Well there was a good reason for that.  My wife and I recently closed on our first home.  The process was an exhausting one and the closer we got to the closing, the harder it was to focus on anything else.

We are settled in our new home now (if you count the stacks of my wife’s clothes still sitting in boxes around the house as settled) so I now I have a little more time to get back to writing.  Now that things are a little more calm, I’ve had a chance to reflect on the life-changing experience I had to endure over the past couple months.

I’m certainly glad to have my own home now but there were many stressful times along the way and many people that I wanted to punch in the face.  So with that in mind, its time for another edition of Random Guys I Want to Punch in the Face!

The Real Estate Agent

There might not be a job out there that requires one to bullshit and lie more than a real estate agent.  Politicians think real estate agents are full of shit.

When searching for a home, you may think the real estate agent is on your side but that couldn’t be farther from the case.  The agent works for the seller and wants to sell the house as quickly, and for as much money as possible.

They will try and make every negative about the house sound like a positive as a way to convince you to put in an offer. They’ll call a studio apartment “cozy” or a home in need of repair, a “handyman’s special.” They’ll pressure you to make an offer right away or to buy a house out of your price range. DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!  Do your research and make an informed decision before making any offer and you’ll be just fine.

Here’s how our dealings with the real estate agent went in the beginning of the process

Real Estate Agent: So how much are you looking to spend?

Me: We’d like to keep it under X dollars.

Real Estate Agent: Ok. I found this great house in your neighborhood.  It’s $25,000 more than you’re willing to spend and the maximum amount of money you are approved for.  You’ll love it!

Me: What are you fucking deaf? I just said we can’t afford that.  I don’t care if we are pre-approved for that much.  I’ll be eating Ramen Noodles every night and shopping at Old Navy the rest of my life if I spend that much.  Show me houses in my price range.

And once we found a house we liked…

Real Estate Agent:  Someone put an offer on this house already, but if you offer $15,000 more you’ll definitely get it.

Me: No. We’re not doing that.  This house isn’t worth that much. We are offering this amount.

Real Estate: Ok…but you realize that’s very low. I don’t think they’ll accept that.  You don’t want to lowball the seller. They may not take you seriously.

Me: Just fucking listen to me and make the offer.

One hour later…

Real Estate Agent: Congratulations. You got yourself a house!

Me: Sweet! Thanks for offering terrible advice.  If I had listened to you, I’d be out another $15,000.   You are completely fucking useless. Can’t believe you collect a commission for this.

Mortgage Broker/ Bank

Back in the good ol’ days, in the early part of this century, anyone with a pulse could get a mortgage.  Then in 2008, a few people got foreclosed and all of a sudden these banks are super careful about who they give money to.  Now they want you to divulge every piece of information about yourself before approving you for a loan.

Here’s one of many emails I received on nearly a daily basis from my mortgage broker…

To: Mr. and Mrs. Sacks

From: WeAreGoingtoTestYourWill@BigBank.com

Subject: Documents Needed

Hello Mr. and Mrs. Sacks,

I see your parents gave you a gift to help you make the down payment.  In order for us to move forward with the mortgage commitment you must provide us with the following information.

1. Have your parents sign this attached gift letter acknowledging they gave you money
2. A copy of the check deposited into your bank account
3. A copy of your bank records from the past 12 years
4. A copy of your tax return from 1997
5. Your parents bank records dating back to 1973
6. Make a sworn statement that you did not get this money by selling crystal meth or by working for Al-Qaeda.
7. A copy of eight forms of identification, including a blood, stool and semen sample.

Once we get all that, you should be all set!

Thanks,

Harry Ballzak
Senior Loan Specialist
Big Bank, NA

The Title Company

I’m not sure how it is outside of New York but for some reason in New York, it’s standard practice to tip the title person 100-200 dollars at the closing.  Apparently, it’s an appearance fee and it will ensure that the recording of your mortgage will be quick and smooth.

As if shelling out my life savings was not enough, now I have to tip this asshole 200 dollars to show up for an hour.   I wouldn’t tip someone that much if they were dancing topless to an 80’s rock ballad and shoving their naked breasts in my face.  My tip should have been a swift knuckle sandwich to the face!

Past Me

Finally, and perhaps most deservingly, I’d like to punch myself in the face.  What the fuck was I thinking?  When I was renting, I had money to spare. We went on vacations every year and out to dinner every week.  If something broke, I made a call to the landlord and made his ass fix it.

Now I’ll be barely scrapping by with two incomes and will spend my weekends mowing the lawn, going back-and-forth to Home Depot and helping my wife pick out curtains for the living room.  Nice job asshole!!  Past Johnny Sacks deserves a solid punch in the face!

