This video is The Internet in real life.

Think about it. It’s Sunday night and the New England Patriots have just lost the Super Bowl. Because you’re a Guy On The Internet, you think it’s an awesome idea to find a place with a bunch of Pats fans and troll them. In real life, that’d involve you putting on a Victor Cruz jersey, going to the UMass campus and giving everybody the finger while you salsa dance.

And, just like on the Internet, people get upset. You get threatened, and eventually somebody sucker punches you. You get dragged away (banned, whatever), the whole thing is recorded and spread around and a guy dressed like a banana is there for some reason. If you added Brazzers ads and a super loud thing telling me I’ve won a free iPad, that’s the f**king Internet, right?

The moral of the story is this: don’t be that guy on the Internet, whether you’re on the Internet or not. Better yet, don’t be the drunk Masshole who yells RRRRIOTTT when a riot might almost be happening.

[h/t Sportress by way of SportsGrid]

The Boston Red Sox are five and a half games out of first place, and with the Tampa Bay Rays making a charge for the AL wild card, it seems all but obvious that the Sawks will miss the playoffs. And their fairweather fanbase has responded in kind–they’ve stopped going to the games. One of the groups feeling the loss is ticket scalpers, who have all those extra tickets that they can’t sell. Poor widdle babies…

Rich claims he made about $100,000 in his first year re-selling tickets to NASCAR events and Sox games. This year, though, he says he’ll be lucky to bring in one-third of that.

A fellow re-seller overhears Rich’s claim. “[Down] 70 percent? It’s way worse than that,’’ said the man.

The other scalper is silver-haired with a belly and a limp. He’s wearing a Red Sox jersey and isn’t interested in saying much more. “Things are bad enough already,’’ he says. –Boston Globe.

How bad are they? Oh, just dreadfully bad… Read the rest of this entry »

A Massachusetts school district is threatening to cut its entire athletic program–as well as all other after-school activities–in order to make up a budget shortfall. Tommy from Quincy could not be reached for comment.

Facing a $1.8 million budget gap despite dropping 44 staff positions including some teachers, School Committee members said they had little choice but to eliminate sports, a move that would be a first in Massachusetts’ budget crunch. But even as members of the panel insisted their decision was no idle threat, many in town were skeptical, and suspected that officials are trying to exploit residents’ fondness for high school sports to galvanize public support for a possible tax override later this spring, and pressure teachers into accepting contract concessions.

“I can’t see it happening,’’ said Christine Hernon, as she watched two of her children compete yesterday in a track meet at Mansfield High School, which boasts top-flight sports facilities. “People will start sending their kids to private schools. It doesn’t make sense.’’ –Boston Herald.

My high school made this exact same threat as another tax package for schools was headed for another ballot. The levy failed, and weeks later the district announced that they had “found” almost $2 million in their budget to keep sports. Now, I’m not familiar with the uniquities of the Mansfield situation, but this song and dance sounds awfully familiar. Besides, high school without sports would be the most dreadful experience ever, and creates an obviously slew of other issues, both in the school and the community.

There’s another point to be made here, if I could put on my teabagging pants for a second–public school districts have no incentive to operate efficiently (nor do their respective athletic departments, for that matter). Even if the parents make good on their threats to move their kids to public schools, they’ll still have to pay district taxes, so the schools don’t care. It’s somewhat ironic that this district seems eager to shut down competition for its students while benefiting from the fact that it has no true competition of its own. Thanks to Matt Hinton for the heads-up.