Random Thoughts
1. I need to address a burning question that is eating me up on the inside. There are certain questions in this universe that I don’t think were ever intended to be answered. And I think one of those questions is why do The Simpson’s consistently air their Treehouse of Horror Halloween episode after Halloween is over? For example this year it is airing on November 5th. What the hell is that all about? I’ve already moved on to Thanksgiving by November 5th. And I feel like they’ve done this the past 5 years. It makes no sense on any level. The Treehouse of Horror episode should always be the last episode before Halloween. It seems so simple. I just don’t get it. Am I the only one who gets flustered with this?
2. Have people seen the commercial for this new Lexus that parallel parks itself? First of all, I have no idea how this is possible and I refuse to believe that it really works until I see it work with my own two eyes. But more importantly why would anybody really want this feature in a car? I mean is it really that big of a deal that Lexus feels the need to base their entire ad campaign around this feature? Is there really somebody out there who is debating between a BMW, Lexus and Audi and says to himself, “well the Lexus does parallel park itself”…. Also, how long does it take? Are you sitting there blocking traffic for like 2 hours? I’m sure that would go over real well in downtown Boston as people are beeping at you and you yell out the window to relax because your car is parking itself. It just seems like there are a million better things to invent for a car than a self parallel parker. I don’t even thing West Coast Customs would bother installing that feature and they put fish tanks in the trunk and shit like that.
3. What is the deal with Pepperidge Farm Cookies? Why are those things for adults only? My dad always ate Milano cookies for breakfast and nobody else was allowed to eat them. In fact he used to hide them in a cabinet with the pots and pans. I knew they were there, but I was just as happy to eat my Vienna Fingers. Also in a strange twist to this story my father declared a couple months ago that he didn't even like Milanos. It is still one of the most baffling statements of my lifetime made by anybody I've ever known. He literally ate them every single day for 28 straight years and then declared he never really liked them to begin with. But I guess that’s my dad.
4. There is a raging controversy right now at the University of Purdue that is dividing the student body. I guess for a lack of a better word we’ll just call it inflatable penisgate. On one side of the fence we have students who are against the appearance of huge inflatable penis’s appearing at football games and on the other side of the fence we have students who promise that this is only the beginning of the inflatable penis era at Purdue. Here are quotes from both sides of the argument.
Con
“I went to Ross Ade Saturday expecting to see a good football game, but instead I saw a disrespectful showing, not by the football team, but by the student section. In the middle of the third quarter, a Boilermaker was injured at the end of a play. Usually when this happens, both home and away fans are silent out of respect for the injured player. But our student section cheered. Why? Because an inflatable penis showed up. And when the injured Boilermaker was helped off the field, we booed because the penis was hit out of the stands. Is this how much class we have left, that we are more entertained by an inflatable penis than we are concerned for an injured Boilermaker? If so, then I am embarrassed to call myself a Boilermaker. -- Dustin Meyer, Senior, College of Civil Engineering.”
Pro
A campus group hopes to strike again on Saturday in Purdue's game with Penn State, with their goal to "bring as many inflatable penises to the remaining home football games as possible."
Brad Sandberg, a junior in the College of Technology and a member of the group, said the penis adds a needed and different level of excitement at football games. "It's great," said Sandberg. "You see it pop up and you're like 'Oh, there it is again.' It adds some excitement because it's just a big (expletive) penis."
Hmm, this is a tough call. If I were the president of Purdue I’d try and reach a compromise. How about inflatable penises will be allowed during the game but should not be unveiled during an injury timeout. Everything else is legal. I think this is a fair compromise. Because I do kind of agree with Brad Sandberg that an inflatable penis certainly adds some excitement to football games.
5. sportsbybrooks.com - People Magazine recently reported that at party on the Vegas strip last month, Andy Roddick announced he had dumped Maria Sharapova and said "I'm flying solo. It's Vegas; you don't bring sand to the beach."
Shortly thereafter, Roddick became the millionth man to check in to the Hilton (Paris that is), as "they talked all night and eventually left together, says an onlooker."
Whoa, what a line! You don’t bring sand to the beach! It’s true you don’t. But as great a line as this is I don’t think Andy Roddick has the right to be bashing Maria Sharapova in public. Sharapova needs to fire back with something like “what has he won lately?” And by the way I’d take Maria Sharapova every day of the week over Paris Hilton and twice on Sundays. I feel like this was a rash decision by Roddick. If you’re going to publicly humiliate Maria Sharapova, you better f-ck somebody better than Paris Hilton. I’m talking like a Kristin Kreuk type of chick.
6. " PLEASE TAKE ME OFF THIS DISTRIBUTION LIST. I did not sign up for this email and will be forced to contact my legal department if you do not comply."
