So everybody and his grandmother is piling on Bill Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th-and-2 from the Patriot's own 28. It's the "safe" attack in sports talk right now, like when you want to make fun of Mike Tyson for being a cannibal or Al Davis for being a rotting mummy.
Only, the people criticizing Belichick are wrong. They're not only wrong, they're airing their math ignorance as proof of the righteousness of their cause.
Typical is Peter King, who as always is not afraid to slavishly follow where the pack has led him. He compares it to Grady Little's call in the MLB playoffs to leave in Pedro Martinez and says it indelibly blots Belichick's resume.
Firstly, let's explore King's math: he puts the odds of the Patriots making the 1st down "at 60, 65 percent." Then he says in the very next sentence that "the odds of Manning going 72 yards to score a touchdown in less than two minutes…that's maybe 35 percent."
Um, dumbass? 65 plus 35 is a hundred. So the outcome of the two propositions is exactly equal. Even if we accept the lower value of 60, our precision is so poor that it seems like these are pretty similar propositions.
And this is before we begin considering what can go wrong on a punt: blocked punt, return for TD, long return, illegal block in the back, etc. It's true that the receiver could fumble it, but more punts go badly for the punting team than go well. So there's a significant (even if minor) element of risk for the Patriots by punting.
Putting that side, though, consider this: if the Patriots make the play, they win. So the chance of the Patriots winning on offense is 65%. If they punt, and the Colts have a 35% chance to score, then the chance of the Patriots winning on defense is 65%
As proof, King enters into the ledger the Colt's previous seven drives, of which two were touchdowns, two were interceptions, and three were punts. So the Colts had scored on 28.6% of their previous seven possessions. If that trend continued, then we could concede that the Patriots had a slight edge to win on defense (71.4%) over offense.
But football, as King surely knows, is a game of momentum. And teams that are on a comeback are dangerous in the 4th quarter, when the defense begins to flag. In the fourth quarter, the Colts had scored twice and had an interception. That's a whopping 66% chance to score. If that is the real metric to watch, then the Patriots definitely should go for it: they have a 65% chance to win on offense and a 34% chance to win on defense.
And the math from the seven possessions is certainly not accurate, as we know that Indy will not punt in this situation. So we have 7 possessions, but we must ask ourselves: what would have happened on the three punts? Well, if they would have scored a TD one time out of those three, then the chances that they'll score now are 3/7, or 43%. So the Patriots have a 60-65% chance to win on offense, and a 57% chance to win on defense.
The team with the ball gets to decide what happens; the defense can only react to what the offense does. Belichick knows this. He has a 65% chance to seize a win, or a 65% (or less) chance to hope that Indy does not seize the win. So he chooses to go for it himself.
It's a courageous play, not an arrogant play. Those who are excoriating him now are cowards, who would rather kick the ball away and hope that the other team either screws up or doesn't score, secure in the knowledge that if they do score, then you can fall back on "well, that's why Manning will be in the Hall of Fame one day."
Screw that! Belichick went to seize the win, Manning be damned, and his team didn't come up with two yards. Sometimes life is like that. We were all so excited about Brady and Moss both being healthy, and we've been drooling over their record-setting offense that blew the doors off opponents two years ago.
Where did that energy from pundits go? Did they forget that this is the Patriot's strength? Why should the Pats meekly kick off and "hope for the best"? When did this become a quintessential American value?
Fools, cowards, and morons are criticizing Belichick. Others, more mature and inclined to understand strategy, should appreciate a logical move made to control your own destiny that, as is sometimes the case, didn't quite work out.
One last word on King's cowardly illogic: he compares Belichick to Grady Little because Little is hated in New England and his name despised for costing them the World Series. But you know what?
It's King and his ilk who would advise going the Grady Little route, not Belichick. A tired defense has yielded two quick scores to a resurgent offense that is undefeated, so King wants to roll the dice and fall back on it for "one last try" and "make Manning earn it." Meanwhile, Belichick would rather go with own offense, which was having a great day, and play for the win, now, and keep control in his own hands.
It's the difference between controlling your destiny and "hoping for the best", which is essentially what King advises that they should have done.
And is what Little did when he left Pedro Martinez in one pitch too long.
Showing posts with label stupidity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stupidity. Show all posts
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Plebian and the Mysterious Missing Classmate
I received the strangest call the other day. It was round about 7, and I was drying my daughter's hair, when the phone rang. Like a good homeowner, I answered it, and for my troubles I was met by static.
After a few moments, I was able to discern just a few things:
*The person on the other line knew me (they did, after all, refer to me by name).
*They were calling from the International Space Station, evidently deep within the Van Allen belt, because all I could hear was massive static.
So I instructed them to wait and call me back in a few minutes, to see if that would alleviate the problem. They did indeed call back a few minuets later, and I was able to figure out a few more things:
*They had gone to high school with me (they did, I think, refer to the proper high school)
*Their name was either Tom Simpson, Pete Krugerand, or Funky Winkerbean, I'm not sure which, and I couldn't understand through the scratching when I asked him to spell it out for me what the name should be.
At this point, and despite my protestations, Funky insisted on asking "So…SCRATCH-HISS-SCRATCH…do you…SCRATCH…ember…HISS…me?...SCRATCH"
"No, but I might if I knew who you were!" I insisted. The first two I'd never heard of, and I never cared for Funky Winkerbean anyways. Stupid band geek.
"Oh," the dude sounded really disappointed. "Oh, I see...SCRATCH! HISS!"
"HEY!" I yelled. "I'd probably know who you were if I could understand you! You've gotta call me back on a different line so I can understand you!"
And at this point, the line went dead.
Great. Just great. This is going to bother me for the rest of my life, you know?
And I can just see the headlines now:
"Beloved local businessman Funky Winkerbean committed suicide this evening, leaving a note behind saying that he's tired of going unnoticed in this faceless society. Funky was despondent because his dearest childhood friend forgot all about him and hung up on him earlier in the evening."
The funny thing is, Wifey has gone certifiably around the bend over this. Listen, it's no real hair off my ass if I reconnect with Funky one way or the other. Sure, it'd be nice to know who it was that called me, but he probably was just trying to trap me into buying him dinner so he could have me drugged and extract my liver to sell it to an organ trafficking ring.
Because that happens to me all the time.
But for Wifey this has become a quest. She's hunted down all the people we still keep in touch with from high school and asked both of them if they'd handed our number out. Which they hotly deny, but I swear one of them has beady eyes and I never trusted her anyways and she probably put us up on the bathroom wall under the line "for a good time call…"
So, on the off chance that one of my 40 readers is either my old friend Pete Simpson or Tom Krugerand, please be sure to call me back, because I'd really like to talk to you and catch up about old times, and I'm sure I'll fake remembering you better once we get off of a terribly staticy line.
If it's Funky, though, well; lose my number. And don't bother asking why, you know the answer!
After a few moments, I was able to discern just a few things:
*The person on the other line knew me (they did, after all, refer to me by name).
*They were calling from the International Space Station, evidently deep within the Van Allen belt, because all I could hear was massive static.
So I instructed them to wait and call me back in a few minutes, to see if that would alleviate the problem. They did indeed call back a few minuets later, and I was able to figure out a few more things:
*They had gone to high school with me (they did, I think, refer to the proper high school)
*Their name was either Tom Simpson, Pete Krugerand, or Funky Winkerbean, I'm not sure which, and I couldn't understand through the scratching when I asked him to spell it out for me what the name should be.
At this point, and despite my protestations, Funky insisted on asking "So…SCRATCH-HISS-SCRATCH…do you…SCRATCH…ember…HISS…me?...SCRATCH"
"No, but I might if I knew who you were!" I insisted. The first two I'd never heard of, and I never cared for Funky Winkerbean anyways. Stupid band geek.
"Oh," the dude sounded really disappointed. "Oh, I see...SCRATCH! HISS!"
"HEY!" I yelled. "I'd probably know who you were if I could understand you! You've gotta call me back on a different line so I can understand you!"
And at this point, the line went dead.
Great. Just great. This is going to bother me for the rest of my life, you know?
And I can just see the headlines now:
"Beloved local businessman Funky Winkerbean committed suicide this evening, leaving a note behind saying that he's tired of going unnoticed in this faceless society. Funky was despondent because his dearest childhood friend forgot all about him and hung up on him earlier in the evening."
The funny thing is, Wifey has gone certifiably around the bend over this. Listen, it's no real hair off my ass if I reconnect with Funky one way or the other. Sure, it'd be nice to know who it was that called me, but he probably was just trying to trap me into buying him dinner so he could have me drugged and extract my liver to sell it to an organ trafficking ring.
Because that happens to me all the time.
But for Wifey this has become a quest. She's hunted down all the people we still keep in touch with from high school and asked both of them if they'd handed our number out. Which they hotly deny, but I swear one of them has beady eyes and I never trusted her anyways and she probably put us up on the bathroom wall under the line "for a good time call…"
So, on the off chance that one of my 40 readers is either my old friend Pete Simpson or Tom Krugerand, please be sure to call me back, because I'd really like to talk to you and catch up about old times, and I'm sure I'll fake remembering you better once we get off of a terribly staticy line.
If it's Funky, though, well; lose my number. And don't bother asking why, you know the answer!
Monday, December 1, 2008
On Teenage Values
Over the past forty years, some groups have gone to great pains to “liberate” women and convince them that they are equal to men in every way, most importantly by freeing them from ancient constraints on having liberal amounts of sex with any toothy metrosexual of their choosing.
Naturally, this liberated attitude has spread from the 20-something set, and now we are not only suffering from the stories of saggy-breasted swingin’ grandmas going to key parties, but more and more we learn that there is a veritable army of trampy bimbos in high schools across the land eager to outdo each other in proving that they are eager to bed any jagoff with an earring and pants whose seat drags the ground.
This is wrong, and it threatens to destroy the very fabric of society.
It used to be that, if you wanted to get a polite kiss on the cheek, you had to take a girl out to dinner, then some sort of amusement, such as a movie, paying spectacle, or any number of fine miniature golf/bowling establishments. After you’d done this every other week for 3 to 6 months, you could arrange to have “car trouble” and, after a heavy petting session, perhaps convince her to have negotiations with your “silent partner.”
As you can imagine, this did not come cheap: there was food to buy, gas to purchase, diversions to arrange and pay for, and angry parents to dodge. And we won’t even begin to discuss the investment necessary to “go all the way”, up to and including purchasing the plastic diving bell for your little Nemo before he goes twenty thousand leagues under the girl, one of the more humiliating life experiences for a seventeen-year-old.
However, as the grainy health film they’d shown us in sixth grade drove home, the next time you had unprotected sex a bacteria known as Penus Falloffus would infest your testicles causing, among other things, jock itch and erectile dysfunction.
And having no penis will be difficult to explain in a locker room of wiser boys, all of whom spend an inordinate amount of time staring at each other’s genitals and going “how did you get that festering welt in your Johnson area?”
In order to meet the economic needs of high-class ladies (the ones that didn’t smoke nor go with boys much larger than you), you needed to make money. And since time immemorial, during the fall teenage boys have made money via the most noble of professions: leaf raking.
Here’s how it works: you pick a big house owned by an elderly widow, you take your rake, and you show up one morning and offer to rake the entire yard for ten bucks. She agrees, and an hour or two later you’re ten bucks richer, you’ve eaten some cookies and lemonade, and if she’s a particularly desperate widow you’ve received an offer which you politely declined but which you wonder about during dark nights of the soul for the rest of your life.
[If you accepted the offer, you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it, unless you enjoyed it, in which case you’ve just discovered your true calling: gigolo.]
Of course, ten bucks isn’t much, so you have to do this over and over. And eventually you run out of widows, so you move down to the elderly, then simply the lazy, and eventually (if there are enough teenagers in town) you’ll rake leaves for anybody who pays you ten bucks.
This does not happen, of course, if there are sluttily-writhing teenage girls under every other section of bleachers. In this case every zit-farmer just goes dragging his tool kit through the dirt, and eventually he finds some girl who’s just desperate to look cool, and that’s it. And what with “hip” parents and these giveaway clinics, you don’t even have to buy the latex spacesuit before you send Buck Rogers down to check out Planet Hooch.
And this is wrong.
