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Okay, so here’s the deal:

I haven’t written in nearly a year.  That’s bad.  I’m writing now.  That’s good!  I’m writing about Wrestlemania.  That’s bad.  This will hopefully be entertaining.  That’s good!
So I used to be a GIGANTIC professional wrestling fan.  I mean, in terms of my life’s interests when I was 16 years old, professional wrestling was probably at the top of the list, right next to masturbating, masturbating, NBA Live on the Playstation, and masturbating.
I stopped watching wrestling right when I got into college, not because of how dorky it was, but because it got super popular and it was no longer dorky to watch wrestling.  Once it went mainstream, I was out.  In fact, I remember the exact day I decided to quit:

I had floor seats to a Monday Night Raw at what was then the MCI Center in DC.  About 30 minutes into the show, some asshole behind me starting kicking my chair.  After a few minutes I turned around to see what this dickhead’s problem was, and it turned out that it was some kid I knew in high school who used to make fun of me all the time for watching wrestling.  I asked him, “What the fuck are you doing here?”  He said, “Dude, the WWF is awesome.”  I left that night and never watched again.
Anyway, the last Wrestlemania I ever watched was probably ten years ago.  I have nothing else to do tonight, so I figure I might as well watch and write about it, because why the hell not? I mean, the main event is apparently The Rock vs John Cena (who I only know of cause he’s been on Conan a handful of times).  Having said that, let’s get ready to rumble!  Oh, and in case I didn’t mention it, I will be getting nice and drunk during this, because come on, it’s pro wrestling and I’m not 12 years old.

8:00 - Shit.  What time did this start?  7?  It seems I’ve already missed an hour.  Hope nothing good happened.  Okay, so apparently Sean Michaels is still around and he’s guest reffing match between Triple H and the Undertaker.  Wow, it’s almost like it’s still 1999.  I’m sure Sean Michaels will be a fair and balanced referee.  Okay, time to pound a beer and shoot whatever liquor I can find around here.  This seems like a pretty huge match to be happening this early in the card, no?

8:07 - Shit.  The only beer in this house is Bud Lite.  Here comes the Undertaker.  This motherfucker must be at least 50 years old.  True story - he lives near Austin and his daughter went to the same pre-school as my friend’s sister’s daughter.  Apparently he’s really nice in person and this whole “Undertaker” business is all just for show.  That was an attempt at a joke.

8:10 - Shit.  I’ve missed three matches.  16 year old me is about to hang himself for missing 3 matches.  30 year old me is about to hang myself for watching Wrestlemania.  Let’s drink faster, shall we?

8:12 - The Undertaker is starting to look like a drag queen in his old age.  Oh shit, this is a Hell in the Cell match?  How is this only the fourth match on this card?  I’m actually getting excited to see what’s to come.

8:15 - Jim Ross just called the Undertaker’s “punches” as “carcinogenic.”  Alright.

8:17 - So I’m willing to bet that somehow Sean Michaels gets involved i this match, despite the fact that JR just mentioned that he needs to stay unemotional.

8:20 - You know what this match needs more of?  Golddust.  Oh wow, Undertaker just broke out the old school walking on the ropes move.  16 year old me is getting hard.  30 year old me is getting sad.

8:23 - Fun fact: the Undertaker is apparently 19-0 at Wrestlemania.  This record rivals Mickey Mantle’s hitting streak, Cal Ripken’s Games Played streak, and my current sex drought of 37 months and 8 days.
8:27 - This match has devolved to Triple H hitting Undertaker over and over with a chair.  Yawn.  Undertaker is about to lose of Old Age.

8:30 - By the way, where did all Undertaker’s hair go?

8:32 - Apparently I missed a match that involved Maria Menounos, I would have liked to have seen that.  Probably more exciting than this garbage.

8:32 - So Undertaker has some new finisher called the Hell’s Gate, which I guess is just a MMA triangle choke, but with what I’m assuming is no pressure.  How silly.  Triple H is out!  Except of course Sean Michaels can’t call the fight because he already got knocked out.  Watching MMA has really ruined wrestling for me.

8:33 - Chokeslam!  No really, Undertaker looks like he should be on an episode of Drag Race and not at Wrestlemania.  Chokeslam on the replacement ref!  Yawn.

8:34 - Sean Michaels with the superkick on Undertaker, and a near pinfall but no, this nonsense will drag on.

8:36 - Time to grab a beer, hope I don’t miss anything.

8:44  - Tombstone, the end.  Yawn.

9:02 - So there’s some 10 man tag match or something coming up, and apparently Raw has a general manager or something now.  I wonder if he’s better or worse than Ernie Grunfeld.  Maybe this can be Ernie’s next job.  The only guy I know on team 1 is The Miz, who no joke, got famous and made it to the WWE from being on the Real World.

9:04 - This match has some serious potential to be totally ridiculous just based on the names of the guys involved.   The Great Khali.   Jack Swagger.  Dolph Ziggler.  Kim Jong Il.  Okay, that last one is a dead Korean dictator, but he’d have fit right in.

9:06 - No, it’s a 12 man tag match.  UNPRECEDENTED.

9:07 - By the way, in the intermission between matches, a bunch of people were inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Given that one of them was Farouq, AKA Ron Simmons, I’m guessing the requirements aren’t very stringent.  Art Monk however, still remains on the outside looking in.  That’s a little bit of Redskins humor.

9:09 - Holy shit.  Booker T is still alive.  Look, I know it’s fake, but it’s astounding to me how some of these guys manage to do this for 15, 20, 25 years given how much abuse they put their bodies through.

9:11 - Jack Swagger just tagged in.  Seems like a good time to take a beer and a shot break.

9:14 - And back.  So, I know it sucked, but how did this match come after the Undertaker/Triple H one?  Also, there’s a midget ringside.  I guess they are up against the Game of Thrones premier.

9:17 - Some guy won total control of Monday Night Raw.  I have no idea what this means, nor do I care.  So I’ve been watching for an hour and a half and still no sign of Vince McMahon.  What the hell is going on?

9:27 - Hey, Chris Jericho is wrestling!  I used to love this guy, this is apparently a championship match, but I don’t even know what that means as there are like 8 championships now.  He’s up against some guy named CM Punk, who I’ve never heard of.  Apparently he’s like the Straight Edge Wrestler.  All the more reason to root for Jericho.

9:32 - CM Punk’s entrance music is apparently “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour.  I guess no music has been released in the last 25 years that better describes him.   Also, apparently Andy Garcia had nothing else to do tonight.  Jerry Lawler just said that everyone is either there or watching on TV, because apparently nobody told him about Game of Thrones either.

9:34 - I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sit through this.  So far I’m very underwhelmed with this Wrestlemania.

9:36 - What does the CM stand for?  He’s got large X’s on his gloves, presumably because he’s so straight edge.  This guy is so 1999.

9:40 - This show is like 3 hours in and I believe the Spanish Announcer Table is still intact.  Wrestling just isn’t what it used to be.

9:45 - I’ve completely lost interest in this match and am now looking at pictures of cats.  This one looks like Hitler!

9:50 - The longer I watch this the sadder I get when I think about how much of my life I invested in this when I was younger.  This Wrestlemania SERIOUSLY needs more Golddust.

9:55 - Jericho reversed what I guess was CM Punk’s finisher into his own finisher, I think this is like the 8th time this has happened this match.  If Punk escapes again I’m going to jump out a window.

9:56 - Opening the window.

9:56 - I find it amusing how many MMA submissions the WWE has started to incorporate.  I mean, right now CM Punk has Jericho in what looks like a modified head in arm triangle, which probably means nothing to anyone reading this, but it’s pretty interesting to me nonetheless.  This match is thankfully over.  I’m getting more and more annoyed that I missed Maria Menounos.

10:00 - Apparently there was an F-15 flyover before this garbage-fest started.  I’m glad that cost the American taxpayer approximately 8 billion dollars.  Totally worth it.

10:01 - Is Flash Funk still around?  No, it’s some other asshole apparently.  I heard Brock Lesnar was going to show up at some point, I wonder if I missed that.