This is an actual response I got after sending out a reminder email about Barstool Wicked Halloween last week. And it was from a dude. Although I'm having a hard time really believing it was from a dude because what kind of man gets upset about getting invited to a Halloween party that is going to have a bazillion girls there and an open bud bar at 8pm? I mean I can understand if you don't want to go, but what's up with the legal threats? If he just asked like a normal person to be taken off the list I would have gladly removed him. But now he's on our distribution list for life. In fact, I may go out of my way to spam this guy with invitations to events that don't even exist. I'd like to officially add people who make stupid legal threats to the list of people who I don't trust. I wonder what this guy would tell his legal department anyway?
"I got an unsolicited invitation to a Halloween Party. I want this guy dead"
I mean this guy has to be the biggest loser in the world right?
7. Washington Post - A father pulled a gun on a youth football coach in Philadelphia because his son wasn't getting enough playing time, police said.
You know what’s scary? We’re not that far away from a real life Billy Cole incident taking place in the NFL. I mean I wouldn’t have blinked for a second if Terrell Owens pulled a gun out of his sock on Monday Night Football and shot Drew Bledsoe and then shot himself. As a side note, in regards to this incident, I wonder if the coach put the kid in the game when he was being held at gun point. That’s got to be a ton of pressure for the kid. I mean everybody knows the only reason you’re in the game is because your dad is holding the coach hostage. You need to produce and produce big in that situation. I mean imagine if the kid fumbled or something on the first play. How silly would the dad look then?
8. Today was one of the happiest days of my life. Fuck it, who am I kidding? Today was the happiest day of my life. What happened you ask? Well, as dawn was breaking this morning I looked out my window and saw 3 Comcast trucks come rolling down my street like thunder. Yes, Comcast has finally arrived in Abington. Previously I had been living under the hostile dictatorship of Adelphia. I was forced to endure shitty DVR service and all around poor TV performance. Also, they don’t even offer cable modem. It was like living in the Stone Age. I swear to god that I had to choke back tears of joy as I rushed out to greet the Comcast trucks as they rushed past my apartment. I can only imagine that this is how France felt when they spotted the allied tanks rolling down the street. Yes, I have been held hostage by Adelphia ever since I moved to Abington, but that is finally about to change! When my first child is born I can picture myself giving a speech that goes something like this; Today is the 2nd greatest day of my life right behind the day Comcast arrived in Abington and ahead of the day I got married. Honestly, it’s that important.
9. I have a brilliant new idea. I think somebody needs to start a company that offers gambler’s insurance. This company would protect you against games that you get royally screwed in Take for example people who bet the under in Cal vs. Washington on Saturday. The total in this game was 55. The under was looking great the entire game. It wasn’t even close. Washington was winning 17-16 with under two minutes left in regulation. For all you mathematicians out there this equals 33. Like I said, it wasn’t close. But then weird things started to happen. Cal drove all the way down field and refused to settle for a field goal and scored the go ahead TD to make the score 22-17. They went for 2 and naturally got it. New score 24-17. Washington got the ball back and slowly drove down the field until they got to the 50 with only enough time left to throw a hail mary. And in the worst hail mary defense of all time 3 Cal defenders smashed into each other and basically threw the ball to the only Washington guy in the area for the perfect tip drill tip to send the game to OT. Cal scored on their first possession making the final score 31-24. 28 pts were scored in the last two minutes of the game. This gets me back to my original idea of gamblers insurance. You pay something like 100 bucks a month and then when you are victimized by a game like this you simply submit your claim and the insurance company pays your loss. It seems like a no brainer right? I’d definitely buy gamblers insurance. I’d also like to sit on the claims committee which helps determine what types of games qualify for insurance.
10. In one of the all-time "pot calling the kettle black" moments in the history of organized radio, yesterday on WEEI's "Real" Post Game Show, Pete Shephard and Fred Smerlas were mocking CBS' Shannon Sharpe for how HE talked! What?! You've gotta be kidding me! If you're LUCKY you can understand 10 words combined between Pete and Fred.... if you're lucky. Say what you want about Sharpe, but he makes the two of them sound like George Bush on a first date. Also, I hadn't listened to the "Real" Post Game Show in a while, and I'm amazed a show like that could exist in this market. Its freakin BOSTON and I thought I was listening to Division II college radio in Bismark. It's one thing to be an admitted Yahoo, but can you at least PRETEND to be objective for 3 hours after the game? Fred was still whining about "bad calls" in the Denver game! It was embarrassing, I wouldn't be surprised if they were high-fiving each other in the studio. Thankfully, Steve Deossie arrived to "salvage" the show...
