Look who's POOPING!

The lovely Anne Hathaway, my future second wife
(after I dump Natalie Portman)

Happy Friday, everyone!

First off, if you're anything like me, you're tall, intelligent, breathtakingly handsome, and getting a bit tired of reverse-cowgirl with Anne Hathaway. But even if that's not a perfect match, we can at least agree on one thing: Shitting at work is great.

I tend to map out my every morning/early afternoon around the inevitable need to empty my bowels of the Bud-and-Jim-Beam-soaked T-bone I ingested the prior night. Usually this is a fairly simple process: Arrive at work (20 minutes late), acquire coffee, ignore email, check Mets blogs for the latest rectum punch Omar Minaya has inflicted upon me, squeeze in some actual work, plan out my loaf-pinch.

Some mornings, the intestinal stirrings start early. At that point, I immediately scour my Google Reader for articles of sufficient length to sustain my imminent brown release. Some of the sites that provide me with this material can be found in Where's Luke's left sidebar (heh, Side Bar once got feline AIDS) -- Joe Posnanski (baseball), man-crush of mine Nate Silver (politics), and one other fine gentleman writer of the Internet, whom I'd like to introduce today.

His name is Drew Magary, though he was known for some time only as Big Daddy Drew. That was his pseudonym as a lowly Deadspin commenter, way back in like 2005-06. Keep in mind that this was when the Internet and blogs and stuff were old enough get an erection, but still too immature to process what it meant or what it should be used for, aside from rubbing against helpless household furniture with strangely pleasing textures (corduroy!).

These days, Drew writes regularly for several places, including Kissing Suzy Kolber (which he co-founded), a reputable site like NBC, an equally reputable site like Penthouse, and, of course, Deadspin. Yes, like Vader said to Obi-Wan, the commenter has become the writer (you can dream too, anonymous Where's Luke commenter jerkoff). He has also written a goddamn fantastic book (which I own) called "Men With Balls," which serves as a guidebook for the professional athlete and contains a brilliant dedication page:

"To my mom and dad...who taught me not to say inappropriate things. Which is why I wrote them all down instead."

Anyway, let's get back to shitting. One thing Drew writes rather frequently about is that very topic. We've written about it here from time to time, but modesty demands I admit that our offerings are Salieri to Drew's Mozart.

Without further ado, allow me to present a piece written not by Drew, but by one of his readers, which Drew was gracious enough to pass along to all of us. He calls it "Look Who's Pooping":

"My kid was about 1 or 1 1/2 when he started going through a poop phase. He was obsessed with poop. He would insist on looking at a shitty diaper after he destroyed it, with a "yeah that's right, say my name, bitch!" look on his face. He would talk about it all the time in public ("Daddy I have a HUGE LOAD in my pants"). He would barge into the bathroom when I was dropping anchor and insist on taking a look at my craftwork. He even went through a period where he would stick his finger in his ass and then put it in his mouth and say "it's yummy" (by the way this was super fucked up and scarred me for life).

So one day, just after breakfast, he drops a load and my wife goes to change him. She lays him back on the changing table, takes his shitty diaper off, wraps it up, and turns to put it in the diaper genie. She looks away and then turns back, leaning over him to coo or sing or make goo goo noises or whatever chicks do. What she did not realize was that the little fecophile had stuck his hand down into his ass while she was looking away and now had what could best be described as a shit mitten. So she is singing away and he reaches up and fish hooks her with the shit mitten. Just jams his hand in her mouth and yanks down on her jaw, scraping poo off his hand with her teeth (ever eat an artichoke?). It took a second or two for her to realize he had shit all over his hands...and that she, therefore, now had a mouthful of baby shit. She gagged and was so disgusted that she promptly VOMITED ON THE BABY and started crying hysterically, which of course made the baby start crying. I heard the commotion and by the time I walked in, they were both screaming and crying, covered in regurgitated Special K and poo. My wife ran over to the bathroom and I actually saw her SPIT POO in the sink (definitely NOT a turn on). Meanwhile, the baby quickly went from crying to laughing, looks up at me innocently and says "Daddy, I'm POOOPY!" Roger that."

Hey Side Bar and Chuck, is that what having a kid is like? Because if so, I'm never letting Mrs. Side Bar or Mrs. Chuck kiss me hello ever again.

