Giving Thanks
With Thanksgiving right around the corner I figured it’s time for us to give thanks at the Stool. So I’ve compiled a list of things that we are grateful for this year. Here goes nothing-as a side note, I usually like to say “without further ado" in the introduction paragraph of my articles, but the First Lady has been on my ass lately about the fact that I’ve overused that phrase. Anyway, here we go:
1. The Government outlawing Party Poker
I know that it seems like I should be upset about this new law but it’s quite the opposite. I actually thank my lucky stars everyday that the government has stepped in and banned me from playing Party Poker. Not only has my productivity gone way up but so has my bank account. Nothing quite kills a work day like playing 20 hours of online poker.
2. My Astrovan is still working
It’s been almost two years since I bought my Astrovan on Craigslist for the bargain basement price of $1600. And it is still running like a pearl. Sure it’s broken down a few times but that's to be expected. And yes the driver’s door doesn’t shut and the brakes are virtually useless, but it still turns on every time I turn the key and for that I’m thankful.
3. The Rumor of a Scarlett Johannson Audio Sex Tape
The following is according to Dlisted.com - Apparently, during a film shoot Scarlett Johanssonleft her mic on when she went to get busy with an unidentified male in a truck. One of the sound operators noticed that her shit was still on and listened and taped while Scarlett and the dude made out and then she leaned over and gave him a sloppy bj. She ends by telling the dude “Yeah, cum.”
A Scarlett Johansson sex tape! Are you kidding me? I mean when you ask the hypothetical question “So who would you like to see in a porno movie?” Scarlett is a top 10 answer. Just the mere rumor of a Johansson sex tape is worth giving thanks for.
4. I don’t have to quite workout yet
I’m going to turn 30 in March. Lots of my friends have already turned 30. And lots of my friends are getting fat. Apparently the combination of getting older, eating poorly and not exercising can conspire to make a person gross. Thankfully my metabolism is somewhat keeping me in shape because I still eat like crap and never workout and I haven’t become my dad yet. Thank god.
5. Chicks who think we’re Maxim
I honestly can’t believe how many girls want to be on the cover of Barstool Sports. It’s freaking awesome. I feel like girls in Boston think we’re Maxim and who am I to tell them any differently? I’m just going to ride this wave until it breaks. In the olden days I used to prepare myself to get slapped whenever I asked a pretty girl if she wanted to be on the cover of my magazine. But as crazy as it seems, nowadays it is a legitimate honor. God Bless America.
6. Heroes
A lot of people probably don’t even know what I’m talking about with this one. Heroes is a new TV show on NBC. I don’t know what it is about Heroes, but I love it. And as everybody should know by now, I take my TV very seriously. I know it may seem lame, but it’s reaching “24” proportions for me which is big news.
7. Red dying before watching the Celtics Dancers
Is there any doubt that the Celtics Dancers killed Red Auerbach? I mean the guy literally couldn’t stomach the thought of watching them so he just checked out the day before they were supposed to make their debut. God bless him. I think he did enough for this city and the franchise not to have to witness this display. Maybe if they were all smoking hot than it would have been a different story but by all accounts they're not. Although that didn’t stop me from asking if they wanted to be on our cover. As an FYI, I haven’t heard back yet.
8. The Burgers at RF O’Sullivans
These are not only the best burgers in MA, but they’ve got to be the best burgers in the world. End of story. And not to combine articles here, but I don’t trust people who have never been to RF O’Sullivans. That’s like not ever being to Santarpios. I don’t care where you live in MA you need to get there and have a burger.
9. The Dunkin Donuts Great One
I don’t even know how I survived without the XL coffee. The large simply isn’t big enough. Barstool Sports probably wouldn’t even exist without the Great One. I’d just be falling asleep all day getting nothing done. I need the 24 ounces of coffee. And if Dunkins decides to come out with the XXL, I’m all for that too. Hell, let’s just make it a 2 liter for god sakes. I’ll drink it and I’m sure other people will too. I miss that feeling of drinking so much caffeine that my hands shake to the point where I can’t even type anymore.
10. Rutgers
I’m a Big East guy. Therefore, I was extremely worried and upset when BC, Miami and Vtech all bolted for the ACC. I figured it was the end of the Big East as a football conference. But much to my surprise and delight the Big East has had the last laugh as they currently have 3, count 'em 3 teams in the Top 10 while the ACC has ZERO. And the biggest surprise of the year is Rutgers who has a legitimate chance to play in the National Title Game. This just proves once and for all that the Northeast will always dominate the South in anything. First, we won the Civil War and now we've won the football war. Maybe BC will beg the Big East to let them back in the conference? Who knows, it could happen.
11. Comcast Coming to Abington.
I talked about this briefly last issue but I really can’t talk about it enough. As dawn was breaking last Wednesday I looked out my window and saw 3 Comcast trucks come rolling down my street like thunder. Yes, Comcast has finally arrived in Abington. Previously I had been living under the hostile dictatorship of Adelphia. I was forced to endure shitty DVR service and all around poor TV performance. Also, they don’t even offer cable modem. It was like living in the Stone Age. I swear to god that I had to choke back tears of joy as I rushed out to greet the Comcast trucks as they rushed past my apartment. I can only imagine that this is how France felt when they spotted the allied tanks rolling down the street. Yes, I have been held hostage by Adelphia ever since I moved to Abington, but that is finally about to change! When my first child is born I can picture myself giving a speech that goes something like this; Today is the 2nd greatest day of my life right behind the day Comcast arrived in Abington and ahead of the day I got married. Honestly, it’s that important.
