Game 6. A crushing blow.

Whenever a Giants game is on TV, my brother and I have a habit of calling each other as the last out is recorded. When the Giants blew a 5-0 lead, we suspected it was over. We kept our fingers crossed, but we knew it was going to be an uphill battle. They’re just not a game seven sort of team. We did not exchange calls after game 7. It was just too much.

Next year, they won’t repeat. 2002 was their year; everything came together. Kent’s probably gone. Dunston will retire. I hope to Hell Dusty comes back. Maybe slide Bell to second and bring in that rookie prospect at third.

 

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Last night, “24” had it’s season premiere. Another great start to the season. The protagonist shoots a prisoner at point blank range in cold blood. That’s why this show rules; you just don’t know what’s coming.

 

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Who owns the company I work for? Last year, my agency network was sold to a larger holding company. The top executives made out like bandits. The buyer traded shares of their company for our company: 75¢ to the dollar. Our profit sharing went into the toilet.

The new owners had been squeezing their subsidiaries for a 15% cut of profits. Our company had previously been accustomed to paying 10% to the boys back east.

Guess what? A lot of people are getting laid off to "meet numbers." The employees who survive have to do the same amount of work as before AND the work of those who were laid off.

On top of that, one of the new owners other investments, which has absolutely nothing to do with us, is taking a beating. Which means they'll be looking in their other divisions to make up for the shortcomings of their bad investments. In other words, they'll be squeezing us even harder.

They want to layoff more people. But they can't layoff people who have a lot of vacation days... that's money they'll have to pay off. So they're sending out the word: take some vacation days.

Never mind that you can't take a vacation day, because of the enormous workload that was created by laying off 10% of your work force to meet the new 15% standard. Take time off anyway; get those vacation days off their balance sheet... so they can fire you and be saved the expense of paying you for all those unused vacation days.

Which is precisely why you shouldn’t take vacation days. Think of that money as extra severance pay. As it stands now, I’ve got almost two months coming to me.

Meanwhile, do you think the big wigs who sold out are panicking about possibly losing their jobs? Hell no... they made millions in the sale last year. They're set. With all the stock options and other compensation they received in the sale, they can afford to be canned, even with the stock price taking a tumble.

Corporate America is totally fucked.

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The MSBNC sportswriters should get their knives and forks ready. They're about to eat some crow....

Ray Glier:
"Cards will ride momentum to Series
Giants are good, too, but Cards clearly are team of destiny"

Mike Celizic:
"Cards, Angels to meet in surprise"

Bernie Miklasz:
"There’s something going on … something that will carry these relentless Cardinals to the end of October, and a happy ending."

As of this posting, the Giants lead the best of seven series 3-1. They won the first two games on the road, and no team has ever come back from a 2-0 deficit to win a league championship series.

The only writer at MSNBC to pick the Giants was Ted Robinson, but that's no huge surprise; he's been covering Bay Area sports on and off for almost 20 years.

Nothing is a sure thing, but it looks pretty fucking good for the Giants.

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I don’t get Hollywood.

Last week I watched the Emmy Awards. What a boring bunch of people. The same fucking shows winning all the awards.

The critics were abuzz last year about “Friends” going through a creative renaissance. How so? What character growth did each character go through? Seems to me like the same people doing what they’ve done for eight years. Phoebe’s dumb and Joey’s reeeally dumb. Yeah, I get it.

“West Wing” winning best drama? Who does that show speak to? How is it relevant to me? It’s an old person’s show. I don’t think you see a lot of Gap ads during that hour. Instead, I expect to hear the Dragnet theme for Tums.

Best show my ass. Blah blah blah blah blah. It’s just Emmy voters getting to a comfort level with their nominees. Whatever.

I’ve never seen “The Shield” but it’s always a good sign when someone outside a network wins something. This is good news for Michael Chiklis. He was a pariah in Hollywood for years after making his debut as John Belushi in the feature version of “Wired.” Talk about being an outcast. No one wanted to smear the memory of Belushi, so most anyone who had anything to do with that film got fucked.

I was bummed that “Curb your Enthusiasm” didn’t win anything. I wish the “Soprano” crowd would hang around long enough on Sunday night to see this fucking amazing comedy. At least “24” took home a writing award.

The best stuff on the show was Conan O’Brien’s.

Unfortunately, judging by the uncomfortable titters during his jokes, he probably won’t be invited back. I love that he didn’t modulate his material for the Emmy audience. Reminded me a lot of Letterman’s night hosting the Oscars. Or Chris Rock humiliating pop stars on MTV. Hilarious.

O'Brien did a bit on the Emmy seating chart which included sections for the Gay Mafia, black people who watch “Frasier,” Jerry Orbach’s posse and a women with real breasts. That just kicks ass.

“The show is running a bit long, so they have to cut Bryant Gumbel’s Tribute to Bryant Gumbel.”

Man, you could just feel the room tense up on that one. Killer stuff.

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