Captain Obvious: Run, then Eat

When was the last time you went for a five-mile run immediately after having a nice, big meal? Well, in this country, school kids do it every single day. How is it possible that no one has really thought - at least not until now - that maybe we should let kids run around first, then eat, instead of the other way around. We were never allowed to go swimming for 30 minutes after eating, but somehow it was completely acceptable to go run around like wild animals immediately after eating lunch (okay, fine, playing kickball wasn't exactly a marathon, but still).

At North Ranch Elementary School in Scottsdale, AZ - one of the first to try the switch and study its effects - "one child told school workers he was happy he didn't throw up anymore at recess."

Is it me or is this just the most obvious thing in the history of the world that every one just totally missed for the last century?

Monday Brain Teasers: Free beer!

The bar around the corner from my office sells beers for $6 a pint. Every pint comes with a token, and once you have collected four tokens you can exchange them for a free beer. How many total beers can I drink if I walk into the bar with $60? (Tipping is not permitted at this bar, and the beers are not taxed).

Those are some mighty big beers you girls have there . . .

"I was born in West Philadelphia and also raised there. I spent most of my time playing basketball..."

The Internet loves it some Fresh Prince and Rick Astley. Also popular? Pranks. Add those together, mix in some serious Jesus-ing and voila! A World Wide Web-a-Trois of magnificent proportions.

First up, it's a bit odd that this guy kinda looks like an older DJ Jazzy Jeff. Wonder what that guy's up to these days... Great Odin's raven -- this can't be serious:

"DJ Jazzy Jeff admitted in an interview with Tweed Vests Weekly that he had spent all of his DJ Hero royalties on eBay building his Voltron action figures collection. When the toys turned out to be worthless, he was forced to rely on the charity of his long-time friend Will Smith. He is now resident on Smith's couch at the actor's Los Angeles home."

Hmm... Tweed Vests Weekly? Either we've got a mischievious Wikipedia editor, or DJ Jazzy Jeff is cooler than I thought.

Anyway, check this out:



And now this, for anyone who's ever gotten Rickrolled:

Jump the Shark: The Office (US)

I am not sure who's having a tougher month, NBC or Barack Obama, but NBC took a pretty commanding lead last night in the How-Badly-Can-I-Shit-the-Bed-in-January Sweepstakes.

I have been saying for about a year now - to anyone who wanted to listen - that the US version of The Office on NBC has failed to sustain itself. And after several seasons as one of the funniest shows on television, it was time to end on a high note (or at least not a low note).

Well, that's not an option anymore. Last night - the first "new" episode in six weeks - NBC aired "The Banker," which was . . . A FUCKING CLIP SHOW!

It's official

Are you kidding me? Clip shows are for B- or C-list comedies that are just openly mailing it in and have stopped trying. Remember Full House? Yes, there are some exceptions: Seinfeld did it in Season 9 in the lead up to the series finale . . . as a retrospective. And the Simpsons did it, but the whole thing was tongue-in-cheek, they were making fun of themselves and parodying the whole idea of a clip show.

Season 6 of The Office had been almost unwatchable to begin with, and now, after a six-week hiatus, they come back with 30 minutes of clips from other episodes. Hell no. Shark: jumped. Take a page out of the UK playbook, fellas - two seasons, crush it, and then shut it down.

Whatever. 30 Rock is 100 times better. (I haven't watched last night's episode yet, but I promise that if it is a clip show, I will come back and delete this last line. And puke).

I'm On Team Conan

First of all, Conan O'Brien rules and Jay Leno sucks ass. Secondly, this clip is amazing and should remind us all how freakin' hysterical Norm MacDonald is.



Additionally, NBC rules the world in putting on great TV shows and then cancelling them. I'll only cite Conan O'Brien and Freaks and Geeks as examples, but there are many others.

Seizing the Opportunity to Blow It

The Associated Press just called the Massachusetts special election for Scott Brown over Martha Coakley and, by doing so, just made the passing of a healthcare reform bill incredibly more difficult.

First, let's sit back and soak in the irony. Not only is Mass. super democratic but it was Mr. Healthcare's seat itself that was just lost to a Republican promising to be the 41st vote against healthcare reform.

For the love of all that is holy, Democrats, what is fucking wrong with you people? You spent years winning back the Senate, House and Presidency and now, having scored the tying touchdown you missed the extra point? Really?

Where to even start handing out blame?

