The Top 5. Volume 13.

I clicked on a link the other day that insinuated that Parks & Recreation, one of the funniest shows on TV right now, was going to be cancelled before next season. The article turned out not to have a shred of truth to it, but it didn't stop me from wildly overreacting for about 15 minutes until I found the truth. However, it did get me thinking about my top five favorite TV shows that were cancelled too soon.

Clarifications: I'm not including either Freaks and Geeks or Arrested Development on this list, which would probably be most people's top two. Everyone who has watched even 30 seconds of Arrested Development knows that it was cancelled too soon (especially if that 30 seconds was within the episode with Gob's expensive suit) so let's all just agree it goes in the #1 spot and be done with that. And Freaks and Geeks....I never watched it when it was new on TV, but I've watched most of the first season over the last couple weeks....to be honest, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Despite Judd Apatow, Jason Segel, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Martin Starr, etc. etc. being involved, I give it a 6 out of 10. Maybe it was funnier in 1999?

I would also listen to arguments for Saved by the Bell: The College Years, because I never thought that show got a fair shot. But maybe I'm only saying that because I've only seen those episodes like five times each, as opposed to the 25 times each I've seen the rest of them, and that's why I remember it fondly, as they're relatively fresh, compared to the rest of that series. Anyways, the top 5:



5. Ed. Despite this being my favorite show of all time, I can't put it any higher than number 5. While I would have obviously loved for it to continue forever.....for the most part, it had a story to tell, and it told it. Ed finally bagged Carol Vescey (who continues to get hotter with every year that goes by. I used to think that she had peaked during Ed, but have you seen her in Modern Family? I mean, shit.) After that, the show lost some of its luster, and was dangerously close to jumping the shark. So it gets a token spot on the list, but that's all I can do.




4. Twin Peaks. I am a monstrous David Lynch fan. Mulholland Drive is one of my all-time favorite movies. That movie fucked my mind for weeks on end. Twin Peaks should have been his masterpiece, but of course the network got involved, and it came to a screeching halt after two seasons. While the ending was pretty cool, I guarantee Lynch could've kept the party going for a lot longer. The Red Room scene with the backwards-talking man (later parodied by The Simpsons during the Who Shot Mr. Burns? episode) is one of my favorite "What the fuck just happened?" scenes ever.




3. Love Monkey. Never in my life have I been more excited for the debut of a show than for this one. Tom Cavanagh (the title character from the aforementioned Ed) and Jason Priestley (the irreplaceable Brandon Walsh from Beverly Hills 90210) together in one show! The top two in my list all of all-time favorite TV characters!--although that list would be completely re-done if I made it today. Corey Mathews has no place in the top 5, and having Brandon over Zack Morris is inexusable, borderline sacriligious. However, Love Monkey only lasted THREE FUCKING EPISODES, CBS pulled the plug, and I never trusted TV again (hence my overreaction to Parks & Rec potentially being shut down.) In fact, that was the breaking point for me and TV. Ever since then, I'm not heartbroken if I don't watch a show live every week. I'll wait a year, buy the DVD's, and watch them like that. Too many shows get cancelled without warning, and my heart can't take it. The one silver lining: my friendship with Alfonso blossomed like a beautiful flower during the six week run of Love Monkey (VH1 later re-broadcast three more filmed-but-not-aired episodes) as we gathered with our girlfriends at the time to watch the show. So we've got that going for us....which is nice.




2. Sifl & Olly. The greatest show starring sock puppets of all time. So, so stupid....yet so, so hilarious. The scenes with Precious Roy still make me giggle to the point of tears. I have some serious-ass laughter problems. Whatever, I don't really know how to describe this show. Either you're going to love it, or you're going to think it's one of the stupidest shows of all time. I belong to the first group. For those of you who really enjoy some Precious Roy (Lane, Schne, Kos at the very least) I found this clip- seven minutes of pure Precious. Enjoy. You kids better pay for that lap dance! The people at the bank call me Marty!




1. Clone High. I watched this show fairly often when it was new in 2002, and admittedly, I was mildly unimpressed. In truth, the only thing I remembered from it through the years was this scene, which I was looking for a couple months ago on youtube. After I found it, I started watching a few other clips, one thing led to another, and I ended up re-watching the entire series on youtube over the span of a few months. And it was tremendous. Very cleverly written, and I LOL'd (laughed out loud, to the layman) at least twice every episode. I didn't remember it being that awesome at all originally, and now I'm retroactively pissed off that it got the axe so soon. But yet we're going on Season One Million of The Real World. Damn MTV communists.

Mom, Jimmy Brooks, Johnny Damon

>> A couple weeks ago, my Mom became the last person on Earth to finally get a cell phone. She (obviously) does a pretty good job of resisting new technology, and when I was younger, she attacked video games like Tipper Gore attacked inappropriate music lyrics**. So it's been extremely entertaining lately to picture her face after I send her texts like "U R ez to luv! :)"

Not surprisingly, I've been getting a lot of responses that are just a question mark.

**Really the only reason we didn't get along so well when I was growing up. Now that I'm long moved out of the house, and she doesn't personally see how much time I waste creating players and simulating Tecmo Super Bowl seasons, or doing Super MarioKart time trials, or beating Streets of Rage for the millionth time, our relationship is pretty good. My favorite fight of ours ever ended with her calling the Nintendo 64 an 'idiot box', me screaming "Don't EVER talk about N64 that way!" and then getting out of the car and slamming the door in her face, as Bergman tried not to bust out laughing. Thanks for the ride to school, MOM.

>> I refuse to admit that hip-hop artist Drake is any good. (Besides the fact that, as I've mentioned a bunch of times before, I think all mainstream hip-hop sucks these days. Remember when MTV featured Tupac, Dre, Biggie, Snoop, etc.? Now two of those four are (allegedly) dead, Dre has been "in the process of releasing" his latest CD since 2004, and Snoop is rapping in Katy Perry songs. Tupac would be spinning in his grave if he hadn't faked his death.) So putting all that aside, I just cannot take Drake seriously. Why? Because I know him from the cheesy Canadian version of Saved by the Bell-- Degrassi: The Next Generation. (For the sake of the discussion, we're going to ignore the fact that I regularly watch such a nerdy show, as it might hurt my credibility when claiming that Drake is the real nerd.)

Are there other examples from older generations? For example, I am juuuust a little too young for Mark Wahlberg's stint as Marky Mark to have affected me. I wasn't aware enough yet to realize how brutal he and his Funky Bunch were, and so his subsequent career as an actor is untarnished in my mind. But for someone like ten years older, do they think Mark Wahlberg the actor is a joke? Do our grandparents think Ronald Reagan was a ridiculous president? (That will be another hilarious example, years from now, when a whole generation of kids think of Arnold as the Governor of California, not the Terminator.) Are there other older examples? Anyways, for me, Drake will never be a great rapper, no matter how big he gets....he'll just be Jimmy, the kid who spent most of high school in a wheelchair after he was the victim in a school shooting at Degrassi.





