Howard Weyers - Weyco, Inc. company founder
Eddie Money said it best - “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down”. After battling against the world of spyware and worm viruses over the last week, I am back. Basically my system got so screwed up from some stupid piece of spyware that somehow slipped through that I had to wipe everything and start from scratch. For two days I couldn’t get this stupid PC to find my modem, so I broke down and picked another up and it worked fine. All was well, right? Nope. As I go to Microsoft’s site to download a few patches for Windows 2000 due to known security issues where people can get in your system and spread those stupid worm viruses around…I got hit with three of them while downloading the service packs. They spread so quick that even the anti-virus program I was using couldn’t clean them out…so I had to wipe everything again and start all over. You know, if I could get my hands on those dudes I would LOVE to release a video over the internet with me just beating the crap out of them while screaming “don’t let this happen to you!!!” over and over. Why people do that kind of stuff is just beyond me. And now onto other things…
Well…that’s that….it’s all over for this year. My Falcons fell to the Philadelphia Eagles this past week for the NFC crown and a Superbowl trip. Did I take it hard? Ummm….you better believe it. I was almost literally in a state of shock after the game once the realization of the finality of the season hit. To be that close…to be one game away from the big one and lose is tough. This was worse then the time they lost the Super Bowl in the 1998 season. When that happened, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see Atlanta play in a Superbowl, and when they made it I was so ecstatic that the sting of the loss wasn’t as severe. Not saying it didn’t suck beyond belief, but the journey was a good one…that is until Eugene Robinson got arrested the night before the game for trying to get a quickie from an undercover cop posing as a prostitute. That ruined the game for them. Robinson was considered a leader on the team, was going to the Pro Bowl, and earlier that day was awarded the Bart Starr “Man of the Year” award. His actions basically dragged a whole team down. This year stung badly, and I went home after watching the game with the AFC championship on mute because I hooked up my bass, cut some Misfits on, and jammed for about 2 hours to get my mind off of the loss. But you know what? That wasn’t the worst loss I’ve experienced. Let’s get into the time machine and travel back to January of 1981.
Ah yes, January of 1981. Rick Springfield was putting the touches on his debut album “Working Class Dog”, Ronald Reagan was about to be inaugurated, I was basking in the glow of the Herschel Walker-led Georgia Bulldogs winning the National Championship, and even in the 6th grade I had my own set of groupies I liked to call “The H-A-J-K-5” (Holly, Anne, Jamie, Kelly, and the number five for a nice ring to it for some reason). My life at this time basically consisted of pissing off teachers, Star Wars, the band KISS, hand-held electronic games, and of course football. Huh, not a whole lot has changed. The Atlanta Falcons finished the 1980 season at 12-4 and were ready to face The Dallas Cowboys in the first round of the Division playoffs. Atlanta had an unbelievable team that year and many expected them to win it all. QB Steve Bartkowski was on his way to the Pro Bowl, William Andrews became just the third player ever to rush and receive for over 2,000 yards in a season joining Jim Brown and OJ Simpson, The Gritz Blitz defense was leading the league…they truly had a great team. Ironic thing is that the other NFC powerhouse was the Philadelphia Eagles….weird. Anyway, I was playing Jr. Pro basketball at the time (equivalent of little league baseball) and sadly we had a game that fateful afternoon when Atlanta was playing. I was pretty crushed I’d miss the playoff game, but one of my teammates’ dad brought a small portable battery-operated TV to the game and would feed updates down to me as our game was going on. I played Forward, and the guy I was matched with on the other team was a dude named John Boucher. Boucher was a HUGE Dallas fan…so much that he would write his jersey number on his knee and elbow pads like the Dallas players did. In the 4th quarter of the playoff game, the word was Atlanta had the lead and time was running out. I figured they had it locked up, and by all accounts they should have. I’ll never forget the next sequence of events for as long as I live. John’s team, The Lions, put up a shot that missed and I got the rebound. I passed the ball to Trev who was our point guard and ran down the court getting ready for offense. I was close to the free throw line when John turned around to get ready for defense, and then he said the following - “Yes! Dallas just won!”. I was stunned….and I wanted to punch John right in the face. Honestly I don’t remember if we even won or lost that game. I remember getting home and my dad was a little bummed out. Yes, he missed my basketball game to watch the Atlanta playoff game and I don’t blame him one bit….heck I wanted to miss my game too. That day started an intense hatred for Dallas and anything to do with them that still holds true today. It wasn’t until 1991 that I was able to see Atlanta in the playoffs again…so the 1980’s always had that day hanging over my head. That was by far the most painful loss ever. But it’s all over for this year…yeah I still have The Superbowl to watch and a few of my beloved Atlanta Falcons made it to the Pro Bowl, but it’s all over until September. I guess it’s time to pick back up on my Spring/Summer sport…..baseball? Nah. Basketball? Nope. It’s time to start watching some boxing. I just can’t stand sports where people aren’t hitting each other…because to me a true competition between people involves hitting for some reason. That’s it for football this week…next week my special “Superbowl” edition of the buzz.