With this new app, which is available for iPhones, Droids (no not those droids) and Microsoft phones, you can view your Facebook and Twitter feeds in the iconic Star Wars opening title sequence. I downloaded the app myself and it definitely is pretty cool. I personally enjoyed the funny tweets from C3PO and R2D2, which are pre-loaded into the app.

And with May 4 being Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you…get it? A little cheesy, I know, but nowhere as cheesy as Jar Jar Binks, who is absent from this app, fortunately) now seems like the perfect time to check it out.

Your girlfriend will probably think you’re a total dork for using it, but who cares. She doesn’t understand why Star Wars is so awesome and she probably never will.

You might also want to the check out the Kinect Star Wars game for your Xbox 360. The Kinect is really starting to come out with some cool games and Kinect Star Wars may be the coolest game for the Kinect yet.

Check out the “trailer” below




This post has been sponsored by Kinect Star Wars

What makes this even more remarkable is that 83 percent of the visitors in the United States are women. It’s amazing that Pintrest is doing so well despite failing to appeal to half the world’s population.

Every woman I know is obsessed with this site.  Mrs. Sacks loves to just aimlessly scan through its iPhone app for hours at a time, completely ignoring me.  I tried using Pintrest but could not get into it. Pintrest is filled with baking recipes, cute photos of cats and lame inspirational platitudes.  There just isn’t much there for men.

But recently, a new site came out, called Punch Pin, which is the same exact concept as Pintrest, only the items posted are for men.  The look of the site is very similar. You may not even notice the difference at first, until you see the pictures of women with large breasts scattered throughout.  The site has plenty of other categories that a guy could spend hours browsing through, such as gadgets, beers, DIY projects and man caves, in addition to all the pictures of beautiful women.

It’s definitely a great time-wasting site, so be sure to check it out.

A better kind of fantasy baseball

I’ve been playing fantasy baseball for many years now. Baseball is my favorite sport and I follow it more closely than any other sport, yet I have yet to win a fantasy baseball title—EVER. It’s beyond frustrating. It seems like no matter how hard I prepare for a draft, or how closely I monitor free agents during the season, something always goes wrong. This season is already shaping up to be another shitty one.  When it comes to fantasy baseball, I subscribe to Murphy’s Law—the belief that anything that can go wrong, WILL go wrong.

Here is my “Fantasy Baseball Murphy’s Law” list

The perennial all-star you draft in the first round will have the worst year of his career the year you draft him

The following year, when you pass him over, he will dominate the league

The ace pitcher you draft will announce he is having Tommy John surgery two days after your draft ended

Your best closer will lose the job one month into the season

The guy in your league with five closers will pick up his replacement minutes before you do

You will drop a set-up man the day before he is announced as the new closer

When you finally beat someone to a new closer, he will get hit all over the place and destroy your ERA before being demoted again (see Mark Melancon)

Your relief pitchers will never vulture any wins. But your opponent’s relief pitchers will vulture plenty.

You finally decide to bench a guy after a prolonged slump. The day you bench him, he hits a home run.

You put him back in the lineup the next day and he goes 0-4 with 3 K’s

When torn between starting or benching one of your starting pitchers on the day of his start, whatever decision you make will be the wrong one. If you start him, he will get rocked. If you bench him he’ll throw a no-hitter (this actually happened to me last year, when shitty Francisco Liriano threw a no-hitter).

On a day where you finally get great starting pitching from several guys, one of your relief pitchers will get hit around and ruin your team ERA for the day.

If your starting pitcher leaves the game with a lead, a relief pitcher will always blow the win

If your starting pitcher leaves a tie game with a man on base, the relief pitcher will always allow that run to score and your pitcher will be credited with a loss

If your pitcher is in line for a loss, his team’s offense will never pick him up to tie the game and get him a no-decision

If your league uses quality starts, your pitcher will removed after 5 2/3 innings

If you trade a player because you are deep in a certain position, (i.e. lots of starting pitching), you will be hit with a rash of injuries to that position immediately following the trade.

If you trade away a slumping superstar, he will go on a tear the day the trade was completed

If you trade for a player having a big year, he will get hurt within days of him being on your roster

No matter how many DL slots you have, you will always have one more injured player than allotted DL slots.

Have any other ones? Share it in the comment section. If they’re good, I will add them to the post.  

A while back, I wrote a post about some of the crazy stuff that can be found on Hammacher Schlemmer, but with my recent visit to their site I’ve learned that they have managed to top themselves.

Let’s take a look at some of the most recent outlandish items for sale at Hammacher Schlemmer.