>> Johnny Damon....wow. Just the possibility of him coming back to the Sox has me floored. I have always held a huge grudge on Damon for leaving (although I still inexplicably love Manny with all my heart) and part of me still boos the shit out of him every time he comes to the plate.....but I don't know, it would be nice to welcome him back and make some new memories, so I don't have to watch Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS every three weeks to make myself feel good again. Stay tuned, I guess.

When Keepin' It Real Goes Wrong

The other day at the golf course, as we walked up to the tee box, a large butterfly started following me around, flying around my face and generally just gettin' all up in my shit. It literally swarmed me the entire time as I was awaiting my turn to hit. As I stood over my ball to tee off, this butterfly was still fucking with me, and it's been like three minutes straight, so by now everyone in my group is giggling a little bit. I should've backed off the shot, but I figured I could just ignore it. Wrong. Right during my backswing, it flies directly in front of my eyes, and since I'm not Tiger Woods and don't have the strength/muscle control to pull off this little move, I flinch, finish my swing, and hit my drive something like 75 yards straight and 200 yards left. Butterfly 1, Jum 0.

I didn't care too much about my score anymore (it was like my 25th hole of the day, and the axles were rattling a little bit on my second round) so as everyone is now falling over laughing, I unleash a torrent of curse words (Hey! Also like Tiger!) and pretend chase the butterfly around with my driver.

And here, family, friends and well-wishers, is where I take the joke too far. I swing my club at it (missing it completely, don't worry animal lovers) and my driver hits the ground, handle end first. The impact cracks the shaft, somehow down at the opposite end by the driver head. Replacement shaft: $86, plus shipping. Butterfly 2, Jum 0.

On the plus side, I have picked up a few new nicknames: 'Butterfly'- a little obvious and a little unimaginative, but it still stings when they say it; 'Tramp Stamp'- since a lot of girls get butterfly tattoos on their lower backs; and 'Muhammad Ali'- float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.....get it? I've been hearing quite a lot of "Grab that net and catch that beautiful butterfly!" lately, and also, when I walked into the shop the other day, I was greeted with this song, which I hadn't heard since like 2002....and it still sucks just as bad now as it did then. Probably more.

**********

Completely unrelated: when I was looking on youtube for Tiger stopping his swing, there was a video where some old lady smokes a bird with her tee shot. Clicking on that opened up a Pandora's Box of videos of animals getting destroyed by cars, motorcycles, rabid dogs, etc. etc. And before I knew what had happened, 40 minutes had gone by and my lunch break was pretty much done. When you get right down to it, I don't know if anything in the world is funnier than an up close view of a deer getting splattered into a million pieces by a cop car. Call me cruel if you must.

Happy Friday and all that stuff. Don't wear a C, and J all over your B's.

T-t-t-talkin 'Bout My G-g-g-generation

Our generation is growing generally douchier by the year. Can you imagine bouncing your grandkid on your knee and telling him about your life? Here's three scenarios where our grandparents earn infinitely more respect than we will......

1. Love & romance/"how I met your mother" stories:

2010 example: Well, your grandmother and I grew up next door to each other. Our houses were the only farmsteads for miles in any direction, and so we spent almost every minute of our childhood together. We had our first kiss at age 14, and eight months later we were married. We dropped out of high school to start up the family business, and we haven't spent a night apart in 58 years now.

2060 example: So, we're at this dance club one night. I see this girl wearing a REALLY low-cut shirt- your grandmom had a fantastic rack back in the day- and I just had to grind on her for a little bit. After I bought her a bunch of jag bombs and we made out on the dance floor, we started talking, and she was super annoying. Dumb as a box of rocks. Plus, by this time, I really wanted to bang her friend (who I later found out was actually her sister- and also, that I HAD already banged her, at some party a few years earlier, but really, I'm supposed to remember every single girl I've ever smashed?) So after hitting the Taco Bell drive thru, I end up taking her back to my place, cause fuck it, you know? She was the best available that night, plus I get really horny after I eat a couple of Crunchwrap Supremes. Don't ask me why. We did it a few times, she left in the morning, and I gave her a fake phone number. She actually got my email address from the school directory to get in contact with me (turns out she had a pregnancy scare and she wanted me to know it was possibly mine) but it turned out to be a false alarm. We bumped into each other a couple of months later at a frat party, and we banged a few more times over the next couple of weeks. Soon after, she got thrown out of her apartment for not paying rent, so I let her crash at my place for awhile. One thing led to another, and the rest, as they say, is history. Speaking of, have you talked to your Grandmom lately? Is she still dating that aerobics instructor, Brad or whatever? That guy is such a douche. Man, that divorce killed me financially, I'm still paying out the nose for that.


2. Social media/"whatever happened to that person?" stories?

2010 example: Rose McDonald? My, my.....now that's a name I haven't heard for a long time. We were pretty hot and heavy for a while there, then I got shipped off to Normandy to fight those damn dirty Nazis. She saw me off that day, promised me she'd wait for me as long as it took. She stood on the pier and waved goodbye to me....and that was the last I ever saw of her. She sent me a Dear John letter about three weeks later, and I haven't spoken to her in 67 years now. Rose McDonald....I hope she's doing well.

2060 example: Tiffany Kelly? Yeah we used to be friends with benefits just after college. What is she doing now? Well, let's see......she spent some time in the Florida Keys this summer, I was creeping on some of her pictures on Facebook of her with her grandchildren on summer vacation....damn, she's aged horribly. And according to her twitter, she is "sitting on the porch, enjoying a nice cold iced tea." Sooooo yeah, that's what she's up to, at least as of 18 minutes ago. I'm pretty sure she sent me a booty text a couple weeks ago, but I deleted her number, so I'm not positive it was her. It definitely resembled her style of booty texting though. Spelling and grammar mistakes fucking everywhere. Tiffany Kelly....god she loved to put out.


3. Music/"what did you listen to when you were young?" stories

2010 example: I still remember when my dad, your great-grandfather, brought home our first radio. The whole family gathered around in the living room and listened. At first you could hardly believe that there were voices coming out of that magic box, but soon we grew accustomed to it, and I spent hours sitting in front of the radio, just listening. Duke Ellington, Bing Crosby, Dizzie Gillespie....they were all there. You could actually feel the birth of the music scene, almost literally overnight. It was just an exciting time to be alive.

2030 example: My friends and I were living out of a van in 1969, just kinda hanging out and following The Grateful Dead around the country as they toured, and yeah, there was a fair amount of drugs involved- that was the era, you know. Anyway, we heard about this new concert called 'Woodstock'; we didn't know much about it, but we figured hell, we don't have anything else to do this month- let's drive to New York. So we went, and it turned out to be the greatest three days of my life. Janis Joplin, The Who, CCR, Hendrix.....they were all there. You could actually feel the music scene change, almost literally overnight. It was just an exciting time to be alive.

2060 example: Did you know that MTV used to actually play music videos? Yep, 'MTV' actually stands for Music Television. Bet you didn't know that, huh? This guy named Carson Daly had this show, we used to race home from school every day to watch it. People from all over the country would vote on what videos they wanted to see, and Carson would play them for us! Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit, NSYNC....they were all there. You could actually feel the music scene change, almost literally overnight. It was just an exciting time to be alive.

***************

Although, by 2060, our grandkids will probably be booting black tar heroin and having unprotected sex by 4th grade, so this might not turn out to be such a big deal.