First to Ms. Coakley. Wow, you really suck. This was the gimme of all gimmes. Maybe you shouldn't have taken a month and a half off? Maybe you shouldn't have just assumed you'd win, just because you're dope (which, apparently, you are not)? Maybe you shouldn't have said that Curt Schilling was a Yankee fan? You and you're people are already starting to blame the White House and everyone else. Do us all a favor. Go get a gun, load it, put the barrel in your mouth and pulling the fucking trigger 'til it goes click.

Barack, Barack, Barack - what the fuck, man? Where were you? Where was Rahm? Axelrod? Biden? Anyone, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Where was the national democratic party leadership? Bums, morons.....

Astounding.

By the way, Rachel Maddow, the smug, snarky know it-all pundit on MSNBC is on television right now and she's more flustered than an 8 year old girl that just had her birthday party cancelled. Oh, and Keith Olberman is just an asshole.

Now, the whole healthcare thing isn't over yet, I don't think.

From what I understand, the democrats have a few options:

• Convince the House to pass the Senate Bill as is (in which case it isn't fillibusterable in the Senate and, thus, only 51 votes are needed to pass it).
• Work to get Olympia Snowe back on board. I'm not sure exactly what that would entail or how hard that would be. I'm guessing, pretty hard.
• Rush forward and vote before Brown becomes a Senator - which would look pretty bad.
• Do this whole reconciliation thing which, I think, only requires 51 votes anyway. This, though, makes it just a budgetary measure, which means it's much more limited in scope (no banning the exclusion of pre-existing conditions, etc.)
• Blow up the filibuster. Which may sound OK to some but I have to think about this one. Unintended consequences, anyone?
  

It would seem passing the Senate Bill is the best option, or at least that seems to be what all the talking heads would say.

It's just amazing to me how the democratic party just can't get their shit together.

Miracle on the Hudson: One Year Later

I don't really have anything insightful to say about this - and certainly nothing that has not already been written - but I just thought it was worth noting that today is the one-year anniversary of the so-called "Miracle on the Hudson." After striking a flock of geese mid-flight, and losing thrust in both engines while flying over New York City, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger safely landed a jet airliner on the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 people on board.



Read that last sentence again. If you don't think it is a miracle, you just suck.*

The hero we needed.

* Statement does not apply to LJT, who does not suck, but will somehow find something bad to say about Sully, miracles, and unicorns.

"I am the Key Master" . . . "I am the Gate Keeper"

It finally happened.

Vinz Clortho and Zuul. In the same room.

The sound you just heard? The simultaneous breaking of millions of Tea Partiers' backs under the weight of the sheer awesome and win that is

Glenn Beck interviewing Sarah Palin for the first time!!!!!!!

(Can your fingers be out of breath? Because mine sure feel that way after typing that.)



Now what did we learn here?

• Politicians tend to fall on the untrustworthy end of the spectrum
• Glenn Beck would totally suck the labia right off the Statue of Liberty
• Glenn also keeps a journal (though I bet off-screen he calls it his diary)
• Glenn and Sarah were the top two Halloween costumes (I couldn't verify this, but perhaps my Google Fu is weak today; it's the kind of thing that sounds reasonable -- after all, there are a looooooot of supercrazy folks out there who think these two are just the tops, you betcha! -- but it came out of Glenn Beck's mouth, so it must be wrong. I mean, I heard Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. I'm supposed to trust his statistics? Not until he produces that girl and proves he didn't rape and kill her.)
• Glenn utters the phrase "radical, revolutionary crazy people" without a hint of irony or self-awareness
• John McCain supported the bank bailouts, aka TARP -- a point which Glenn makes to illustrate what McCain got wrong, why it was so hard to vote for him last fall. Right at the 7:43 mark, listen to how much disdain Glenn conjures when uttering the word "bailout." And the sweet-natured, common-sense conservative Hockey Mom of the Great (Very) White North, the one who spent the start of the interview bemoaning the lack of trustworthiness in Washington politicians, basically nods in agreement. What went unmentioned? BOTH GLENN BECK AND SARAH PALIN SUPPORTED THE BANK BAILOUTS. Man, I absolutely adore these two. It's goddamn spectacular, the things that come out of their mouths!
• At about the 5:37 mark, Glenn tells us about some lists he and Sarah appeared on, one of which was "Most Admired." Now, I believed this instantly because duh, obviously, you guys. I didn't need any sort of proof or anything, despite what I said up there about Glenn and numbers and murdering and raping and stuff. But the good folks at Fox were kind enough to show a graphic of the poll indicating that Glenn and Sarah were, in fact, among the Most Admired Men and Women in the country. Here's what they showed us:

Now, I know what you're thinking -- where the hell is David Wright on that list? I was thinking the same thing, so I checked the original list, and here's what I found:


Again, no D-Dubs. And then I was like, waitaminnithere... Can I see those two next to each other, please?