11. Everybody knows that I love the Real World/Road Rules challenge shows. But I feel like the past few seasons have been a little bit slow. Thankfully, the Duel has gotten off to a smashing start highlighted by Tina taking a swing at Beth in last week's episode. And for all you MTV historians out there, I've got to believe that Tina's ejection was the fastest ejection in the history of MTV. I mean usually it takes at least 24 hours before the aggressor is booted off a show. Generally there are a bunch of emotional meetings and one or two shows centered on people discussing whether or not they feel safe blah, blah, blah. But Tina was gone literally two seconds after throwing her punch. Frankly I think it’s crap. She didn’t even connect with it! The rule should be that you need to make contact for it to count as a real punch. Also, Tina has to calm down with her tough girl act. Listen, I’m a Tina guy, but she can’t think swinging and missing is worth getting kicked off the show. She was acting like she knocked Beth out or something. And by the way I have Tina listed as a 5-1 underdog in a fight between these two. Beth is a monster.
12. So a new baseball card store just opened in Abington next to a pizza place that I go to all time. Let me repeat. A new baseball card store just opened in my neighborhood! So this begs the question; Are baseball cards back or is this guy just nuts? I mean didn’t baseball card stores go extinct like 20 years ago? Don’t get me wrong, I’m rooting for this guy, but so far I’ve seen a grand total of zero people in this store. Even I haven’t gone in yet because I’m afraid I’ll get quilted into buying like 38 Gregg Jefferies rookie cards to add to my already impressive Gregg Jefferies collection. But I am curious to talk to the owner and see what he was thinking. And maybe I could give him some advice on how to make it work like Seinfeld telling Babu how to run his Pakistanian Restaurant.
13. I love Chinese food. But is there anything more hit or miss than Chinese food? I mean if you eat good Chinese food you feel like you’re on top of the world. There are no lingering side effects or anything bad like that. But if you eat bad Chinese food it can knock you out for like 24 hours or longer. And I’m openly skeptical of 99% of Chinese food places. I absolutely refuse to order Chinese food from places that I’ve never heard of or haven’t been inside. And since I’ve moved to Abington, I’ve barely had any because I haven’t found a place I like or trust yet. In Boston I had a couple go to places. Obviously Golden Temple is top of the line Chinese food. The only problem is that you could eat at Smith and Wollensky’s for the same price. I mean it’s outrageously expensive. The same goes for Billy Tse’s in the North End. It’s good but real expensive. The only place that I ever found that had good Chinese food and was relatively cheap was Wang’s Fast Food in Somerville. (It took me 14 months to get over the name before I tried it) Anyway, what are people’s thoughts? We’ve talked about Pizza, sub shops and Italian restaurants already, but personally I need the most help with Chinese food because when Chinese food goes bad, it goes real bad. And what’s the deal with China Town? Do any of those places deliver and how can you tell them apart?
14. So OJ Simpson is writing a new book called “If I did it” , a murder mystery based on how he “hypothetically” would have murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman if he “hypothetically wasn’t the real killer to begin with”. Hmm, this is an interesting one. I think at some point somebody just has to kill the Juice. I mean you can’t let a guy write a hypothetical book about committing murder when everybody knows he really did it. Isn’t that the whole plot of Basic Instinct anyway? As a side note, I think I may just hypothetically admit to the First Lady that I’m a degenerate gambler and explain how hypothetically I’ve lost thousands and thousands of dollars over the past few years and that is hypothetically why we live in Abington.
15. ATTLEBORO, Mass. - Tag, you're out! Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt.
Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban. Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. "I've witnessed enough near collisions," she said.
This story is sad and pathetic. How can you ban tag? This is like the safest f-cking game a kid can play. I mean if you can’t play tag what can you do? And I can only assume this means all versions of tag like Stuck in the Mud, Freeze Tag etc. are also banned? And is there any doubt that Celeste D’Elia’s kid is a loser? She says she’s “witnessed enough near collisions to support banning tag”. That’s crazy. You might as well just ban life. Honestly, what do these kids do at recess? Make gimp bracelets or something? Don’t get me wrong I could make double cobra and square stitch as good as the next guy, but that was usually my cool down period after whooping up on somebody in touch football. You know who really loses in this situation? All the fast kids who should be the most popular kids in the school because of their speed. Now they may have to use something else to determine popularity like art and that’s when Darwin’s survival of the fittest gets all messed up and ugly untalented kids start running the school. This is a joke.
16. "Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall. General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday "The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices "We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said."
It’s good to see that our friendly neighbors to the North have everything under control in Afghanistan. Geez, talk about giving the enemy confidence. Who invited Canada to participate in the War on terror anyway? Forget the fact that we can’t catch Osama Bin Laden, the freaking Canucks can’t beat a bunch of plants. We should just invade Canada and get it over with. As a rule you don’t deserve to have your own country when your army can’t defeat Marijuana plants.