The Killer Whale Submarine

A quick glance at the picture above appears to show a killer whale leaping out of the water.  But it is actually a two-person submarine.   Just take a look at this description…

This is the streamlined, two-person watercraft that breaches and submerges just like the Orcinus orca after which it is designed. A pilot protected beneath its watertight 1/2″-thick acrylic canopy pushes and pulls twin control levers to articulate the whale’s pectoral fins for rolls and stealthy dives. With a finger on the right lever’s throttle trigger, steering is provided by dual foot pedals that control the vectored thrust of the craft’s 255-hp supercharged Rotax axial flow engine, enabling realistic behaviors such as porpoising or skyhopping. It can hydroplane up to 50 mph over the water’s surface and it can cruise up to 25 mph while submerged; its dorsal fin’s integrated snorkel ensures air supply to the engine up to a depth of 5′. The cockpit’s dashboard includes a speedometer, tachometer, engine and air pressure gauges, and an LCD that displays live video from the dorsal fin’s built-in camera. Vinyl seats with closed-cell foam upholstery and four-point racing harnesses ensure pilot and passenger safety.

This product can be yours for only $100,000.

WTF? This thing is nuts.  Who would even envision such a product being made? You can also check out the video of this thing in action on their site 

The Museum Quality 1/8 Scale 1961 Yankee Stadium

1961 was an epic year in baseball history.  Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were in a historic race to break the legendary Babe Ruth’s home run record.  Roger Maris would eventually hit his 61^st home run of the season on the last game of the year at Yankee Stadium.  Now 60-year old men who grew up in New York City idolizing Mantle and Maris can relive their childhood with this 1/8 replica of Yankee Stadium in 1961.  All it will cost them, is a large portion of their basement to display it and $115,000.

The World’s Largest Scrabble Game

Words with Friends, which is modeled after Scrabble, has become one of the most popular smartphone apps around.  The game is now able to played in the palm of a person’s hand against anyone in the world for FREE!  So it only makes sense that Hammacher Schlemmer would develop the “World’s Largest Scrabble Game” which spans over 49,’ is confined to one room and costs $12,000.  There are only nine in existence so you better hurry to beat the rush.

The Genuine PT Boat

If you happen to be very rich, then it’s likely you either own or have considered owning a boat.  But have you considered buying a restored Patrol Torpedo Boat from World War II?  One of 12 remaining PT boats, this boat is “”armed” (all weapons are deactivated) with a single .50- and two twin .50-caliber Browning machine gun stations, an aft 20mm Oerlikon cannon, four tubes that each housed a Mark VIII torpedo, and two depth charge launchers…Updated with modern electronics, radar, and two turbo-charged diesel engines providing 1,100 total horsepower, she is the only PT boat in existence licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard for carrying passengers.”

This piece of history can be yours for $1,000,000.

You can find more crazy stuff at Hammacher Schlemmer here.

I love my iPhone.  In fact, I’m probably obsessed with it.  The iPhone is one of the greatest inventions of our time. It has changed the way we interact with the world and it has changed the way we get work done.  The features are almost limitless.

But the biggest downside to the phone is the constant distraction it creates.  A phone that was created to make life more efficient is, ironically, having the opposite effect.  Let me take you through a typical workday to show you just how the iPhone is negatively affecting my productivity.

8:27 a.m: Wake up late. I had set my alarm on my phone the night before but forgot to charge it, so the phone died and I am now late for work.  I charge my iPhone in the car, while I speed to work.  I almost crash my car when I glance down at my phone following a notification that someone replied to my last tweet.

9:23: Almost a half-hour late for work.  I turn my computer on to start my day but not before I make my move in Words with Friends.  I spend 15 minutes trying to make a word with seven consonants.  I get pissed off and close the app. 

9:53: After a good ten minutes of solid work, I receive a text message from my wife.  It’s time for her daily morning routine of texting me about how much she hates her job.  I spend five minutes texting her consoling messages. It should have taken half the time but my iPhone keeps autocorrecting words I didn’t intend to write.

10:04: I hear the sound of the iPhone indicating I have an email.  It’s probably junk mail but I can’t resist the urge to check.  I was right.

10:15: Time for my morning shit. I bring my phone into the bathroom and check people’s status updates on Facebook while handling my business.   I sit there five minutes longer than I need to, while reading about the trivial issues of the people I haven’t spoken to in person since high school.

10:35: Work hard for another five minutes until I find it’s my turn in Draw Something.  I spend 15 minutes making an awesome drawing that earns me three coins that have no real value.

11:10: I’ve now been more productive as I have at any point of the day, putting in a solid 20 minutes of work in a row.  As a reward to myself, I start checking into shows on Viggle, even though I’m nowhere near a television.  I’m only five thousand points away from a $5 Starbucks gift card!

11:33: Another e-mail comes through. Still can’t resist the urge to check. It’s more junk mail.