Worse, this irresponsible behavior is responsible for hundreds of deaths in the North and Midwest every year, because these same teenage boys used to fill up their Nookie Fund in the winter by shoveling driveways.
But without them, fat old men are dying by the droves as they try, desperately, to get the driveway cleared so they can make their weekly run down to the VFW to complain about kids nowadays. And the complaints aren’t going to make themselves, you know.
So I implore all teenage girls out there to just cross their legs and hold out for dinner and a show. Really, it’s not too much to ask.
If you won’t do it for the elderly widows who need their yard raked, then at least do it for the fat, old men who are keeling over just because you couldn’t hold out for dinner and a show before you turned into Sharon Stone, minus the icepick, but probably plus better acting skills, because let’s face it, your paramours don’t have the benefits of being trained by an elderly widow.
In the end, you’ll be getting something, too. Trust me.
Naturally, this liberated attitude has spread from the 20-something set, and now we are not only suffering from the stories of saggy-breasted swingin’ grandmas going to key parties, but more and more we learn that there is a veritable army of trampy bimbos in high schools across the land eager to outdo each other in proving that they are eager to bed any jagoff with an earring and pants whose seat drags the ground.
This is wrong, and it threatens to destroy the very fabric of society.
It used to be that, if you wanted to get a polite kiss on the cheek, you had to take a girl out to dinner, then some sort of amusement, such as a movie, paying spectacle, or any number of fine miniature golf/bowling establishments. After you’d done this every other week for 3 to 6 months, you could arrange to have “car trouble” and, after a heavy petting session, perhaps convince her to have negotiations with your “silent partner.”
As you can imagine, this did not come cheap: there was food to buy, gas to purchase, diversions to arrange and pay for, and angry parents to dodge. And we won’t even begin to discuss the investment necessary to “go all the way”, up to and including purchasing the plastic diving bell for your little Nemo before he goes twenty thousand leagues under the girl, one of the more humiliating life experiences for a seventeen-year-old.
However, as the grainy health film they’d shown us in sixth grade drove home, the next time you had unprotected sex a bacteria known as Penus Falloffus would infest your testicles causing, among other things, jock itch and erectile dysfunction.
And having no penis will be difficult to explain in a locker room of wiser boys, all of whom spend an inordinate amount of time staring at each other’s genitals and going “how did you get that festering welt in your Johnson area?”
In order to meet the economic needs of high-class ladies (the ones that didn’t smoke nor go with boys much larger than you), you needed to make money. And since time immemorial, during the fall teenage boys have made money via the most noble of professions: leaf raking.
Here’s how it works: you pick a big house owned by an elderly widow, you take your rake, and you show up one morning and offer to rake the entire yard for ten bucks. She agrees, and an hour or two later you’re ten bucks richer, you’ve eaten some cookies and lemonade, and if she’s a particularly desperate widow you’ve received an offer which you politely declined but which you wonder about during dark nights of the soul for the rest of your life.
[If you accepted the offer, you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it, unless you enjoyed it, in which case you’ve just discovered your true calling: gigolo.]
Of course, ten bucks isn’t much, so you have to do this over and over. And eventually you run out of widows, so you move down to the elderly, then simply the lazy, and eventually (if there are enough teenagers in town) you’ll rake leaves for anybody who pays you ten bucks.
This does not happen, of course, if there are sluttily-writhing teenage girls under every other section of bleachers. In this case every zit-farmer just goes dragging his tool kit through the dirt, and eventually he finds some girl who’s just desperate to look cool, and that’s it. And what with “hip” parents and these giveaway clinics, you don’t even have to buy the latex spacesuit before you send Buck Rogers down to check out Planet Hooch.
And this is wrong.
Worse, this irresponsible behavior is responsible for hundreds of deaths in the North and Midwest every year, because these same teenage boys used to fill up their Nookie Fund in the winter by shoveling driveways.
But without them, fat old men are dying by the droves as they try, desperately, to get the driveway cleared so they can make their weekly run down to the VFW to complain about kids nowadays. And the complaints aren’t going to make themselves, you know.
So I implore all teenage girls out there to just cross their legs and hold out for dinner and a show. Really, it’s not too much to ask.
If you won’t do it for the elderly widows who need their yard raked, then at least do it for the fat, old men who are keeling over just because you couldn’t hold out for dinner and a show before you turned into Sharon Stone, minus the icepick, but probably plus better acting skills, because let’s face it, your paramours don’t have the benefits of being trained by an elderly widow.
In the end, you’ll be getting something, too. Trust me.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Pleb the Builder!
One of the chief disagreements that Wifey and I have had regarding our charming European home is the lighting in the living space on the ground floor. This common area houses both our living and our dining room, and in the past we have illuminated it via several Ikea pole lamps.
I like Ikea pole lams. They’re cheap, which is nice. They’re portable, which is also nice. And when your spouse turns them off, if she does it slowly you can imagine that you’re at an upscale gentleman’s club and she’s about to give you a private dance, particularly if you choose that moment to jam a fiver in her panties and grope her.
Or maybe that’s just me. Okay, I don’t use the fiver, but I do grope. It’s one of the best non-verbal ways to say “I love you”, right?
Wifey, however, does not like the pole lamps. In fact, she finds the bottom level of our house much like a dungeon: dark, cold, and filled with people that she really doesn’t care for.
Some time ago, I accidentally installed a new wall lamp in one corner of the room. This unit has been operating now for a month without either burning the house down or going on the fritz, so Wifey decided to give me a little more challenge: she bought a chandelier.
I came home from work one evening to discover the thing in a box on the table, and her proudly telling me that she’d gotten it on sale: only sixty euros. That’s a hundred bucks in non-Monopoly money, which is actually pretty good for lamps here.
Needless to say, I was terribly excited with the thought of climbing atop a ladder, drilling holes in the ceiling, and hanging a forty-pound mass of metal and glass directly overhead. So I did what any husband does when faced with a similar situation: I procrastinated.
Weeks passed, and although eating around the box with the chandelier posed some problems, it eventually got to where we viewed it as one of the family. It was a lot less trouble than the kids, I can tell you that.
All that changed Friday . Wifey went out with friends, and I had to cut out of work early to pick up our children. Plus the two children of her friend. Plus the daughter of a woman that we don’t particularly care for but whom Wifey shuttles around sometimes. Other than the times that she gets so annoying you want to toss her in a creek in a burlap sack, this kid’s not so bad. So I hear; I spend all my time with her looking for burlap sacks.
Well, we got home, and the children went upstairs to play. I was a little disgruntled with Wifey, so I decided that the best way to take it out on her was to finally hang this stupid chandelier.
No, I hadn’t been drinking, but I do suspect mental illness played a strongly contributing role here.
I got the mounting bracket up, then hung the thing up, then realized it was time to go again, in order to get all the children ferried to their varying activities. “I’ll be back,” I said to the unwired chandelier waiting for me.
Jokingly, I told the children I was going to leave it hanging a few hours to see if it fell down.
Several hours later, we returned, to find not only Wifey but also the chandelier, right where they should be. Wifey was somewhat less than impressed, as the chandelier didn’t yet work, but did appropriately ooh and aah that I’d gotten it hung.
She did not ooh and aah when I said “if you think it’s hung well, come check me out.”
Come Saturday morning, I jumped on the task with both feet: Operation Light-the-damn-dining-room had begun! I spent some time swearing, splicing wires, and getting everything just so. My shoulders aching, I prepared to make the final tie-in of wires to chandelier.
“Do you want me to do anything?” Wifey asked.
Since children were present, I couldn’t say what I was thinking, so instead I opted for “just sit there and look pretty. I’ve got it all under control.”
Just as I said this, the house leapt six feet into the air. Either that, or the chandelier fell six feet as I knocked it off its hanger. The net effect was the same: with a loud crash, glass went everywhere, Wifey’s table, which she loves, was brutally scratched, and I had just payed a sixty-euro dumbass handyman tax to stimulate the local economy.
Wifey’s chandelier, whom I had eaten dinner next to every night for the past three weeks, was utterly destroyed.
Have you ever done something stupid, and just after, wished that you’d be injured so that you’d get some sympathy instead of blame? I felt just like that. In fact, I leapt off the ladder, hoping to break my leg or shove a shard of glass through my foot, but instead I ended up just smashing more glass flat.
If you thought the house was cold before, it was nothing compared to how cold it was gonna be, trust me.
“Never mind,” I said. “We’ll just pop out and get another lamp, right?”
“Wha?” Wifey had lost all capacity for rational speech. “Guh?”
“Great! Let’s go!”
So off we went. Turns out, though, the lamps were on sale for a limited time only, and now cost 120 euros. Well, not so bad: almost 200 euros for a lamp. Still less than I expected to pay. Right? Right?
“Hey,” I joked. “You wanna get two for when I smash this one also?”
This joke did not pan out as I had hoped.
Upon return to the house, I did what I should have done in the first place: I punished the children and sent them to their rooms. Helps me focus. Then, with a degree of skill that would make any home-improvement Bob from Vila to Thebuilder jealous, I wired up and hung my very own lamp.
And lo and behold, there was light. Lots of light. The bottom floor is now no longer dark. It’s still cold and full of objectionable people, but I’ll be darned if I’m moving out or paying exorbitant heating rates.
I have, however, moved all those Ikea stripper-pole lamps up to the bedroom, where they belong.
I like Ikea pole lams. They’re cheap, which is nice. They’re portable, which is also nice. And when your spouse turns them off, if she does it slowly you can imagine that you’re at an upscale gentleman’s club and she’s about to give you a private dance, particularly if you choose that moment to jam a fiver in her panties and grope her.
Or maybe that’s just me. Okay, I don’t use the fiver, but I do grope. It’s one of the best non-verbal ways to say “I love you”, right?
Wifey, however, does not like the pole lamps. In fact, she finds the bottom level of our house much like a dungeon: dark, cold, and filled with people that she really doesn’t care for.
Some time ago, I accidentally installed a new wall lamp in one corner of the room. This unit has been operating now for a month without either burning the house down or going on the fritz, so Wifey decided to give me a little more challenge: she bought a chandelier.
I came home from work one evening to discover the thing in a box on the table, and her proudly telling me that she’d gotten it on sale: only sixty euros. That’s a hundred bucks in non-Monopoly money, which is actually pretty good for lamps here.
Needless to say, I was terribly excited with the thought of climbing atop a ladder, drilling holes in the ceiling, and hanging a forty-pound mass of metal and glass directly overhead. So I did what any husband does when faced with a similar situation: I procrastinated.
Weeks passed, and although eating around the box with the chandelier posed some problems, it eventually got to where we viewed it as one of the family. It was a lot less trouble than the kids, I can tell you that.
All that changed Friday . Wifey went out with friends, and I had to cut out of work early to pick up our children. Plus the two children of her friend. Plus the daughter of a woman that we don’t particularly care for but whom Wifey shuttles around sometimes. Other than the times that she gets so annoying you want to toss her in a creek in a burlap sack, this kid’s not so bad. So I hear; I spend all my time with her looking for burlap sacks.
Well, we got home, and the children went upstairs to play. I was a little disgruntled with Wifey, so I decided that the best way to take it out on her was to finally hang this stupid chandelier.
No, I hadn’t been drinking, but I do suspect mental illness played a strongly contributing role here.
I got the mounting bracket up, then hung the thing up, then realized it was time to go again, in order to get all the children ferried to their varying activities. “I’ll be back,” I said to the unwired chandelier waiting for me.
Jokingly, I told the children I was going to leave it hanging a few hours to see if it fell down.
Several hours later, we returned, to find not only Wifey but also the chandelier, right where they should be. Wifey was somewhat less than impressed, as the chandelier didn’t yet work, but did appropriately ooh and aah that I’d gotten it hung.
She did not ooh and aah when I said “if you think it’s hung well, come check me out.”
Come Saturday morning, I jumped on the task with both feet: Operation Light-the-damn-dining-room had begun! I spent some time swearing, splicing wires, and getting everything just so. My shoulders aching, I prepared to make the final tie-in of wires to chandelier.
“Do you want me to do anything?” Wifey asked.
Since children were present, I couldn’t say what I was thinking, so instead I opted for “just sit there and look pretty. I’ve got it all under control.”