10:02 - No seriously, a bunch of black chicks dressed up like old ladies are now dancing.  I’m not sure of the point of this.  Oh right, wasting time.  Where the fuck is Golddust when you need him?

10:04 - Oh so it looks like the Rock is only here to promote his new GI Joe Movie, another thing from my childhood I loved that I’d probably despise now.  When did I get so jaded?  Only one match left, the Rock vs. John Cena.  I sure hope this doesn’t last an hour.

10:06 - So far tonight, it seems like there’s been no heat between the wrestlers in any of these matches.  Has the Rock even wrestled in the last ten years?  I thought he was just a movie star now.  I mean, I guess this is supposed to be a big match, but really, this is a big deal?

10:08 - Puff Daddy just walked out, seems like another good time to take a break.

10:09 - Okay fuck this, I can’t even pretend to care anymore.  I don’t care who wins this match.  I quit.  Tonight I learned that wrestling is dead to me.

Anyone besides me watch highlights of the oil hearing today?

No? I’m the only person with nothing to do? I really need to more informed readership.

So, I’ll catch you up to speed real quick: the Senate Finance Committee gathered up five oil CEOs and fucking GRILLED THEM (except for Orrin Hatch whom I’ll get to in a minute) today about getting rid of oil subsidies for them that totals something like 4 billion dollars a year (which is both nothing compared to their profits or our gigantic debt/deficit).

It was all lots of fun as the CEOs smiled and took it as various Democrats shoved shit in their face. However, in their defense was Orrin Hatch who said that the whole thing was a big dog and pony show.

And despite any other comments he made, I did agree with this. This was one big dog and pony show. The democratic senators got to point their fingers and the CEOs got to look like the greediest people alive (to anyone watching) and what will be the outcome?

Well, let’s say the democrats “win” and they are able to get rid of these subsidies. That amounts to, again, about four billion dollars. VICTORY!

Not quite. Four billion dollars is like .000001% of our deficit. Four billion ain’t going far. It would be like if I hadn’t eaten for a month and was about to die and you gave me a reason and said “good luck, buddy.” Hey, thanks for the raisin, but I’m still going to die. Also, you’re not my buddy.

And here as usual, lies the same problem the democrats have again and again, and why I have no faith in them to wise up ever.

Rather than go through this charade, why aren’t we just imposing a windfall profits tax? There’s no need to have the conversation. Here’s how it would go: Oil companies submit their taxes. IRS looks over and says, HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU MADE HOW MUCH? TAX. I see this as the only rational solution.

Don’t want to incur a windfall profits tax? It’s easy! You could start by not gouging prices! Or, you could invest more money in research and development into alternative energy (which I’d even think about giving you a break for) and reduce your profits that way as to not incur the tax.

But no, the democrats aren’t even talking about that. Not only should they be talking about a windfall profit tax, but they should be asking for some OBSCENE amount that they don’t even want. Because that’s what the republicans do AND IT WORKS.

The democrats are starting, real, real, real small. And even with that they still have to fight tooth and nail with the republicans, many of whom even AGREE that we should end the subsidies but who would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS AGREE to some insane windfall profits tax, and especially not if it’s never even brought to the table.

And in the end, I would guess that the democrats, for once, get what they want. They’ll get that four billion dollars a year and our deficit will continue to spiral out of control. I would imagine they’re going to end up having to add it to the debt ceiling resolution, but probably only in turn for doing something like getting rid of all income taxes for millionaires or reintroducing slavery.

But no matter how it happens, or when it happens, it will be seen as a victory for the democrats, even though it’ll be little more than a symbolic gesture. Yay democracy!

I haven’t written a poem in a really long time.  I used to write a bunch of them for fun, almost all of them were published on my old website.  They were all terrible.  They are still all terrible.  That’s sort of the point, I mean, what the fuck do I know about poetry?  I know it’s stupid, and that it allows me to write lazily (that is, more lazily than normal).  And I know that Walt Whitman is a popular answer on Jeopardy in poetry categories even though I just know him as “that school where all the rich, white kids go.”  That’s a little Montgomery County, Maryland humor for you.  That’s about it.
I just logged into this for the first time in several weeks and was, for the first time in a very, very long time, inspired to write a poem.  This is called, “Dear Spammers”

Dear Spammers,
What the fuck, get off my site!
ads for viagra everywhere!
most of the comments are from you!
it’s hard to find the real ones!
i got all excited to see all the new ones,
but every single one was from you!
You assholes have really ruined my day.

Dear Spammers,
So look, I don’t get it.
Why are you even bothering to target my website?
There are like, twenty people who still bother to read this.
Did I say twenty? I meant ten.  Did I say ten?  I meant three.
it’s not like there were ever many readers.
I think you’re wasting your time.
Seriously, nobody is going to ever see your comments.
And even if they did, they’re still not going to your Nike knockoff website.
Or your viagra website.  or your dildo website.  or your gay old men porn website.
Or your midget porn website.  or your transexual porn website.

Dear Spammers,
And you know what else?
I don’t get the point.
You have to know that you’re comment has to be moderated.
Do you think I’m going to allow all this spam to get published?
What, am I a fucking moron?
Now I’m just feeling bad for YOU.

Dear Spammers,
I hope you’re being paid to do this.
What’s the other explanation?
I bet you have a quota to fill.  And if you don’t you don’t get paid.
I picture that you’re sitting in hot, dark place right now.
I bet it smells like rotting fish.
You probably don’t even speak English.
Are you paid 30 cents an hour?
You probably have to work in 18 hour shifts, with no bathroom or food breaks.
you probably have some terrible overlord boss who beats you when you don’t meet quota.
Do you live in a hut?  Do you sometimes need to eat your own children to survive?
Dear Spammers,
I do admit, I get a kick out of your sometimes trickery.
Like when you try to write a seemingly normal sounding comment,
Such as, “Wow, that was a really funny post!”
and I think, awesome, I made someone laugh.
But then I look up.
And I see that you’re just linking to grandmafuckers.com, and thought I wouldn’t notice.
And then I laugh think, “oh you tricky guys!”

Dear Spammers,
Sorry your life is so shitty.

Alright, I’m officially infuriated to the point that I’m actually writing on this blog.  I’ve been thinking about it lately, and it seems to me that the only way I’m going to continue updating this ever is to just turn the entire thing political since a) I never have anything to write about anymore (at least nothing funny) and b) I follow the disgusting state that is American politics pretty closely now.  So, onward to my ranting –

 

First of all, this whole government shutdown talk is a bunch of bullshit. 

 

You’ve got the gigantic assholes on the right who want to cut $100 billion of the federal budget (but really, only from the tiny portion that doesn’t cover social security, medicare, or defense), and then you’ve got the idiots on the left who don’t know how to negotiate.

 

First of all, $100 billion – this arbitrary number that the right wants cut, is nothing.  NOTHING.  This is such a drop in the bucket of how much fucking trouble this country is in financially.  We need to cut WAY more than this, but at the same time we also need to INCREASE our revenue stream.  The problem is that these cuts are all coming from the tiny section of the budget that makes up social services and any programs that help poor people (and those goddamn lazy minorities).

 

But these same dickbag republicans also refuse to increase taxes EVER, at any time, for any reason. 

 

Part of the reason they’re held up now is because they’re busy bickering over shit that has literally NO OR LITTLE TO NO IMPACT on the budget – republicans arguing over federal funding for planned parenthood, reducing certain environmental restrictions (cause you know, fuck the environment).  It’s all a bunch of stupid political posturing.

 

Of course, we wouldn’t be in as BIG a financial mess as we are (it would still be enormous) if these same assholes had gotten rid of the Bush tax cuts.

 

Part of the problem here, is that the democrats are the worst negotiators EVER.  This is basically how this works:

 

Republicans – WE HAVE COMPLETELY INSANE DEMANDS!

Democrats – Derrrrrr, we’ll meet you halfway.

Republicans – FUCK YOU, WE DON’T NEGOTIATE!

Democrats – Derrrrr, ok, we’ll just meet you all the way since we’re a bunch of pussies.

Republicans – FUCK YOU!  WE HAVE NEW DEMANDS AND THEY ARE EVEN WORSE!

