Open season... on fans?

I know many people have been excited about the opening of baseball season. (For those who don't care about baseball, this is not a baseball post.) Since I'm a Pirates' fan, then I have to show my excitement this time of the season, and pretty much ONLY this time of the season. Why is that, you ask? Because my Pirates have sucked for so long that it's pathetic. This time of year is pretty much the only time we have a winning record. Unfortunately, I know it won't last. Anyway....

I don't know how many of you may have heard about this, but I was so upset about it when I found out. A man named Bryan Stow went with friends to the season opener at Dodger Stadium to see the Dodgers play his favorite team, the San Francisco Giants.

Bryan is the one on the right.

While he was leaving the stadium, two guys jumped him from behind and proceeded to beat him even after he was unconscious. Apparently, Bryan and his friends had tried to ignore the guys who were heckling them but then they attacked. In case any of you are in the area, this is who they are currently looking for.

Suspects

Bryan has been in a medically induced coma since the attack. They had to remove part of his skull to relieve the pressure. His father said that as of yesterday his temperature has come down and his vitals are stabilizing.  I hope and pray he comes out of this okay.

Bryan is a 42-year-old paramedic who was brutally attacked because two psychos thought this would be fun? He is usually the one helping people, and he was walking away from this idiotic behavior.

It just makes me so mad that these crazy ass punks are free on the streets of LA while he's in a hospital bed fighting for his life. Well, actually I hope that every Dodger fan in the city and surrounding areas are searching for them so much that they are having to hide to save their own lives. The reward is up to $100,000 now if you know of any bounty hunters who could help. Aren't I helpful?

I just can't imagine going to a game and feeling like you couldn't be safe. I've often been asked, especially by family who has never seen a live game except in Pittsburgh, if I wear my Steelers gear (or other team I root for) to games when the Steelers are the visitors. HELL YES, I do! And proudly! We get heckled sometimes, but it's usually good-natured fun. And we can usually get the upper hand on that stuff pretty quickly 'cuz we are just that damn smart. Plus, our boys give us a lot to brag about. But I've never been to a professional game whether it was hockey, football or baseball and not felt safe. (I have had that happen a time or two at minor league hockey games, but that's because the team we were playing against had crazy ass fans!) I will not stop wearing my teams' colors no matter where I go.

They are saying the Mayor wants them to crack down on violence and drinking at the stadium. Why do they always bring up the drinking? I'm sorry, but I don't think that's what caused this at all. A psycho is going to be a psycho whether you funnel beer down his throat or not. Do you agree? I honestly feel bad for Dodgers fans as these suspects were wearing their team's gear and making them all look like thugs. It's not right, and I'm glad to see they are all standing up for Bryan now.

They have set up a Facebook page to keep everyone informed of fundraisers and to gain support for Bryan. That's where I got all of the pictures on this post. Feel free to go see what they have going on, whether you are near the area or not. They have things you can do to help. Most of all keep Bryan in your thoughts. He did nothing but try to go and enjoy a baseball game with friends, and his life is forever changed because of it.

On that wonderfully cheerful note... Happy Friday everyone! I'll be having a drink for Bryan when I get home this evening. Cheers!

UPDATE: By the way, folks. Since these guys haven't been caught yet, we don't even know if alcohol was involved. So that statement by the Mayor was all speculation. I'm a drinker, but I don't drink at games. Not everyone does.

Friday Foolishness on April Fool's Day

Well, isn't that fitting since it's April Fool's Day that we do another edition of Friday Foolishness? My mother, who you all have come to know and love in my stories of her wild antics, absolutely loves this day. I don't know what it is, but you basically cannot believe a word that she says on April Fool's Day. God help you if you don't realize what day it is when you are talking to her because she will get you with something major every time. I wanted to jump through the TV and kiss the news man this morning who filled me in before I even left the house. She will NOT get me this year, dammit.

I got my new camera yesterday finally! I opened it at work just long enough to take the battery out to charge it so it would be all ready for when I got home. It was pretty genius, I thought. I was all excited to play with my new toy and wow you all with wonders the likes of which you have never seen. But of course, I get home and it's raining freakin' cats and dogs so there was to be no outdoor picture taking. I figured, that's fine. Bailey makes a good subject and you all love seeing her so much anyway, right? Uh huh... I thought so!

