Seriously now?

Nope, this has absolutely nothing to do with sports. Call it "found art:" an object of incredible beauty I was fortunate enough to stumble upon in the course of my daily cyber-meanderings.

The back story: I ordered a pair of totally amazing boots that are both cute AND practical (and make julienned fries) from Zappos and was all set to receive them today. Sadly, when I went to track my package (heh), I discovered that UPS' attempt at delivery had been fruitless, as no one was at my apartment to sign for the package (heh). Determined to get a hold of said boots before soul/funk night tonight, I called UPS and asked if there was any way I could come pick up my boots this evening. (UPS was very nice, by the way.) I was informed that, yes, should I desire, I was welcome to come by the Watertown UPS office after work. Lovely.

Here's where a totally innocent web query turned insane.

I typed "watertown ups" into my search engine and turned up a relatively innocuous-looking site with directions, maps, and reviews of local merchants. I jotted down the address... then, suddenly, the "reviews" of this particular UPS facility caught my eye.

The first was a scathing indictment of UPS' apparently questionable business practices:

Horrendous service and cheats

This store overcharges and cheats. They quote one price and then charge more when the work is done. UPS Store on Main St in Watertown MA is one I would recommend folks to stay away from.

December 23, 2007 by Why

Yikes! Given that I had only moments before had a very pleasant experience with UPS, I took this review with a grain of salt. Moreover, I'm fairly certain that UPS pricing and service charges are set by the corporate office, making it unlikely that "UPS Store on Main St in Watertown MA" should be accounted the culprit for this particular customer's shipping-related quarrel.

It got weirder:

LONELY

I need to come clean about a review I recently send to this site.I need to apologize for comments I made about a UPS driver. U see, I'm a woman that was DUMPED by my husband for this girl and I felt the only thing Ican do was try to distroy her any way I could to get him back. I HAVE FAILED. I HAVE LOST AGAIN

September 15, 2007 by anonimous

Ok, I'm sorry... is this a review for a UPS store, or an errant "missed connection" posting from Craigslist? Am I to understand that this woman, this "anonimous," chose to take revenge on her ex-husband's new lover by "anonimously" sabotaging said lover's burgeoning career as a UPS driver?

It's the final sentences -- those chilling, bitter, all-caps cries of loss and failure -- that really touched my heart.

And finally, we move from the poignant to the bizarre:

I Basically Have a Complaint

Your office quite a few years ago hired a driver by the name of Maria Benitez who said she had a GED with out verifying that the GED was in fact a fake GED. Maria Benitez is in fact a dropp out of Madison Park High School and if nothing is done out of this, I will take this matter further than what you can imagine. These documents should be verified for accuracy and this one was not.

February 07, 2007 by Unnonimous

First, the title: a punchy, declamatory statement of the author's intent (basically). Succinct and lovely. From this opening confrontation we move, at breathtaking speed, into the vicious accusation: A high school dropout! From Madison Park, no less -- just blocks away from my office in Roxbury. The horror! We are not yet done, however, as we then encounter the THREAT: Further. Than. What. You. Can. Imagine. I see those words flying towards me in the preview for a summer blockbuster. Perhaps "The Fantastic Four 3: The Rogue Delivery Woman." Tagline: "What can Brown do for YOU, bitch?"

Is it possible that this posting constitutes the "comments" that our friend "anonimous" is now regretting she so hastily made? Perhaps not, as this "Unnonimous" appears to have taken a different approach to misspelling that blanketer of online offenses, "anonymous." To be honest, I think I prefer "unnonimous" to "anonimous," as the former implies not merely a lack of nomenclature (as does the wimpier prefix "a-"), but rather a deliberate shunning, DEFIANCE even, of names per se. "Unnonimous" is a strong, cunning woman, determined to bring down this interloping wench and destroy her chances at happiness. "anonimous," lacking even the gumption to capitalize her own name, is but a broken shell of that first woman, drowning in her feelings of remorse and desperate, desperate loneliness.

In conclusion: hooray for my new boots!

P.S. Here's a sports tip to keep your appetite whetted for Sunday: Try saying R.W. McQuarters' name with a thick Irish brogue. Make it as jaunty as possible. This amuses my brother and me for hours.

Getting ready for the game, Simpsons-style

It's no secret that I am Matt Groening's bitch. My family has Simpsons quote-offs whenever we're in the car together (my brother and father both do a mean Frink) and I've watched at least part of the Futurama movie pretty much every day since it came out. Thus, I was absolutely thrilled to find my way back to this old post on 82 Sluggo Win. (82 Sluggo Win, incidentally, is a bitchin' blog for Trojans fans like me and Mommy dearest.) It's a guide, and a brilliant, well-researched one at that, to properly invoking the words of The Simpsons during football playoffs -- yes, it's designed for the college bowl season, but I think you'll find it's readily adaptable to the Superbowl. Just replace "Lee Corso" with "Joe Buck," "Jeff Bowden" with "Tom Coughlin," and "Detroit" with "godforsaken desert wasteland."





"Rargh, my groin!"

Ho hum

My god, this day has been depressing. First, I didn't get any sleep last night because my stupid On Demand was broken and I had to watch regular late-night TV (insert audible Sideshow Bob-like shudder). Since Jimmy Kimmel makes me dry-heave uncontrollably, I flipped to an episode of Intervention on A&E, figuring that the soft sound of people crying would lull me to sleep. Instead, I was kept up until 2 in the morning watching a story about this alcoholic woman, and woke up a few hours later exhausted and VERY depressed. Then I sit down to read my ESPN feed and it's all Sean Taylor this and putting things in perspective that, which is actually sad to the point that there's nothing to say about it. And to top it all off, the Yanks are probably going to sign Johan Santana and I'll have to start hating him even though I actually like him a lot. This is going to be worse than when I had a crush on Tino Martinez in 8th grade and I used to undergo literally spasms of internal anguish every time he came to bat against the Sox.

To mitigate things, I'm sharing a news item from yesterday which is not actually that entertaining or relevant, but has an absolutely phenomenal headline:

Bucanneer Bachelorette Babe

Busted for Bopping Bass Fishing

Bachelor

The story behind that masterpiece of alliterative titleage above is that some girl who won "The Bachelor" who used to be a cheerleader for Tampa Bay got arrested for punching her fiance in the mouth. See? Really not that great. But just marvel at that headline, kids. It's like Dr. Seuss smoked a bunch of salvia and then started writing for the National Enquirer. I bet the guy who wrote that copy is really, really proud of himself. Well, good for him. He certainly lifted me out of my funk this morning. Thank you, Anonymous ShortNews.com Headline Writer Guy!

It's not lost on me, by the way, that "buccaneers" is spelled wrong in that headline -- nor should it be lost on you. Then again, maybe this guy is just TOO brilliant to be bothered with spell check. Would you have spell-checked the Mona Lisa? Or the Bible?!

Fascists.