Just as I said this, the house leapt six feet into the air. Either that, or the chandelier fell six feet as I knocked it off its hanger. The net effect was the same: with a loud crash, glass went everywhere, Wifey’s table, which she loves, was brutally scratched, and I had just payed a sixty-euro dumbass handyman tax to stimulate the local economy.
Wifey’s chandelier, whom I had eaten dinner next to every night for the past three weeks, was utterly destroyed.
Have you ever done something stupid, and just after, wished that you’d be injured so that you’d get some sympathy instead of blame? I felt just like that. In fact, I leapt off the ladder, hoping to break my leg or shove a shard of glass through my foot, but instead I ended up just smashing more glass flat.
If you thought the house was cold before, it was nothing compared to how cold it was gonna be, trust me.
“Never mind,” I said. “We’ll just pop out and get another lamp, right?”
“Wha?” Wifey had lost all capacity for rational speech. “Guh?”
“Great! Let’s go!”
So off we went. Turns out, though, the lamps were on sale for a limited time only, and now cost 120 euros. Well, not so bad: almost 200 euros for a lamp. Still less than I expected to pay. Right? Right?
“Hey,” I joked. “You wanna get two for when I smash this one also?”
This joke did not pan out as I had hoped.
Upon return to the house, I did what I should have done in the first place: I punished the children and sent them to their rooms. Helps me focus. Then, with a degree of skill that would make any home-improvement Bob from Vila to Thebuilder jealous, I wired up and hung my very own lamp.
And lo and behold, there was light. Lots of light. The bottom floor is now no longer dark. It’s still cold and full of objectionable people, but I’ll be darned if I’m moving out or paying exorbitant heating rates.
I have, however, moved all those Ikea stripper-pole lamps up to the bedroom, where they belong.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Cultists, the NFL, and you
Some people worry about foreign strife, while others are kept up at night by a tanking economy. But unlike such ephemeral concerns, the thing that worries me is that a current NFL personality will start up a cult of personality that will end up making the Manson Family look like the Simpsons.
Okay, that was a bad analogy, because the Simpsons are awful, and just watching them will make you want to gouge your eyes out. How about they make the Manson Family look like the Osmond Family?
You're probably thinking to yourself: there goes Plebian, being crazy and worrying about something that could never possibly happen, and making up exaggerated scenarios for comedic effect.
Well, you've got some nerve, you know that?
Anyways, think about all the cult-like leaders currently roaming the landscape in the NFL right now. Think about the disproportionate influence that previous NFL personalities have held over this country's culture in the past. Why, Jim Brown alone was responsible for 23% of all Blaxploitation films in the early 70's.
Here are the guys I'm keeping an eye on:
Brett Favre
I once had a sportswriter friend who criticized Brett Favre at a Sports Illustrated Christmas party, saying that he threw too many interceptions and his personality was essentially Terrell Owens, only without the charm. They never found the guy's body.
Really, has anybody ever enjoyed the free pass from criticism that Favre has enjoyed throughout his career? From flagrantly mispronouncing his name to screwing his former team (in a plethora of ways), Favre can do no wrong for fans and the media bobbleheads.
How can I get to be Favrian? "Well, you cost the company six gagillion dollars, but it was a gutsy move to gamble all our money on 00 on the roulette wheel, so I'll let it pass. Just try to be more careful in the future, okay?"
Cult-O-Meter Risk: LOW. If he did start a cult, it'd probably get intercepted by the Feds pretty quickly.
Norv Turner
Everybody knows Norv Turner's downsides: he looks like a creepy neighbor you expect to turn up on one of those "Wanted" posters in the post office, his only claim to coaching genius is being lucky enough to have Troy Aikman, Emmet Smith, and Michael Irvin on his offense, and his teams are perennially tagged as "underachieving" without anyone ever pausing to think that maybe it reflects on him.
The potential upside to having Norv Turner as your coach? You'll get a new coach within a few years who can rebuild the shattered husk of a team he leaves behind. Note that this didn't work out so well for Oakland, though.
One amusing thing is watching sportswriters and bloggers continue to labor to find excuses for why San Diego "underachieves" without throwing up their hands and saying "look, obviously, the guy sucks as a coach."
Cult-O-Meter Risk: NEGATIVE. Turner would probably take over a successful cult, but then run it into the ground and end up turning all the members Presbyterian or something. Any chance we can get him into Scientology?
Heath Shuler
How is it that an average college quarterback for Tennessee got so heavily drafted, deep-sixed his own career with an ill-advised holdout, flamed out in the NFL, then got elected as a Representative for North Carolina, and is now being touted for the Senate?
I dunno, but it doesn't happen without some really creepy explanation involving either pictures, fraud, or mass hysteria. And great cults are built on all of those things.
Plus, the chant factor for his name is pretty high: "Shuuuuulllleeeeer." Go on, say it. Just not while smoking dope, or you'll end up peeling him grapes in your underwear. And trust me, that's no picnic.
Cult-O-Meter Risk: MEDIUM. Did you know that he has a realty business based in Tennessee, yet is a Representative from North Carolina? If he starts nosing around Guyana, we'll bump him up to SEVERE immediately.
Tony Romo
Not only does he have Favrian-level apologists who never point out that he chokes in big games, and not only does he have movie-star good looks, and not only does he have hagiographic media coverage, he has the praise of Jessica Simpson, saying that he's "calmed her down."
Anybody who can calm down a Hollywood Starlet has Rasputian powers beyond wildest imaginings.
And that's without starting to discuss T.O. shedding great big tears over him.
Cult-O-Meter Risk: BE AFRAID. Be very afraid.
Okay, that was a bad analogy, because the Simpsons are awful, and just watching them will make you want to gouge your eyes out. How about they make the Manson Family look like the Osmond Family?
You're probably thinking to yourself: there goes Plebian, being crazy and worrying about something that could never possibly happen, and making up exaggerated scenarios for comedic effect.
Well, you've got some nerve, you know that?
Anyways, think about all the cult-like leaders currently roaming the landscape in the NFL right now. Think about the disproportionate influence that previous NFL personalities have held over this country's culture in the past. Why, Jim Brown alone was responsible for 23% of all Blaxploitation films in the early 70's.
Here are the guys I'm keeping an eye on:
Brett Favre
I once had a sportswriter friend who criticized Brett Favre at a Sports Illustrated Christmas party, saying that he threw too many interceptions and his personality was essentially Terrell Owens, only without the charm. They never found the guy's body.
Really, has anybody ever enjoyed the free pass from criticism that Favre has enjoyed throughout his career? From flagrantly mispronouncing his name to screwing his former team (in a plethora of ways), Favre can do no wrong for fans and the media bobbleheads.
How can I get to be Favrian? "Well, you cost the company six gagillion dollars, but it was a gutsy move to gamble all our money on 00 on the roulette wheel, so I'll let it pass. Just try to be more careful in the future, okay?"
Cult-O-Meter Risk: LOW. If he did start a cult, it'd probably get intercepted by the Feds pretty quickly.
Norv Turner
Everybody knows Norv Turner's downsides: he looks like a creepy neighbor you expect to turn up on one of those "Wanted" posters in the post office, his only claim to coaching genius is being lucky enough to have Troy Aikman, Emmet Smith, and Michael Irvin on his offense, and his teams are perennially tagged as "underachieving" without anyone ever pausing to think that maybe it reflects on him.
The potential upside to having Norv Turner as your coach? You'll get a new coach within a few years who can rebuild the shattered husk of a team he leaves behind. Note that this didn't work out so well for Oakland, though.
One amusing thing is watching sportswriters and bloggers continue to labor to find excuses for why San Diego "underachieves" without throwing up their hands and saying "look, obviously, the guy sucks as a coach."
Cult-O-Meter Risk: NEGATIVE. Turner would probably take over a successful cult, but then run it into the ground and end up turning all the members Presbyterian or something. Any chance we can get him into Scientology?
Heath Shuler
How is it that an average college quarterback for Tennessee got so heavily drafted, deep-sixed his own career with an ill-advised holdout, flamed out in the NFL, then got elected as a Representative for North Carolina, and is now being touted for the Senate?
I dunno, but it doesn't happen without some really creepy explanation involving either pictures, fraud, or mass hysteria. And great cults are built on all of those things.
Plus, the chant factor for his name is pretty high: "Shuuuuulllleeeeer." Go on, say it. Just not while smoking dope, or you'll end up peeling him grapes in your underwear. And trust me, that's no picnic.
Cult-O-Meter Risk: MEDIUM. Did you know that he has a realty business based in Tennessee, yet is a Representative from North Carolina? If he starts nosing around Guyana, we'll bump him up to SEVERE immediately.
Tony Romo
Not only does he have Favrian-level apologists who never point out that he chokes in big games, and not only does he have movie-star good looks, and not only does he have hagiographic media coverage, he has the praise of Jessica Simpson, saying that he's "calmed her down."
Anybody who can calm down a Hollywood Starlet has Rasputian powers beyond wildest imaginings.
And that's without starting to discuss T.O. shedding great big tears over him.
Cult-O-Meter Risk: BE AFRAID. Be very afraid.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Why I Love Toyota's 'Saved By Zero'
And why you should, too. Let us count the ways:
1) It's from a car company that's not begging for billions of dollars in tax money so it can continue to hemmorhage cash.
2) Anything that keeps The Fixx off the streets is a good thing. It's been a long time since "One Thing Leads to Another", you know? They could use the residuals. Either you let Toyota pay them, or next thing you know they'll be in the bailout line, too. And next you'll have Thomas Dolby and Rockwell asking for a handout to boot. Are you ready for that?
3) Peter King hates it (point 8b). And if it gets under the skin of an odius hypocrite like King, then it must be for the good of society.
4) ESPN's Sportsguy hates it too (point 17)! It's like garlic for Boston Red Sox fans or something! And Lord knows we need something to repel them. Somebody start playing this outside Ben Affleck's latest movie set, stat, and save us from another Fever Pitch debacle.
5) Anything that sets off those two I back whole-heartedly, in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of way. If I still read Dr. Z, I bet I'd find the trifecta of evil are united against this commercial, making it the new James Bond.
6) I live in Europe, so I don't see US commercials, so quite frankly, even if it's awful I don't have to suffer.
7) The song pretty much sums up the Democrats this year.
8) Come to think of it, it sums up the Republicans, too, except they lost. Sunk with Zero might be more appropriate.
9) Quick: name another memorable car commercial. Just one. Can't think of one? That's because now you've been...Saved by Zero!
10) Because I hate the dancing transformer car commercial, that's why. See? I could name one, because I haven't been...SAVED BY ZERO!
1) It's from a car company that's not begging for billions of dollars in tax money so it can continue to hemmorhage cash.
2) Anything that keeps The Fixx off the streets is a good thing. It's been a long time since "One Thing Leads to Another", you know? They could use the residuals. Either you let Toyota pay them, or next thing you know they'll be in the bailout line, too. And next you'll have Thomas Dolby and Rockwell asking for a handout to boot. Are you ready for that?
3) Peter King hates it (point 8b). And if it gets under the skin of an odius hypocrite like King, then it must be for the good of society.
4) ESPN's Sportsguy hates it too (point 17)! It's like garlic for Boston Red Sox fans or something! And Lord knows we need something to repel them. Somebody start playing this outside Ben Affleck's latest movie set, stat, and save us from another Fever Pitch debacle.
5) Anything that sets off those two I back whole-heartedly, in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of way. If I still read Dr. Z, I bet I'd find the trifecta of evil are united against this commercial, making it the new James Bond.
6) I live in Europe, so I don't see US commercials, so quite frankly, even if it's awful I don't have to suffer.
7) The song pretty much sums up the Democrats this year.
8) Come to think of it, it sums up the Republicans, too, except they lost. Sunk with Zero might be more appropriate.
9) Quick: name another memorable car commercial. Just one. Can't think of one? That's because now you've been...Saved by Zero!
10) Because I hate the dancing transformer car commercial, that's why. See? I could name one, because I haven't been...SAVED BY ZERO!
Friday, October 31, 2008
The Fly Hunter
I hate flies.
What's more, I don't feel at all bad about it. I love all of God's creatures equally, and believe that they should be allowed to live in their own environmental niche without any provocation or torture beyond what is necessary to render them useful or tasty.
