are giftcards good to buy for the holidays?

                           

i once believed that gift cards to a retailer were stupid gifts because it was like giving someone cash while saying, "BUT - you can only spend it at this one store." i argued that it was more efficient to just give cash to spent anywhere.

i later realized that if you give someone cash, they'll use it to pay bills or something practical, but gifts are not about practicality. they're supposed to be a way to spoil someone for a moment. if you give them cash, they have the option be practical.

if you know someone loves movies, give them a movie theater giftcard because it forces them to take a break from the world and go to a movie. if you know they love clothes, force them to go shopping for themselves with a card for a certain clothing store that you know they'd choose. it seems very impersonal, but it really does give them a chance to indulge themselves for a moment. maybe longer.

what tiger woods needs to do now

Tiger is a tiger.  Tiger was a tiger.  Tiger was like a shark that smelled blood in the water.  Blah blah blah tiger tiger tiger.  We’ve all just seen the real Tiger, and we’ve all known the fake Tiger walking around with the fake blonde wife and the innocent kids.  What’s a Tiger to do now?  It’s simple.  There’s only one thing left for Tiger to do if he wants to eventually get back to the Tiger we’ve always not really known.  He needs to stop talking about being a better husband and start telling the truth.  Start being a Tiger.

Tiger’s life has been an event.  From being on television at age 3 to being on the world stage before he was 20, there’s no part of his life that hasn’t been controlled, until now.  Everything we’ve seen of Tiger up to now has been the media version.  Tiger 1.0.  we only saw the Nike Tiger, the Gillette Tiger, the PGA crafted Tiger, or the Earl Woods influenced Tiger.  As we watched Tiger, Tiger was lurking in the jungle.

Tiger made the same move as Bruce Springsteen back in the 80’s when he was at the top of the charts, 35 years old, and trying to figure out when he was going to grow up.  Someone set him up with a sort-of model, he got married, and it all went wrong because, I hate to use this saying, but she wasn’t his type.  Springsteen, one of my heroes, but not for what I write about here, grew up in bars.  He likes bar women.  Bar women aren’t models.  They wear – and sometimes wake up in - worn jeans, show cleavage, do shots without a chaser, and sometimes smoke.  He married a rather sterile woman with an almost promising television career.  She was wrong for him, just as the blonde Swedish woman is wrong for Tiger.

Tiger has been protected, over protected.  Tiger’s life has been swimming in anti-bacterial lotion.  He’s been trying to be his image, and his image isn’t him.  Because of his many commercials, endorsements, and investments, he’s had to be the TV-version of Tiger.  He hasn’t seen the real world that’s been hidden from him.  He hasn’t gone to clubs and left at 2am, staying between the four blurry lines as he tried to drive home.  He hasn’t gone to cheap strip bars for a white-trash bachelor party.  He hasn’t driven through McDonald’s or White Castle because he was just too damn hungry to make it to Fleming’s or Ruth’s Chris.  He hasn’t been “real.”

Now, Tiger, here’s what you need to do.  You face the fact that you’ve been hanging with the trashy women because, understandably, you like them.  It’s okay.  Just face it.  Also, face the idea that if you stay with Elin, beg forgiveness, start vacuuming while holding the kids and making her breakfast, you’re going to be stuck with Ms. Blondie Boring forever.  And, if you do that, you’ll continue to be bored with her, and you’ll soon fall back to the strippers.  Once you’ve done that, phase 2.

Phase 2 is to stand up, be pro-active, and be you.  Get to a press conference at which you decree that you’ll be making a statement but taking no questions.  You tell the press the following:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have lied to you.  I have tried to pretend to be in love with a perfectly normal, regular woman.  It didn’t work.  I don’t like vanilla ice cream.  I like rocky road with extra nuts and chocolate syrup.  I made the mistake of pretending to be someone I’m not, but I’m not going to do that anymore.  I will no longer be the media-friendly Tiger who smiles and drives home in the mini-van.  I will be the Tiger who I am.  It’s not a Tiger you will enjoy, but that’s not my problem.  I don’t need sponsors, but I will be glad to take some on if you’re willing to know who you’re getting involved with.  I will now go back to my yacht and host a Victoria’s Secret fashion show.  I’ll see you all about a week after New Year’s Eve when I wake up.”