 

The inherent problem is the democrats take the completely wrong stance.  A lot of these problems now stem from the fact that these morons extended all the tax cuts.  Why?  Who fucking knows.

 

When the democrats were busy fucking this “negotiation” up, they took the wrong stance.  Obama was like, “let’s go back to the way it was before,” with the top earners paying something like 39%.  The Republicans essentially said, “Fuck you socialist!” and then it got left at 36%.  3% is what they were arguing over, and the democrats lost.

 

See, this is where the problem lies.  The democrats, if they had any sense, would also have made a ridiculous demand.  They should have said, “Not only are we going to let the Bush tax cuts expire, we’re going to raise the top tax rate from 36% to 90%.  Fuck you.”  Is this the rate I personally think top earners should actually pay?  No, of course not, but it’s how you have to negotiate with these people.  Start at 90 and work your way down to 40.

 

While a lot of this mess we’re in now is founded in idiotic republican policies, the democrats aren’t exactly blameless here.  There are plenty of ways to cut spending and increase revenue that nobody likes.  Take social security for instance.  This is a gigantic part of our budget and a huge problem that needs to be fixed.  There are several measures that can be taken, but NOBODY in congress is going to bring them up let alone vote on them for fear of losing an election. 

 

Simple solutions to helping social security are increasing the retirement age (bummer, sorry everyone!), and getting rid of the cap on social security income (I think it’s currently at $106,000).  These are solutions that NOBODY – left OR right are willing to take.  I saw a Harry Reid interview last week, jackass, where he was basically asked about fixing social security and his reply was “I’m not talking about this now, social security is fine, ask me again in two decades.” TWO DECADES he said.

 

First of all, in two decades Harry Reid will be dead.  And second of all, in two decades, Social Security probably won’t exist.  Unbelievable.

 

Then of course there is defense spending, which is completely out of control and I can’t even begin to write about this here.  And let us not forget about EVIL OBAMACARE which is destroying this country (even though repealing it, what the right wants would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt).  I really don’t get this one.  Republicans hate health reform even though in theory, they should love it.  I mean, it essentially FORCES people to buy private health insurance and is a gigantic boon to the insurance industry (who happen to be gigantic political donors).

 

The fact of the matter is, all these dickbags are in Washington arguing over a TINY FRACTION of our outrageously out of control budget (a GIANT portion by the way is solely on debt repayment).  There are tons of ways of fixing this, that NOBODY is willing to do lest it offend their corporate donors or their (significantly less important) constituency. 

 

I’m pissed off and you should be too.

Not being a Catholic, I’m not particularly familiar with patron saints.  But I was watching Jeopardy the other day and learned something interesting – apparently Saint Jude is the patron saint of lost causes.

 

First of all, what a shitty thing to be a patron saint for.  Lost causes?  Might as well be the patron saint of FAILURE, right?

 

Second of all, doesn’t this just made Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital utterly depressing?  Apparently Saint Jude is ALSO the patron saint of hospitals, so perhaps that was what they were going for.  I don’t know though, I think Lost Causes trumps Hospitals.  And how is he the patron saint of both?  These seem to be in direct conflict with each other.

 

But all I know is this: if I was a sick kid and dying of some terrible disease, I wouldn’t want to check into a place that is basically saying I’m a lost cause.  I don’t know, seems a little pessimistic to me. 

 

This got me to thinking, if there’s a patron saint of lost causes, what else are there patron saints for?  Well, apparently a whole shitload of stuff, there are literally hundreds of patron saints for all kinds of random shit.  Seems the qualifying factors to become one aren’t especially stiff.  After scouring Wikipedia, here are some of my more favorites:

 

Saint Albinus of Angers – The Patron Saint against pirate attacks.  Not only did this guy have a sweet ass name (seriously, can I just become Jordan of Angers?), but in the 500s he supposedly used to help free hostages from pirates.  This guy would almost be obsolete if it weren’t for Somalia I suppose.

 

Saint Expeditus – The Patron Saint against procrastination.  Seriously, if you’re invoking his name to stop you from procrastinating, aren’t you still procrastinating?  He gets extra points for the name Expeditus.  Apparently he’s also the patron saint against hackers, so he’s also very 21^st century.

 

Saint Fiacre – The Patron Saint of venereal disease sufferers and hemorrhoids.  This guy got a raw deal.  He’s also the patron saint of taxi drivers.  I suppose they probably have a lot of VD?

 

Saint Hyacinth – The Patron Saint invoked for those in danger of drowning.  Here’s an idea, if you’re drowning, instead of invoking his name, why don’t you try swimming instead?

 

Saint Joseph - against doubt, against hesitation, dying people, expectant mothers, happy death, holy death, interior souls, people in doubt, people who fight Communism, pioneers, pregnant women, travelers, and fetuses.  Let’s just say that between all the fetuses and all the people fighting communism, Saint Joseph has a lot on his plate.  And what’s happy death?

 

Saint Ursicinus of Satin Ursanne – Invoked against stiff neck.  I like this because it’s not even really a big problem.  Maybe he should be the patron saint of massages.

 

Perhaps it’s time to add some new patron saints for more updated problems.  Where’s the patron saint of Facebook and Twitter?  Or the patron saint of school shootings?  Come on Catholics, let’s move to the 21^st century.

I liked this and thought it was important enough to just copy and paste it in my blog.   Found this article from Yahoo!Finance, written by Brett Arends:

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company — the A&P, to supermarket shoppers everywhere — has filed for bankruptcy, owing several billion dollars to creditors.

But it’s not the biggest bankruptcy of the past week. It’s not even in the top three. Here they are, in reverse order.

The Obama administration

Put this down as a political bankruptcy. At a time of skyrocketing deficits, the president who calls himself a Democrat capitulated to the Republicans in reaching a “compromise.” And then he lashed out at his dwindling band of supporters.

Note, please, that under the president’s original proposal, the rich already would have gotten a tax cut. Obama proposed extending the Bush-era tax cuts for incomes up to $200,000 to $250,000. This is not the same as tax cuts “for those earning up to $200,000 to $250,000,” even though that was how it was generally reported. The cuts would have applied to everyone, even those earning, say, a billion dollars a year. But they would only have applied to the first $200,000 to $250,000 of their income.

To the exciting new Republican Party, though, this wasn’t enough. They said they’d only agree to this tax cut if the president also agreed to pass further, gigantic tax cuts targeted at the richest earners, and which specifically excluded the middle class. Charles Krauthammer may call this a win by the president. But that’s surreal. Read Krauthammer’s column in The Washington Post.

Peggy Noonan nailed it: Obama has lost the center and the left. Read Noonan’s column in The Wall Street Journal.

Some in the administration will claim they had no choice. Bah. Imagine if a fighting liberal like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson had been in the White House. He would have iced the deal and said something like this: “My fellow citizens. Thanks to laws passed a decade ago, your taxes were scheduled to rise at the end of this year. I have proposed broad tax relief for everyone, from the millworker to the millionaire. But conservatives in Congress wouldn’t allow that, unless we also pass a second, even bigger tax cut just for the super-rich. That’s unjust. It’s bad economics. And at a time of skyrocketing budget deficits, irresponsible. It would mortgage our children and grandchildren’s future. No president concerned about our country’s long-term financial well-being could possibly agree to it. So now no one will get a tax cut. All of our taxes will rise at the end of this year. I can only hope this does not damage the economic recovery. I suggest you write to your local Republican congressman and thank him.”

He’d have gotten a better deal within three days.

The Republican party

File this under moral bankruptcy. This party just won control of Congress by pounding the table for months about skyrocketing budget deficits. Yet here they are pushing a deal that will send those deficits soaring. Taxes will fall, spending will rise. As Jon Stewart of the “Daily Show” put it, this is like saying you’re going to get in shape “through laziness and bacon.”

Responsible figures within the GOP now know that they are in the unenviable position of literature’s Dr. Faustus. They are prisoners of a terrible deal they struck in pursuit of power. After years of propaganda they have absolutely convinced themselves, and their supporters, that all tax increases are evil. They have also convinced themselves that increases are counter-productive as well. After all, if cutting taxes raises government revenue — which they claim — then raising taxes must reduce government revenue.