But flies are not one of God's creatures. They are the creation of the devil, and deserve to be treated as such.
Proof #1: flies like to eat poop. Lots of you will protest that dogs do as well, but dogs don't land on the poop, get it all over their multiple feet, then take back off, only to land on the honey bun that you were about to eat, wipe off six very poopy little feet, and then fly off to go land on some more poop.
"Oh, come on, it's a microscopic amount of poop!" some of you are saying right now.
You know what else is microscopic? Ebola. And I bet you don't want to eat any of that, do you? I don't know about you, but my personal daily allowance for feces is 0.0 grams.
Proof #2: They make an annoying buzzing sound and smack themselves, over and over, against your window, your lights, and you, yet never just drop dead to the ground.
Proof #3: I'm pretty sure that flies cause erectile dysfunction.
Unfortunately for my sanity, we're having a fly infestation at work. Yesterday, when I came in, there was a very large, very ugly fly buzzing around the hallway. Our ceilings are about eight feet here, so it's out of the question to whack it with a magazine, and the damn thing wouldn't land on the ground to get a good swat at it.
My European colleagues had resorted to what Europeans do best: bitching about it.
"It's very annoying!" my seven-foot-tall colleague complained. "There's no way to hit it!"
"That sound is driving me mad!" said another.
"I'm going to have to take a personal day!" complained a third.
And on and on and on.
Finally, I did what every American does when confronted with this kind of issue: I decided to take matters into my own hand. I took a large piece of paper, rolled it up, and fabricated the three-foot Fly Swatter Deluxe.
When I came out into the hall, they simply goggled at me.
"What are you going to do?" asked one.
"I'm going to kill that damned thing," I said. "And keep it's body as a trophy."
So I took a big swat at it with my FSD, managing to stun it and drop it to the ground. As it lay there, twitching its little fly legs, I stomped on it and turned it from fly to smear in a matter of seconds.
"What have you done?" asked an aghast colleague.
"You killed it!"
"Why did you do that?" asked a third. "You could have let it go!"
"It deserved to die," I said. "Stupid fly."
One shook her head sadly at me. "Barbaric."
"No," I said. "Barbaric is to sit with the flies and accept that they are swarming all over you. Civilized is to kill the damn thing, realize there are another ten waiting to take its place, and going on with your work."
Needless to say, I didn't win any popularity points on that one. Nor did I win any points by insisting that everyone call me "Fly Killer" for the rest of the day.
But what cinched up my reputation as a barbaric American was what happened next.
I was sitting in my office the next day, minding my own business, when I heard a buzzing against my window. I looked up to see another fly, slightly smaller than the one that I'd smeared the day before, sitting at ease.
So I slowly took a plastic cup, crept over, and caught the fly inside. Then, sliding a piece of paper under the rim, I created my fly prison: an overturned clear cup with a fly inside. I let out a whoop of joy which brought my coworkers running.
"What have you done?" asked one.
"I caught a fly," I said. "I am no longer the Fly Killer. I am the Supreme Fly Hunter in All the World!"
"The poor thing," said one. "Will you let it go?"
"No," I said.
"Are you going to keep it?"
"No," I said. "I'm going to leave it here as a warning to the other flies until it dies, and then I'm going to have it stuffed and mounted and put up on my wall as a trophy to remember my glorious victory. And I'll have my Fly Swatter Deluxe bronzed, as well."
They all looked at me in shock for a moment. Finally, one said "how much does it cost to have a fly stuffed?"
In my shock, I dropped my fly prison, losing my victim. It took off into the air, buzzing around my office.
In retrospect, I should have simply let it get away, but in my urge to kill, I began laying about with the Fly Swatter Deluxe, attempting to knock it out of the air. Unfortunately, sensing sympathy from my coworkers, it headed towards the door, and I followed, bellowing and thrashing.
And I proceeded to hit at least four of my coworkers about the head and shoulders with the Fly Swatter Deluxe.
One of them went down in a heap, one beat a hasty retreat, one spilled coffee all over herself, and the other surrendered Monaco and most of France. On and on I surged, only dimly aware of the pleas for mercy from my coworkers, coffee and tears mixing beneath my feet as I lunged, striving to kill the buzzing speck which had befouled my morning.
It zipped, upwards, through a crack in the ceiling tile and was gone. It had escaped. I stopped, suddenly aware of the sobbing forms lying around me and the growing smear of coffee, tears, and now urine that was slowly oozing down the hallway.
The fire alarm shrieked and doors up and down the hallway slammed shut as my colleagues, terrified that I would turn the Fly Swatter Deluxe on them, huddled under their desks and called their spouses for a tearful goodbye.
I stood, conquering barbarian, in the destroyed wreckage of my once-calm office. At my feet lay a coworker, clutching at my ankle, pleading for mercy.
At that very moment, the elevator dinged, and the boss stepped out. He cast an eye over the scene: the red siren throbbing angrily, two employees face-down, me panting and holding a snot-stained roll of paper, my tie askew, every other office door cracked open just a touch to allow those inside to peer out and see what was going to happen.
He cocked an eyebrow at me, waiting for an explanation.
"Don't worry, sir, I killed the fly. It won't be troubling us any more."
He nodded. "Good job. I hate those things." Then he walked on by and down to his office.
There's a reason why my boss only keeps one American around.
What's more, I don't feel at all bad about it. I love all of God's creatures equally, and believe that they should be allowed to live in their own environmental niche without any provocation or torture beyond what is necessary to render them useful or tasty.
But flies are not one of God's creatures. They are the creation of the devil, and deserve to be treated as such.
Proof #1: flies like to eat poop. Lots of you will protest that dogs do as well, but dogs don't land on the poop, get it all over their multiple feet, then take back off, only to land on the honey bun that you were about to eat, wipe off six very poopy little feet, and then fly off to go land on some more poop.
"Oh, come on, it's a microscopic amount of poop!" some of you are saying right now.
You know what else is microscopic? Ebola. And I bet you don't want to eat any of that, do you? I don't know about you, but my personal daily allowance for feces is 0.0 grams.
Proof #2: They make an annoying buzzing sound and smack themselves, over and over, against your window, your lights, and you, yet never just drop dead to the ground.
Proof #3: I'm pretty sure that flies cause erectile dysfunction.
Unfortunately for my sanity, we're having a fly infestation at work. Yesterday, when I came in, there was a very large, very ugly fly buzzing around the hallway. Our ceilings are about eight feet here, so it's out of the question to whack it with a magazine, and the damn thing wouldn't land on the ground to get a good swat at it.
My European colleagues had resorted to what Europeans do best: bitching about it.
"It's very annoying!" my seven-foot-tall colleague complained. "There's no way to hit it!"
"That sound is driving me mad!" said another.
"I'm going to have to take a personal day!" complained a third.
And on and on and on.
Finally, I did what every American does when confronted with this kind of issue: I decided to take matters into my own hand. I took a large piece of paper, rolled it up, and fabricated the three-foot Fly Swatter Deluxe.
When I came out into the hall, they simply goggled at me.
"What are you going to do?" asked one.
"I'm going to kill that damned thing," I said. "And keep it's body as a trophy."
So I took a big swat at it with my FSD, managing to stun it and drop it to the ground. As it lay there, twitching its little fly legs, I stomped on it and turned it from fly to smear in a matter of seconds.
"What have you done?" asked an aghast colleague.
"You killed it!"
"Why did you do that?" asked a third. "You could have let it go!"
"It deserved to die," I said. "Stupid fly."
One shook her head sadly at me. "Barbaric."
"No," I said. "Barbaric is to sit with the flies and accept that they are swarming all over you. Civilized is to kill the damn thing, realize there are another ten waiting to take its place, and going on with your work."
Needless to say, I didn't win any popularity points on that one. Nor did I win any points by insisting that everyone call me "Fly Killer" for the rest of the day.
But what cinched up my reputation as a barbaric American was what happened next.
I was sitting in my office the next day, minding my own business, when I heard a buzzing against my window. I looked up to see another fly, slightly smaller than the one that I'd smeared the day before, sitting at ease.
So I slowly took a plastic cup, crept over, and caught the fly inside. Then, sliding a piece of paper under the rim, I created my fly prison: an overturned clear cup with a fly inside. I let out a whoop of joy which brought my coworkers running.
"What have you done?" asked one.
"I caught a fly," I said. "I am no longer the Fly Killer. I am the Supreme Fly Hunter in All the World!"
"The poor thing," said one. "Will you let it go?"
"No," I said.
"Are you going to keep it?"
"No," I said. "I'm going to leave it here as a warning to the other flies until it dies, and then I'm going to have it stuffed and mounted and put up on my wall as a trophy to remember my glorious victory. And I'll have my Fly Swatter Deluxe bronzed, as well."
They all looked at me in shock for a moment. Finally, one said "how much does it cost to have a fly stuffed?"
In my shock, I dropped my fly prison, losing my victim. It took off into the air, buzzing around my office.
In retrospect, I should have simply let it get away, but in my urge to kill, I began laying about with the Fly Swatter Deluxe, attempting to knock it out of the air. Unfortunately, sensing sympathy from my coworkers, it headed towards the door, and I followed, bellowing and thrashing.
And I proceeded to hit at least four of my coworkers about the head and shoulders with the Fly Swatter Deluxe.
One of them went down in a heap, one beat a hasty retreat, one spilled coffee all over herself, and the other surrendered Monaco and most of France. On and on I surged, only dimly aware of the pleas for mercy from my coworkers, coffee and tears mixing beneath my feet as I lunged, striving to kill the buzzing speck which had befouled my morning.
It zipped, upwards, through a crack in the ceiling tile and was gone. It had escaped. I stopped, suddenly aware of the sobbing forms lying around me and the growing smear of coffee, tears, and now urine that was slowly oozing down the hallway.
The fire alarm shrieked and doors up and down the hallway slammed shut as my colleagues, terrified that I would turn the Fly Swatter Deluxe on them, huddled under their desks and called their spouses for a tearful goodbye.
I stood, conquering barbarian, in the destroyed wreckage of my once-calm office. At my feet lay a coworker, clutching at my ankle, pleading for mercy.
At that very moment, the elevator dinged, and the boss stepped out. He cast an eye over the scene: the red siren throbbing angrily, two employees face-down, me panting and holding a snot-stained roll of paper, my tie askew, every other office door cracked open just a touch to allow those inside to peer out and see what was going to happen.
He cocked an eyebrow at me, waiting for an explanation.
"Don't worry, sir, I killed the fly. It won't be troubling us any more."
He nodded. "Good job. I hate those things." Then he walked on by and down to his office.
There's a reason why my boss only keeps one American around.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
A Moral Delimma?
Let's say you're on a crowded bus in a foreign country, waiting to be shuttled fifty meters over to the plane, when onto the bus steps a person who, you are quite certain, is a transvestite.
How much staring is *too much*? I mean, can you take a glance, think to yourself "geez those five-inch stiletto heels look awkward on shim" and no more? Can you stare longer at the long, bleach-blond hair cascading awkwardly down the shoulders and wonder why shim didn't pick a more less-glaring hairstyle?
Is it okay to search in vain for an Adam's Apple, or is that considered gauche?
I feel that the social auspices of this situation are currently poorly-defined. I know all the rules about looking down a woman's blouse, or having a chick try to stare up your shorts. But with people pushing the boundaries, it's time we began to establish societal rules of conduct for those of us who are square and not sure how to deal with these situations.
Could somebody write Dear Abby on this?
"Dear Abby: how long can you stare at a potential transvestite in a public setting before you've crossed over from stunned onlooker to obnoxious gawker? And is it ever okay to just straight-out ask 'hey, you were once a dude, right?' Signed, Rubbernecker
"Dear Rubbernecker: The rule for transvestites is the same for trying to catch a glimpse of panties on a woman sitting in a too-short skirt: one to three seconds is allowed, but anything over five and you're leering. And unless you plan on buying him/her/it a drink, you may never ask what was the original tool kit. "
That seems like a decent rule, doesn't it?
How much staring is *too much*? I mean, can you take a glance, think to yourself "geez those five-inch stiletto heels look awkward on shim" and no more? Can you stare longer at the long, bleach-blond hair cascading awkwardly down the shoulders and wonder why shim didn't pick a more less-glaring hairstyle?
