So I came across this story on ESPN, about Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban creating his own reality tv show. It's called "The Benefactor." Sometimes I think this guy's a jerk, but most of the time I have to grudgingly respect the guy. He puts his money where his mouth is. And he has a big mouth. I don't mind rich, obnoxious owners of sports teams who care about winning. That's the whole point. And winning isn't just done on the field or the court. So I have no problem with him or Steinbrenner or whomever. Doesn't mean I'll root for them or even like them. But I can't complain about it. I feel this is somewhat Republican of me.
Anyway, Cuban says of his show: ""You don't need special talents," Cuban said. "I'm not looking to find out who is the grossest, funniest, prettiest, smartest or able to go without food or water the longest. The right person is going to get on my good side at the right time, and whoever that is is going to walk away with a check from me for $1 million." This reminded me of a career I once hoped to have, that of a philanthropist. I always tell people that I thought I'd make a great philanthropist. If I had a ton of money, I'd give a lot of it away, but I'd have all sorts of contests to do it. Some would be essay contests or displays of physical prowess (not traditional athletics, but stuff like paper football or nerf basketball or something). But most of them would be things like "I'm picking you up in five minutes and we're going to drive around for a couple hours. Bring 5 CDs." Of course there'd be no set rules for judgment. Two people could bring the exact same cds, and I could love one and think the other was total jerk. Anyway, I would love to do this kind of thing all the time. Now I just need the money. I wouldn't even care if it wasn't my money. If some billionaire were looking for creative, and somewhat frivolous, ways to distribute his or her wealth, I'd volunteer in a heartbeat. So I'm very jealous of this Cuban fellow. And really, this dude lives a charmed life. Not that he didn't work for his money, but a whole lot of luck and good timing went into it too. It was more of just him implementing an idea for something he wanted to see, then by chance that idea taking off, in this case I think it was streaming basketball games in Indiana or something over the internet. Then he sells out his share at the height of the internet bubble, and his filthy rich. And pretty quickly too. I'd love to be an evaluator or something on this show.So I've eaten a lot of junk food today. I skipped the bagel or donut that's becoming the norm for me in the morning, since I've gained almost ten pounds since the summer. But in a fit of hunger I had a bag of Doritos, then a co-worker offered me a some delicious blueberry and cheese pastry. Then a steak sandwich for lunch. And then the same co-worker offered me some cake. I guess it's somebody's birthday or something. And this is after a two donut and cheese snack last night after a filling dinner. It really is amazing that I'm not morbidly obese. My problem is that after I go to the gym, I "reward" myself with all sorts of junk food. I think I'd almost be better of not going to the gym and just eating like I normally do, which still isn't very good, but there are significantly less pastries involved. And the gym I've been going to lately is right next to a Dunkin Donuts, one of my favorite chains in the world. And I just got off the phone with Jed, who reports that Jen made him a birthday cake last week and they can't finish it. I ran into this problem last year with a big double chocolate cake that Miss CM made for me. I wonderful gesture, but as Jed also found out, two people just can't eat a whole cake. So he's stopping by later this evening. So I will be eating birthday cake tonight. And probably regretting it. Only three months till bathing suit season, you know.
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