Nothing Like A Little Technotronic On A Wednesday

If you all would be so kind, I need a little help settling a bet. A few of the golf course guys and I got into a ridiculous argument the other day, as we are wont to do while golfing/working in the pro shop. While the vast majority of these friendly discussions deal with either sports or movies, this one was music-related. The question: which Technotronic song is better, 'Pump Up the Jam' or 'Move This'?

I've always been partial to 'Pump Up the Jam' myself. Freshman year in the dorms, I used to wake Paul up some mornings by peeling back his home-made bed curtain and dancing to this song; often times he would enthusiastically bounce out of bed and join me. It was all very erotic and sexually confusing. However, the days of wake-up call dance sessions ended violently when, while trying to emulate Christopher Walken in the 'Weapon of Choice' video, I tried to jump on a chair and gracefully tilt it to the ground, and instead face-planted into the floor and nearly kicked the chair into my laptop. (Side note: Paul only had to have a curtain around his bed because I refused to turn off the lights or keep my music quiet until midnight, as back then I steadfastly believed that going to bed before midnight was "like quitting on a day before it was over." So I was kind of a dick. Then again, Paul passed out in the shower and flooded the entire wing; projectile vomited across the entire room; and brought The Most Annoying Girl on the Planet back to our room and made out with her for like seven hours while we played video games five feet away from them....so we'll call it even.)

Just for the record, I don't dislike 'Move This' or anything- nay, I think it's a fantastic song to get down to- I just think 'Pump Up the Jam' is better. It's kind of a Billy Madison, "I disagree. Mortal Kombat is a very good game, but Donkey Kong is better" situation.

So please give me your vote. And don't say "Neither. Technotronic sucks." To paraphrase Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers, you and I both know that Technotronic is a phenomenal group. Now I know you're lying through your teeth.

Goddammit, Charlie

Wanna know how I've been ending all my conversations (with friends, for reasons that will become obvious) lately?





This makes me laugh wayyyy harder than it should, probably because we went through a huge phase in high school (like most ridiculous things in high school, I believe it was started by Haley) where we used initials in stupid phrases like this all the time. Stuff like "R me in the B" (rape me in the butt), "go have S with your M" (go have sex with your mother), "F yourself in the D.H." (fuck yourself in the dickhole), etc. etc. In fact, to this day, Lane still ends every phone conversation with me by saying "G.P.O.Y.P." (go poop on your penis, to the layman.)

But we never came up with anything as awesome as "don't wear a C, and J all over your B's." Only Charlie could drop one that hilarious.

The Office has been my official favorite show for the last four years, but this is the closest that any other show has come to challenging for that title. And from what I've heard about the last season of The Office, compared to last season of It's Always Sunny, I think we might have a new champion once I buy last season's DVDs and get caught up next month.

Shit No, Man. I Believe You Get Your Ass Kicked Saying Something Like That, Man.

Exchange between random girl and I from this weekend:

Her: So what do you do?

Me: I'm in construction.

Her: Really? You are? You're not very big....aren't construction workers usually pretty strong?

Me, ignoring this insult because I'm so excited for this line: I gotta wake my ass up at 6 a.m. every day this week and drag myself up to Overland Park. Yeah, I'm doing the drywall up there at the new McDonald's.

~five seconds of confused silence~

Her: Seriously, your hands are like completely smooth.


It would be nice if sometimes when I'm wingmanning, the girl was actually fun to talk to....but then I guess if she was, then that would probably be the girl that my buddy was actually going for. Although she did give me a pretty good zinger by calling me out on not having any muscles- so maybe I'm the idiot, since I'm ready to write her off because she didn't get a somewhat obscure Office Space reference. Either way, really.

Under Pressure (Of The Peer Variety)

It is well documented that I have trouble saying no to plans. I am pretty easily peer pressured into doing things, and I hate disappointing people, even if it's about the last thing I want to be doing at that moment. It was easier the first couple years I lived in Lawrence, as my friend group was considerably smaller than it was during college in Grand Forks. I had plenty of nights with nothing going on, so I was ready to rock when shenanigans presented themselves to me. But now I'm kinda at a point again where I have a bunch of different friend groups (not trying to toot my own horn here, just bein' real witch'ya) so there's always something going on, and once again I'm constantly on the go. However, as opposed to my college days, I'm older and more of a pussy now, so there are plenty of instances where I'd much rather sit around and watch seven hours' worth of It's Always Sunny episodes rather than belly up to a bar at 2 pm on a Sunday afternoon. So since I struggle to say no verbally, I end up flushing a lot of phone calls.

And because my friends are assholes, me refusing to answer my phone on Sunday leads to them ordering up a bouquet of 'Get Well Soon' balloons and having them delivered to my office, since I must be really sick if I'm unable to return any phone calls from a Sunday Funday. And now everyone in my office has been laughing at the story all day long; I had to tell the backstory to about 12 different employees (with good reason; it is pretty funny. I get jokes.)

And I came across a realization: part of the reason I can't say no to anything is because my friends make it so hard to say no. For most people, refusing plans goes something like this:

"Hey, we're going to grab some beers after golf today- you in?"
"Nahhh, it sounds like fun, but I'm pretty hungover, I'll probably just chill out tonight, take care of some stuff at home, I'll get at you guys tomorrow though."
"Aight man, sounds good. I mean, you did have like 19 beers and smoked three cigars last night- you probably are feeling pretty rough. Have a good night dude."

But for me, it goes more like this:

"Hello?"
"Jimmaaaayyyyyyyy! We're at Raffy's. Get over here now. WE. NEED. THIS!!"
"Shit dude, I'm so hung today it's stupid. Plus I have to work at the course tomorrow morning....count me out."
~muffled noises, intelligible screaming in the background~ "What?!?! You pussy!! Just get over here, we need your jukebox skills! ~someone whispers something in the background~ Yeah, yeah, some chick just asked us if Adam Banks was making an appearance tonight. She's not real cute, but like that matters for you. So get over here, you homo!"
"Guys, seriously. I drank enough to kill a small Guatemalan family last night- and the last time I saw you, it was 4 am and you were getting a phone number from that one-legged girl with vomit on her shirt! How are you even out boozing right now?"
"Hey bro, sorry for partying! Just get over here in the next 20 minutes. Puss." ~click~

20 minutes later....

"Yeah. What do you guys want."
"Jimmaaayyyyyyy! Where you at dude? We're starting to get a little worried about you, it's not that long of a drive!"
"Yeah. I told you guys I'm staying in tonight."
~yelling in background about how much of a pussy I am~ "Banks, I don't think you understand. We need you here. So sack up, take the dick out of your ass, and get down to Raffy's. WE. NEED. THIS." ~someone in background: Adam Baaaaaaaanks! ~click~

20 minutes later the phone rings again. This time I flush the call. And then I get like 12 texties in the next seven minutes, all calling me different variations of the word 'vagina' before either a) they give up, or b) I cave and go meet them.

And this is why I end up saying yes to so many things. Partly because I'm easily influenced; and partly because I don't want to deal with the repercussions of saying no.