Is it okay to search in vain for an Adam's Apple, or is that considered gauche?
I feel that the social auspices of this situation are currently poorly-defined. I know all the rules about looking down a woman's blouse, or having a chick try to stare up your shorts. But with people pushing the boundaries, it's time we began to establish societal rules of conduct for those of us who are square and not sure how to deal with these situations.
Could somebody write Dear Abby on this?
"Dear Abby: how long can you stare at a potential transvestite in a public setting before you've crossed over from stunned onlooker to obnoxious gawker? And is it ever okay to just straight-out ask 'hey, you were once a dude, right?' Signed, Rubbernecker
"Dear Rubbernecker: The rule for transvestites is the same for trying to catch a glimpse of panties on a woman sitting in a too-short skirt: one to three seconds is allowed, but anything over five and you're leering. And unless you plan on buying him/her/it a drink, you may never ask what was the original tool kit. "
That seems like a decent rule, doesn't it?
Friday, October 24, 2008
How I Lost My Jacket
One of the most endearing things about Wifey is that she takes great pains to ensure that everyone in the family is always outfitted in clothing which is in good condition and adequate for the weather, yet never purchases anything new for herself without outside intervention.
I once lost the entire contents of my underwear drawer, many of which were collectible, because she decided that when the fabric of your tightie whities becomes transparent, that means that it's time for them to go. I had been wearing some of those pairs since I was in high school. Meanwhile, she wears T-shirts whose designs have literally been washed off over the years.
Two months ago, when temperatures started to regularly drop below 80° in the morning, she pulled out her light jacket. It's a gray hoodie zip-front sweatshirt jacket, and she's been wearing it for the last seventeen years, ever since somebody left it at my parent's house after a Christmas party and she rescued it from being trashed by promising to give it a good home.
So last weekend we were preparing to go out, and she said to me "some of my friends said that it's time for me to get a new jacket. What do you think?"
"There's nothing wrong with that jacket." I said. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with any of her clothing. I'm not Mr. Blackwell, god rest his bitchy soul, so I generally don't venture any opinion on any textiles whatsoever.
"That's what I think," she said.
See, I should have stopped there. Probably would have gotten laid. But instead, I decided to freelance.
"I've always liked that jacket," I went on. "It's sort of a retro-hobo look that has equal facility at keeping away both panhandlers and religious fanatics. Even winos in the throes of alcohol withdrawal would think twice about trying to bum change off of somebody whose jacket cuffs have load-bearing grunge on them."
After that, not only was I not getting laid, but she'd likely revoke my groping privileges for the foreseeable future. Undeterred, and not noticing the look on her face, I continued to riff on the jacket.
"Forget those knife-proof jackets popular with UK school children, that jacket just oozes security," I said. "Whose gonna mug somebody who can't afford anything better than that piece of crap? Not to mention the very real risk of serious infection from the layer upon layer of grimy stains and…"
It finally dawned on me that my mouth continued to run off of the teleprompter in my head. I guess this is what Joe Biden feels like.
A silence hung between us, as if to say if you think you're seeing her naked any time soon you'd best have pictures, only you never took any, and if you suggested it now they'd never find your body.
"You're not finding this humorous, are you?"
"Thank you for your opinion," she said. And that was that.
Well, this morning, lo and behold the temperature has reached "chilly" for me (less than 50), and so I decided that I needed to get my light jacket out. Unlike Wifey, my light jacket is new, and has the benefit of being waterproof with a hide-away hood and an internal pocket for important documents, like the stupid European ID that is too large for a conventional wallet.
Only, my jacket wasn't there. I was rooting through the closet when I heard Wifey in the other room.
"How do you like my new jacket? I didn't even know we had it. I found it in the closet yesterday, and since you hate my hobo jacket, and nobody was using this one, I decided that this is my new light jacket. All my friends just love it."
I found her standing in my jacket. Now, you have to understand two things about Wifey:
1) She's on brain medication, so there's every possibility that she does not, in fact, remember that this is my jacket.
2) I'm more than a little bit afraid of her.
What could I do? I could protest, of course, but that would certainly mean extending the nudity ban that has chilled our bedroom relations. So I did what I should have done in the first place.
"That jacket looks great on you," I said. "Really chic and sexy."
She gave me a hug and walked out to take the kids to school, with a mysterious smile on her face.
Damn her! Fortunately, though, I have a backup jacket from Carlsbad Caverns.
Stupid hobo jacket. I'd burn it, only I'm afraid that I'd catch bubonic plague from the fumes. Or worse, erectile dysfunction.
I once lost the entire contents of my underwear drawer, many of which were collectible, because she decided that when the fabric of your tightie whities becomes transparent, that means that it's time for them to go. I had been wearing some of those pairs since I was in high school. Meanwhile, she wears T-shirts whose designs have literally been washed off over the years.
Two months ago, when temperatures started to regularly drop below 80° in the morning, she pulled out her light jacket. It's a gray hoodie zip-front sweatshirt jacket, and she's been wearing it for the last seventeen years, ever since somebody left it at my parent's house after a Christmas party and she rescued it from being trashed by promising to give it a good home.
So last weekend we were preparing to go out, and she said to me "some of my friends said that it's time for me to get a new jacket. What do you think?"
"There's nothing wrong with that jacket." I said. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with any of her clothing. I'm not Mr. Blackwell, god rest his bitchy soul, so I generally don't venture any opinion on any textiles whatsoever.
"That's what I think," she said.
See, I should have stopped there. Probably would have gotten laid. But instead, I decided to freelance.
"I've always liked that jacket," I went on. "It's sort of a retro-hobo look that has equal facility at keeping away both panhandlers and religious fanatics. Even winos in the throes of alcohol withdrawal would think twice about trying to bum change off of somebody whose jacket cuffs have load-bearing grunge on them."
After that, not only was I not getting laid, but she'd likely revoke my groping privileges for the foreseeable future. Undeterred, and not noticing the look on her face, I continued to riff on the jacket.
"Forget those knife-proof jackets popular with UK school children, that jacket just oozes security," I said. "Whose gonna mug somebody who can't afford anything better than that piece of crap? Not to mention the very real risk of serious infection from the layer upon layer of grimy stains and…"
It finally dawned on me that my mouth continued to run off of the teleprompter in my head. I guess this is what Joe Biden feels like.
A silence hung between us, as if to say if you think you're seeing her naked any time soon you'd best have pictures, only you never took any, and if you suggested it now they'd never find your body.
"You're not finding this humorous, are you?"
"Thank you for your opinion," she said. And that was that.
Well, this morning, lo and behold the temperature has reached "chilly" for me (less than 50), and so I decided that I needed to get my light jacket out. Unlike Wifey, my light jacket is new, and has the benefit of being waterproof with a hide-away hood and an internal pocket for important documents, like the stupid European ID that is too large for a conventional wallet.
Only, my jacket wasn't there. I was rooting through the closet when I heard Wifey in the other room.
"How do you like my new jacket? I didn't even know we had it. I found it in the closet yesterday, and since you hate my hobo jacket, and nobody was using this one, I decided that this is my new light jacket. All my friends just love it."
I found her standing in my jacket. Now, you have to understand two things about Wifey:
1) She's on brain medication, so there's every possibility that she does not, in fact, remember that this is my jacket.
2) I'm more than a little bit afraid of her.
What could I do? I could protest, of course, but that would certainly mean extending the nudity ban that has chilled our bedroom relations. So I did what I should have done in the first place.
"That jacket looks great on you," I said. "Really chic and sexy."
She gave me a hug and walked out to take the kids to school, with a mysterious smile on her face.
Damn her! Fortunately, though, I have a backup jacket from Carlsbad Caverns.
Stupid hobo jacket. I'd burn it, only I'm afraid that I'd catch bubonic plague from the fumes. Or worse, erectile dysfunction.
Monday, October 20, 2008
What Not to Do
Here's a piece of gastronomical advice: if you ever find yourself in Italy and suffering from intestinal distress, don't order the seafood kabobs.
It only makes things worse.
I'll spare you the gory details, other than to say that I have spent the entire flight in prayer that I don't need to change seats. And underwear.
It only makes things worse.
I'll spare you the gory details, other than to say that I have spent the entire flight in prayer that I don't need to change seats. And underwear.
Friday, September 26, 2008
My Day in Hell
Greetings from hell!
Okay, maybe that’s a bit strong. But I spent the day in at least Purgatory, or Dulles Airport, whichever is less pleasant. Okay, Purgatory.
Anyways, I’m in Italy right now on business. Trust me: this is less exciting than it sounds. Quite frankly, Italy is strange. Very strange.
First of all, the men carry purses. I’m sorry, there’s just no way to take a guy seriously who’s carrying a purse. Maybe that’s sexist of me, but that’s just how I feel. I also feel that women who wear too-tight T-Shirts and insist that they be appreciated for their brains are morons.
This is Plebian, and I approve that message.
So I spent part of the day in meetings going over some stuff with guys who carry purses. Not tough-looking camo purses, either; some of these were beaded. They were men carrying beaded purses!
And I’m not implying these guys are gay, either: every calendar featured a naked woman and the screensaver would have made Larry Flint pause for thought. If they were gay, the did the worst cover-up job in the world.
Worst of all, though, was the purse-wearing dude who thought so much of his underwear that he wore his pants around his ankles. And his collar flipped up. Instead of looking cool, he looked like my five-year-old getting dressed in the morning asking me for help.
Except my five-year-old doesn’t carry a sequined yellow purse to go with his outfit.
Then, in the afternoon, having been totally bemused by the Italian men, I got to experience the joy of working with Italian women. It was enough to make me long for the men.
One woman had decided that business casual included a tight white t-shirt that fit her about twelve years ago, when she was fourteen. Now, though, she’s grown some, plus hit puberty, so the shirt is very stretched. No problem: underneath this she wore her hypno-bra, a swirling black-and-white patterned thing that was virtually guaranteed to call attention to the fact that her T-Shirt was too small.
It was like she was trying to hypnotize people with her breasts. Personally, I always thought that only worked when the woman wore those tassled pasties and made them swirl in opposite directions.
The other woman forced me to reflect upon this business etiquette question:
You’re in a meeting with four colleagues, all of whom are more or less the same level as you. One of them is sitting across from you, and for reasons unknown to the cosmos doesn’t realize that her right breast has escaped its bra and the low-cut shirt and is now resting on the table, with the nipple staring at you like the worm in the bottom of a tequila bottle.
What do you do?
Say “Geez, it’s nippy in here. Would you please open a window?”
Or something else?
I’m open to suggestions, because I never did figure out how to manage that situation in a suave and elegant way.
I finally gave up, left the meeting, and went purse shopping so I could fit in.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit strong. But I spent the day in at least Purgatory, or Dulles Airport, whichever is less pleasant. Okay, Purgatory.
Anyways, I’m in Italy right now on business. Trust me: this is less exciting than it sounds. Quite frankly, Italy is strange. Very strange.
First of all, the men carry purses. I’m sorry, there’s just no way to take a guy seriously who’s carrying a purse. Maybe that’s sexist of me, but that’s just how I feel. I also feel that women who wear too-tight T-Shirts and insist that they be appreciated for their brains are morons.
This is Plebian, and I approve that message.
So I spent part of the day in meetings going over some stuff with guys who carry purses. Not tough-looking camo purses, either; some of these were beaded. They were men carrying beaded purses!
And I’m not implying these guys are gay, either: every calendar featured a naked woman and the screensaver would have made Larry Flint pause for thought. If they were gay, the did the worst cover-up job in the world.
Worst of all, though, was the purse-wearing dude who thought so much of his underwear that he wore his pants around his ankles. And his collar flipped up. Instead of looking cool, he looked like my five-year-old getting dressed in the morning asking me for help.
Except my five-year-old doesn’t carry a sequined yellow purse to go with his outfit.
Then, in the afternoon, having been totally bemused by the Italian men, I got to experience the joy of working with Italian women. It was enough to make me long for the men.
One woman had decided that business casual included a tight white t-shirt that fit her about twelve years ago, when she was fourteen. Now, though, she’s grown some, plus hit puberty, so the shirt is very stretched. No problem: underneath this she wore her hypno-bra, a swirling black-and-white patterned thing that was virtually guaranteed to call attention to the fact that her T-Shirt was too small.