Net result: It is next to impossible to see Republicans agreeing to any tax increases unless they have to. Now that Obama has caved, they won’t have to.

Meanwhile, Republicans aren’t going to cut spending. They have no intention of doing so. That’s why they have revealed absolutely no specifics of any note.

They aren’t going to cut Social Security or Medicare spending in the foreseeable future. They know that would be political suicide. Tens of millions of baby boomers are starting to retire, and they haven’t saved anywhere near enough to survive without today’s entitlements. According to the Employee Benefits Research Institute, just one-third of workers have even saved $50,000. Good luck living on that for 30 years.

Republicans aren’t going to cut defense spending: It is the only federal spending their base loves. Indeed, they play demagogues against Obama’s “reckless defense cuts,” even though he has actually increased the Pentagon budget. Total “security” spending is well over $800 billion this year.

And they aren’t going to default on the national debt by refusing to pay interest. What’s left? Social Security, Medicare, defense and debt interest account for 62% of the budget. Everything else comes to $1.5 trillion. Air traffic control. The Food & Drug Administration. Interstate highways. The whole shebang. You’d have to cut it all by more than four-fifths to balance the budget. Four-fifths. You want to fly without air traffic control? You want to wing it on a new medicine that hasn’t been cleared by the FDA?

So, what will they cut? Oh, “waste.” We’ve been hearing this for 30 years. If they meant it, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II would have done it already. John Boehner, on “60 Minutes,” unveiled his plan to save $25 million… from Congressional pay. That’s not even a rounding error within a rounding error of federal spending. It’s nothing. Don’t think of this as the “latte factor,” where you can save big by cutting lots of small things. Even if Boehner finds a thousand such $25 million savings — a thousand! — in total they’ll add up to less than three quarters of one percent of the $3.5 trillion budget.

Meanwhile, get ready for plenty more political pork. Tax loopholes for favored interests. Extra spending for pals. That’s why special interests support parties, and the parties know it. Both parties do it, and if the Republicans want to stay in power, they will too.

The leaders of the Republican party signed off on this tax deal nonetheless. A moral bankruptcy.

Yet even this was only the No. 2 bankruptcy of the week.

The No. 1 bankruptcy?

The United States of America

Yep, that’s us. Thanks to this deal, we’re broke.

Calculations from the Congressional Budget Office say last week’s tax deal will cost the Treasury $858 billion over the next decade in lost revenues and extra spending.

But the CBO was already forecasting $6.3 trillion in deficits over that period. The latest deal will take that to $7.1 billion. And it will take the national debt to about $17 trillion — not even counting the money owed to government trust funds, such as Social Security.

Furthermore, the CBO is only counting two years of tax relief. What will happen in 2013? Do you really think the Republicans will then agree to let all the Bush tax cuts expire? Hardly. And if those cuts persist beyond 2012, the CBO warns they could add another $4 trillion or so to the debt by 2020. It’s possible the national debt would hit 100% of GDP.

We think we have more leeway than other countries, because, after all, we’re America. But at some point the reverse will be true. We will have less leeway, because our economy is so big, and the numbers involved are so gigantic.

All this extra money will have to be borrowed. Who’s going to lend it to us?

China? They’ve been our subprime lenders — our loan sharks — for a decade, while they asset-stripped our manufacturing base. But that’s done. And China has an inflation problem. Beijing needs to let the yuan rise. That means fewer dollar purchases, not more. It’s notable that, according to the U.S. Treasury, China’s direct holdings of Treasurys has actually declined in the past year (although its indirect holdings through London may have increased: No one knows).

It’s hard to see oil exporters, who already hold about $230 billion in Treasurys, buying another $858 billion, or anything like it. Booming Brazil has $176 billion, Hong Kong $136 billion, Taiwan and Russia about $130 billion each. There are only so many Treasury bonds these countries can eat. Like Monty Python’s Mr. Creosote, they are looking stuffed to the gills. Even a “wafer-thin mint” could be enough to make them explode. And nearly $900 billion is not wafer thin.

We have all lived for so long in the era of the Almighty Dollar and Pax Americana that we can’t imagine anything else. But great powers, even the greatest powers, fade and fall.

Rome, Spain, Britain. In the 19th century, people the world over trusted the British navy and the British pound. Yet in the end, it collapsed. The Spanish Empire enjoyed the mother of all windfalls when it struck gold and silver in Latin America. Yet that easy access to free money proved its undoing: It was always easier to put off hard choices and pay the difference with stolen Inca bullion.

The free ride for Treasurys may have done something similar for us.

Too many commentators continue to tell you that the U.S. economy will remain the biggest in the world for the next 20 years. It’s not true. It’s merely an illusion caused by China’s clever policy of underselling their currency. When you adjust for real exchange rates, using purchasing power parity, data from the International Monetary Fund show that China’s economy will overtake ours around 2017. It’s coming sooner than you think.

Bankruptcy happens quite quickly. Lenders suddenly start shaking their heads, and confidence vanishes. A&P’s equity was still valued at hundreds of millions of dollars as recently as a few weeks ago. Bear Stearns collapsed in a matter of days. Even countries can find that a run happens fast. Think of the Asian Tigers in the late 1990s, or Ireland just a few weeks ago.

How will the dollar fall — rapidly or slowly? Time will tell. But unless I am very much mistaken, last week’s tax deal means we know how this movie will end.

So here are some random thoughts I had last night while I was watching television:

 

There’s this Heineken commercial on now that’s been around at least a few months.  It’s this guy at a wedding and the voiceover says something about how some tigers go right for the prey (as this dude tries to hit on some hot girl at the wedding) while some tigers make the prey go to them (as this other dude asks some old lady to dance with him so the hot girl notices him).  Anyway, while it’s NOWHERE near as stupid as the Miller Lite ads I wrote about yesterday, it’s still a stupid commercial.

 

Well guess what?  Now it’s even stupider.

 

Seems someone out there got so offended that a beer commercial would objectify women as “prey” that the word has been REMOVED from the commercial and REPLACED with the word “prize.”

 

Seriously.

 

Women have been objectified in beer commercials since the dawn of time.  Well maybe not that long.  But a long time.  It’s a pretty basic advertising message: drink our beer and women will like you.  Sure, the truth of the matter is more like, ‘if you drink our beer, you’ll probably get fat and lazy and no woman with any self-respect will fuck you.’  But that wouldn’t make for a very good ad.  Sex appeal.  It’s like the most common used marketing message.  Is it stupid most of the time?  Sure.  Is it offensive?  Maybe sometimes.  In this case, only if you’re a completely uptight fucking asshole.

 

George Carlin had a bit about abortion back in the day where he says (and I’m paraphrasing), “How come all these anti-abortion women are people you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place?”

 

Well I think the same thing probably applies here.  Who exactly was so offended by this commercial that Heineken had to go change it?  Was there a mass letter writing campaign by a bunch of ugly women who don’t want to be seen as prey?  Guess what ladies?  You’re not prey.  You’re carrion.  And they don’t make commercials for you.

 

 

 

What’s up with Intervention?  The TV show that is, not the group of concerned family members waiting for me at home.  Intervention is a show that I love, though not enough to watch regularly.  It’s more of a “Well I’m sitting at home getting blackout drunk, OOH INTERVENTION IS ON!” kind of thing for me.  Hoarders is also great, but Intervention just has a way of making my day.

 

But here’s what I don’t get: Intervention has had NINE SEASONS, spanning FIVE YEARS TIME.  Every show starts the same, some drug addict (or whatever, one time I saw an episode about a “shopaholic” and PLEASE don’t let me get started on that) agrees to be filmed because they think they’re on a show about addiction.

 

Here’s where I get confused.

 

Don’t these drug addicts have television?  How do they NOT KNOW they’re on an episode of Intervention?  It’s not like this show is a state secret (although those seem to be less and less secretive these days anyway).  Look, I’ve watched a lot of Intervention.  Most of these people have nothing to do all day long except do drugs, be enabled, and watch tv.  Have none of them ever come across this show?