Stop lying, Tiger.  If you’re into whores, that’s okay.  Don’t make excuses.  Just do it.

why i don't like christmas

There’s only one day of the whole year that I truly hate, and it’s not one that I should hate. It’s Christmas Eve. For about nine years I’ve spent Christmas Eve doing pretty much the same thing. I wrap gifts for my kids and put them under the tree. No matter how much I might be able to give them, it never feels like enough, but that’s not the hard part. The really hard, hateful part is that I then go to bed knowing that I won’t see them at all on Christmas Day. I won’t go into those details because there’s a good chance that one of the kids will read this.

Regardless, when I go to bed on Christmas Eve, I try as hard as I can to not cry, but I always lose. And it’s not just crying. It’s choking, sobbing, heaving, shoulder-shaking cries. There have been some Christmas Eve’s that I’ve had someone next to me in bed. The woman who shall not be named, for reasons I can’t say here, was confused the first time it happened. She tried to console me and ask what was wrong, but it wasn’t easy to explain. No matter how well I explained it, there was no way she would have really understood it. The odd part is that I first met her on Christmas Eve, and I didn’t cry in front of her that night because we met at a party and then went our separate ways and didn’t see each other again until a couple of weeks later.

Christmas Day isn’t much better. I spend it trying to focus on who is there instead of who isn’t. I don’t like to open gifts because the gifts to my kids will just sit there until the 26^th. I don’t like a big deal to be made about Christmas. I know that’s selfish, but we’re all allowed to be selfish sometimes. I know that my attitude on Christmas doesn’t allow those around me to enjoy the day as fully as they might, but that’s because I don’t enjoy the day as fully as I might either.

I’m going to guess that IF my kids had been reading, they’ve gotten bored or annoyed and have moved on, so I can tell the rest now. I don’t see my kids on Christmas because of two people: their mother and the rotten divorce attorney that I had. In the divorce agreement that was written almost ten years ago, my ex wanted the kids all day on Christmas while I wanted to either share the day or alternate each year. My attorney wasn’t really a divorce attorney but was doing it to pay the bills until she became a prosecutor, which she did shortly after mishandling my case. She convinced me to let the ex have Christmas because a few years down the road she would be more friendly and willing to split or alternate Christmas Day.

Turns out she was wrong, and the ex has become more stubborn about the holiday. One of my kids recently asked her mother about spending half of the day with me. The ex went on a hell of a tirade and used the word “I” roughly 25 times in explaining how hurtful the suggestion was to spend any part of Christmas with me. Now the ex has a child with the new husband and is using that child to convince my kids even more strongly how wrong it would be to spend Christmas with me because it would mean that their little sister would miss them soooo much. That’s how disgustingly manipulative my ex-wife can be.

She’s defied the divorce agreement when it suited her needs to do so. She acts with impunity, not allowing me to have the proper time I deserve with my kids and the proper time that my kids deserve with their father. I could explain more, but the point has been made. I hate Christmas Eve, and I’m not all that find of Christmas Day either.

poor, poor tiger

Oh, Tiger. Poor Tiger. Why, Tiger, why? And after all this hiding, you want what? Privacy? Hmmm. I’ll get back to you on that.

We don’t need to talk about the accident, hitting the tree, your wife and the golf club, none of that is important. Let’s instead look at how you handled it.

First, following the accident, you said that the “malicious rumors about my family and me are "irresponsible.” What does that mean? Are you saying that it’s irresponsible to talk about what you did? That’s unfair, because we didn’t do anything. You did. But we realize that you were trying to deny the story without lying. It’s an understandable move because you seem to be lying without lying.

Today, after the details spilled out about the woman you’ve been spending time with for more than half of your marriage, you said, “"But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy.”