12. Myspace
I don’t know where the Stool would be without Myspace. It is the perfect and I mean perfect invention for people in the Smut Peddling business like myself. It’s the only place on earth where strangers can stalk (I mean contact) hot girls and actually get a response from them. It’s beautiful. Do you know that we find 87% of the Barstool Girls on Myspace? That’s a scientific fact. And to think I didn’t even know this thing existed a year ago.
13. Eric Levin and Dan Webber
Eric Levin is our star photographer who shoots 97% of all our covers for us. As shocking as this may sound I didn’t know the first thing about photography or photo shoots when I started the Stool. When I decided I wanted to feature our first girl on our cover my plan was just to have her come to my apartment and use a digital camera to take her picture. I penciled in 5 minutes for the entire photo shoot. I didn’t even think of hair, makeup or the fact that this may seem extremely creepy to people on the outside. It all seemed simple enough to me. Needless to say I couldn’t have been more clueless if I tried. Our photo shoots are the most professional things we do. I’m talking hair, makeup, lighting, cameras, etc. It’s a full blown cluster fuck and there is no way we could have gotten this far without Eric and his merry band of men. This includes Dan Webber who is the official videographer of Barstool Sports and probably the hardest working man in show businesses.
14. My Writers
While I’m handing out the thank you's, I’m pretty confident there is no group of people in America who do more for less than our writers. I mean they don’t get paid. I’m serious, they don’t get paid. But that doesn’t stop me from yelling at them if their articles are late or they haven’t blogged for a couple days. But deep down in places I don’t talk about at parties, I think they know I love them and couldn’t survive without them. Truth be told, I’ve been lucky to find a core group of guys (and Kati) who are not only great writers, but are loyal to the Stool. Now if only we could start getting more advertisers so I could make these guys rich we could reverse this whole situation and they’d be thanking my ass.
15. The Fact that I’m not a big hockey Fan
Honestly, how bad would it suck to be a Bruins fan? They’re terrible. And I feel like they’re always terrible. Whenever I flip by them on TV you can hear a pin drop at the Garden. It must be miserable to be a Bruins fan. The season seems like it is over 10 seconds after it starts every year. And what about having to include the Versus. Network in your regular rotation of channels? That must be close to impossible. Thank God I don’t watch hockey.
16. The Construction on 93 South Has Sort of Stopped
I know that there is still construction going on 93 South, but it’s definitely not as bad as it was like 6 months ago and that’s good enough for me. I mean there was a time when I’d be trying to come home from an event at 1am and it took me like 2 hours to get home. All the on ramps to 93 South would be closed and I’d just be sitting there stuck in traffic watching construction workers sleeping in their trucks as JT the Brick screamed at me through my radio. The only positive out of the experience is that I know I could never kill a person because I didn’t try and murder anybody during those long drives home and that’s as furious as I can possibly become. Luckily the construction has seemed to ease up lately and for that I am eternally grateful.
17. The City Doesn’t Steal My News Racks
Oh, wait a minute. I’m not thankful about this. I’m freaking pissed! There are lots of things that making running an international publishing empire very difficult. But without a shadow of a doubt the most frustrating and difficult thing to deal with is the City of Boston and their crusade to get rid of the racks that we house our newspapers in. Just this week we lost 15 news racks to the City of Boston mostly in the Downtown Crossing area. Yup, the city just went around and picked them all up without any warning or notice. And oh yeah, we pay the city for permits to put them there, but I guess that’s not important or anything. Anyway, usually when the city steals our property they just take the news racks and drop them in a huge dump in South Boston. It’s a pain in the ass to go get them and load them into the Astrovan but it’s something I’ve gotten used to dealing with. However, this latest raid has caused me to lose my mind. I just returned from the dump in an attempt to free all my hostages and much to dismay I couldn’t find them. I have a reliable source who said they were all there over the weekend, but now they’re gone. I’ve been on the phone all day trying to figure out what happened to my men. Obviously I’ve gotten nowhere as nobody wants to take responsibility for killing them. Keep in mind each rack goes for about 100 bucks a pop so basically the city just stole $1,500.00 right out of my pocket. And the thing that is doubly frustrating is that we are the only publication that does distribution ourselves and we’re always the last ones to know about the city raids. All the other publications usually replace their stolen racks within 24 hours of them being taken while it generally takes us a week or so. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass for everybody, but this is the type of shit that can cause me to cancel Christmas. So, if anybody sees Mayor Menino walking down the street today feel free to punch him in the face for us. And yes, I am debating buying the domain name meninoisafuckhead.com.
As a side note, if you happen to notice that a Barstool Sports rack is missing we’re begging you to send us an email. The quicker we find out about the missing racks the better chance we have at saving lives.
18. DVR
I’ve already mentioned DVR before in a previous article that was entitled “Best Inventions of My Lifetime” But I’d be remiss not to mention it again in this article about things I’m thankful for. My life wouldn’t work without DVR. I mean I’d constantly be forced to make decisions between attending Barstool Sports events or watching my favorite TV shows. I don’t think I’d be able to make up my mind. I’d just constantly be stuck in a state of limbo getting nothing done without DVR.
So there you have it. 18 things that El Presidente is thankful for this Thanksgiving. Oh, and I totally forgot about our readers and our advertisers. Barstool Sports kind of wouldn’t work without both parties. So do me a favor and pencil them in at number 18 and 19 respectively. So there you have it. 20 things I’m thankful for this Turkey Day. Now go hookup with your ex classmates at your high school reunion and have a great Thanksgiving!