 

It’s like when Fox decided to do a second season of Joe Millionaire.  The big question was, “how are they going to do a second season when everyone in America knows the twist in this show?”  Well, that question answered itself because they did the second season in Europe where none of the women had any idea what Joe Millionaire was.

 

So my question is how has Intervention not had to move their show overseas?  How is it that anyone on this show is in anyway surprised when they find themselves in the middle of an intervention?  I know when you spend your day high as shit you probably aren’t paying that much attention to the things going on around you, but come on! 

 

 

 

One thing I like thinking about is just how dated movies have become.  I often find myself watching old classics like the Goonies, Point Break, or Cloak and Dagger thinking about how different these would be in this age of technology we’re living in.  Mouth probably would have spent most of that movie Twittering his adventures.

 

Anyway, the reason I bring this up now is because last night I saw Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner on tv.  I didn’t watch it and I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it.  But the idea behind the movie is about the controversy of interracial marriage (and it takes place in San Francisco no less!).  When this movie came out in 1967, interracial marriage was still ILLEGAL in 17 states!  Think about that a minute.  Interracial marriage was ILLEGAL in 35% of the country.  I’d like to think that this same thought is something I’ll think again sooner than later when it comes to same-sex marriage but again, that’s for a whole other post.

 

I was going to say something about how if they remade this movie today but then I remembered that they did.  Except it was in reverse and the person coming to dinner was Ashton Kutcher.  Ugh.

 

 

 

And my final thought for the day is that I saw a commercial for Time Warner Internet last night.  At the beginning of the commercial, this dude asks, “Does anyone remember what DSL stands for?”  I got real interested until I realized it was just a commercial for Time Warner.  You shouldn’t fool me like that.

Thanks to the invention of DVR, I find myself rarely having to watch commercials.  And thank god for that.  However, there is a period once a week where I am forced to watch incessant ads for cars, electronics stores, and of course beer.  This would be every Sunday when I watch football.

 

I do my best to ignore these commercials most of the time.  After all, I’m not in the market for a new car or television and I know what beer I like.  However, when you see them enough they’re hard to ignore and I suppose that’s the point.

 

The current series of commercials that are maddeningly awful are these stupid Miller Lite ads.  You know, the ones that feature some guy committing some social faux pas while all his friends and attractive female bartenders make fun of him.  There’s the one with the guy wearing the Speedo, the one with the guy with the tramp stamp, the one with the guy wearing the stupid dragon decal clothing and the one with the guy carrying a purse.

 

I saw a new one last night though that was so exceedingly stupid that I damn near put my fist through my television.

 

Miller Lite’s been advertising this new “vortex” bottle lately.  This new bottle apparently has grooves in it that…that do what exactly?  I guess they make the beer pour better?  I’m not sure what the point of this is, after all, your Miller Lite is still going to taste like a shitty fucking Miller Lite.  It’s like Miller Lite and Coors Lite are competing with each other for most worthless and pointless “innovation.”  Coors Lite: the mountains turn blue when the beer is cold!  Miller Lite:  we have a vortex bottle!  Here’s a suggestion: why don’t you work on making your beers not taste like pisswater? 

 

Anyway, in this latest commercial, some dude is trying to read a menu in a dark bar when the waitress comes over and asks for his order.  The “joke” in this one is that he’s wearing sunglasses in a bar, at night.  What a jackass, right?  Oh these creative types at Miller Lite’s ad agency are just fucking brilliant!

 

He orders a Miller Lite and the waitress asks him if he wants it in a vortex bottle or not.  He says something like “what’s the difference?” and she responds (rather disgustedly) something to the effect of “Duh, it’s got grooves in it.”

 

First of all, if I was that guy I’d be like, “Look bitch, I don’t like your fucking attitude.  There’s a reason I’m sitting here wearing my sunglasses in this dark bar while you’re serving me drinks.”  Second of all, where does this waitress get off on being so fucking holier than thou about a bottle with grooves in it?  She can’t even explain what makes it better except “it’s got grooves in it.”  Who fucking cares?  Does it make the beer taste any better?  Does it serve any purpose whatsoever?  It’d be a different story if she was like “well, one tastes like a dirty asshole, and the other tastes like delicious beer.  Which would you prefer?”

 

And by the way, why is this one bar stocking BOTH vortex bottles of Miller Lite and regular old fashioned bottles of Miller Lite?  If the vortex bottles are SO MUCH BETTER, wouldn’t it make sense to make that the only option available?  Why would you even ask your customers which bottle they want?  This goes double when you factor in that your disgruntled, shitty servers give them attitude when they ask what the difference is?

 

I hate these commercials.  I hate them.  Please make it stop.

The savagery that takes place at my apartment complex dumpster seems to be getting worse by the week.

 

Let me explain.

 

I live in a complex that has one large dumpster with a split lid.  It gets picked up twice a week. 

 

Using a dumpster is normally pretty easy, right?  I mean, there’s not that much to figure out.  Open lid.  Throw in trash.  Close lid.  I don’t think you need much of an education to use it. 

 

Really, as long as you’re at least three and a half feet tall and have hands, this shouldn’t be a real struggle.

 

Or at least one would think.

 

Well not where I live.

 

See, there is an epidemic of dumpster savagery that keeps happening at my complex.  A few weeks ago the following situation happened to me:

 

I went to take out my garbage.  This is something I’ve been forced to do ever since my neighbor called social services on me (I’ve also had to get rid of all the cats from my freezer).  So I get to the dumpster and see that one lid is up, one lid is down, with the one that’s up TOTALLY OVERFLOWING with garbage.  There are garbage bags everywhere.  They’re stacked up about 6 feet over the top of the dumpster, and because there is so much trash, my lovely neighbors had started just stacking the trash next to the dumpster. 

 

Here’s where I got an idea.  I opened the other lid.  And guess what?  TOTALLY EMPTY.  I mean, literally, there was nothing on the other side of the dumpster.  I could have climbed in and taken a nap had the mood struck me.

 

Seemingly, I was the first person among at least a dozen to bother opening the other lid and put my trash in there.  But why?  Was this sheer laziness or just more social savagery? 

 

Look, I’m lazy as shit.  Sometimes, I’ll just urinate in an empty glass rather than get up and walk to the bathroom.  One time I didn’t shower for 12 days because the rod that holds up my shower curtain fell down.  I’ve eaten notebook paper to avoid grocery shopping.  I’ve been wearing the same pair of boxers since the Clinton administration.  Look, I’m fucking lazy.

 

So how is it that I, in my utter laziness, did the thing that nobody else was willing to do? 

 

So it’s not laziness.  It’s savagery.  The difference between laziness and savagery, is that my laziness doesn’t affect other people.  Leaving garbage all over a common space – that’s savagery.  I too could have been a big fucking savage and said, fuck it, and also tossed my trash wherever the hell I wanted.  I too could have said “Fuck you neighbors, I don’t give a shit about you and only care about my own fucking self.”

 

But I didn’t.  Because I’m not a savage.

 

Did I pick up all the other bags and toss them in as well?  No, of course not.  Just because I’m not a savage doesn’t mean I’m going to clean up after other people.

 

While I thought that was bad enough, something even worse happened this weekend.  It was basically the same situation. But this time instead of the one side overflowing with trash, it was just ONE item keeping the one side of the dumpster overflowing while the other side remained as empty as Sarah Palin’s head.  Someone had taken a gigantic cardboard box that must have been for a 50” tv or something and put it in the dumpster, standing straight up. 

 

So, picture this:

 

Here you have this innocent dumpster who could it speak, would tell you it wants nothing more than for you to put your trash inside.  “Feed me,” it might say.  One lid is closed, shut off to the world (that is, unless you lift it open).  The other lid is wide open, propped up in fact, by a gigantic, six foot high cardboard box.  Scattered all around the dumpster: brown, black, white, green garbage bags, full of disgusting, smelly trash.  And why?  Because in an apartment complex that houses some 200 people, I’m the only one that chooses to live in an organized society?

 

Savagery.  Plain and simple. 

So after losing out last year on our bid for the Olympics, the USA followed up that debacle with losing out on the World Cup in 2022.

 

To Qatar.

 

Qatar.