I have a problem with that. You’ve made millions upon millions, some say over a billion dollars, all because of your public image. When your face is on TV for Schick, Buick, or Nike, you’re giving a statement. You’re saying, “Trust me. Spend your money with this company because I’m telling you it’s good.” You have financial benefits of unprecedented endorsement proportions by selling yourself and our trust. If you’re going to benefit from that public exposure, then you must also accept the consequences. You don’t get to put yourself out there when the money is coming in but then pull yourself back when the money is replaced by questions. Being a public persona is a double-edged sword, and one edge points in your direction.

You also said, “"I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart.” I don’t buy that. You don’t regret the transgressions. However, you very much regret getting caught. You didn’t regret those transgressions for almost three years, so what changed? Oh, yeah, we found out. If nothing were to have become public over the past week, would you have stepped forward and announced your regret, or would you have continued those “transgressions”? I think you would still be doing them. Therefore, you don’t regret them. It’s easy to say “sorry” after you’ve been caught. If you want me to accept your remorse, you have to come forward first and admit it before anyone finds out. If you want me to respect your privacy, then don’t take our millions for a public endorsement.

The most important question in any situation normally starts with "why"? As in, Why did Tiger do it? Easy. He's a competitor. Some people need a challenge, competition, something to fight for. Tiger no longer saw the competition in golf as it became too easy. There was nothing left for him to "win." He knows that eventually he will overtake Jack Nicklaus in career wins and catch Ben Hogan in everything else. The billion he's already earned has sort of made those silly little golf accomplishments seem irrelevant. What's really worth more: $10 million or having more U.S. Open wins than anyone else? Hard to say, especially when he knows he's young, can play into his 60's, and will eventually have every record except those held by Mariano Rivera. But women? No matter how many you conquer, there's always another one. That's what Tiger was thinking. He's married, so he's accomplished that. But all those other women out there? He wasn't settling for just one.

But don’t worry, Eldrick. You won’t suffer much, not in public anyway. On the course, they’ll cheer you just as loudly, if not more loudly. They’ll say, “Isn’t that courageous of him to overcome that scandal and come out here and win another tournament?” Nike will keep you, so will everyone else, because they’ve learned how forgiving the public is. Forgiving, or maybe we just don’t care. If Kobe Bryant can rape a woman and still have the highest-selling NBA jersey, we are either forgiving or stupid.

So your image will be fine, your commercials will play, and your crowds will cheer. The only place you’ll suffer is at the dinner table, on Father’s and Mother’s Days, kid’s birthdays, at the Thanksgiving dinner table, Christmas morning, and visiting the in-laws. On television and the golf course, you’ll be fine. At home, that’s where you’ll suffer.

Fall, or Autumn

There’s no question that I love summer, always did as a kid, having played baseball throughout childhood both little league and street league. However, as blasphemous as it seems, there came a time when I was ready to go back to school.

There’s something about new shoes, jeans, long sleeve shirts, and a light jacket that turns me back into a 12-year old. There’s something about picking out a new backpack, pens, erasers, and other school supplies that screams in smiles. That’s probably why I became a teacher. It doesn’t hurt to have an October birthday.

My first concert ever was 1978, Bruce Springsteen at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ. It was a nice October night, and I've been able to snag a copy of the same show on CD off E-bay 30 years later. No, of course it wasn't legal, but it's gold, no doubt.

September through January, when school let out at 3pm, we ran home to change into play clothes and then headed to the town park for football. If you had a shirt with any amount of green, it was just as good as a NY Jets jersey. If blue, then you believed you were on the NY Giants. No other teams mattered. We played until the 5 o’clock whistle blew, which was loud enough to hear at every corner through the square-mile town of Lyndhurst, NJ, only five short minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel. Latecomers had to wait for an even number to join a team. Nobody had an arm like Pete Miserak. Nobody had the speed of Benny Esposito. Nobody complained like Scott Lindskog. Nobody knew everyone else’s touchdown totals like Mike Tesauro. And nobody thinks about those days as much as I do.

I worry about kids today. Those days taught us how to work with others, how to be fair when making teams, how to solve problems by watching defenses, when to stick to your guns on a controversial out of bounds call, and when to walk away when someone was too stubborn or about to call their big brother. We learned simple math from keeping score and geometry from figuring out which trees marked the goal line and sidelines. Today, kids shut themselves in the house with Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox, and whatever else is out there. They don't play together; they play against. They're too accustomed to hitting a "reset" button instead of working it out. They sit back and wait for their parents, or parent, or guardian, or grandma to take care of everything for them. They just aren't willing to work, and nobody has shown them how to get things done for themselves.

