I was a regular Don Juan (back in the 1st Grade)

There I was last Friday afternoon – just hard at work hoping that the few hours of my workday would fly bye (they didn’t – they never do). All of a sudden, I look up at the toolbar, and it looks as though I’ve got a new email.

It’s a Facebook update, and normally – I just totally ignore these because they’re inevitably from someone I don’t have any relationship anymore from High School inviting me to some event that I would never, ever attend. Normally these events have something to do with gay rights, animal activism, or some creepy combination of the two. For those of you who know me well – it’s not likely that I’m going to give up one of my prized weekend afternoons to go protest for the rights of Herbert – the gay humpback whale.

I digress…

As I was looking at this Facebook update, I realized that this had nothing to do with gay animal rights, but rather it was a personal message sent by someone I didn’t know. I dig in a bit further, and this is what the message says:

"If you are the person I think you are, we went to school together at Acacia Elementary in Thousand Oaks California. We were “boyfriend and girlfriend” and you moved to Georgia with your parents in 2nd grade, I think. Let me know. It would be a trip to hear from you!"

Normally, I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast. But this girl I remember well. I mean, I specifically remember how our super serious relationship got started: As I was walking home from first grade, I saw her walking up ahead of me… I ran up to her, gave her a cupcake (a move that I continued to use throughout high school – how do you think I got Wifey’s attention), and then ran off, cause I was too scared to talk to her. If that’s not romance, I don’t know what is. This girl goes on to tell me how she actually had a mini-first-grade meltdown when I moved away.

Anyhow – we catch up, and it’s all really cool and whatnot.

I bet most of you are thinking the same thing right now… wow, how cool is it that we’ve got a tool like Facebook that can reunite people who haven’t even spoken to each other in 20 years! While that is true – this entire situation has led me to think of one thing, and one thing only. I must have been SO pimp back in the day!

I don’t mean to brag (I’m totally bragging) – but how many of you had brief romances back in the 1st grade, never spoke to them again, and 20 years later have them find you on Facebook? Clearly, even in my youth, I knew how to make an impression. And if you extrapolate that out – I must have gotten even better over the years, like a fine wine – I would totally be killing it with the ladies today!

So Wifey, grab your stick – cause you’re going to need it to keep all these ladies away from me now that we’ve seen my true potential!

- Jack Asher

Fantasy Football

Football season is finally upon us.

This football season, however, is not like any previous season for me. This season, I am going to try my hand at Fantasy Football. Now, just so you all know, I have no clue what this fantasy football's all about. In fact, it's strange for me to associate the word "fantasy" with anything other than a 22 year old Norwegian named Wanda, a set of police issued handcuffs, and a rubber chicken - but those are my issues which will be worked out in due time. But here I am nonetheless, a stranger in a foreign land, about to play me some fake football.

Here's the deal though. I have no f*&king clue what I'm doing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big football fan. From late August through early February, you won't catch me anywhere on a Sunday except in front of a TV, ready to root on my New England Patriots. But do I know all of the Patriot's individual stats? Absolutely not. In fact, my 18 year old sister-in-law knows more about individual stats that I know.

It's not just my general lack of knowledge of football stats that worries me. I also don't even know how to play the game. I mean, it’s fake football. Imagine someone gave you a quiz on the rules of baseball. You'd probably ace it, right? Now imagine that person asked you what the rules are for fake baseball… where do you even begin?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, those of you who are in my fantasy football league this year, get ready for some cheating on my part. I'm pretty much going to go back to my roots from 5th grade history class - and copy the nerdy kid's test answers all season. It may not be the most ethical way of going about it, but I'm really running out of options here.


- Jack Asher

Just when you thought Soccer was lame...

Haha, just kidding - Soccer is still lame as hell. Yeah, I know that 98.4% of the world would disagree, but the cold hard fact is that soccer is the least interesting sport to watch. 9 times out of 10 I’d rather watch a striped bass fishing competition on ESPN 8 (The Ocho), than be stuck watching a bunch of Europeans kicking around a ball, just to have the final score read 0-0 (The 10th time would be when America's playing in the World Cup, because all hilarity aside, I'm a Patriot).

Having said that, I’ll be the first to admit that even a broken clock is right… twice a day.


If you have to say one thing good about soccer players, it’s got to be their ingenuity, right? I mean, you take a look at Basketball stars after they make an awesome shot, and they got nothing. They just hustle their ass right back into position because that’s just the pace of the game. Even in Football these days, you don’t see too many post touchdown celebrations thanks to all the fines that are being thrown all over the place. But then there are the soccer players – the athletes that just don’t give a F**k cause they know nobody’s watching anyway.

So, while I will still reserve my right to make fun of soccer, soccer players, and soccer fans with their awful, awful vuvuzelas - I have to tip my hat to those players who make the sport tolerable to even the most cynical of sports fans.


- Cynical Sports Fan, Jack Asher

iThink you should stop whining

There is so much being said right now about how the iPhone 4 sucks because it drops calls when you don’t have a case around it. In fact, people are demanding that Apple goes and gives millions and millions of free iPhone cases out to it’s users to remedy the problem.

I don’t get it. First off, I have the new iPhone 4 and I see no problems with it, but it’s more than that. I just don’t understand how people can be all up in arms about this. Maybe it’s just because I’m about as adept to technology as I am when it comes to nuclear physics, but I don’t understand how anyone could be upset with this phone. I mean, it does it all!


You want something to manage your finances? They’ve got an App for that. You want something to tell you what time movies are playing? They’ve got an App for that. You want something to make you breakfast in the morning, and read you the morning newspaper – yup, I think they’ve got an App for that too.

The point is – who cares if you need a case to make phone calls on this thing. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like everyone should have purchased a case with the phone when they first got it, cause guess what? The entire front of it is made of GLASS, genius!