Uh, those numbers, like, aren't the same.

A-ha! The Fox poll is only of independent voters, voting only on political figures. Which makes sense, right? I mean, it's not like either person on screen was recently on the national ticket of one of the two major parties, right? It was nice of Glenn to mention those parameters when he told us how admired they both were. And also, I'm sure it had nothing to do with getting Sarah's name above Hillary Clinton's, or Glenn Beck's over some old black guy's.

Being the industrious little scamp I am, I decided to look a little further into those numbers. Gallup says that it interviewed 1,025 people for this particular survey. And according to Pollster.com, about 38% of Americans identify themselves as Independent. That means about 390 Independents were surveyed. Of those 390, Sarah Palin was voted Most Admired Woman by 14% and Glenn Beck was voted Most Admired Man by a whopping 3%. In other words, 55 people said they really like Sarah and TWELVE whole people said the same about dear Glenn.

Now that is something worth bragging about. Kudos, Beckster.

I don't really know what all this means or why the hell I just spent all this time looking into it, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that if those two spent enough time together, they would eventually spawn some Gozer-like thing so full of insanity, we'd all have to deal with a situation requiring one of us to say, "Nobody steps on a church in my town!"

Or, "Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!"

Or something. Oh, and I get to be Venkman. Dibs.

Anyway, hey -- check out this lady dancing!

Two Entirely Random Things

Number one: Remember when Nerf used to make footballs and soccer balls? Because I think now they only make things like this:


Number two: I really don't know what it is, but Ryan Seacrest is just the perfect host for American Idol. I feel like I like him way more than is warranted, but there's something genuine in all his fakeness. Also that time he tried to high five the blind dude was awesome.

Speaking of which, now that Simon is leaving after this year, I think I may finally be able to quit this show. As it is, I only watch the performances and Simon's comment and I fast forward through everything else. But this past year I really didn't care at all, whereas in years before my enthusiasm for who won was like a 2 out of 10. I really just watch it out of habit at this point.

More Jersey Shore

I just don't get tired of these people.

Pauly D, The Situation (which continues its reign as the greatest nickname ever, by the way) and Snooki, whom I love, seem to be out promoting this show and themselves all over the place. Yet, Ronnie, J-Woww and Sammi Sweetheart and nowhere to be found - what's up with that?

These people aren't terribly funny or intelligent and yet, I find them so entertaining.

Below, Pauly, Sitch and Snookers reenact the three wisemen's visit to see the Baby Jesus.

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Select Start

I know you read the title of that post and immediately thought of Contra, one of the best games ever created for the original NES. (Incidentally, did you know that the "select" was only necessary if you were going to play a 2 player game?) This post is not about that, but, tangentially related, is about Vampire Weekend's new album, which came out today, entitled, wait for it, Contra. (I've reread that senctence about 5 times and I'm pretty sure it holds up despite all the tangents.) You may remember Vampire Weekend from Awesome Music Week a while back.

Vampire Weekend gained the bulk of their success from internet buzz and, as such, continue to have a strong internet presence. You can listen to their whole album online and you can even embed the album into a blog post to listen to it from here. I don't know if Vampire Weekend is everyone's cup of tea, but man do I love them.

You Guys Should Have Asked Your Grandkids

There's an article in today's New York Times about this being the ten year anniversary of the AOL Time Warner merger. There is no way to spin this merger as anything but an abject disaster, but even when you read the interviews from the executives with ten years of hinsight to look back on, it's still clear that none of them get it.

There was no possible way this could have worked. I remember when this happened I thought it was a terrible idea and I was a 21 year old goofball who had yet to graduate college. The fact that this deal was based on the future of the internet being the AOL model is, simply put, asinine. Even in 1999 AOL was the history of the internet. I mean, seriously, this deal was based on AOL and their fucking dial-up internet service being the way that people were going to go online well into the future.

AOL somehow convinced people in 1995 that they needed to be sheltered from the "real internet" and needed to navigate only within the parameters of the AOL web. To get on the real internet from AOL you had to jump through all these hoops. But even back then a lot of companies didn't buy into the idea of creating separate web channels for the AOL folk, even though they were like 98% of the market. If you had asked me in 1995 when I was actually using AOL I could have told you that there was no way it was gong to last.