(Also, I've been driving around all week with a 'Barbershop Honor Society' license plate frame on my back license plate, after my buddies screwed it on since they know that I am currently sans toolbox, and thus can't take it off.)

In conclusion: my friends are dicks. Happy Friday.

What In The World Is In That Bag, What You Got In That Bag?

>> Does anybody remember the show Parker Lewis Can't Lose? I've been youtubing episodes on my lunch break the last few days, and it is still awesome. But it's a little bit creepy, since I literally haven't seen an episode since it went off the air in 1993 (c'mon, let's get some re-runs on the air! TBS, I'm looking in your direction) so the deja vu that sets in while I'm watching it is really tripping my balls off.


>> Some good Icings from the last week or so:

During softball, Jud hit a walk-off (inside-the-park) homer, and as we piled onto the field to celebrate, we presented him with a "Walk-off Ice, bro!" In a shocking display of immaturity (especially coming from someone who hands out Ices like adults hand out candy on Halloween) Jud threw the bottle about 20 yards and it shattered on the ground. So then we made him drink two, and really, he's lucky it wasn't more than that. Remember, kids: it's a gentlemen's game.

That same day at softball, Lane iced our umpire by telling him to check out the printed-on signature in the palm of his glove, when there was an Ice tucked inside. As we yelled "Ohhh shit, Rawlings Ice, bro!" the umpire chuckled, but politely declined, since his boss was watching our diamond at the time. Whoops. Sorry, bro.

Jefferson's had its annual wing-eating contest last week, and Lane (2007 and 2008 champ) was going for his third title. After eating 30 wings in five minutes and successfully reclaiming the throne after missing the contest in 2009, Lane was accepting his applause and posing for pictures when I iced him. However, later that night I got iced two seperate times (my friends love to pick on me; I've probably been iced almost as much as everyone else put together) in what we're calling the "Morgan Freeman Ice." Referencing this video, yes I'm linking to it again, it's hilarious. "Ohhhh no! Morgan Freeman, we iced you twice!"


>> To everyone who I told that the new Robert Randolph & the Family Band CD sucked, please disregard that. It was a snap judgment after only listening to it once. I've since listened to it numerous times, and while it's not the typical rollicking Big Show Bob I know and love, it definitely doesn't "suck." And it brings up an interesting phenomenon with me: every single time I listen to an album for the first time, I either dislike it, or feel indifferent towards it.

Por ejemplo, when I bought the Vampire Weekend CD a couple months ago, I rolled through it once quickly and thought "Meh. It's OK, I guess, but their first album was way better." Now I think it's my favorite album of the last five years. The weird thing is this never applies to individual songs, only entire albums. The first time I heard 'Hey Soul Sister' by Train last summer, it made me fall in love with every single woman I laid eyes on for the next three weeks. Once I heard it while sitting at stop light downtown, and I almost got out of my car to go make out with the hippie sitting on the corner selling hemp bracelets and looking like she hadn't showered since 2002. So needless to say, I can totally enjoy an individual song the first time I hear it....just not entire albums. Does this make sense? Am I just being totally weird here? Does this happen to anyone else?

Diatribe Of A Fat Kid, Or: Fooooooooooood!

Verdict on the Double Down: deeeeeeeeeelicious. Maybe it was because my expectations were slightly lowered by everyone else's disappointment with it, or maybe because INSTEAD OF BREAD IT HAS FUCKING FRIED CHICKEN, but either way, I thought it was magical.

{However, I couldn't exactly call it filling. In addition to the Double Down, I also ate a Snack Bowl (fried chicken, corn, cheese, and mashed potatoes) two Crispy Snackers, and was halfway done with my third Snacker when I suddenly got a mental image of myself and put the Snacker down and cried for about ten minutes. It was very similar to the time freshman year I was pregaming in Kos and Schne's dorm room watching them play Dr. Mario. I had a Schmidt's in one hand, a giant cookie dough log in the other, and I caught a glance of myself in their full-length mirror on the opposite wall. It was life-altering, and I've never eaten an entire cookie dough log since. However, I did continue drinking Schmidt's for another 18 months or so. What do you want from me.

Back to Wednesday: about 15 minutes later I finished off the third Snacker. It just looked too good to be sitting there uneaten. A 12 dollar order at KFC, gone just like that. Lord, I am so fat and lonely.}


My top 5 all-time favorite fast food items:

Honorable mentions: turkey grinder with taco meat from Red Pepper (before all my Grand Forks friends yell at me for not having it in the top 5, I disqualified it since I have to have a couple of cheese tostadas with it, so it doesn't stand up on its own)......Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell (but only after I've had at least 11 beers; when I'm anywhere near sober they're kinda gross).....Bootlegger with cheese at Jimmy John's.....Breakfast burrito at Qdoba.

5. The Double Down. Seems like a good spot for now. This might be a little too high, since I've been daydreaming of nothing else for the last 42 hours, but we'll see. Seriously, that sauce they put in there? So good. I'm calling it the Lebowski Rug Sauce, since it really ties the sandwich together.

4. Footlong roast beef (with lettuce, onions, pickles, salt & pepper, and one line of mayo, on white bread) from Subway. In truth, I've only eaten this sandwich like two or three times in the last three or four years. Somewhere along the line, I became a Jimmy John's guy over Subway, plus Lawrence has a ton of local sub shops that are better. But I couldn't have this list without it on here; that would be insulting to my childhood. I've eaten (and this is a conservative estimate) like 9,000 of these sandwiches in my life (OK, maybe it's not a conservative estimate, but fo' reals, I've eaten a lot of them.) My proudest moment was when I ate two footlongs in one sitting. I finished the first one, realized I was still really hungry, and went up and ordered another. I was embarrassed, so I ordered it to go and pretended like it was for someone else, then sat down and just got after it while Bergman, Schne, and Laura watched in amazement/disgust.

3. Six pack and a pound from Taco John's. Story time: something like five years ago, we had a Taco John's challenge, wherein we bought a shitload of tacos and tried to see how many we could eat in one hour. Every once else dropped out by like 9, 10, 12 tacos, but I kept going, and ended up eating 17. I ate about 11 for fun, numbers 12-13 were overkill, and 14-17 were absolute nightmares. So disgusting I can't put it into words. I spent the rest of the day mad at myself, thinking I just ruined Taco John's for me and my stomach for the rest of my life, since the thought of tacos grossed me out so much. Then, two days later, I ate a six pack and a pound for lunch. The point: I fucking love Taco John's.

2. Chili cheese wrap from Sonic. I talk about these enough; it's not necessary to go into more detail now. However, I will say that Sonic and I are feuding right now. It's not easy for me to talk about, but the last three times I've eaten there it's been decidedly mediocre. Maybe we're at the point in the relationship where I just found out Sonic doesn't like to give beejers, and she just ran into her ex at a bar and flirted with him for like 45 minutes while I was standing there, and we just need to take a little break.

