I’d Rather Eat A Scam Pizza [Friday Thoughts With TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. Why, it’s that delightful TV leprechaun! It’s Friday, March 9, Two Thousand and Eighteen. The weather in Brooklyn is 36˚ & Pantone 13-4405 TCX and somewhere, somebody is taking that walk through the door. You know that walk. It’s the one you make when you know you can never go back. After years of manipulation, distrust, jealousy and mental abuse, you finally make that stand and do that walk. The walk you make when you’re ready to start anew in a place that’s more suited for you. It’s the walk you make when you know deep down inside that you deserve better and damnit, it’s time to get yourself a new dry cleaner. And me? I still think that dry cleaners are christian scams and buying brand new clothes is a much cheaper option. I also have some things on my mind.

– Does this have to be awkward every time? Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me at all. Just close your eyes when you’re reading me. The front page of BFD has articles spanning 3 different years. The sight of that made my Soylent™ creep back up my throat. This website has become the friend that you live near, but only see once every 6 months. You totally enjoy their company and wonder why you don’t hang out more often. But then every time, that very topic has to be brought up. So you start avoiding them, just for the sake of never having to explain yourself. Nobody wants to be that guy. I’ve put off writing just because I know that in order to do so, I’d have to apologize and explain myself. So, can we not do this anymore? Can we just assume that we’re both busy people and if the topic ever comes up, we both say, “Really, it’s been that long? Time surely flies by” while we nervously scratch the back of our necks, clear our throats and then wonder why we’re suddenly craving a Butterfinger? What company makes Butterfinger? Mars? That’s a thing? Are they even still in production? Whatever happened to Butterfinger BB’s? They might not be around anymore, but they sure as hell outlasted the Nestle Crunch Awkward-Looking Popcorn Bite Things. Exactly. You can open your eyes now, we’re good.

– I’m going to be 31 in a matter of days. I’m also going to be 50 in a matter of days. I’m also going to be dead in a matter of days. Life is fleeting and days are a definite unit of measurement. Now that I’ve come to grips with my mortality. I decided to stop writing and find myself a doctor. According to the Fidelis Member’s Portal™, there are exactly zero doctors in any of the 5 boroughs that are accepting new patients. I then went to Zocdoc, because millennial, and saw that Dr. Butt has an opening [heh heh, nice]. His front page review states that he is “a doctor that humble , but confident.” Don’t you mean “butt confident”? Hey-ooooo!!!! His name is Butt! Love it! Doctors are dumb, I’m gonna keep writing.

– In speaking of getting old, I went down to Florida last week. Wow, that’s the most geezer thing I’ve ever said. We got ourselves a hotel in the Disney Slums. It’s hard to explain the Disney Slums without actually showing it. Basically, it’s an underdeveloped, decaying mass of land miles away from Disney World. The whole strip is littered with bootleg gift shops, shooting ranges and buildings that claim to have $40 park tickets [which, no, is not actually a thing and I have no idea what they’re actually selling]. It’s the place to go to find some irregular The Fox & The Hound merch, let off some murderous steam and disappoint your kids with counterfeit tickets. It’s also good for sleeping on a budget, with hotel rooms cheaper than camping rates in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

We got to our room and found a pizza menu tucked under the door. Italy’s Italian Pizza. I immediately scoffed at the idea of Italian Pizza, claiming the USA to be A Number One Accept No Substitutes Baybee. I later ate those words, as we found ourselves in the hotel after midnight with no pizza. And we can’t stay in a hotel without eating pizza. Poor people do that and I’m not a poor. So I grabbed the menu and started to study it. Italy’s Italian Pizza? Does Italy own the pizza? Is it being made at the Italian embassy in Kissimmee? It also claims to be “Voted Central Florida’s Best Pizzeria For 10 Years”. Which 10 years was that? It was clearly worded to not be the LAST 10 years, meaning it’s not currently being voted in. So this is underdog pizza, totally past its prime but hoping you’ll be willing to give it a shot. Also, who’s voting for this pizza? It might’ve been voted in an employee survey. It might’ve been voted by people that live in Northern Oklahoma. It could’ve been voted by menu printers.  We need more evidence to back up these accolades! Also, the top of the menu boasts free delivery, but then the fine print at the bottom states that delivery fees may apply. How would you even know if you’re in the free delivery radius? You’d look up the address. Only problem is that there is no address on the menu. There is literally no information whatsoever on where this pizza is even coming from. Upon searching online, we learned that Italy’s Italian Pizza does not exist. I also scrounged every pizzeria in the area and found that none of them are even open until 4AM. We did find one thing, however. A Yelp review for a place called “Lil Italy Pizza“:

Serves us right for ordering from a menu shoved under our hotel room door… We ordered a pizza from “Little Italy Pizza”. Waited for over 2 HOURS and tried to call them. They hung up on us when we told them we wanted to cancel. A quick internet search showed the same address for “Joe’s Pizza and Subs” and “Bellagio”all located at the same address, one mile from our hotel. We realized that the two menus under our door were identical including the pricing! Do not order from them!! Total scammers. Legitimate businesses always operate with 3 different names and phone numbers, right?