 

Qatar, in case you didn’t know, is a tiny country in the middle east that is run by Islamic Law.  They also don’t recognize Israel and are political allies with Iran.  Oh, and human trafficking is also a major problem.  Qatar is also an oil rich nation full of super fancy buildings and tons and tons of money.

 

This isn’t to say the US is perfect.  Far from it.  But how did the United States lose out on the World Cup to Qatar?

 

My assumption of course is corruption, since the people who vote on this are all essentially prostitutes. 

 

This really sucks though.  I was all ready to purchase my tickets.  However, I don’t think I’ll be traveling to Qatar.

 

I mean, what the fuck.  Qatar doesn’t even have the stadiums built for the event.  They’ve promised to construct NINE stadiums before 2022.  It’s also 110 degrees in Qatar during the summers, so they’ve promised to build in air conditioning.  I’m not too sure how that works, but given the pictures of some of the buildings they’ve constructed there, I don’t doubt their ability to do it.

 

But seriously.  Qatar.  Qatar?

 

Do they even HAVE a national soccer team?  I remember playing against Qatar on the Super Nintendo in FIFA ’93.  They were really bad.

 

This sucks.

 

Are women going to be allowed into the stadiums?

 

Are they going to serve alcohol?

 

Are jews allowed?

 

Qatar. 

 

Oh well.  At the very least, I guess they won’t have the vuvuzela problem.

Over the past year, I’ve gotten really into mixed martial arts, namely the UFC, although I’ve realized that if I see anything on tv for free, I’ll probably tune in.  There are a lot of things I enjoy about the UFC, fighter nicknames not withstanding.

Look, I don’t know how some of these dudes get their nicknames and I don’t really care.  While some fighters (including some of the best) don’t have nicknames, the overwhelming majority of UFC fighters (and MMA fighters in general) have nicknames.  I guess this really is no different than boxing.

Sure, you’ve probably heard of Oscar De La Hoya referred to as The Golden Boy, or Mike Tyson as Iron Mike.  But the UFC is still a relatively new sport and a lot of their fighters are unknown or little known to anyone who doesn’t follow.  Rather than sit here and write about the cool or badass sounding nicknames, I’ve decided to compile some of the ones that I think are really, really stupid and should be replaced:

Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis

 

Davis is actually one of my favorite fighters, he’s undefeated in the UFC and I’m predicting huge things for him in the future.  The dude is built like a World War 2 tank and is full of potential.  The nickname however, is not.  Mr. Wonderful sounds like a DC comics superhero.  And not a cool one.  I picture Mr. Wonderful wearing hot pink tights and a purple cape, and fighting C-list villains that Batman is too busy for.  But maybe my perception is a bit biased since Davis actually did sport bright pink shorts in his last fight.  I found out recently that Davis took the moniker from a cat he used to own.  Enough said.

 

Joe “J-Lau” Lauzon

 

This is just lazy.  Maybe this one isn’t Lauzon’s fault but I just can’t stand any nickname that’s a combination of your first initial and last name.  See: A-Rod, K-Fed, or any other number of these stupid, lazy, awful nicknames.  Nicknames are supposed to you know, make you sound cool.

Kenny “Kenflo” Florian

 

See the above note about Joe Lauzon, except in Florian’s case, Kenflo sounds like some kind of specialty tampon.  Heavy Flo.  Light Flo.  Ken Flo.  Not good.

Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva

Silva is a bad fucking dude.  He’s won 33 professional fights and most of them have come from just pure beating the shit out of his opponent.  Have you ever seen Kickboxer?  He basically looks like a real life version of Tong Po.  Except Silva doesn’t need to dip his gloves in shards of broken glass to beat the piss out of you.  And he’s got tattoos on his fucking head.  I can respect anyone with tats on their head who aren’t currently in prison.  I watched an old fight of his from Pride in Japan where the rules were all different, and Silva ended it by repeatedly soccer kicking his opponent in the face while he was laying on the mat.  It was about as close as you could get to curb-stomping someone in a ring.  However, at no point did he grab any weapons and start chopping off limbs.  I don’t know how he got this nickname, and I don’t care.  As long as he’s beating people up with his fists, elbows, knees, and feet, he shouldn’t sound like a shitty B-movie bad guy.

Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko

 

First of all, when your real name already makes you sound like you’re running the Russian Mafia, you don’t need a nickname.  I mean, what a cool fucking name.  Just say it out loud.  It just rolls off the tongue.  Vladimir.  Matyushenko.  There’s no need for a nickname.  Second of all, should you choose to adopt a nickname, at least let it be something that doesn’t make it sound like you’re a fucking pussy carrying a mop. For the record, I also was never a fan of Karl “The Mailman” Malone.

 

Michael “The Count” Bisping

 

If your nickname is the same as a Sesame Street Character, you fail.  You don’t see a lot of guys running around calling themselves The Grouch or Cookie Monster.  Although I’m not so sure I’d want to have to fight a guy calling himself the Cookie Monster.

Ryan “Darth” Bader

 

What the fuck is this even supposed to be?  Oh, so your last name rhymes with Vader, thus Darth Bader?  I haven’t put these nicknames in any particular order but this one has got to be the most inane.  This is just out and out creativity fail.  I just hope nobody starts fighting whose last name is Blywalker.

Ben “Killa B” Saunders

 

I suppose if you were the newest member of the Wu Tang Klan, this would be acceptable. 

 

Kryszystof “The Polish Experiment” Soszynski

 

Pronounced “Krist-off So-shin-ski”.  I love this guy.  He’s covered head to toe in tattoos and looks exactly like Herc from the Wire.  Hell, I wish his nickname was The Wire.  And you gotta like anyone with that many consonants in a row.  However, what the fuck does The Polish Experiment mean?

 

Tito “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” Ortiz

 

Tito is one guy that is pretty well known outside of his accomplishments in the Octagon, mostly because he’s married to Jenna Jamison.  Tito is also one of the only dudes on this list that I seriously dislike, mostly because he’s kind of a dickbag and can no longer back up his douchery inside the cage.  He recently took a couple of shots at his last opponent, Mark Hammill, for being deaf.  He proceeded to get his ass kicked for 3 rounds.  Tito, you are no longer a bad boy, you’re a fucking has-been.

 

Keith “The Dean of Mean” Jardine

 

Look, just because shit rhymes does not make it cool.  “Mean” wasn’t even a major at the college I went to, which was too bad.  I had to settle for minoring in Cranky. 

 

I had some others but I probably lost my entire audience when I started talking about the UFC anyway.

So given the fact that my attention span these days is roughly non-existent, it’s nearly impossible for me to sit through an entire basketball game when I have no real rooting interest in anyone playing.

I’ve also long been a critic of sports commentary.  It seems that a lot of the people that do it have no qualifications other than “I used to play/coach this sport.”

Having said that, I generally like the triple threat commentating by Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson, and Mike Breen on ESPN.  Van Gundy seems to know a lot and he’s also pretty funny.

However, I was watching a game last week on ESPN (I don’t even remember who was playing anymore) and listened to an exchange that made me weep for our educational system.  It was the night before Thanksgiving and somehow the following conversation happened:

Jeff Van Gundy: And i’m gonna say this, which of the boats did you come over on?  i came over on the santa maria.
Mike Breen: (confused) Uh…the Nina?!
Jeff Van Gundy: I was tryin to see if you..you had that in your game!  The Pinta, the uh, the Nina, the Pinta the Santa Maria!
Mike Breen:  (still confused)That’s what Christopher Columbus came in on?
Mark Jackson:  (not missing a beat, unsure if he understood what was going on) We rolled with Christopher!
Jeff Van Gundy: We came with chris!
Mike Breen: (unsure if Van Gundy is this retarded on US history or if he’s for real)…the pilgrims came on the mayflower…
Jeff Van Gundy:  (not realizing the difference between Columbus and the Pilgrims) Oh, you think they all came on one boat?
Mark Jackson:  They set the tone…
Jeff Van Gundy: I didnt think you had that!  I didnt think that, no, seriously at (indescipherable) I think that, I thought they were rapping you in the head with a ruler but I didnt think they were teaching you any history!
Mike Breen:  (seriously confused) The Nina, the Pinta?
Jeff Van Gundy: AND the Santa Maria!