1. Steak fajita burrito from Chipotle. I know I give Sonic most of the pub on the blog, but Chipotle burritos get me turned on like nothing else. I mean that in the most sexual way possible; I literally have an erection right now just thinking about them. It is less a meal than it is a religious experience. One of the most life-changing questions that has ever been asked to me was back in February 2004, when Schne and I road-tripped down to Lawrence for the first time, and his older brother asked us "Hey, have you guys ever eaten at a Chipotle before?" I went to my first KU game at Allen Fieldhouse for the first time in my life that trip, and it was probably only the second greatest moment- the greatest moment coming immediately after my first bite of a Chipotle burrito. I wish I was exaggerating.

Annnnnnd now I'm starving. Odds of me going out to eat for lunch today: high.

*************

Happy Friday and all that junk. I'll be "taking my talents" to Topeka this weekend for the Sunflower State Games. Last year, in between softball games, we boozed hard in the parking lot and listened to Jock Jams at high volumes. I was drinking vodka beers pretty aggressively, and was throwing up by the early afternoon. Just a nice little Sunday. This year, we're under a heat advisory warning (I didn't know those even existed- but I won't complain, it's better than a North Dakota winter) so that, combined with the amount of booze that our team consumes, and the over/under for team members being taken to the hospital is solidly set at 2.5. I'm not a betting man, but my money is on Lane going down first.

Seriously, I am STARVING right now.

Mo' Money Mo' Problems

I don't care if that dollar bill is photoshopped (and given the nature of the internet these days, I'm sure it is.) Real or not, that is just funny. Keep livin' the dream, Puffy.

It also reminds me of when I was 14 years old, bussing tables at Perkins, and one of my fellow busboys, one of the biggest wannabe gangstas in Grand Forks history, used to say things on payday like "Yo, like my man Puff Daddy would say- Mo' money mo' problems." Some of his other gems included "My daddy always taught me, stay low and keep firing" and "Elijah Muhammad once said (pause for effect): WE have a duty, as buspeople, to stick together. That's the only way we gonna come up." He also used to pantomime shooting a gun at our boss (who also happened to be his aunt) when she would turn her back to us, and everytime a cop car drove by with its lights on, he would either flop under a table or sprint to the kitchen, because, as he would put it, "Oh shit, they be comin' for me yo, they be comin' for me!" Also, every time a group of hot girls came in to eat, he would go into his 'pimp walk' where he would take one normal step, then drop his shoulder and literally drag his back foot behind him.....which I guess was supposed to make him look cool while he was simultaneously pushing a fucking buscart in front of him.

On the other hand, he did introduce me to the Wu-Tang Clan, and taught me cool slang like H.N.I.C. (Head Nigga in Charge).....so it's probably a wash.

Some days I miss being 14 years old more than others.

Double Down

You wonderful, glorious, ridiculous excuse for a sandwich. I have been putting you off for far too long. For reasons that are far too irrelevant. But no more, good sir. We are going to meet, very soon. And I am going to eat you. And you are going to be delicious. You have been on my mind for months, and soon you are going to be in my belly.

My mom always taught me that it's important to have goals. This week, I have only one.

Bros Icing Bros

The douche-tastic craze that has been sweeping the nation the last couple of months has finally made its way to my group of friends. And we've been douching it up appropriately.

Here are the basic rules, for the people who haven't heard of this yet (normally I'd make a "have you been living in a cave?" joke here, but a surprising number of people at softball the other night had no idea what this game was all about, so maybe it's not as big as I thought): if a bro presents another bro with a Smirnoff Ice, no matter where he is, he must immediately drop to one knee and chug the bottle. The only way to avoid drinking the Smirnoff is if the icee "blocks" it by having a Smirnoff on him, in which case the original icer must then drink two. And yes, this results in grown men walking around with Smirnoffs in their pocket, just in case one of their buddies tries to ice them. I never said this game wasn't ridiculous.

There are variations to the game that make it more interesting. While you can simply walk up to a bro and hand him a Smirnoff, the fun comes with the creativity. Hiding it in their shower, or a kitchen cabinet, or their car, only to have them randomly stumble across it during their everyday activities, that's where it stops being polite and starts being real. And apparently this game really is all over the place. I've read articles about bosses on Wall Street icing their employees, then giggling and taking pictures as their employee chugs the bottle (apparently the employee handbook's policy on drinking during work hours goes out the window when bros are icing bros.)

My only wish was that this game existed back in the Culligan Manor days. Things would've gotten out of control....well, as out of control as a bunch of dudes drinking Smirnoff can get. With the rules we had in that apartment for doing laps for every four text messages we sent/received, and the safety/stroller game, and the Katoosh game.....hell, we even had a Culligan Manor Charter that laid out every other stupid rule we had- needless to say, we would have been alllll over 'Bros icing Bros.' The shenanigans would've been endless. After a while, we probably would've just got together every morning before class, said 'fuck it', and each chugged a six-pack of Smirnoff, just to save us the trouble.

I watched some videos of bros icing bros on the interwebs, hoping to find some funny stuff, but they were mostly awful, and really reminded me how at its core, this is a really douchey game, played by mostly douchey guys. Douche douche douche. To be honest, 95% of the videos just made my soul hurt. But I did find this one, which is hilarious for two reasons: 1) I love a good movie reference, and 2) for me, getting iced is all about going over the top and yelling and making bad 'iced' puns with your bros after you ice them. This video really emphasizes that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to the liquor store to pick up a six-pack of Smirnoff. I'm gonna take a vacation day tomorrow and try and ice my mailman. That bro will never see it coming, bro!

Reasons Why It's Awesome LeBron Signed With Miami

- I officially became an NBA bandwagon-jumper a few months ago. It had slowly been happening over the last couple years, and when I purchased a pair of Oklahoma City Thunder shorts this spring, the transformation was complete (I have a strict rule of not wearing other teams' apparel besides your own, unless it's TCU at the College World Series as a joke- although now that I think about it, I have some Kansas City Royals shirts that I've received free at games that sometimes get worn as undershirts or basketball shirts- so maybe it's not that strict of a rule.) So anyway, now I just cheer for random teams that I enjoy watching (New Orleans in '08, OKC the last two years, among others) and cheer for drama, exciting matchups, and the Lakers to lose. And there will be plenty of drama coming out of South Beach now. Go ahead and pencil in a Miami-Lakers game on Christmas Day right now.

- Mario Chalmers now has the easiest point guard job in arguably the history of the NBA. His responsibilities now include 1) dribble the ball across half-court; 2) hand it off to either LeBron or D-Wade; and 3) go stand in the corner and wait for a possible kick-out that probably isn't coming. I know this isn't a real stat, but I bet this year he sets a record for least amount of time handling the ball for a starting point guard. Probably like 6-8% or so.

- Also Chalmers-related: the golf course I work at hosts his annual fundraiser golf tournament every year. Just the thought that there is even the slightest chance that LeBron or Bosh or D-Wade would make the journey to Lawrence to play in this tourney makes me squeal like a 12-year-old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. (Completely unrelated tangent: back when Good Ol' Roy still coached at KU, he used to have his tournament at our course as well, since he is BFF with the guy who runs the country club side of our 36 holes. Michael Jordan used to play in the tournament (Roy was an assistant at Carolina when MJ played there) and so, rather than pay the entry fee to get in the tournament every year, he just bought a membership. And even though he hasn't been here since like 2002, MJ is still a paying member of our golf course. Fuck it would be awesome to throw that kind of money around. What a baller. End unrelated tangent.)

- Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert's comments. Just......wow. Como se dice 'classy guy'?

- Along those lines: Cleveland is going to riot when LeBron comes to town this year. Make no mistake: they are going to FUCKING. RIOT. Like Los Angeles after the Rodney King trial riots. Within 10 minutes of the announcement last night, there were people in the streets lighting LeBron jerseys on fire. I cannot imagine the scene when Miami comes and plays there in a few months. It's gonna be like the book of Revelations. Especially with the owner of the Cavs throwing entire cans of gasoline on the fire. This is my excited face.

- Similar to how I started liking Tiger more after he became an international villain, I love LeBron even more after this spectacle, now that he's a bad guy on the level of Scarface or Razor Ramon. It just makes me laugh how angry columnists and fans got over this whole situation. It makes no sense to complain how much coverage ESPN paid toward LeBron's free agency. News flash, people who fill up my home page with Facebook status updates with nonsensical rants against ESPN: TV stations are going to spend time on what people care about. It's the same thing as Favre's will he/won't he retire every summer. If people just stopped caring, then ESPN would stop covering it. But when 100 million people go online and google search 'LeBron free agency' every day, guess what? That's what they're going to talk about. And yeah, having an hour long special to announce your decision is prima donna-esque, borderline egomaniacal. But you know what isn't? Raising 2.5 million dollars for the Boys & Girls Club by donating the proceeds from said special. Besides, it's not like people didn't want to watch that decision being made live. I know I was on the edge of my seat. Maybe I've just calmed down in the last few years once my teams started winning championships and Phil started winning majors.....but damn, listening to people idiotically rant against athletes and sports for majorly flawed reasons is hilarious to me now.

I'm gonna stop there, since I just bitched about how fans rant online about sports by....ranting online about sports fans. Like Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, I turned into the very thing I set out to destroy.

Happy Friday and go Heat! South Beach, what up!

***************

{Update: right after I posted this, I read Simmons' Twitter and he compared last night to this youtube clip, which is absolutely effing PERFECT. You can't make a better comparison than that. It's everything I now love about LeBron, Bosh, and Wade. Miami should start introducing their starting lineup with the nWo music blaring, as those three play air guitar, stroke their imaginary title belts (no homo), and trash talk into a microphone, as the crowd boos and throws shit at them. And by the way, Mario Chalmers would definitely be the Vincent of nWo in this scenario.}

Saturday Blackout Checklist

- Make the game-time decision at noon that, instead of hanging with the girls by the pool and just chilling on beers and grilling burgers all afternoon, drinking at a nice relaxed pace, you're gonna have an all-dudes afternoon bar-crawl downtown? Check.

- Skip dinner? Check. (This is telltale sign #1 for me that I'm gonna black out at some point. Whenever I'm too impatient to go sit in a restaurant, or if I say anything along the lines of "I'll go with you guys, but I'm not gonna order, I'm just gonna focus on drinking"......heads up.)

- Dance to the Footloose theme song with a Mom at Sandbar? Check.

- Spend around 35% of all conversation after 10 pm talking in a robot voice, and making robot noises while walking around the bar? Check.

- Grab your friend's boob for an unknown reason, even though her boyfriend (who you are friends with, but haven't exactly tested the boundaries of your friendship to this extent before) is only a few feet away.....and measures in at about 6'4'', 260 lbs? Check. (Also, this one has yet to be fully explained to me; the girls said they're saving the story for a special occasion. F word.)

- Spill a schooner of beer all over yourself (then attempt to clean it up while making, you guessed it, robot noises)? Check.

- After everyone asks if you need a wake-up call the next morning, since you work at the golf course at 10 am, tell them "I'm a grown-ass man, I don't need a fucking wake-up call!!!" Check. (Telltale sign #2. I'm usually a smart-ass, but when I lose that joking tone of voice, and am just straight-up being an asshole....the lights are most likely off at this point.)

- Only make it to work on time because Janelle ignored your rude comments and texted you anyway at 9:47 am, after you had apparently shut your alarm off that morning? Check and mate.

Exit The Warrior, Today's Tom Sawyeee

I'm usually good for about one concert a year, depending on how often Robert Randolph & the Family Band are in the area, and my concert for 2010 so far was Rush last night.

The concerts I attend usually fall into one of three categories:

Current bands that I would actually enjoy seeing live: basically consists of Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Vampire Weekend, and the Avett Brothers. However, EVERY single time the Avett Bros. come within a five-hour radius, I have some random event going on.....an out-of-town-wedding; 2nd-round games of March Madness; an erotic evening of eating cookie dough logs and watching DVR'd episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place. Vampire Weekend apparently hates Midwesterners; so they're out. Soooo basically I see Robert Randolph like once a year. Booyeah.

70's and 80's arena rock bands that I enjoy, but half the fun at this point is the getting bombed portion of the evening, not necessarily the music: I've seen Styx a bunch of times (if you were in my car with me from August 2000-June 2002, there was a 42% chance we were listening to Styx. If we were road-tripping to Fargo, that number skyrocketed to 93%. Their greatest hits CD lasted exactly from Grand Forks to Paul's parents' place in Fargo, almost down to the second. But I digress.) I saw Journey once and it mostly made me sad; it was shortly after Steve Perry left the band, and seeing Journey without Steve Perry is like going to Sonic and ordering a chili cheese wrap and NOT ordering a mayo cheeseburger with no tomatoes to go with it...along with a second chili cheese wrap. I saw REO Speedwagon once, and it was so terrible that honest to God, the greatest moment of the concert was when the warmup houseband, probably called Mikey J & the Fargodomers or something like that, played 'Green Onions' and the whole joint was bouncing in their seats and nodding along. (However, Paul pretty much made out with Jake's mom that night, leading to thousands of jokes and Jake calling Paul 'Dad' for the next four years....so it was basically a wash.)

Snoop Dogg: gets his own category, because I have never, and probably will never, experience a show like that again.

So last night's Rush show in Kansas City obviously falls into category #2. Scattered thoughts:

- It's amazing what the movie I Love You, Man has done for Rush. I don't want to sound snooty- I'm probably only in the 65th-70th percentile of Rush fans, there were plenty of songs last night that I was unfamiliar with- but there were hordes upon hordes of college kids who clearly only recognized like three songs, held up signs saying 'Slappa deh bess mon' and then stood around for the rest of the show. Again, I'm not trying to judge; it's the same thing that Big Daddy did for Styx, and Saving Silverman did for Neil Diamond, and Anchorman did for 'Afternoon Delight', and the 'More Cowbell' sketch did for 'Don't Fear the Reaper.' I just thought it was interesting. If I'm Foreigner or Boston right now, I'm getting Judd Apatow on the phone and begging him to have one of his characters in his next movie have a quirky obsession with my band. (Also, after the last song, and we were filing out of the outdoor arena, they played a 5-minute sketch featuring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel's characters from I Love You, Man backstage with Rush, and it was hysterical. As funny as anything in the actual movie. So there's that.)