So that explains why there’s no address. Because they don’t actually bake pizzas there. They bake…SCAM PIZZAS!!! It’s a ponzi scheme that you can eat, but really you can’t, because it’s a SCAM PIZZA. I’m not going to lie, the idea of a SCAM PIZZA really excited me, because it’s just so friggin Florida. Knowing what I know, I still kind of wanted to call them, but I was persuaded into Dominos. Boring old reliable Dominos. The pizza came very quickly at a fair price and it didn’t taste horrible. There was no 2 hour wait, no sudden credit card charges, no requests for a social security number, just pizza. I could’ve had pizza back home! If I’m staying in the Disney Slums, I expect to be hassled. I cheated myself out of a true Florida experience and I’ll never get over it. I want to live, damnit!

– I’m constantly trying to figure out what’s wrong with kids these days. This week’s thesis states that kids suck because they have a voice. Back when we were kids, nobody gave a shit about what we had to say. If there was a major issue or youth movement going on, we’d let MTV do the talking for us. Nobody actually wanted to hear from our acne-addled face holes. Now that kids have the internet, they won’t shut up, because they know that technically “the world is watching”. In 1998, if you wanted to see a kid talk without a script, you’d have to watch TRL. In 2018, you have to go out of your way to avoid a talking kid. Which is fine, I guess, they have a right to talk. But just remember this algorithm:

Humans = Idiots
Kids = Undeveloped Humans
Therefore, Kids = Idiot-Wads Who Eat Boogers

– I’m trying to figure out ways to get back into writing that doesn’t involve me spouting nonsense about booger pizzas. I used to love writing about football, but now that I’m a full-blown Football Is Evil And Fixed Truther, I don’t really get to do that anymore. So instead, I think I’m gonna have another half-baked run at attempting Baseball Journalism. Because after all, it’s in the name that we arbitrarily chose a decade ago. Instead of the weekly football roundups of yesteryear, I’m going to attempt monthly baseball roundups with an equal amount of poop jokes and misinformation. And I might as well start now. What follows will be my AL East roundup [which will be 1/6th of the debut article forthcoming. Thank you, math]. If you don’t care about baseball, you might as well scroll to the bottom to read my weekend trick, because these thoughts are over.

[Some nonsense about Spring Training and another apology for this article existing] …because not enough people like predicting things anymore, here are my AL East predictions:

5th Place: East Bay Rays
Last year, the Rays were a rag-tag team of losers trying to make their place in the world. In the offseason, they traded away/demoted every player that matters and nobody cared. The same can be said about the Marlins, except the entire baseball community was having stove-gasms over the ridiculousness of it all. Nobody had the capacity to shut up about Jeter gutting the Marlins. But let’s look at facts. The Rays finished 80-82 while the Marlins were 77-85. Saying what Jeter did was a travesty is an exaggeration. He simply got rid of a bunch of players that couldn’t win. The Rays did the same, but Jeter doesn’t run the Rays, so who cares?

4th Place: Charm City Boh’s
I really like going to Camden Yards. It’s my second favorite stadium on the east coast. And now that the Oriole’s rotation is comprised of popcicle sticks and Kevin Gausman, I’m going to enjoy going there even more. Just so I can see some sweet, sweet dingers. Dingers for days. Dingers dingers dingers.

3rd Place: Canada Geese
At the end of the 2013 season, I read a preseason issue of [The Sporting News?] that predicted the Blue Jays to win the pennant. I laughed so hard that I shat. Lucky for me, I was sitting on the toilet at the time. And every year after that, predictions and results for them have remained the same. Joe Biagini has a magic jock strap, Marcus Stroman got his teeth whitened, blah blah blah whatever, they’ll finish .500.

2nd Place: The Fucking Red Sox
Hanley Ramirez is allegedly healthy for the first time in his life. David Price also hopes to do the same. Chris Sale exists. They have JD Martinez now. I think I might actually…like the Red Sox? I’m probably drunk. I’m not. Shit.

1st Place: The Bronx Championships
A few days ago, I had the privilege to watch the hapless Tigers go against Murderer’s Row 2.0 and the results were…disappointing. For being the “Best Lineup Of All Time”, they got carved up by Francisco Liriano, who is not good. Of their 10 wins this year, 9 of them have come from the 7th inning or later, long after the starters left for the day. So yeah, the Yankee’s look good, but their prospects are winning the actual games. Didi Gregorious is always going to live in Jeter’s shadow. Aaron Judge has been hot garbage since the All Star Break. Giancarlo has bones of glass. Gary Sanchez doesn’t even know how to be a catcher. And who’s the DH? Adam Lind? The fuck outta here. Developing Super Squads doesn’t win championships. Just tell that to the Nationals, who have way more talent than the Yankees but will still never win anything.

Try this trick over the weekend: Watch some Spring Training games and then look out for my baseball roundups. You really shouldn’t have scrolled down. You’ve been scammed. By me. Baseball scammer.

Have a scammy weekend, everybody!

-TeeCoZee