It was like she was trying to hypnotize people with her breasts. Personally, I always thought that only worked when the woman wore those tassled pasties and made them swirl in opposite directions.
The other woman forced me to reflect upon this business etiquette question:
You’re in a meeting with four colleagues, all of whom are more or less the same level as you. One of them is sitting across from you, and for reasons unknown to the cosmos doesn’t realize that her right breast has escaped its bra and the low-cut shirt and is now resting on the table, with the nipple staring at you like the worm in the bottom of a tequila bottle.
What do you do?
Say “Geez, it’s nippy in here. Would you please open a window?”
Or something else?
I’m open to suggestions, because I never did figure out how to manage that situation in a suave and elegant way.
I finally gave up, left the meeting, and went purse shopping so I could fit in.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Open Letter to David Blaine
I hate to break this to you, but your continuous attempts to shock and amaze us are sort of bordering on lame. Hanging upside down? Really? That’s the best you could come up with? You could have at least hung upside down suspended by your nipples, like something Kris Angel might do. Now that would be freaky!
While you want to shock and amaze us all with your “endurance magic”, the reality is that you’d struggle to be the coolest guy at a Guinness Book of Records Reunion. I mean, that dude that can fit pool balls in his mouth? That’s impressive and dangerous, plus it’s a perfect party trick. How many homes just happen to have a thirty-foot-boom crane and a glass cage in the backyard?
Outside of Las Vegas, I mean.
I’ve got more news for you: the ladies don’t love magicians any more; that boat sailed when Claudia Schiffer found out that David Copperfield was both gay and a pervert. All the supermodels are dating fat comedians now. You were born in the wrong decade: should have been born in the 80’s. Then you, too, could have had a nasty divorce from Christy Brinkley.
Come to think of it, she’s available. You know what would be a magical feat of endurance? Stay married to her longer than two weeks and not have it end in a bitter tabloid divorce.
Do that, and we’ll all be true believers.
While you want to shock and amaze us all with your “endurance magic”, the reality is that you’d struggle to be the coolest guy at a Guinness Book of Records Reunion. I mean, that dude that can fit pool balls in his mouth? That’s impressive and dangerous, plus it’s a perfect party trick. How many homes just happen to have a thirty-foot-boom crane and a glass cage in the backyard?
Outside of Las Vegas, I mean.
I’ve got more news for you: the ladies don’t love magicians any more; that boat sailed when Claudia Schiffer found out that David Copperfield was both gay and a pervert. All the supermodels are dating fat comedians now. You were born in the wrong decade: should have been born in the 80’s. Then you, too, could have had a nasty divorce from Christy Brinkley.
Come to think of it, she’s available. You know what would be a magical feat of endurance? Stay married to her longer than two weeks and not have it end in a bitter tabloid divorce.
Do that, and we’ll all be true believers.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
One Night in Denmark
I had to go to Denmark last week. If you've never been, know that Denmark is famous for three things:
1) LEGO building blocks.
2) Vikings
3) The most unfriendly populace in Europe.
We (my colleague and I) landed at about 8:30 PM and caught a taxi to the hotel. It was about an hour away, so by the time we finally got into the lobby it was 9:20.
We checked in quickly, and surprisingly enough without exchanging a single word with the surly desk clerk. After dumping our stuff in our rooms, we headed to the restaurant for dinner.
It was about half full, with waiters busily carrying stuff back and forth. We waited patiently for someone to seat us, but nobody ever came. Finally, we took matters into our own hands and sought out a server.
"We'd like a table, please," I asked him.
"Hold on," he said, and promptly entered the witness protection program, never to be seen again.
So we tried another server. "Hello, may we please be seated?" asked my colleague.
"It's nine twenty," the guy said. "We stop serving dinner after nine."
We waited a moment for him to laugh, but he never did. Danish people don't laugh, you see. Apparently he was serious.
"We'll take anything," my famished colleague begged. "We don't care! An egg, some toast, whatever you have!"
"We don't have anything for you," he said. "It's after nine."
"Can we eat somewhere else in the hotel?" I asked. It was a big hotel, after all.
"You can get a sandwich in the bar," he said. Then, he turned and stormed off as a plate of Lobster came by us headed for Table 12.
"I've got an idea," I said. "Let's start a fire, and when these people evacuate we can eat their food."
Ultimately, since we didn't have anything to start a fire with, we headed over to the bar. In order to prevent this in the future I have now taken up smoking.
The bar was jam-packed with drunken Danish businessmen having some kind of party, regrettably without nubile Nordic women drinking too much and getting topless.
They had, however, gotten out a piano, which one of them could play just poorly enough that you could make out the tune that they were butchering in their horrible English. It would have been Simon Cowell's nightmare.
Finally, after fifteen minutes, the barkeep recognized our right to exist and asked us what we wanted. Another twenty minutes later, we finally received our order: two beers and two sandwiches.
Did you know that in Danish, "sandwich" means "brown bread made from cow cud and covered in goat cheese with raw fish on top, smothered in horrid sauce that makes you long for death"?
Yeah, I didn't know that either.
Finally it was off to bed, after watching about ten minutes of Danish TV, which appears to consist mainly of CSI reruns dubbed into Danish. This was playing on three channels, and the fourth was weather.
In the morning, I resolved to see if I could pull off people's heads and switch them around like my old LEGO figures.
1) LEGO building blocks.
2) Vikings
3) The most unfriendly populace in Europe.
We (my colleague and I) landed at about 8:30 PM and caught a taxi to the hotel. It was about an hour away, so by the time we finally got into the lobby it was 9:20.
We checked in quickly, and surprisingly enough without exchanging a single word with the surly desk clerk. After dumping our stuff in our rooms, we headed to the restaurant for dinner.
It was about half full, with waiters busily carrying stuff back and forth. We waited patiently for someone to seat us, but nobody ever came. Finally, we took matters into our own hands and sought out a server.
"We'd like a table, please," I asked him.
"Hold on," he said, and promptly entered the witness protection program, never to be seen again.
So we tried another server. "Hello, may we please be seated?" asked my colleague.
"It's nine twenty," the guy said. "We stop serving dinner after nine."
We waited a moment for him to laugh, but he never did. Danish people don't laugh, you see. Apparently he was serious.
"We'll take anything," my famished colleague begged. "We don't care! An egg, some toast, whatever you have!"
"We don't have anything for you," he said. "It's after nine."
"Can we eat somewhere else in the hotel?" I asked. It was a big hotel, after all.
"You can get a sandwich in the bar," he said. Then, he turned and stormed off as a plate of Lobster came by us headed for Table 12.
"I've got an idea," I said. "Let's start a fire, and when these people evacuate we can eat their food."
Ultimately, since we didn't have anything to start a fire with, we headed over to the bar. In order to prevent this in the future I have now taken up smoking.
The bar was jam-packed with drunken Danish businessmen having some kind of party, regrettably without nubile Nordic women drinking too much and getting topless.
They had, however, gotten out a piano, which one of them could play just poorly enough that you could make out the tune that they were butchering in their horrible English. It would have been Simon Cowell's nightmare.
Finally, after fifteen minutes, the barkeep recognized our right to exist and asked us what we wanted. Another twenty minutes later, we finally received our order: two beers and two sandwiches.
Did you know that in Danish, "sandwich" means "brown bread made from cow cud and covered in goat cheese with raw fish on top, smothered in horrid sauce that makes you long for death"?
Yeah, I didn't know that either.
Finally it was off to bed, after watching about ten minutes of Danish TV, which appears to consist mainly of CSI reruns dubbed into Danish. This was playing on three channels, and the fourth was weather.
In the morning, I resolved to see if I could pull off people's heads and switch them around like my old LEGO figures.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Cursed by Derrieres
I've had a bad day.
It started, as is often the case, in the morning. We had a lot of wind, and everyone is back from vacation, so in addition to thousands more idiots on the roads during my commute there was plenty of wind shear on the rickety bridge that I have to cross over the canal.
Add in that every truck in Europe has these cute little flexible sides and wobbles like a drunken Joe Namath trying to propose to sideline reporters and you see what the problem here is.
I finally made it, and was very proud for not losing any paint off my car. I was carefully wending my way up the hills towards my office, obeying all posted speed limits and obeying signage, when my attention was diverted by underwear.
Red panties, to be exact. My Underwear Sense went off, telling me that panties, bra straps, or other feminine undergarments were observable within a six-hundred-yard radius.
She was crossing the street up ahead of me, and the wind was whipping fiercely, and she had a whole Marilyn-over-the-subway grate thing going, only she's a one of these brazen European women so the notion of modesty never crosses her mind and I get a view of her ass as she tries to make it around the corner of the building.
Hello, nurse!
I did what any normal man would do: I enjoyed the show, totally oblivious to the fact that I was in fact piloting 1500 pounds of metal powered by explosive fuel and traveling at speeds high enough to do more damage than my deductible.
Finally I came back to myself when she turned the corner and I realized that my rear-view mirror was laying about ten yards back and the scraping metal sound was not, in fact, the latest hit song but was rather the car scraping against the guard rail.
I'd been wondering what the fireworks outside were; turns out they were sparks from the fender.
I pondered briefly how to explain this to Wifey. I had three options:
1) I could lie, and tell her I just scraped it against a building
2) I could tell the truth, that I was distracted by another woman's ass
3) I could tell her it happened while the car was parked
If I chose 1, she would mock me. If I chose 2, she would mock me and maybe not be intimate with me for some time. If I chose 3, we both got the fun of blaming somebody who never existed, as if we were pretending to be OJ Simpson.
Option 3 is the winner! Since the car was already dinged, I just double-parked it and left it for dead. After all, I was in a hurry to get to work and begin creating value for my employer.
Okay, I admit it: I was in a hurry to catch the 8:05 show of Red Panty Lady.
Sadly, she'd given me the slip. I could have ridden up the elevator with the remnant of the smoking posse, but I opted instead to climb the stairs because it's healthier. And I'm all about healthy choices.
That, and accidental nudity.
The day went pretty quickly, and other than actually being busy wasn't so bad. I discovered at lunch that the smokers had decided to crowd the doorway in a mass five jackasses deep, so I had to wade through their nicotine stench to reach fresh air.
I mean, really, smoke all you want, but is it truly necessary to stand right in front of the only door to do it? Can't you move three feet to one side or the other? It's like watching cows go into a slaughterhouse, only the cows are slowly turning to leather before your eyes.
As I bought my sandwich, I was treated to the 12:15 show of Red Panty Lady (I remembered the floppy tan skirt). Turns out that up close, and with her clothing all in place, she's not so much to look at.
By which I mean she's ugly enough to frighten pug dogs and curdle milk with her two-watt smile. My treasured memory from this morning quickly turned into me feeling somewhat seedy, and not in a good way.
Thankfully, I keep a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in my desk for just such occasions, so I rinsed my eyeballs out to purge them, a la The Crying Game. And we will never speak of this again.
In order to resolve the issue of the dented car, I used the Machiavellian strategy of parking it up the street so that Wifey couldn't see it. I figure I can get away with this for a few months while I figure out a good excuse, plus it'll give me more walking.
So you could say that the whole thing was good for my health, if not for my insurance bill.
On the walk to the house, I passed by a wood delivery service that had piled six hundred and forty three pieces of wood in the neighbor's driveway. They had a crew of three picking up wood pieces and carrying them around back to stack.
My Panty Sense tingled, and I noticed that the chick who was bent over to pick up some logs had holes in her pants; specifically, she had holes just below her ass cheeks big enough to reach for paradise through, so to speak.
Hello, nurse!
So I did what anybody would do: I enjoyed the view. At least, until the chick straightened up, when I noticed three pertinent things:
1) A mullet
2) An Adam's apple
3) Facial hair
The chick was a dude! AAARGH! And I'd left my hydrogen peroxide back at the office!
I was immediately creeped out. What the hell was wrong with me today? I was cursed by asses!
But then I reflected a moment: do gay guys get creeped out if they make the opposite mistake and check out a dude, only to find out it's a woman?
If I were a sociologist, I'd ask the government for a hundred million dollars to study this. I'd call it "Responses to Misdirected Attention by Sexual Orientation" and invent a metric called "Ookiness Factor" to compare how gays and straights respond to this situation.