You want to smell the greatest smell in the world? If you're north of the Mason-Dixon Line, go outside on the first Saturday in October at about 10am. Feel which way the wind is coming from. Lean back slightly, flare those nostrils, and slowly, deeply inhale. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to a time machine.

thanks, roger (click here)

since i was in about 8th grade i've admired few people more than film critic (don't like to label him with that) film reviewer roger ebert. bruce springsteen rises up a little, jimmy stewart too, but that's about it from the entertainment world. ebert is really in the journalism realm but still connected to entertainment of course. i love movies, and i love when people talk about movies, and through the 80's and 90's, nobody was more fun to listen to than siskel and ebert at the movies.

one of my friends in high school and college was mike senatore back in lyndhurst, nj. we spent hours upon hours watching and talking about films and talking about what was said on at the movies. two of his favorite movies ever were being there with peter sellers, and the in-laws with peter falk and alan arkin, not the recent remake with michael douglass and albert brooks. mike had a film camera, studied film with me at college, and we make some goofy, dumb films back then. he did the camera work while i dreamed up things to shoot. we did some claymation and junk, spliced in some real film like clips from mash and some beatles videos. henry "happy" markowski was in on it too. hey, hap.

anyway, back to roger ebert. for a couple of years i've been a subscriber to his online review page, and about a year ago he started a blog that was not just about movies. it included a lot of social commentary, which i've found very enlightening as well as entertaining. i've posted a lot of comments on his blog to the point where my girlfriend refers to him as my "buddy" because i'm often reading and writing there. it's not a blog where everyone blindly agrees and "sucks up" to what he has to say. there's just as much dissent, and sometimes it gets rather heated, especially when it gets political. his entry on evolution v. creationism was followed by an amazing array of debate. i'm not there just to agree and be liked. he and a handful of others strongly disagreed with my opinion of the great gatsby. i should point out that absolutely nobody there agreed with me, but that doesn't discourage me. i'm accustomed to being on the short side. if you google something like "great gatsby boring," you'll get a million people who thinks it's the best book ever and half a million who think, like me, it's horribly over-rated. if i can bat .333 for the yankees, i'm a hero; so i'm okay with those stats.

recently, roger (not "ebert," because i feel that would be unnecessarily formal) did something very nice for me. he wrote a blog about the blogs that he reads and finds interesting. of the half dozen or so blogs on which he commented, one of them was mine. that's about the greatest recognition of any kind that i've ever had for anything. he commented about my michael jackson hair accident hoax, in which i showed before and after pictures and video of the alleged accident. i also suggested that it was a staged accident, designed to help cover up the scars and scabs from hair transplant surgery. regardless of whether i'm right or wrong, i greatly appreciated that roger not only quoted what i had written but also suggested very strongly that he agreed with me.

in high school and college i loved reading newspapers and couldn't wait each morning to hear our copy of the new york daily news to hit the front porch. i had the idea that i'd like to work for a newspaper. i like the immediacy of reporting, the rush to get it right and get it quickly, and also the idea that your name is in front of people regularly. although i worked on the college newspaper (the beacon) at william paterson university and also edited the literary magazine (essence). i went into teaching instead, but i'm teaching about writing, which is also a good thing. i currently have two novels finished and a third almost there. i haven't tried to sell any yet, not sure why, or maybe i do. maybe those novels will put my name in front of people. even if they don't, i still don't have much room for complaint right now.

i took a few graduate writing classes over the past few years, and one of the professors talked about blogging. she said if you aren't blogging, you should. and if you think nobody is reading, you're wrong. i've had mine since about 2006, and for a long time i assumed nobody was reading. i know that roger reads it, and many more people are reading it because of his mention. that means i better keep writing, and i also better keep improving.