Don't you remember going to college circa 1996 and going to the library or wherever and sitting down at a computer with a T1 line and going on to the real internet without all those constraints from AOL? As awesome as going from no internet to AOL was, going from AOL to the real internet was liberating.

The only thing I like even a little bit about being a former AOL user is the fact that we (me, and the driver) are in a small set of people who can make that weird dial up modem noise and have it actually mean something to us. It's an esoteric pop culture reference that we'll have forever. Anyway, if these guys had asked their grandkids what they thought about the merger, not one of them would have advised in its favor. Old ass motherfuckers.

The Reason Avatar is the Best Picture of 2009

I saw Avatar the other day. It was, and is, amazing. I've got to hand it to James Cameron, he really ascribes to the "go big or go home" school of film making. And for James Cameron he generally goes big in a good way. Unlike, say, Michael Bay, who thinks he's going big, when in actuality he's just making steaming piles of dung that happen to cost a lot of money to produce.

For James Cameron, he has consistently pushed the edge of the technology available in film making, while at the same time also concentrating on making the story interesting. I'm thinking of The Abyss, Terminator, Terminator 2, Titanic. All of these movies were on the cutting edge of the technology in their days, but each of them also had a pretty interesting story to tell. I certainly don't want to argue that Titanic was like the best movie ever or anything, but I will say that it was pretty engaging, made spectacular use of technology, and was downright epic in its scope. And let's not forget how groundbreaking Terminator 2 was when it was released. And if you've seen the Terminators that came after Cameron was involved, you have some good evidence of what happens when you take an interesting idea and a bunch of special effects without really caring for the story. You just get crap.

The skeleton outline of the plot of Avatar is fairly predictable. Given the premise, I'm sure you can guess exactly how it will play out. The humans go to a planet in some far off star system in order to mine some extremely rare compound. The bulk of the compound is directly underneath the settlement of the indigenous humanoid people. The humans are uncaring for the indigenous people, only want the compound, and are willing to force out the indigenous people if they won't simply agree to move. Part of their diplomacy effort was to create these "avatars" that look like the indigenous people and are controlled remotely by humans a lot like the virtual self in The Matrix. One of the avatar dudes gets lost and is taken in by the blue people and sortof acts as a spy for the humans while at the same time getting to know the ways of the blue people. You can imagine where it goes from there (I don't think they even have cable).

Anyhow, even given the predictable nature of the plot, the story is very engaging. But the story alone wouldn't make it the best picture of the year. It's not incredibly deep, despite the fact that it is very well told. What makes this the best picture is the integration of the technology into filmmaking in a way that I've never seen before. First of all, it's in 3D. If you've ever seen a 3D movie you know that the bulk of the time is spent just fawning over its 3Dness. Evil villains shooting their hands out toward the audience, some random object flying in your face, things that don't really fit just to be in 3D. This movie is not like that. After like 5 minutes, you don't even notice the 3D except for the fact that it more fully immerses you into the environment. It's not like I felt like I was on a distant planet in some far off solar system, but it was a step in that direction.

Even aside from the 3D this movie is rife with special effects. The bulk of the movie was shot in front of a green screen, and obviously all the scenes that involved the 9 foot tall blue people with tails were computer generated, though based on actor performance. Again, this movie was not a showcase for the effects, the effects really just served to tell the story. The way that all of those effects, which were essentially innumerable, were integrated in a way that didn't really stand out in terms of being special effects is really incredible.

Most movies, a good example is the suckfest of an (air quotes) "movie", Transformers, will spend all kinds of time on a special effect and then just bask in the special effect like, "yeah, that just happened. What!", instead of just telling the story. Special effects are cool, but if they don't help to tell the story, then they're just unnecessary.

I feel like the Lord of the Rings ushered in an era where special effects could simultaneously predominate a movie without overpowering it. And Avatar does this spectacularly, and on a whole new level. Watching this movie was an entirely new experience. And since this movie in a lot of respects is a game changer, a groundbreaker, a watershed (did anyone else just flash back to Dr. Gallo's class?), that is why it has to be the best picture of 2009.

Real Men of Genius: Mr. passing out-in-a-snowbank-while-your-children-watch-crying guy.

Sung: real men of genius.