You know what I don’t understand? Why is it when you watch a movie that’s set in ancient Rome or Biblical times or whatever, people all seem to talk with this lame British accent? Is that supposed to make me forget that everyone is white and therefore I’ll look upon them as foreigners? I watched “Troy” a few weeks ago and this past weekend I watched “Julius Caesar”. If you haven’t seen Caesar, it rocks. The only flaw was Christopher Walken playing Cicero, one of the head senators. It’s not that he did a bad job, but considering the roles he’s usually in made this one a little strange. I kept expecting him to shoot someone.
Ahhhhh yes. Originally with my melancholy mood after the loss, I was afraid I wouldn’t see something to peak my interest to vent about…but I have. Weyco Inc., a company in Michigan, has decided to fire employees who smoke…and I’m not talking about smoking while at work. They actually fired people who even smoke when they’re off work…as in at home…as in their own free time. The company founder, some idiot named Howard Weyers, said "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking". Yes, it’s the age-old statement you hear from people who scream and cry about their healthcare costs and insurance rising due to all the complications people who smoke burden them with. So here’s my question for Mr. Weyers - what about your employees who don’t exercise, drink too much alcohol, or decide to down a box of twinkies every night while watching TV? Would it not be safe to say that those factors would contribute to some health problems as well??? I would also like to know how many of the company’s 200 some-odd employees are overweight? I remember when the big fuss came out in the early 90’s about banning smoking in public places, and as the debates raged on one big rallying cry was that banning smoking would reduce health insurance costs. True…it might…but what about all those people who live off McDonalds? How about the people who never exercise? It’s just stupid. Oh, there is the argument also about how smokers at work take too many breaks and stuff. First off, if you really want to take a good look at the majority of workers, everyone is screwing around on a pretty equal basis. Sure, every hour and a half or so I take ten minutes to go down to the parking garage, smoke, and come back. But during the course of the day I’ll always see the same group of people blabbing while standing around the coffee machine, people taking a lot more then an hour for lunch on a consistent basis, people coming in late and leaving early, people online every time I walk by their desk and sometimes even playing games….it’s all over the place. I’ve always looked at it like this - do they get their work done? If they do then leave them alone. I hope this guy who owns this company gets sued so bad.
And something else from the moron file, now someone else is suing McDonald’s claiming that their ads are misleading and therefore led to their obesity. What an idiot. Honestly, at one point does someone who gets in the 400 pound range think to themselves “hmmm…maybe I’m putting on a little weight”? What’s the argument in this case….”but your honor, they made me eat there all the time”. It’s like someone had their family held hostage and was forcing them to eat fast food everyday or their family would be killed. Some people are just so dumb. Tell you what idiot, go get the gastric bypass surgery so everyone can tell you “congratulations” for doing nothing.