- I frequently love to brag about my gambling prowess (just an FYI, I got $100 on LeBron going to Chicago, back when the odds were +125....last time I looked, Vegas had them at -400. I feel good about it) so it's only fair that I mention my huge embarrassing failures. We all threw $20 in the pot, and whoever's song got played first took it all. I picked 'Working Man', feeling so confident about it that I added a side bet of $5 with everyone that it would be the opener......three and a half hours later, during their third encore and final song of the night, they finally played 'Working Man.' Whoops.

- If I'm in the 65th-70th percentile of Rush fans, the guy who was sitting to my left is in the 100th. He was absolutely rocking out to every song, singing lead, singing backup, air guitar, drums, smoking copious amounts of drugs, etc. etc. Just a thrill to watch. And then the opening notes of 'Closer to the Heart' came on. And this guy had a breakdown. We're talking head in his hands, buddy consoling and hugging him, BAWLING his eyes out for the entire song. As soon as it was done, so was he. Back to rocking out again. Amazing transformation. I guess I'm telling this story because I've always joked about how certain songs can make me cry no matter where I am (the opening to 'Baba O'Riley', Vanessa Carlton's '1000 Miles', the theme song to Debbie Does Dallas) but I never meant it literally. This guy lost his shit, big time.

- Geddy Lee is without a doubt the nerdiest lead singer in rock history. Whereas someone like Robert Plant could've been an IRS auditor and he still would've had girls throwing their panties at him, Geddy talks and acts like an 8th grade social studies teacher, one of the pushovers who lets the popular girls manipulate him into canceling the pop quiz because they had a tough volleyball game the night before. His exact quote leading into intermission last night, in a grandfather-talking-to-his-six-year-old-grandson tone of voice: "OK guys, hope you're having fun! We're going to take a tiny break....well, scratch that, maybe slightly longer than tiny, because, you know, we're ancient....but we'll be back soon, so keep on having a good time!" It's a good thing he's awesome at music. Friggin' Canadians.

- Say what you will about the song 'Tom Sawyer' (Lane I'm looking in your direction) but goddamn, don't try and tell me it's not amazing live. Absolutely surreal. Possibly the greatest song I've heard live. I mean, there was the time I heard 'Gin & Juice' while smoking two joints at once and rapping every word along with some random MC Jazzy Fubu Jersey in Fargo, North Dakota.....or the time I heard 'Whole Lotta Rosie' at AC/DC and saw more boobies on the jumbotron then I had in my entire life up to that point.....but shit, 'Tom Sawyer' was ridiculously cool live.

- Five best songs from last night:

1. Tom Sawyer
2. YYZ
3. Spirit of the Radio
4. Limelight
5. Closer to the Heart

******************

Everybody have a good 4th. As Steg used to say in high school (usually just before we drank a bunch of beers and convinced his little brother to jump a Dyno off of a 75-degree ramp into Maple Lake):

"Let's keep it real while keepin' it safe."

You Go, Glen Coco!

I've seen Mean Girls a ridiculous number of times. (And I won't apologize for that, either. It's a legitimately funny movie with a ton of eye candy in it. So the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can move forward and really get into this topic. Cool?)

Around the 8th or 9th time I watched it, and I started paying attention to things other than the Lohan-McAdams-Chabert-Seyfried Murderer's Row, I started feeling a little something down in my swimsuit area for Janis (Lizzy Caplan.) She was strangely attractive, even though she was supposed to be the chunky, goth, psuedo-lesbian character (characteristics that have never really been in my typical hot girl wheelhouse.) Once I started really focusing on her, I was smitten- convinced that, similar to the bicycle-stealing lady who lived under the bridge off of the 7th hole of the old frisbee golf course in Grand Forks- there was more to her than meets the eye.

So I did a little googling and discovered that yes, Lizzy was indeed hot, and just heavily doctored up for her role in Mean Girls. I started working on my theory that she was the hottest girl in the cast (a theory that, while mostly ridiculed, picked up at least a little steam when Lindsay Lohan's Hot Bandwagon hit a moose on the interstate, rolled seven times, and exploded into a million pieces, killing dozens of bystanders in the process.)

So now, for the last couple of years, I've monitored Lizzy's career (I mean that exactly as creepy as it sounds) and occasionally will watch something she's in, just to keep re-affirming to myself that yes, she is totally hot. She was on Jimmy Kimmel a couple weeks ago, and was a totally sarcastic smart-ass the whole time, which of course melted my heart even more. Few things are hotter to me than girls being laid-back and flippant. Which is why, as amazing as Kelly Kapowski is/was, I almost like Tiffani Thiesen more as Valerie Malone in 90210.....but that's a whole 'nother post.

I dunno, I guess it's just ironic to me that, six years after I first watched that movie, the girl that I think about when I'm smearing SmashBurger sauce all over my body and trolling Craigslist for exotic animal owners in the area isn't Lindsay Lohan, or Rachel McAdams, or Lacey Chabert, or Amanda Seyfriend. Life is funny sometimes.

Play It As It Lies Or Get Off The Beach!

Mini-stories from last weekend's College World Series trip, my first successful one in three attempts:

>> You can't go to the CWS and not cheer for somebody, so in the past, we've picked a random team and half-ass supported them. But this year we upped the ante, actually purchasing TCU gear to wear all day long. We quickly learned the Horned Frog hand symbol and we were all set. Besides the fun that goes along with fanatically cheering for a team without being able to name a single player, there was the added benefit of getting free food from a TCU tailgate simply because I was decked out in their colors (and I may have told the guy that my parents were TCU grads, but I'm pretty sure he was gonna give me the sausage & peppers hoagie anyway.)


MyShawn, me, Gangel, and Addy. We were all solid competitors this weekend, but the MVP has to go to MyShawn. Worked until 11 pm Friday night, drove 6.5 hours from Grand Forks to Omaha, pulled up to Gangel's place five minutes before we left for tailgating, boozed all day on 0 hours of sleep, caught an hour long nap at the end of the afternoon, then boozed all night. (While also still being coherent enough to drop the prototypical MyShawn lines, such as "Play it as it lies or get off the beach" in reference to an Omaha girl pulling some shenanigans. I would do a top 5 list of the most random/hilarious/what the fuck does that mean? MyShawn quotes of all time, but there would be like 20 honorable mentions.)


>> We went to McDonald's for dinner after tailgating (class class class) and it was the weirdest Mickey D's I've ever seen. I don't like to drop the r-bomb, but seriously, every person in that place was retarded. One guy saw our TCU gear, looked over at his companion (wife? mom? She was too busy staring into space/not being sane to register anything anyway) and confidently stated: "Baseball." So this collection of people- you couldn't tell if they were together or not; they were all sitting at separate tables, but I'd be shocked if they weren't all at the same party somehow- are hitting us with questions about the TCU game all through our dinner. However, since we were too busy bombarding the girl who tagged along with us with questions about how she banged (Sportscenter anchorman) Steve Levy in Vegas, we didn't realize until the end of the conversation that all these 'special' people thought we were actually on the team. Which totally makes sense.

>> I'm assuming by now, everyone knows what vuvuzelas are (although I still haven't heard the same pronounciation twice, and lord knows I don't know how to say it.)