Spoken: we salute you, Mr. passing-out-in-a-snowbank-while-your-children-watch-crying guy. Your wife said you couldn't go to the Bills game and get loaded because you have three kids now and, besides, they were eliminated from playoff contention weeks ago. And you said yeah, well, we'll just see about that.

Sung (in background): have a-nother.

Spoken: because you know that the best way to get out of watching the kids next Sunday is to have the cops drive them home this Sunday.

Sung (in background): Daddy can we pleeeeeease go now!

Spoken: and so here's to you, oh friar of frigid temperatures and frosty four o'clock beverages, because when your kids complained that they were cold and tired, you reached for a cold one and took a nap. In a snowbank.

Sung: Mr. passing-out-in-a-snowbank-while-your-children-watch-crying guy.

Things I've Often Wondered About The Big Lebowski

I know this is my second Big Lebowski post in a matter of just a few days, but I was rewatching the movie after having written that post and there are some things I've always wondered about the movie, that I'm hoping some of you fine people can help me out with.

First, what's the deal with the bowling teams? The Dude's team seems to have 3 people on it, Dude, Walter, and Donnie, while all the other teams have only 2.

As evidence, "You ready to be fucked, man? I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we're gonna fuck you up." Clearly indicating only Liam and Jesus on that team.

Also, "Dude, this is Smokey. Look, I don't wanna be a hard-on about this, and I know it wasn't your fault, but I just thought it was fair to tell you that Gilbert and I will be submitting this to the League and asking them to set aside the round. Or maybe forfeit it to us."

For what it's worth, in watching the movie I feel like I remember him saying that his partner's name was Gilbert, while the screenplay I'm cutting and pasting from says his name is Gene. I'm not gonna rely on my memory because I wasn't specifically paying attention for his name. UPDATE: He definitely says Gilbert in the movie, so I changed the quote.

Anyhow, the point is that why does the Dude's team have 3 guys? I can't say this with 100% certainty, but during the movie I don't actually recall the Dude ever bowling, while Donnie and Walter were definitely bowling at one time or another. My contention is that the Dude is just the scorekeeper or something. Maybe he's Donnie's understudy in case of an unfortunate heart attack during league play.

The second thing I've often wondered is this. Do you think Brandt was in on the scheme to steal the million dollars or was it just Lebowski (the other Jeffrey Lebowski, the millionaire) who was gonna keep the money for himself? I don't know if there's really one way to definitively determine this, and ultimately it doesn't really hint at it at all. Given that it's never even mentioned at all and the fact that Brandt seems to really admire Lebowski in a childlike way, it's unlikely. But still it's something I've wondered.

The third thing, and I guess this is sort of arbitrary and doesn't really have an answer, but why does Walter hate Donnie so much? I understand that that's what makes it so funny, but after having watched this movie about a million times by now, I've moved to just analyzing strange things about it. Donnie generally asks legitemate questions, with a couple exceptions ("I don't neet sympathy, Walter. I need my fucking Johnson." "What do you need that for, Dude?"). Maybe Walter is just used to him asking more stupid questions than most people so he's just fed up with him at this point. Who knows? Any reaasonable explanations? Also I'm confident in the possibility that Walter hates Donnie vehemently and only hangs out with him because he makes their bowling team better.

Can't Make This Shit Up

A couple weeks ago:
Student: "So mista, was Shakespeare's time back when they had, like, castles and dragons and everything?"
Me: "You mean like everyone was walking their pet dragons around?"
Student: "Yeah."
Me: "Ah, no, that's more medieval times, which was like 0 - 1300. Shakespeare was in the 1600s."
Student: "Zero, no way. That was like cavemen and stuff."
Me: [pause] "Good luck on that Global History Regents exam."
Student: "Huh? I already passed that."


Today (Not sure what's up with the Shakespeare theme):
Student: "Mista, we're reading MacBeth. That shit is mad boring. Did you ever read MacBeth?"
Me: "Yeah, I read it in middle school."
Student: "Middle school (eyes wide)? Damn, that book must be old."