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Now let me stop there to explain that I don't like talking on the phone. I don't know why, but I don't care for it. It's actually pretty strange because people couldn't get me off of the phone in earlier years. Anyway, I would much rather text or talk on the computer if we can't be together. I think you get the idea. But last night everyone and their freaking brother wanted to talk to me on the phone because I had a new toy to play with! I even told every single one of them about my new toy hoping they would get the hint so I could go figure out how to use the damn thing. Do you think that worked? Nope!

By the time I got around to unwrapping it all and putting it together, I had no patience left to be reading the instruction manual. There are so many buttons and functions on that thing that there was no way I was going to be able to wow even myself with the first shots. Bailey decided that would be a good time to do nothing except chew on a bone and getting close-ups of that only pointed out to me that I needed to vacuum. *sigh* I guess I'll just have to figure it out tonight.

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At least the sun is out today. I feel like I haven't seen it in a month! We either end up in a drought or with never ending rain around here. It's very bizarre. We kinda needed that rain to wash away all of the pollen though. I'm not much of an outdoors-type person, but if I can't see the sun for a while, I get a bit cranky. It's almost like it's supposed to be there for me whether I need it or not, ya know? 'Cuz this is my world, dammit. I'm not picky about many things, and I'm not nearly as spoiled as I used to be when I was young. But there are certain things I like and sunshine is one of them!

Is it just me or has this been the longest damn week ever? You would think I was waiting for Christmas or something the way it drug on and on. (Drug?.. Is that right? Sounds weird.) A couple of people at work have said the same thing. Yesterday a guy in my office was talking on the phone and he told someone it was Friday. I almost gave myself whiplash turning around to look at the calendar. Don't TEASE ME that way!! It is sooooo not right.

On that note, I'll leave you with a couple of funnies. It's Friday NOW, everyone! Enjoy a cocktail for me because I know I'll be doing it for you as soon as drink-thirty gets here. Cheers!

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Now go play some tricks on people. Just don't try them on me, please!

Not really a book review.. more of a gripe session..

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Have you ever read a book and wondered, "Why the hell did I just waste those hours of my life? I'll never get those back, dammit!" Well, I bought this book because.. Hello! It has dogs in it, right? Most people who write about animals in their books (from my experience) have a sense of humor and they are fun reads.

NOT this book, and for the love of everything that is my great followers, DO NOT click on the source and buy the damn thing. I'll mail you my copy if you want it that bad. I don't want to give that author any more cha-ching. I didn't want to put the source on there, but I didn't want the copyright police all over me someday.

Anyway.. To begin with, this author obviously has a word-of-the-day calendar on her freaking desk! I read this in paper form before my Kindle so I couldn't look up all the big damn words she decided to put on pretty much every page. I mean you wouldn't believe some of the things she would stick in odd places. I consider myself a pretty well-educated person so I don't normally need to look things up. If nothing else, I can usually figure out what a word means from the context. With her, it was like she just wanted to challenge herself to see how many of these off-the-wall words she could put in there.

My next problem was the storyline. It is supposed to be about a group of people who hang out at the dog park and one of them goes missing. So the others decide to try to find out what happened to her. I thought it was be humorous. NOT! These people were just plain strange, and not in a quirky, fun kinda way either. I wanted them ALL to be missing by the end of the book. And I won't even BEGIN to tell you how freaking stupid the ending of the book was!

In closing on that topic, do not waste your time on this book. A friend at work heard me bitching about it one day so she picked on me like crazy every time she saw me with it after that. I just had to give the author the benefit of the doubt and finish the damn thing. Yeah, I'm that kinda stupid. I just wanted to warn you all since I knew many of you love to read and are animal lovers. Oh, and if you are a writer, this might be a tool of how NOT to write a novel. (I'll feel really bad if the author stumbles onto this post, but maybe she'll change some things in her next novels.)

While we are talking about dumb things, wanna see the wonderfully stupid thing my town did?

Beautiful entrance to an industrial park, right?

Do you know what this expensive little project leads to? Absolutely NOTHING! It is simply an entrance and turnaround to what they hope will someday, maybe, if we pray really hard, industrial park. We have companies leaving our little town, but this is where we'll put our Obama incentive money, by God! Heaven forbid we fix the stinking highway that runs right through the town so I'm not hitting a million holes on the way home every day. I'm so proud that this is where my tax dollars went. Aren't you?

Okay, I'm done with my rants for the day. I have two article critiques to do by tonight, so I better get crackin'.