Anyway, Addy has an app for his phone that allows him to play a sampling of vuvuzelas, which led to some laughs initially. THEN, we figured out we could plug it into my car speakers and jack the volume up, and hilarity ensued. We were in separate cars in the Taco Bell drive-thru Friday night, and right as Gangel, in the car in front of us, was about to give his order, we blasted him with some full volume vuvuzelas, and he had to get out of his car and walk around because he was laughing so hard. I was still crying laughing when it was our turn to order two minutes later (which is why I panicked and got two crunchwrap supremes, instead of getting just one and then mixing in some cheesy gordita crunches. Two crunchwrap supremes back-to-back are just gross. Don't do it.) We incorporated the vuvuzelas every hour or so during tailgating the next day, always bringing the same reaction from every tailgater in a 200 yard radius: two or three seconds of confused staring at us, realization and raucous laughter for about 20 seconds, then a batch of annoyed "wrap it up, douchebags, it's not funny anymore" glares in our direction.

>> Remember last year, when I complained that buying cigars for an underaged kid should've given us good karma, and it wasn't fair that Gangel and I got thrown out so fast? Well, the Karma Gods waited an entire calendar year to pay us back....but they paid us back in a HUGE way. I won't get into a lot of detail because of the sensitive nature of the internet, but let's just say it rhymes with "schmiraculously schmavoided schmaDUI."

OK, just a little bit of detail: as we're pulled over after 17 hours of drinking, and the cops are walking up to the car, this classic exchange takes place:

Emily: "Are we gonna be OK?"
MyShawn: "We will be.....(driver's name redacted) is pretty fucked."

And just when our collective sphincters couldn't get any tighter, the cops pulled a 180, jumped back in their car, idled up next to us and told us to have a good night, and took off at 80mph with cherries flying, followed by about six or seven other cop cars within the next couple minutes. So to whomever got stabbed/shot/murdered in that exact 15-second window before the cops got to our car....I mean, that sucks, I feel bad for you.....but DAMN you saved our asses.

So similar to Lloyd Christmas trading in the Shaggin' Wagon for a moped, Omaha TOTALLY redeems itself!!! The karma has been repaid.


(Also, Erin Andrews was there. Just knowing I'm within three states of her gives me a parsh, so you can imagine what it's like when we're in the same city. Love you, boo.)

Fever Pitch

Here's the extent of my soccer knowledge:

- When a defensive player attempts to knock the ball away from the player in possession of the ball, it's called a challenge. If he's successful, you should definitely say to the TV in some sort of accent "Guuud chaaaaallaange."

- In order to beat the Nazi soccer team, your squad must only consist of Pele, Sylvester Stallone in net, Austin Powers' faaaasha, and a bunch of roster-filling random dudes. Damn I love the movie Victory.

- In FIFA '95 for Sega, if you wait for the goalie to free kick, take one of your forwards and time your jump perfectly in front of him, you can knock the ball directly into the net every time and score like 20 goals per game.

- Pele was good. Zidane was good until he head-butted someone. Beckham can "bend it." Alexei Lalas had a crazy hair/beard combo. Freddy Adu was awesome when he was 14, now he kinda sucks. I'm very sure there was an Italian in the 90's named Roberto Baggio, I'm mildly sure that he missed the net during a huge penalty kick in the '94 World Cup, and I'm 100% sure that for most of my life, I have called the garbage can 'Roberto Garbaggio' because of him.

Annnnnd that's about it.


But if you think I'm not jumping on the U.S. World Cup bandwagon and waving my flag and cheering and drinking like a regular soccer hooligan, then you be illin', son. That's what American sports are all about. If, during the Olympics, I can read 47 Facebook status updates from girls whose only idea of competition is being first in line for the new Twilight movie, then I can absolutely be a die-hard U.S. soccer fan. Starting......now.

Um, Hi.

I'm sorry that my 'presence' on the internet has been brutal lately ("Why did you put 'presence' in quotes? Are you implying that we're not here?") I could give you a list of reasons why- but rule #76, No excuses, play like a champion. If you want to see the Hottest Girl on the Planet talk about how busy she is, however, I can provide you with that.

Hey, enjoy some bullets, all of them involving me and my life in some way, because I was reminded recently that's what a blog is (I love it when friends are supportive in a passive aggressive way):

>> The move is finally all the way done (sorry, no more excuses for not posting more, I promised.) It is certainly nice to have space to move around after living in a shoebox for the last two years- although that was my goal, and it saved plenty of money for my gambling habit. My new and improved Fortress of Solitude is baller as shit; partly because the cheap furniture store here in town that I loved so much closed down, and instead of 'old, crappy, possibly piss-stained video game chair', I was forced to splurge on 'new, leather, with cupholders video game couch.' To all future visitors, we will now be playing NBA Jam and Super MarioKart in style. There has been a clamoring for pictures of the new place, so maybe someday I will throw some up.

>> Bergman and Ashley visited last weekend, our third weekend in a row of visitors (I PROMISE! No more excuses!) We, um, drank a lot. For me personally, the highlight was being locked out of our house at 2 a.m. on Friday, so the girls took a cab back downtown to get keys out of Alex's car, while us dudes ate Pizza Shuttle, sitting cross-legged in the driveway and having some dude talk. That was neat.

>> We finally received our championship shirts for Curtis J. Phillips Basketball. I already have like five of the exact same shirts (except this one says 'basketball' instead of 'softball'......our co-ed softball team is like back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back champs, dating back before I even lived in Kansas- Tom Emansky and his band of AAU teams got nothing on us) but this shirt feels different. Better, you could say. Well-deserved. The opposite of how the Yankees feel when they get their World Series rings.

>> I am literally counting down the days until I can get rid of my Doucheberry. I'm treating this two-year plan like I'm in phone prison, and I've got half my sentence left. And my only chance for parole is getting my salad tossed by el leader de los banditos (aka throwing a ton of money around for a new one without getting a new plan.) It's cool having email and internet on my phone, I guess, but a lot of things about the Berry annoy me, and this trackball can lick my balltrack.

>> Yet ANOTHER reason why college football sucks: now with all the TV money getting thrown around by the Big 10 and Pac-10, there is a very real chance that the Big 12 is folding, and KU will get stuck in the Mountain West or something shitty. Even though they are a top 5 basketball program, their football program (for the most part) sucks, which makes all the difference in this football-crazed country we call home. "Hey, we've been playing these teams in football every single year since the fucking Civil War, but who gives a shit, if we leave, we can earn an extra nine million dollars per year, that we can use to hopefully make our campus stop smelling like a goat ranch! Where do we sign!" Just one more punch in the dick to remind you that the only thing that matters in sports these days is money. Sometimes I wish it was 1989 again- and not just to hear N.W.A. in their prime.

Pictured: N.W.A. Timeframe: ummmm, slightly before their prime.



>> I will try not to go another 10 days without posting. I'm pretty sure that's my longest hiatus since I started, and this.......this felt awkward. Like a deadbeat dad showing up for high school graduation after not talking to his kid for 18 months, and hoping that the keys to his piece of shit '87 Honda Accord is going to be enough to forgive him.

(Just so we're clear, this post represents the crappy Accord. Enjoy the car, son!)