Also today (no Shakespeare here, but still worth it):
Student 1: "Shit, I'm hungry. I'm gonna go get a Pepsi with my benefit card." (the fact that the Pepsi was going to constitute her lunch is not really germane to the story, but is an interesting side note.)
Student 2: "Yo, that benefit card is the shit. I used to be embarrassed to use it, but now I just roll in like, 'What!', swipe."
Student 3: "For real, it's hot. You got a benefit card, mista?"
Me: "What are you even talking about?"
Student 1: "Son, you get a benefit card, then you go to the grocery and just swipe it and you don't got to give any money."
Student 2: "Yeah, but you can't O.D. on it. You gotta get food. You can't go to the grocery and get like plates and shit."
Me: "Where do you get it from?"
Student 2: "From the government."
Student 3: "You should get one mista. All hispanic people have them."
Me: "I don't think it has anything to do with being hispanic."
Student 3: "All the hispanic people I know have them."
Me: "So, is there a limit or can you get as much food as you want?"
Student 2: "No, there's a limit, but you don't ever really reach it. I think it's like 600."
Me: "Can you roll over the money?"
Student 1: "I think you can. Also if you want to you can get cash with it."
Student 2: "Word, we get the food and then my mom gets the 100 cash."
Me: "So, everyone in your family has a card to use whenver they want?"
Student 2: "No, it has my mom's picture on it. But I can just go and use it."
Student 1: "Yeah, my mom's picture is on mine. But she didn't like the picture she had on it so she went and got another one."
Me: "Your mom didn't like the picture on her benefit card so she went and got a new one?"
Student 1: "Yeah."

The BCS And The Cop Out Hall Of Fame

Tonight at 8pm Boise State will take on TCU in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. This is the biggest cop out in the history of the NCAA (I hope that was an appropriate level of obligatory internet hyperbole). All season the argument was whether or not the mid-major teams deserved their high rankings. These two teams were at the center of the discussion as to whether or not either of them deserved to be in the top 10 based on the fact that they didn't play in a conference with an automatic BCS bowl bid and the competition in their respective leagues was supposedly inferior. Boise State is the Western Athletic Conference (the WAC, best conference name) and TCU is in the Mountain West Conference. There were other teams in these conferences, the Mountain West in particular with ranked teams who took shit all year about being ranked too high. BYU and Utah were both ranked relatively high for the whole season.

The whole argument was based on the fact that the competition in these leagues in inferior, whereas these conferences argue that they also have good records outside their divisions and that their bowl records are all very good. The latter argument was borne out this year when BYU smoked Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl (gotta love the irony of BYU playing in the Vegas Bowl) and also when Utah beat Cal in the Poinsettia Bowl. Similarly, Air Force (Mountain West) beat Houston in the Armed Forces Bowl and Wyoming (Mountain West) beat Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl.

So the mid-major conferences, the Mountain West in particular had a hell of a bowl season. Boise State has been wreaking havoc on bowl day for the past several years. This year the NCAA had a chance to really let these mid-majors prove themselves in some real BCS bowls and instead they take the two mid-majors who rpresent the best of what they ahve to offer and pit them against each other. This will prove absolutely nothing. One of them will win, the other will lose and in the end we won't be able to argue either way about whether they were ranked too highly or not.

Given that Ohio State and Oregon were locked into the Rose Bowl, the NCAA should have let TCU play Florida and Boise State play Cincinnati. That way when TCU would have gotten smoked by Florida (just like Cincinnati did) and Boise State would have probably beaten Cincinnati it would have been a good argument that the mid-majors were essentially as good as all the other conferences except for the SEC which is far and away the best conference (incidentally, Alabama is going to destroy Texas in the national championship game, thus proving that Florida is the clear #2 team in the country).

For the record the Big 10, which currently has 11 teams, and is soon going to have 12, is the most overrated conference. Ohio State is the only good team in that conference and they have consistently been destroyed in national championship games by teams from the SEC in the recent past. The Big Ten desperately needs to have a conference championship game, and the only reason they don't is because of the Ohio State / Michigan game. The people with the money want that to be the last game of the season every year, instead of just having a real championship like every other conference does. Big Ten = Wack. And not good like the WAC conference, but bad like in wiggety wiggety wiggety wack.

Also clearly they should just have a playoff system to determine the national championship. Notice how no one is arguing this year about who should play in the national championship game after the Alabama / Florida SEC championship game. If they would just have the top 4 teams they could determine a national champion in the span of 2 rounds totalling 3 games. If they had done that this year, they would have given TCU a chance to simply prove themselves in the playoff against Alabama, Texas, and Cincinnati.

Fuck You, The Giants

Fuck you, Osi Umenyiora, you non-sack having, non-run play playing.........You know what? Much like the 2009 Giants and this season, I just don't have the heart to finish this post with any fervor.

You guys remember that time the Giants won the Super Bowl? That was awesome.