roger, you come across as a very humble guy. however, there's no need to be humble if i say that it's no small thing for someone of your literary stature to show your readers that there are smaller people like me who are worthy of a little attention. it may seem cruelly ironic that you're known for talking about movies, but recent operations have cost you your ability to speak. it's unfair and selfish for me or anyone to suggest looking for a bright side, but perhaps the blogging/writing that you've done since those operations has introduced you to a much greater worldwide audience. the cause was a great loss for you, but the effect is a gift to your readers.

thank you, sir.

you can follow him on twitter: @ebertchicago.

there's a phony guy pretending to be him under something like @rogerebert, but don't get fooled by that.

p.s. my daughter doesn't like my blog because my entries are too long. she's right. you can read hers at: >kate was here x or social vibe

what's up in the NFL?

i love to watch football, especially nfl football, and especially with knowledgeable football people. the last place i want to be is at a superbowl party with those people who sit around waiting for the new commercials. i watch them, but that's just an unnecessary accessory. my three brothers have all been football coaches, and two still are. two of them have also been football referees, and one still is. because i've spent so much time studying football since 6th grade, i sometimes think i see things that don't make sense and i might possibly know better. for example: what's up with taking a knee at the end of the half?

why is it that when a team has the ball on about their own 30 with about ten seconds left in the first half, they almost always take a knee and let the clock run out so they can all trot to the locker room? why not toss up a hail mary? barry switzer once said that when you throw a pass, three things can happen and two of them are bad. yes, you can get an incomplete pass or an interception, and those two are bad, but you can also get a completion or even an interference penalty, which is also good. why not take a 5 or 7 step drop and haul it downfield?

i've heard a counter argument that says, "well, your quarterback might get hurt." true, but that can happen on any play. and if you're throwing a hail mary, you're not going to get much of a pass rush. they're going to drop everyone available back in coverage, so you'll only have to face a 3-man rush, 4 at the most, and your o-line should be able to handle that. let it rip. if it's in complete, so what? if it's intercepted, big deal, they're now down at their end of the field and time will likely have run out anyway. you might get a deflection, an interference or defensive holding call, and you're in good shape at their 20 with at least one play left. line up for a field goal at that point.

how not to solve the race issue

click on the title to take you to the news story i'm referencing.


there's a very simple equation that goes like this:

the more we examine racial differences, the more racial differences we will have to look at.

it's like saying a=a. if we continue to dissect racial differences, we will never be able to accept all races and equal humans on the planet. one example is the link in the title in a story about how many times a day mexicans use curses. who cares? why does anyone need to know this? the only possible outcome of this will be for some people to think less of mexicans because of the amoujnt of times they curse during a day. there is nothing good to be found. it's a meaningless statistic that adds more fuel to the fires of comparison.

an even greater source of racial non-information that can only lead to negative racial attention is president bush's "no child left behind" legislation in conjunction with a mandatory, statewide school assessment in new jersey known as the NJASK, the new jersey assessment of skills and knowledge. in order for any school in new jersey to be classified as "successful," a certain percentage of students in every individual school building must "pass" this test. i put successful and pass in quotes for a reason, not just to play with punctuation.

first, what is "successful"? it's an arbitrary percentage that increases every year, forcing schools to do more to have more students "pass" the test. let's pretend that this year a school must have 75% of students with a passing grade in order for that school to be deemed "successful."

the students in every new jersey school are broken into a handful of groups called "sub groups," and they are mainly determined by race. white, african-american, hispanic, asian, native american, etc. and others are represented as well as students in special education or receiving other services. let's pretend that there are 7 sub groups and there are 100 students in each of these sub groups. it's possible that a school can have 100% of students in each sub group with a passing grade, except one sub group. a school can be considered "failing" even if 100% of the students have passing grades in every sub group except one, and let's use native americans. in that group only 74 kids, or 74% (because there are 100 students, for the sake of the arguement). every other group had 100% passing. how does this translate unfairly? easy. everyone will look at the school report card, which is public record, and they'll say, "oh, those native americans, THEY are the reason our school failed!"

we will never be able to view and accept all races as equal if we continue to separate them, pick them apart, and provide fuel for the fires of racism.