After that exchange, I’m still not convinced Jeff Van Gundy knew the difference between Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims.  He was just super excited he remembered the names of Columbus’ boats.

Holy god this TSA security screening shit has gotten out of control.

I wanted to write about this yesterday evening after I watched the good ol’ cable news so I could listen to their differing perspectives. However, I never got Hannity’s because instead of talking about the news of the day, his ENTIRE SHOW WAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SARAH PALIN. Seriously. I love that whenever she’s on his show he introduces her as a special guest or whatever, when in REALITY, she’s a paid FOX News Employee. But whatever. In any case, I of course could not sit through any of that so I had to wait until today to get his perspective.

So, now that I’ve developed my own opinion and listened to both the rantings and ravings of Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity and their retarded guests I figured I’d sit down and write.

Firstly, we’ve finally found something that both the far left and far right agree on! Everyone hates the new TSA procedures! Olbermann had a guy on who kept referring to the scanners as porn machines, or something like that and Hannity must have used the words “grabbing” and “breasts” like 50 times (and NOT in the good way). I don’t know what all these people’s problems are. Seriously, all these people on TV need to stop flattering themselves. You’ve got to have one twisted fetish to get off on looking at the images those scanners produce.

Look, I’m not saying there’s not someone out there who doesn’t have this fetish. In a world where they made a full length documentary about a beastiality video that resulted in the uh, main character’s death, I know there are weird, sick people out there.

But God help the person that applied for a job at the TSA just so they could look at these pictures all day long.

Personally, I don’t mind the scan if it is proven to catch terrorists and/or potential hijackers - and I distinguish between the two because sometimes a terrorist boards a plane just because he needs a vacation, they’re not always hijackers you know! But from what I’ve read, these things don’t really seem like they can prevent much of anything that we couldn’t have already prevented with the measures already in place. Not to mention that the terrorists seem to have a way of always combatting whatever we put in place anyway (see the shoe bomber and underwear bomber). If this is the case, and these things are as expensive as I’ve heard they are, then we shouldn’t be using them. Airport security has been, and always will be a joke anyway and my guess this is that this is just one more big scam to a) make someone money and b) give everyone a nice, warm, fuzzy, false sense of security.

Except the false sense of security now comes with your very free reach-around! Because if you get to the front of the line and you decide “Hey, I don’t want to risk the miniscule chance that my naked outline shows up on the internet somewhere and one of my friends happens to be searching for black and white fuzzy bodyscans and finds me and then laughs at me!” you can always choose the one trillion percent more invasive option: the aggressive patdown!

I love this rational. “Hey, fuck that bodyscan, I don’t want someone looking at me naked! I’d rather get my crotch all felt up by a stranger that looks like my Uncle Igor!” So let me get this straight. You don’t want some anonymous TSA agent to see a naked outline of you but you’d rather let them get to second base?

The one thing I do agree with both sides on this is, something here is wrong. I’m not so sure what the right would be saying if we had a republican president but that’s also another discussion. But what’s really wrong is how we’re slowly but surely giving up more and more of our rights.

We’re doing it every day. The PATRIOT ACT, these TSA patdowns and scans, the COICA ACT (terrifying in principle, and for some reason nobody seems to be talking about it). But if all these things are giving us all this lovely false sense of security, like someone out there is actually protecting us and know what the fuck they’re doing, then fuck our freedom, right?

Well thank God, our government has saved the day once again! 

 

I’m a day or two late on this, but I’m really proud of the FDA for banning Four Loko and similar highly caffeinated, alcoholic beverages.  Now that Four Loko is being taken off the shelves, no college student will ever go to the hospital for alcohol poisoning again, nor do we ever have to worry about underage kids drinking and driving.  Similarly, we can also be thankful that underage kids can no longer get their hands on alcoholic beverages or illegal drugs!

 

I’m so happy the FDA has taken such a responsible and appropriate action towards this crisis.  Why say, enforce the law and punish establishments that sell to minors when you can just ban a product entirely?  Why say, place restrictions on the SIZE of the product (which is the real problem here) when you can just ban it entirely?  Why say, place restrictions on how it’s marketed or labeled (it does after all look like just another energy drink) when you can just ban it entirely?

 

Without the Four Loko distraction, college students can get back to doing what they do best: studying hard and getting a good education!  After all, now that these drinks are banned, it’ll be totally impossible for anyone to binge drink ever again!  And what’s more, I’m sure nobody will ever think to buy a few cans of Red Bull and mix it with Vodka.  What would you even call a drink like that?  A Red Vodka?  A Bulldka?  I mean, that’s just totally stupid.

 

And who would ever think to buy a handle of Captain Morgan and a bottle of Coke at the same time?  What a pain in the ass it would have to be to mix these two things together to form the lethal combination that is alcohol and caffeine? 

 

So congratulations US Government!  You’ve done it yet again!  An intelligent and well-thought out response to a horrible problem that’s sure to ruin our society!  I’m proud to be an American!

Dear Eva,

 

So I’ve come to the understanding that you and Tony Parker are done.  Finished.  Terminated.  The Big D Word. 

 

Rumor has it that Tony cheated on you.  A bunch.  Like a whole bunch.  Is it Tiger Woods level?  Only time will tell.

 

First, let me just start off by saying, duh.  Look, don’t kid yourself.  Yes you’re hot and from what I can tell based off interviews I’ve seen you in, you seem like a decent woman.

But come on.  Have you ever heard of a professional basketball player that DIDN’T cheat on his wife?  What did you expect?

 

I mean, have you watched Basketball Wives on VH1?  Okay, I haven’t either.  But I just sort of assume it’s a bunch of jealous women complaining about how their professional athlete husbands are all off cheating on them.

 

Have you ever heard of Kobe Bryant?  Tiger Woods?  Brett Favre?  Um, any athlete? 

 

Having said that, it’s not all a total wash.  There is some good news.

 

I am available.

 

Look Eva, let’s face the facts here.  What are your options?  Get back on the market and date some other high profile celebrity who is just going to cheat on you again?  That seems dumb, right? 

 

So I might not be the biggest catch in the world.  I live in a one bedroom apartment that I share with six of my closest relatives, drive a 1996 Purple Neon and the nicest thing I own is a replica Glen Rice Miami Heat jersey.   I drink heavily, am developing a prescription painkiller problem, watch entirely too much Japanese scat pornography, and don’t bathe regularly. 

 

But, I do live in Texas, where you happen to be from, so I’ve got that going for me.  And I hate the Spurs, which I assume you do now too.  I’ve never been “convicted” of any crimes and in a few weeks, I’ll be back off food stamps.  My mom thinks I’m pretty funny and I promise I’ll always be able to make you laugh (assuming you share the same sense of humor as her).

 

But here’s the best part – if you get with me, I will never cheat on you.  I mean, let’s be real here, why would I want to?

 

Maybe it’s time to settle for less.  I promise I’ll treat you like gold.  Maybe we can get that tattoo of yours of Tony Parker’s name removed.  Or not.  Here’s the thing – I don’t really care.  I’m a pretty easy going guy, and since you’re going through a divorce, I think that’s exactly what you need.

 

So Eva, all I can ask is that you think about it.

Holy crap, I haven’t updated this in ages.Well as the late, great Owen Hart always said, “Enough is enough and it’s time for a change!”  Owen Hart also tragically fell to his death about 11 years ago, so maybe I should look to someone more relevant to give me life advice.

Anyhow, seeing as how I’m fairly bored throughout most of the work day (there are only so many tricks one guy can turn in a 9 hour period), I figure, I should update this goddamn thing!

So, much like Bill Maher’s got “New Rules” I’ve got New Goals:

1)      Update this blog at least 3 times a week

2)      Uh.

Okay, so that’s one goal!  Or at least one that’s meaningful to anyone that enjoys my writing. On a related note, if you’ve been sitting around waiting for me to update this blog, well then maybe you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

So three times a week it is!

