, they felt it necessary to ignore the entire spiel from our tour guide, constantly talking and annoying everyone else who was trying to listen. But worse was the fact tour guide guy did nothing, even though he knew people were yammering and talking pictures while he was pretending to sound like he did not memorize his "script" which was obvious to me that he had (since he spoke of things we had already passed a number of times as things we were about to see).

I suspect a lot of these tour guides are wannabe actors themselves, and probably more focused on the paycheck than the experience for us. Our guy was definitely an actor - master thespian - star of community stage and student cinema. He probably told us at least 8 times during his spiel that he was an extra in Ghost Whisperer, with Jennifer Love Hewitt. It took every ounce of energy for me to not get his autograph, but I prevailed. He also talked of many of the productions "WE" made at this lot, not him of course, but the WB family. I appreciated the family sentiment, but I trust he was still driving his trolley that day due to a bad audition. I even tried to have a "normal" conversation with him while we were waiting for others to return from a Harry Potter museum. Out of nowhere, he pointed to the water tower on the lot and said "Look, I see the Animaniacs up there, don't you?" Thanks for sharing that one guy.

There is so much more to say about the trip, but I'll leave a Hollywood cliff-hanger for you all until next time.

Time to be quiet now.

Dear Diary for April 16, 2010

Dear Diary,

Today was a very interesting day for me. It started with me sleeping in, resulting in lightening speed showering and shaving to make up time. Thank God the crinkled clothes look and "Gel-met" are back in, or at least I hope they are.

I saw at least 5 people driving with cell phones attached to their ears, one person of which was swerving into my lane. As you know Diary, there is a ban on cell phone use while driving, yet no police were anywhere in sight to capture these rascals. Those same cops must have been setting up shop in the speed trap I will see them in later today when I am pulled over. I always like to look at these people as I drive past them, but unfortunately, I could not see some of their faces as some people were adjusting their radios and looking into their purses at the same time. Too bad really, as nothing gets me going in the morning better than a death glare at a passing driver.

On my way back to the office from lunch, I saw some naked boobies as a young lass was for whatever reason sitting on the seatback of the bus bench, with her feet where you might normally sit. She was leaning forward, perhaps in an attempt to prove to all who chose to look that she had somehow forgotten to wear a bra. I of course, frown on such behaviour, and was more interested in the advertising on the bus bench. Shame on her nonetheless. Clearly her mother would be disappointed.

I tried to send an email to a person today, copying the email address off their business card they provided me. But it turned out the email address on the business card was wrong. This begs the question, who would actually use business cards where parts of the information are incorrect? Maybe there is some logic to this concept, in that perhaps the person does not want emails, or perhaps it was foreshadowing of the demise of that person from the company. I prefer to view it as a shrewd way to determine how well the reader can apply some guesswork to solve puzzles, and how only those people who can decipher the puzzle are worthy of having their emails read. Hopefully, I get a prize.

Finally, one of my co-workers decided to tell me about a work incident. I decided to respond at every opportunity with "I see...", even touching the clef of my chin and nodding at times to make it seem like I was in deep thought. This statement, "I see..." which is fact in my case, was repeated 8 times in a row, and I trust the person I was speaking with did not realize it. I will try for double digits next time. I'm sure there is a prize for that too.

Have a good night Diary.