Screw it, I think I'll ask for the money myself. I mean, how hard is it to be a Sociology major? All you have to do is bitch about how no one will hire you, ask for a government job, and be bad at math.
I've pretty much got two out of three of those down already!
It started, as is often the case, in the morning. We had a lot of wind, and everyone is back from vacation, so in addition to thousands more idiots on the roads during my commute there was plenty of wind shear on the rickety bridge that I have to cross over the canal.
Add in that every truck in Europe has these cute little flexible sides and wobbles like a drunken Joe Namath trying to propose to sideline reporters and you see what the problem here is.
I finally made it, and was very proud for not losing any paint off my car. I was carefully wending my way up the hills towards my office, obeying all posted speed limits and obeying signage, when my attention was diverted by underwear.
Red panties, to be exact. My Underwear Sense went off, telling me that panties, bra straps, or other feminine undergarments were observable within a six-hundred-yard radius.
She was crossing the street up ahead of me, and the wind was whipping fiercely, and she had a whole Marilyn-over-the-subway grate thing going, only she's a one of these brazen European women so the notion of modesty never crosses her mind and I get a view of her ass as she tries to make it around the corner of the building.
Hello, nurse!
I did what any normal man would do: I enjoyed the show, totally oblivious to the fact that I was in fact piloting 1500 pounds of metal powered by explosive fuel and traveling at speeds high enough to do more damage than my deductible.
Finally I came back to myself when she turned the corner and I realized that my rear-view mirror was laying about ten yards back and the scraping metal sound was not, in fact, the latest hit song but was rather the car scraping against the guard rail.
I'd been wondering what the fireworks outside were; turns out they were sparks from the fender.
I pondered briefly how to explain this to Wifey. I had three options:
1) I could lie, and tell her I just scraped it against a building
2) I could tell the truth, that I was distracted by another woman's ass
3) I could tell her it happened while the car was parked
If I chose 1, she would mock me. If I chose 2, she would mock me and maybe not be intimate with me for some time. If I chose 3, we both got the fun of blaming somebody who never existed, as if we were pretending to be OJ Simpson.
Option 3 is the winner! Since the car was already dinged, I just double-parked it and left it for dead. After all, I was in a hurry to get to work and begin creating value for my employer.
Okay, I admit it: I was in a hurry to catch the 8:05 show of Red Panty Lady.
Sadly, she'd given me the slip. I could have ridden up the elevator with the remnant of the smoking posse, but I opted instead to climb the stairs because it's healthier. And I'm all about healthy choices.
That, and accidental nudity.
The day went pretty quickly, and other than actually being busy wasn't so bad. I discovered at lunch that the smokers had decided to crowd the doorway in a mass five jackasses deep, so I had to wade through their nicotine stench to reach fresh air.
I mean, really, smoke all you want, but is it truly necessary to stand right in front of the only door to do it? Can't you move three feet to one side or the other? It's like watching cows go into a slaughterhouse, only the cows are slowly turning to leather before your eyes.
As I bought my sandwich, I was treated to the 12:15 show of Red Panty Lady (I remembered the floppy tan skirt). Turns out that up close, and with her clothing all in place, she's not so much to look at.
By which I mean she's ugly enough to frighten pug dogs and curdle milk with her two-watt smile. My treasured memory from this morning quickly turned into me feeling somewhat seedy, and not in a good way.
Thankfully, I keep a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in my desk for just such occasions, so I rinsed my eyeballs out to purge them, a la The Crying Game. And we will never speak of this again.
In order to resolve the issue of the dented car, I used the Machiavellian strategy of parking it up the street so that Wifey couldn't see it. I figure I can get away with this for a few months while I figure out a good excuse, plus it'll give me more walking.
So you could say that the whole thing was good for my health, if not for my insurance bill.
On the walk to the house, I passed by a wood delivery service that had piled six hundred and forty three pieces of wood in the neighbor's driveway. They had a crew of three picking up wood pieces and carrying them around back to stack.
My Panty Sense tingled, and I noticed that the chick who was bent over to pick up some logs had holes in her pants; specifically, she had holes just below her ass cheeks big enough to reach for paradise through, so to speak.
Hello, nurse!
So I did what anybody would do: I enjoyed the view. At least, until the chick straightened up, when I noticed three pertinent things:
1) A mullet
2) An Adam's apple
3) Facial hair
The chick was a dude! AAARGH! And I'd left my hydrogen peroxide back at the office!
I was immediately creeped out. What the hell was wrong with me today? I was cursed by asses!
But then I reflected a moment: do gay guys get creeped out if they make the opposite mistake and check out a dude, only to find out it's a woman?
If I were a sociologist, I'd ask the government for a hundred million dollars to study this. I'd call it "Responses to Misdirected Attention by Sexual Orientation" and invent a metric called "Ookiness Factor" to compare how gays and straights respond to this situation.
Screw it, I think I'll ask for the money myself. I mean, how hard is it to be a Sociology major? All you have to do is bitch about how no one will hire you, ask for a government job, and be bad at math.
I've pretty much got two out of three of those down already!
Monday, June 23, 2008
I’ve Been Waiting for these Dickheads
Just as swallows in Capistrano signal spring, the Pricewaterhouse Coopers Olympic Medal Prediction signals the coming of asshat season.
Is there any other way to explain how this “modeling” (which consists of some moron making stuff up based on population and GNP) can be so badly off, yet get so much coverage? Who’s more to blame: the accounting company that can’t count, or the Journalism major with a short memory and no math knowledge whatsoever?
I blame George Bush.
This year PWC predicts that China will win more medals than the US. Maybe so, maybe not. But if we jump in the wayback machine, we can see what this same crew of cretins predicted for 2004 in Athens.
Why is this important? Because we hear about mathematical models all the time, and how we’re supposed to trim carbon emissions or prepare for the end of the world or pay more taxes or whatever, and the fact is that a lot of them are fucking wrong! If J-school majors could get this through their thick heads, the world would be a better place.
Pardon my vehemence, but science is to charlatans today what medicine-shows were once upon a time: a tool to fool the uninitiated rubes and get backing for otherwise cockamamie plans that aren’t even worth a snort of derision.
We really ought not be making major, society-changing, future-altering decisions on models with an accuracy rate under 10%. Just sayin’. And if you think predicting the Olympics is harder than forecasting the climate in 100 years, just consider that there are a finite number of Olympic events with well-defined rules and you more or less know everyone who will participate in them and how well they generally do.
Except Figure Skating, where the only rules are don’t club Nancy Kerrigan and be sure to pay off the French judge.
In 2004, PWC predicted 70 medals for the US in Athens. In actuality, the US won 102. If they’d just voted for a repeat of 2000, then they’d have predicted 97 medals. Why would the US win 27 fewer medals? PWC didn’t bother to try to explain; they just accepted what the model told them. Just don’t question their patriotism.
Hey, dipshit, if the model also tells you to bend over and stick a Bunsen burner up your ass, you gonna do that, too?
PWC further predicted 64 medals for Russia (who won 92), 50 for China (who won 63), and 29 for Greece (who won 16). Overall, they were 30% off the actual medal count.
There’s a word for this, and it isn’t “close.”
PWC predicted India would take 10 medals in 2004. In actuality? 1. This is why this year the PWC hack says that “India remains a ‘significant underperformer’” and then gives some BS reasons why it’s so, then goes on to forecast 6 medals for them in 2008.
I guess the same reasoning applied in 2004 to Mexico (11 predicted, 4 won), Indonesia (11 predicted, 4 won), and Switzerland (10 predicted, 5 won). So maybe the whole blah-blah they do about cricket doesn’t work for all those nations, but I’m sure it’s something like that.
Maybe PWC just sucks at predicting. Is that not possible?
Here’s my bargain-basement medal prediction: every country will win more or less the same number of medals that the won last year. And in 4 years, the dicks from Pricewaterhouse Coopers Dumbass will once again issue a medal prediction that will be totally wrong.
Seriously, why would you hire these jerkoffs? Somebody, somewhere, receives money from PWC for this idiocy. That means that if you hire them, you’re paying for this.
I predict that it’s money poorly spent.
Is there any other way to explain how this “modeling” (which consists of some moron making stuff up based on population and GNP) can be so badly off, yet get so much coverage? Who’s more to blame: the accounting company that can’t count, or the Journalism major with a short memory and no math knowledge whatsoever?
I blame George Bush.
This year PWC predicts that China will win more medals than the US. Maybe so, maybe not. But if we jump in the wayback machine, we can see what this same crew of cretins predicted for 2004 in Athens.
Why is this important? Because we hear about mathematical models all the time, and how we’re supposed to trim carbon emissions or prepare for the end of the world or pay more taxes or whatever, and the fact is that a lot of them are fucking wrong! If J-school majors could get this through their thick heads, the world would be a better place.
Pardon my vehemence, but science is to charlatans today what medicine-shows were once upon a time: a tool to fool the uninitiated rubes and get backing for otherwise cockamamie plans that aren’t even worth a snort of derision.
We really ought not be making major, society-changing, future-altering decisions on models with an accuracy rate under 10%. Just sayin’. And if you think predicting the Olympics is harder than forecasting the climate in 100 years, just consider that there are a finite number of Olympic events with well-defined rules and you more or less know everyone who will participate in them and how well they generally do.
Except Figure Skating, where the only rules are don’t club Nancy Kerrigan and be sure to pay off the French judge.
In 2004, PWC predicted 70 medals for the US in Athens. In actuality, the US won 102. If they’d just voted for a repeat of 2000, then they’d have predicted 97 medals. Why would the US win 27 fewer medals? PWC didn’t bother to try to explain; they just accepted what the model told them. Just don’t question their patriotism.
Hey, dipshit, if the model also tells you to bend over and stick a Bunsen burner up your ass, you gonna do that, too?
PWC further predicted 64 medals for Russia (who won 92), 50 for China (who won 63), and 29 for Greece (who won 16). Overall, they were 30% off the actual medal count.
There’s a word for this, and it isn’t “close.”
PWC predicted India would take 10 medals in 2004. In actuality? 1. This is why this year the PWC hack says that “India remains a ‘significant underperformer’” and then gives some BS reasons why it’s so, then goes on to forecast 6 medals for them in 2008.
I guess the same reasoning applied in 2004 to Mexico (11 predicted, 4 won), Indonesia (11 predicted, 4 won), and Switzerland (10 predicted, 5 won). So maybe the whole blah-blah they do about cricket doesn’t work for all those nations, but I’m sure it’s something like that.
Maybe PWC just sucks at predicting. Is that not possible?
Here’s my bargain-basement medal prediction: every country will win more or less the same number of medals that the won last year. And in 4 years, the dicks from Pricewaterhouse Coopers Dumbass will once again issue a medal prediction that will be totally wrong.
Seriously, why would you hire these jerkoffs? Somebody, somewhere, receives money from PWC for this idiocy. That means that if you hire them, you’re paying for this.
I predict that it’s money poorly spent.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Al Gore: Super Villain?
(originally posted at RDW)
Help us, Chuck Norris! You’re our only hope!
I’ve given the matter of Al Gore’s energy use a lot of thought, and there’s only really one likely scenario that comes to mind to explain his massive utility bills: he’s crossed over from regular villainy to cartoonish super-villainy.
There are three cases to explain what his evil plan is for world domination:
1) Mind-Control Ray
First Gore started beating the drum about environmental dangers and fanning the flames of Bush hatred to reduce mental resistance to suggestion. Next, he worked on his advanced mind-control device, conveniently located in central Tennessee, where he will have a straight shot at the satellites needed to use transmit the signal all over the world.
Then he tests his device, using it to get a Nobel Peace Prize despite the fact that his efforts have yielded no results whatsoever, least of all improving peace, but rather may be responsible for increased violence as food crops are turned into fuel.
Any minute he’ll throw the switch and we’ll suddenly find ourselves compelled to walk to work and live in solar-powered huts, while he and his cronies fly around in private jets telling us how we need to eat more feces to be environmentally responsible.
2) The Weather Machine
We know that Gore is obsessed with the weather. Is it possible that he’s taken up Mark Twain’s ancient challenge to do something about it? Therefore, he’s working day and night on a machine to try to cool the planet, perhaps plunging it into a new ice age.