There are many reasons I’ve stopped writing.  They are as follows:

1)      I am super lazy.  I mean, extraordinarily lazy.  If there was a laziness contest, well, I wouldn’t even win that because I’d be too lazy to enter.  Or I’d sleep through the admissions process.  In any case, I define lazy.  Am I proud of this?  Yes, maybe a little.

2)      I’m not funny nor interesting.  In 8^th grade, my friend Mike told me that I wasn’t funny anymore and I was a lot funnier back in 6^th grade.  You know what?  Mike was right.  And continues to be (even if I haven’t spoken to him since…sometime around 8^th grade).

3)      I’ve got nothing to write about.  Sometimes I go through old posts and am like, wow, I used to have ideas.  Now, not so much.  That is, unless you are interested in my opinions on the UFC and reality television.

So, I guess it’s on me to be creative and think of some shit to write about.

Starting now.

Not really.

One of the things that really sucks about you know, working, is that when shit’s going down I’m like nearly oblivious to it until it’s over. I swear, if I had been working the job I have now when 9/11 happened, I doubt I’d know shit for like 3 weeks. Because it’s not like I watch anything on tv other than Top Chef and What Not to Wear…ahem, I mean…COPS.

Well, anyway, since I didn’t know shit about what happened, tonight when I got home I read some articles and turned on the news. I guess everyone knows what happened by now so I don’t need to recap the whole thing.

So, doing what I always like doing when shit is going down, I like to get the different cable news channels perspectives. I tried to do this tonight except I forgot until it was probably too late and only caught the last 15 minutes of Hannity.

And wow am I glad I did!

Sean Hannity basically started this segment with his great great retarded panel or whatever you want to call it and says something about the Discovery guy’s “Left Wing” manifesto or whatever. Then he says something about how if it had been a right-wing manifesto then the LEFT WING media would be all over it, blaming guys like Hannity for causing all this trouble.

Note: he never said, “Look what you lefties caused!” Just, “I’d never say look what you lefties caused, I’m just saying if this had been the other way around, you’d be saying it to me.”

First of all, Sean Hannity, you are a SUPREME douche. I mean, SUPREME.

Second of all, if you chose to read the entire manifesto and not just pull parts that favor your opinion out of context like I did, you’d notice that the person who wrote this letter was, crazy. And not crazy in the way your panel was like, “Oh, this guy was crazy!” but actually like, this person should be medicated and possibly in a home somewhere, crazy. The more background I read on this dude, the more I feel like I could diagnose him with something (and I didn’t even finish medical school!). And lest we forget that bullet point number five might as well be your mantra:

5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)

Wow, did you guys miss that part when you were cherry-picking quotes out of this? Anyway, I’d suggest reading up on this dude in the days to follow. He wasn’t right. And Hannity and these clowns at Fox News are such fucking assholes for trying to turn one person’s obvious delusions into a political issue, and doing it in such a pussy tiptoe fashion - “Oh, *I’M* not saying it’s a political issue, but that’s just something YOU would do.”

Let’s also keep in mind that this dude sounds like he had some serious, serious mental problems. I mean, it’s not like he blamed the government or something for the world’s problems, but…the Discovery Channel. Okay? He demanded that the DISCOVERY CHANNEL help cure the world’s ills. Why the DISCOVERY CHANNEL? Why not? Maybe he walked by it every day. It doesn’t matter, he was fucking deranged. Ugh. Fox news is so fucking disgraceful.

And then to follow it up, Hannity mentions something that John Cusack said on Twitter. I guess one of his followers asked how he feels about the mosque issue in New York (I should have posted on this already but I’m lazy as shit) and he responded by saying something like how he wants to build a satanic death cult building next to Fox News. Oh, except Hannity didn’t mention that this was a question he was asked, and unlike the obviously insane Discovery Channel guy, his comment was being made in mockery of your non-issue mosque bullshit.

Anyway, that’s all I got.

In my ever-going quest to be a more insightful, more well rounded person and knowledgeable person and less like an elderly 30 year old, I read a couple gossip blogs.

Why?

Well, they’re funny. And the ones I ready generally have pictures of near naked women, so that’s also good.

Anyway, I guess the big news today was the Lindsay Lohan sentencing. I guess she got 90 days in jail (she’ll probably do 10), but that’s not the part of the story I thought was great. The great part, is that during a break in the trial and while she was outside the courtroom, she got served with a lawsuit for $17,000.

I mean, that’s fucking awesome right? And if you’re the process server, I mean, that’s a story you have for life, right? Insert some really, really lame Lindsay Lohan humor here:

“So this one time, I had to serve Lindsay Lohan with a lawsuit?”
“Oh yeah, what for?”
“She stole some clothes or something.”
“Which time?”
“I don’t know, the time before she got herpes from the children’s clown but after the time she starred in some movie called ‘I Know Who Killed Me.”
“I never saw that.”
“I don’t think anyone did.”
“So, what happened? You knew she’d have a court date so she’d be easy to serve?”
“Sort of, I go there every time I’m looking for her.”

Bam! Thank you, and that’s my Lindsay Lohan humor.

But that shit’s awesome, right? Anyway, I hope she gets put in with the regular people in the jails of California for a while and sees how much she likes it.

Anyone still here? Man I never write anymore. I blame laziness and general malaise. What’s really unfortunate is that lately, I feel like I’ve had a ton of good ideas and funny shit to write down but then I remember that the computer is all the way over there ten feet away. That’s a hike. That’s fucking far.

But, I did come up with an idea today and maybe it’s because I am an egomaniacal crazy person (for evidence see this blog) but I think it’s fucking brilliant.

So I was watching Top Chef tonight, alone eating an entire large pizza (what?), thinking of just how ridiculous it’s really become and having all these hilarious thoughts. But, so sad, nobody to share them with. But wait! An idea!

Maybe it’s time for me to join twitter! And so I did. I have used Twitter for one thing and one thing only: finding out when the next Japanese Porn Convention is in Austin. No, I’ve only used to to follow a guy I used to know who is a professional poker player now (he’s good). I don’t really know what it is, and I think the whole thing is kind of stupid.

But, I just had too many funny thoughts tonight to keep them to myself. Unfortunately, I thought of this idea halfway through and I guess it wouldn’t have mattered anyway since I have zero followers (I don’t even really know what that means) until anyone discovers it. So I’ve created an account in which I’m going to watch the shows I watch and tweet (?) throughout to anyone that cares. I guess I’m going to have to find some shows, cause right now all I can think of is Top Chef, and I juuuuuuust might have to start on that stupid design show that follows it because that shit is ridiculous.

Will anyone care? I don’t know. Will anyone read this announcement anyway? I don’t know. Will it be funny? Yes, yes it will. I guess if a tree lands in the forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound? YES. What are you, fucking retarded?

Anyway, my name on twitter is tvsnark (genius, right?) and I’ll probably figure out later what I’m doing other than Top Chef.

For the record, I doubt I’m the only person with this idea. However, as noted above, I am extremely unfamiliar with Twitter so I wouldn’t know. But I’m probably way funnier than anyone else doing the same thing.

So, assuming this asshole is guilty, I think I have a pretty good solution on what to do with the accused NYC Times Square Would-Be Bomber (I gotta get a better name for this).

You want to discourage terrorism?  You want to show these fucking assholes not to fuck with us?  Treat this fucking asshole like a child rapist and send him to the worst penitentary in the country.

I hope they don’t try to execute this guy, because of course that’s what he wants.  I’m not sure why these guys have such a hard-on for martyrdom, but they do.  So toss this guy in prison.  Throw him in general population, spread word around the yard that in addition to being an asshole terrorist, he’s also a child rapist.  The just LOVE that in prison.

But, you might ask, how does this really discourage terrorism?

Make a TV show out of it.  Put it on HBO.  You can call it “Terrorism Sucks: The Ass-Rape Chronicles.”  Put a camera crew around this guy 24/7, and let the other inmates know that it’s no holds barred with this guy.  And then broadcast it in Iran and Pakistan on whatever their equivalent of NBC is.  No, not NBC.  A channel that people watch.  Broadcast it on MTV-Al-Jazeera, or whatever the fuck they have.

Anyway, that’s just what I’d do to stop terrorism.