Meanwhile – this phone can simultaneously launch a space shuttle, pick the kids up from school, and scratch my ass (that last App costs extra). These folks need to shut up, buy a damned case, and get back to bitching about things that really matter, like Mel Gibson’s voice messages.


- Jack Asher

LeBron-athon

At 9:00 EST this evening, LeBron James is holding a special on ESPN in which he will let the country, nay, the world know where he will be playing for the next several years. How they can manage to drag out saying “I’m going to [Insert Miami, Chicago, New York, or New Jersey here] longer than five minutes is beyond me, but here are my predictions for how this thing is going to go tonight…



Prediction #1. There will be Rocky-esque montages. I’m talking about some clips of LeBron dunking on dudes and throwing powder up in the air for no reason, while they’re playing some Jay-Z tune in the background. It will be epic.




Prediction #2. The people of Cleveland will realize that despite what Drew Carey may say – Cleveland does not rock. The closest it came to rocking before LeBron was around was a tubby comedian with a cheesy sitcom. Now that LeBron is leaving, and rest assured he IS leaving Cleveland, the residents of this never-great city will be left in despair. But hey, at least they have the Indians.




Prediction #3. More Americans will be tuned in to this program than were tuned in to all of the World Cup games combined. I have to hand it to LeBron and ESPN – they know how to hype this shit up. I mean, even my sister, who I’m pretty sure thought that LeBron was the third baseman for the Cleveland Browns told me today, “So I just read that lebron still hasn’t told where he is going...so annoying”.




Prediction #4. Somewhere Doc Rivers, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Rajon Rondo, will be smiling to themselves. Because even if Dwayne Wade joins forces with LeBron James – next year will just be like so many other years, with the Celtics going to the Finals, leaving LeBron far, far behind.



- Jack Asher

I've lost my mojo!!!

My last blog was posted on June 17th, 2010. That was 19 days ago, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a new record for me. Am I embarrassed? Yes. Am I sorry? Absolutely. What can I say… I think I’ve lost my mojo.

These weeks of going without blogs isn’t only out of laziness on my part, although I’m sure laziness would be a contributing factor. It’s also because I haven’t been able to come up with anything funny these past two weeks. Believe it or not, I’ve actually written two other full length blogs these past two weeks. But alas, my senior editor (a.k.a. my sister) said that they weren’t very funny. It didn’t come as shock to me either – I knew they weren’t great, but I was still hoping that they’d be decent enough to post.

No such luck.


I feel a bit rejected right now. Kind of like how Eddie Murphy must have felt after going from “Coming to America”, to “Norbit”.




But, enough of this whining from me. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s writing shit that will make you laugh for a half a second, and then have you forget you ever read it. And so, I shall bounce back once again. I’ll think up some new material on a more frequent basis if it kills me. Hell, I don’t even care if I have to throw embarrassing stories about Wifey in here to make quota – just kidding Wifey.

The point is, the Jack Asher that you all know and love, or at least find mildy entertaining, is back.


- Jack Asher

I Think I Have Something in My Eye

I consider myself to be a pretty manly guy. I drink my whiskey straight, I enjoy the occasional cigar with my friends, and one of my all time favorite movies is Rudy. Now, having said all of this I’ll admit, even I sometimes have my vulnerable moments.

Now, the story which I’m about to get into, it actually took place several months ago. I know I could have posted it back then, but I’ll level with you – I needed this time to come to terms with what happened.

It must have been November or December of last year, I just remember it was cold out; Wifey and I were sitting on our couch one weekend afternoon not knowing what to do with ourselves. For those of you who have spent a considerable amount of time in the Northeast, you can appreciate that a winter in Boston is no time for leisurely outdoor activities. From October through March, we Boston residents just hunker down in our sweatpants, and make sure that we’re stocked up on blankets, DVD’s, and do our best to weather the storm.

Wifey and I finally figure out that since there’s no way either of us are getting out of our sweats, I guess the only thing to take up some time on this Saturday would be to rent a movie. We decide to rent “Marley & Me”.

“Marley & Me”, for those of you who don’t know, looks like it’s going to be one of those lame romantic comedies… you put Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson together, and then you throw in a Labrador retriever who pulls all kinds of shenanigans, and bing bang boom – you got yourself movie magic. For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie yet, you may want to stop reading here, although it doesn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure out how the movie ends. The dog ends up dying.

Now, I’m certainly no rocket scientist (although I do love rockets), and even I, a simpleton, knew going into this movie that the dog was going to die at the end. You would think that I’d be prepared for it. Nope.

I was WEEPING, and I don’t mean that I shed a tear when Owen Wilson said goodbye to his dog, I mean I was full on sobbing like a child. There were tears streaming down my face, I had snot running down my nose, I even had those barely audible soft sobs going on. It was bad. I looked like Brett Favre during one his retirement speeches, but worse! I was crying so hard that even Wifey (who was also crying) was taken aback.






Yeah, that’s right. I cried, and I cried good and hard. I’m not ashamed to say it. I’d like to see any grown man get through that movie without shedding a tear. I’ll even go so far as to say that if you can do it, I’ll be the first to buy you a beer. And then I’ll never speak to you again, cause you have to be one cruel, dog-hating son-of-a-bitch not to shed a tear during that movie.


So, after that ‘episode’ finally ended, I was left red-eyed and thinking to myself – did I really just cry that hard at a movie? But you know what? I’m starting to think that I’m OK with it. Look, just cause I cried at a movie, doesn’t mean that I’m any less of a man. I still enjoy football just as much, and still believe that shoulder bags should be reserved solely for women and Europeans – I just have a soft spot for dogs.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… Get this man a puppy!


- Jack Asher