The Gore Effect? That’s a feature, not a bug.
3) An Army of Bigfeet
Imagine if one day, with access to the secrets of both Area 51 and the government files on Bigfeet roaming in Colorado, the Vice President got the bright idea to use alien technology to create a cybernetically-enhanced race of carbon-neutral Bigfeet to carry out his dark desires to demote humanity back to the Stone Age.
Earth in the Balance was published in 1992, meaning that the first generation of Bigfeet are nearing adulthood. Any day now they will appear and seize control, marking the beginning of a Planet of the Apes style reign of terror.
Our only hope is that a secret service agent can rise up and stop this evil terror, whether it’s Bigfeet, mind-control, or (shudder) Bigfeet with snow cannons and mind-control rays.
But where would we find such a man? Who could possibly infiltrate and destroy this evil genius’ lair?
I don’t know about you, but I vote for this guy:
There are three cases to explain what his evil plan is for world domination:
1) Mind-Control Ray
First Gore started beating the drum about environmental dangers and fanning the flames of Bush hatred to reduce mental resistance to suggestion. Next, he worked on his advanced mind-control device, conveniently located in central Tennessee, where he will have a straight shot at the satellites needed to use transmit the signal all over the world.
Then he tests his device, using it to get a Nobel Peace Prize despite the fact that his efforts have yielded no results whatsoever, least of all improving peace, but rather may be responsible for increased violence as food crops are turned into fuel.
Any minute he’ll throw the switch and we’ll suddenly find ourselves compelled to walk to work and live in solar-powered huts, while he and his cronies fly around in private jets telling us how we need to eat more feces to be environmentally responsible.
2) The Weather Machine
We know that Gore is obsessed with the weather. Is it possible that he’s taken up Mark Twain’s ancient challenge to do something about it? Therefore, he’s working day and night on a machine to try to cool the planet, perhaps plunging it into a new ice age.
The Gore Effect? That’s a feature, not a bug.
3) An Army of Bigfeet
Imagine if one day, with access to the secrets of both Area 51 and the government files on Bigfeet roaming in Colorado, the Vice President got the bright idea to use alien technology to create a cybernetically-enhanced race of carbon-neutral Bigfeet to carry out his dark desires to demote humanity back to the Stone Age.
Earth in the Balance was published in 1992, meaning that the first generation of Bigfeet are nearing adulthood. Any day now they will appear and seize control, marking the beginning of a Planet of the Apes style reign of terror.
Our only hope is that a secret service agent can rise up and stop this evil terror, whether it’s Bigfeet, mind-control, or (shudder) Bigfeet with snow cannons and mind-control rays.
But where would we find such a man? Who could possibly infiltrate and destroy this evil genius’ lair?
I don’t know about you, but I vote for this guy:
Help us, Chuck Norris! You’re our only hope!Tuesday, June 17, 2008
So sharp it rolls
I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, but even I could figure out that the recent e-mail I got was a fake. It starts out with this:
You know, I find that first sentence magnet, too. It's almost like it was passed through Babelfish or something by an auto-sender. And a quick visit to the old sitemeter confirms that their thesis is not correct. Not unless 10 is a lot.
Can you guess what product they're pushing? Go on, try and guess. I can wait. What product would they want you to try, but say you might also have a friend who is interested in the product?
I'm no marketing major, but I'm pretty sure when you send out free stuff you kind of hope for a positive review. Especially when your product is:
Penis size enhancment.
Turns out that an auto-crawler looking for "erectile dysfunction" stumbled across last week's phobia post and decided that I needed a little more larder in my garters.
The Internet is a strange, strange place.
[Side note: I'm hung like a donkey on viagra. Just thought you'd want to know that. It's not like I ordered a hundred cases from them or something on the off chance that it works and I can recapture some of my shattered self-esteem.]
I find your blog very interesting to read. Your way of writing can magnet and lure a lot of visitors/readers. Would you be able to write about our product after visiting our site?
Or if you have a friend who is interested to try our product, we can send you one. From this, you can gain insights and share your friend's experience to us.
Can you guess what product they're pushing? Go on, try and guess. I can wait. What product would they want you to try, but say you might also have a friend who is interested in the product?
I would really be interested to know if you would be able to post your findings/review in your blog http://dailydollop.blogspot.com, it may be a positive or negative one, with links to our site.
I'm no marketing major, but I'm pretty sure when you send out free stuff you kind of hope for a positive review. Especially when your product is:
Penis size enhancment.
Turns out that an auto-crawler looking for "erectile dysfunction" stumbled across last week's phobia post and decided that I needed a little more larder in my garters.
The Internet is a strange, strange place.
[Side note: I'm hung like a donkey on viagra. Just thought you'd want to know that. It's not like I ordered a hundred cases from them or something on the off chance that it works and I can recapture some of my shattered self-esteem.]
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Celebrity Hot or Not
So "American Idol" has been all the rage on TV for several years now. Never one to jump on a trend when it was fresh and new, the Daily Dollop has decided to pump out its own version. And to help bring in the coveted male 13-30 audience it'll be combined it with another phenomenon, the "Hot or Not" craze that pretty well burned itself out by 2005.
My brother claims to have cracked the code for American Idol’s success: it’s all about the judges. Nobody cares about the contestants, they tune in because they either love or hate the Idol panel. He claims that in order to bring in viewers you’ve got to have:
- The Mean Guy
- The Washed Up Star Strung Out on Drugs who says bizarre things
- The Black Guy
He then promised to get me top-notch celebrities. That was before he got invited to the latest Girls Gone Wild video shoot by an old college roomie who owns the bar where they’re filming and shafted me with this somewhat less-than-inspiring collection of judges. I guess they fit the bill:
Skeletor: Nemesis of He-Man, Grayskull's would-be conqueror, and all around jerk. You wouldn’t believe the mouth on this guy! Whenever you read the word "flower" please mentally substitute the f-word. Skeletor's comments will be in blue.
Gizmo: Did you know that the adorable star of the hit 80s movie "Gremlins" hit rough times after the critical failure of "Gremlins 2"? He just got out of prison after being convicted on drug possession, racketeering, and felony indecent exposure charges. Gizmo's comments will be in purple.
Fat Albert: When this counts as the normal guy on your panel, you know that you have serious problems. What, Gary Coleman wasn’t available? We'll mark Mr. Albert's comments in red.
We'll just do this in round table discussion format. I'll throw out a picture of a chick and a few details, then we'll just let the judges run wild. And so without further ado here's our first girl:
Chloe Marshall: Contestent in Miss England 2008 competition, noteworthy as the first size 16 girl to make the finals.
What the flower? This is a flowering joke, right? Are we judging people or whales here? By the power of Grayskull, someone get a liposuction technician! Did England get hit with the Black Death again or something? There’s no other explanation of how this human blob could win a beauty competition. Not.
I've got three words for her: nice rack, baby. My face is melting here, that's how hot this chick is. I would hit that so hard her grandma in York would feel it. Hot.
Dawg, I would be all up in that. Baby got back, and I ain't talkin' 'bout no baby back ribs. Oh man, I could go for some ribs right now. I'm so hongry I could eat a bucket of KFC so fast the grease wouldn't stick to my fingers. Hot, baby, so you goin' to Hollywood! We're not giving away trips, flower face. We're just rating whether or not these chicks are worth flowering. And for the record you two are flowering sick for even thinking of getting it on with this sack of lard.
PANEL CONSENSUS: HOT
Queen Latifah: Rapper, singer, actress, Jill of all trades, mistress of none. Her greatest regret is never being dissed by a presidential candidate.
Hey, hey, hey! Now that's what I'm talkin' about, dawg! Hot like Indian food! Hot like a stove! Hot like an SUV in my hood! This is what this contest is all about, dawg! Hot, hot, hot!
Are you a flowering idiot, Fatty? This chunk of blubber is even worse than the last one. You know what I liked about the show "Living Single"? When it got cancelled. Not!
Clean up on aisle in my pants. I'd hit that up, down, sideways, and in the negative zone. Pour some brown sugar on me, baby, cuz I'm hungry like the wolf. Hot!
Yo dawg, what's up wit' the attitude? Weren't you the good gremlin?
Yeah, and Rock Hudson was straight in all his movies. It's called acting, fat boy. No wonder you got cancelled.
PANEL CONSENSUS: HOT
Paris Hilton: Socialite, frequently photographed celebrity and occasional guest of the penal system.
Just look at that little bitch! Those eyes, that tail, those big ears, and oh that fur! Hot!
We're rating the woman, not the dog, you flowering retard.
If she wants to have a three way with me and the Chihuahua that's fine, but I have got to get a little doggy style with that pooch. But I'd hit the owner too, like Barry Bonds in slow pitch softball after a three day HGH blitz. I'd actually rather flower the dog than the endless line of cows I'm being presented with. By Teela’s tits, you can barely see her clavicle through all that fat! Not.
I ain't wantin' to be no hater, but to Paris I gots to say see you later. Add some pounds to that tiny butt, if wit' me you want to rut. Not.
What are you, a flowering rapper? You get all gangster after Cosby left you high and dry? Let me tell you this, tubby, Mer-Man’s more gangster than you, and I once caught him listening to broadway show tunes with Orko. And what the flower are you doing using the word "rut"? You born on a flowering farm?
PANEL CONSENSUS: NOT 
Pamela Anderson: Frequently naked actress, full of more salt water than the dead sea, and Hepatitis C victim.I'd hit that.
Now there's a flowering surprise. Is there anything on this earth, woman or beast, you wouldn't flower? How about I just take a firehouse to you, flower face, and let's see if you can cool off any! 
GLUG!
You pull that on me, dawg, I'll get out my gat and put one in yo' ass.
I don't have an ass, mother flowerer. I'm skeleton all the way down. Even my boner is solid bone, not that I've had one yet from looking at this collection of swollen hags. You'd think maybe having Hep C would take a little weight off this chick, but apparently she hasn't had to curtail her visits to the all you can eat buffet. Not.
I hates to agree wit' you, dawg, but check this out: you dip your chip in that you might come back with some special sauce, know what I'm sayin'? Not.
PANEL CONSENSUS: NOT
Amy Winehouse: Singer, future VH-1 "The Tragic Life Of..." subject Yesssss, now we're getting somewhere! Still a bit plump for my tastes, but a few more months on the crack pipe should do her nicely. I like to see every vertebrae in my lover's back when they're sprawled naked in my chambers. Hot!
You mean like Prince Adam, you bone-armed homo? How did you...I mean, what the flower is wrong with you, grem-tard? Never get a gremlin wet, you noseless fairy. As far as this crack whore goes I say hells yeah! Bang it, break it, then give her a five spot and tell her to get the hell out of your car! Me and Hugh Grant used to do that all the time back in the day. Nothing hotter than a junkie who needs a fix! Hot!Yo, dawg, that is some nasty-ass skin you got there. You need some lotion or something? You both be crazy, this chick ain’t got enough meat on her to fill out a real woman’s leg. Not.
PANEL CONSENSUS: HOT
A Mummy: Name unknown, dug up in Egypt in 1973, probably dates to around 1100 BC. Now I'm getting that funny feeling in my pants! Helloooo, nurse! Reminds me of Mum-ra's sister. Grayskull I wanted to flower that chick. Stupid dyke was more interested in Evil-Lynn, though. But anyway, I say hot. LeBron James, she dead! What are you, boney, some kinda super freak wantin' to get all up in a mummy? You ain't a playa, you a pervert!
Well I'm flowering sorry I don't like my women to be so flowering fat they can't go to the beach because flowering Greenpeace keeps pushing them back in the flowering ocean. You don't like it, you can flower it, you fat flower, but I'm not going to flowering apologize for having good taste in chicks. You know what I like about dead chicks? They don't say no to anything, no matter how kinky it is! So let's get out the coonskin cap and the cheese grater, dead girl! Hot! You've said hot every time, you stupid flower! You're flowering useless on this panel. It'd be like judging a pie contest with fatty's mother. Aw, hells no, you din't just talk about my mama! You dead, dawg, you dead!
I've got a skull for a face, flowerer. What makes you think I'm flowering alive? Flower you and your big fat mother, you flowering gangster rap wanna be! PANEL CONSENSUS: FLOWERING HOT
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