12:00: Lunch time.  Time to take a break from a tough morning.  I go out and get lunch.  I decide to watch an episode of the “Big Bang Theory” on my TBS app.  I get caught up in the episode and arrive back at work ten minutes late.

1:10: I’m in food coma after lunch. I’m definitely going to be useless the rest of the day.  I decide to give it another crack at Words with Friends.  I settle for a three-letter word that nets me 7 points.

1:20: I swipe through the screens on my phone aimlessly, looking for anything to keep me entertained as an alternative to going back to doing work.

1:21: I decide to browse through Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus, Facebook and every other social networking app I can think of.

1:33: Decide to check my e-mail on my phone.  No one has e-mailed me in the last two hours. What gives?  Is there something wrong with my phone? I spend 10 minutes in my phone’s settings making sure my e-mail is working.  As I’m doing this, an e-mail comes through. I check it. Still more junk.

1:53: Make another drawing in Draw Something.  I get frustrated when a co-worker interrupts me to discuss actual work.  I rush through the conversation so I can get back to guessing the drawing.

2:15: I don’t know what this person is drawing and I don’t want to mess up our streak, so I text the person to find out the answer.

2:23: He texts me back with the answer. Time to do my drawing now.

3:06: My nose is running. I use the iPhone’s camera in reverse to make sure I don’t have any boogers.

3:45: I receive a phone call from my mother, who is checking up on me as always. It’s the first time all day I’ve used my iPhone for an actual phone conversation.

4:15: I take another break from work to set my lineup from my phone on whatever fantasy team is in season.  I discover someone in the league has made an awful trade. I write a 500-word email to the commissioner explaining why the trade should be vetoed.

4:50: Almost quittin’ time. There’s no point in doing work for ten minutes, so I stare aimlessly at the clock until its 5:00 p.m.

5:00: It’s time to leave.  Another potential productive day wasted thanks to the iPhone.  I promise myself I will be more productive tomorrow but unless I leave my phone at home, it’s not likely to happen.

Researchers found that male fruit flies who had recently mated were less likely to choose food laced with alcohol than those who failed to get their dick wet. The rejected male fruit flies drank from the spiked mixture about 70 percent of the time, compared to about 50 percent of the time for the lucky flies who got their nut off. Apparently the researchers believe that the flies were using the alcohol as a way to compensate for their sexual frustration.

The researchers found that levels of a chemical active in the brain called neuropeptide F, or NPF, correlated strongly with the flies’ appetite for alcohol: when levels of NPF were low, alcohol consumption was high, and vice versa.

The NPF molecule in flies is thought to be analogous to the action of chemical called neuropeptide Y in humans, or NPY. The new study suggests that scientists could reduce drinking by developing drugs that enhance the activity of NPY,

“The study implies that it is this system that goes haywire in addiction,” said George Koob, a professor of neurobiology and addiction at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., “and that it’s very sensitive to stress. For instance, after you lose a loved one, or a relationship has crashed, you get dysphoric, your NPY goes down, and this provides a strong urge to drink a lot — whether you’re a mammal or a fruit fly.”

This is definitely an interesting study, though I’d like to propose a different hypothesis… Maybe these fruit flies weren’t compensating for their sexual frustration. Maybe they struck out with the ladies because they lacked game. Since they couldn’t work up the courage to talk them sober, they had a little bit of alcohol so they could loosen up a bit, lose their inhibition and gain the confidence to charm the lady fruit flies. That was usually my strategy when I attempted to pick up chicks.

Having watched her in tight 1960s outfits on “Mad Men” wearing bras that push her healthy breasts up to her neck, my initial reaction was to immediately go to Google and search for the leaked picture.

But then I hesitated. My conscience came calling.

Is it right for me to be looking at this picture?

Hendricks’ privacy was severely violated and she had no intention of this photo surfacing. How would I feel if someone did this to me? I’d be furious.

After my brief battle with my conscience, the little devil on my shoulder won out and I took to the nearest search engine to find the naked Christina Hendricks picture. (Sorry, I’m not going to post or link to the picture here. Just type it into Google. It took me 15 seconds to find it. ) Hendricks claims the picture isn’t her. You can’t see her face in the picture but that rack is one-of-a-kind. I’m pretty confident those are her funbags in the photo.

Naked celebrity photos or videos get leaked every so often and the result is always the same for me. Whether its Paris Hilton giving head or Kim Kardashian getting it on with Ray J, I can never resist the urge to look.

I initially feel a little guilty about it but after a while I get over it. My rationalization is that these celebrities should have known better. In this day and age, how do celebrities let this happen? It’s too easy for an ambitious hacker to come across a photo like this. We’ve seen it happen time and time again. So why even risk sending nude photos to someone or making a sex tape in the first place?

So what do you think? Is it wrong to look? Answer the poll question below or leave a comment.