Boy did I make a huge mistake the other night. I got in bed and turned on ABC’s Nightline…I guess something about Ted Koppel’s boring monotone voice can just put me right to sleep, plus I think the guy is quite an idiot and I like watching sometimes to make fun of him. He always reminded me of Alfred E. Newman, the character on the front of Mad Magazine. Anyway, one of the other ABC cronies Peter Jennings is over in Iraq this week covering the days leading up to the election there. At first I was shocked…the opening of the show was actually showing how much good had been done over there. It actually reported all the new schools and businesses and people who were thankful for the Americans being there…but then it was treated as an afterthought and Koppel droned on and on about the poor areas without electricity in their schools and stuff. Oh, and Ted glossed over the fact that these places never even had schools to begin with. The worst was when they cut to Peter Jennings “reporting” from Iraq. Peter was telling his good buddy Ted how dangerous it is there, and how it’s just so much different from how it was years ago. It literally sounded like Jennings was longing for the good ol’ days of a murdering dictator being in charge…why? Because it was safer for him I guess. After all, he got to interview Hussein…and that makes absolutely no sense to me why someone would do that. Yeah Ted and Peter, we’re sorry things aren’t safer there for you…things would still be much better with your buddy Sadaam in power. Oh sure, there would be the rape rooms, the torture chambers and the bodies still piling up in the mass graves, but at least Peter Jennings would feel safer. Pete’s big buddies with ol’ Hussein anyway…remember he was there for the first time Hussein was brought into a courtroom to support his old buddy.
Has anyone else heard this crap on chemtrails? This girl I work with was telling me about them the other day. Look up in the sky sometimes when a plane goes overhead and notice the smoke trails behind it. I’m sure everyone has seen those at one time. Well, I was informed these are chemtrails. What are chemtrails? According to a website she showed me, these unmanned planes (or may be flown by foreign pilots) produce this chemtrail to dissolve in the air and contaminate people for a form of mind control, or to attack their immune system to reduce the overall human population. Supposedly this is one of those big deals which is all being triggered by the New World Order…and not the wrestling faction. I was laughing beyond belief, so she sent me the website with the info because we all know if it’s on the internet then it MUST be true. I read over some of it and just told her it has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard in my life. Oh she tried to cite this and that but I was too busy laughing at the absurdity of it all to even listen. I can’t stand conspiracy theories, I really can’t. It’s just like people’s fight stories I mentioned a few weeks back, as soon as they start into this whole government cover-up stuff, I just tune them out. I know stuff happens, but man do people go too far. Ok, let’s say for instance that back in the 1940’s that an alien spacecraft really did crash at Roswell and the government took the bodies. How does this affect me? It doesn’t. It doesn’t pay my mortgage, it doesn’t buy me food, none of that. Seriously, if the government is in cahoots with aliens over something there isn’t much I can do about it anyway, so I’ll just enjoy my video games and heavy metal as long as I can. Like when I was in college, I was standing outside of one of the buildings waiting for class and having a smoke. It was around the time the movie “JFK” came out, and of course EVERYONE knew EXACTLY what the truth to the assassination was. For some reason, this guy was out there smoking too and decided to start talking to me. It was Johnny hippie college guy with the cut-off jean shorts, t-shirt, sandals, nappy hair and a scraggly beard complete with the backpack over one shoulder. He gets started on the Kennedy assassination, like I cared, and then utters something that is listed on my “top 5 dumbest things I have ever heard” list. This guy, and with a straight face, actually said “Hell…everyone knows Oswald didn’t do it…I’ve got the pictures to prove it”. So let me understand this…Johnny hippie college guy has photographic evidence that would end one of the greatest debates in the 20th century. This statement was so dumb that I literally couldn’t even retort. I sat there in shock for a moment, put my cigarette out and went inside wondering how someone could either be that stupid or think that I was so stupid he could tell that big of a lie. Now I will admit, I read a bunch of books on it all back then, and the conclusion I came up with about the Kennedy Assassination is that I honestly have no idea what happened….and I don’t think anyone does except whoever pulled the trigger. But if Oswald was not the only shooter, or was just a patsy, then it’s probably safe to say it was a pretty big time effort to put the whole thing together and is the type of thing that if people start snooping around they end up missing…so why rock the boat you know?
I guess the jackass of the week is pretty easy to figure out. Any company that would fire people for smoking…even outside of work….deserves to be sued into bankruptcy. So for reasons mentioned earlier…this week’s award goes to -
And remember…next week the big Superbowl edition!!! Oh, and if someone can tell me why chicken wings are called buffalo wings at some places…could you email me and explain it please???