Matchups That Would Be More Exciting Than This Year's Superbowl

It's official. There were thirty teams I wouldn't mind seeing in Super Bowl XLII, and wouldn't you know it--none of them are going to the big game. Now sports reporters and marketers are scrambling to get people to watch the event by convincing us that it's going to be a tight match. A tight match with a twelve-point spread. Right. Then there are the more honest, glass-is-half-full reporters who are touting the event as a battle of David and Goliath proportions. The difference here, folks, is that David was a whiz with a sling shot, and Eli Manning throws the ball to the other team. (For those of you who aren't sports fans, this is a bad thing.)

At this point, I'm only participating in the Super Bowl festivities for two reasons: to watch the commercials, and to get crap-your-pants drunk on a Sunday without having to worry about people judging me. (Totally kidding, folks--STOP JUDGING ME!) So to entertain myself while this foregone conclusion known as the Super Bowl plays itself out, I'm trying to arrange a face off between two more closely-matched opponents.

VS


Miss South Carolina vs. Stephen Hawking in a Theoretical Physics Debate

"Ummm...I believe this to be so, because, because some U.S. Americans don't have an understanding of blackbody radiation, and that...we as U.S. Americans need to help the countries like the South Africa and the Iraq to understand quantum mechanics. For the children!"

Say what you will, but I think Miss South Carolina can verbal-diarrhea her way out of anything. Plus she sounds more likable than Stephen Hawking.

VS

Nicole Ritchie vs. Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi in a Hot Dog Eating Contest

Sure, he was the winner of the 12-minute Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest for an unprecedented six years in a row. Okay, he can eat 97 hamburgers in eight minutes (getting a little nauseous here just thinking about it, actually). But can he defeat Nicole Ritchie in a hot dog eating contest? Just coming off of her pregnancy and stoned off her ass, the Ravenous Ritchie might surprise the Tsunami with her appetite. Then again, now that she's back to her pre-pregnancy weight (after, barf, a whole 13 days), she might only be able to keep down a few tic-tacs.




VS

Britney Spears vs. A Plastic Bag


When Britney tries to outwit a plastic bag, who wins? Everyone.


My prediction: Britney argues with plastic bag in a fake British Accent, marries plastic bag and then divorces it, two years later, when she realizes it can't get her pregnant or make any money on its own.

Mom Gets In On The Action

Despite being given the difficult (read: mother-effin-impossible) task of teaching a gang of Robitussin-swilling hillbillies to string together some semblance of a paragraph, Mom seems to be in good spirits. Sure, she still spends most of her time curled up in the sink, rocking back and forth, petting a ball of steel wool and muttering to no one in particular. But it could be worse, right?

Anyway, she responded to my last post and I thought I'd share it with all of you. If anything, it should give you a little more insight into how I've become the kind of person I am today: a snarky, ornery little harpy.


English by the Numbers

*Number of students on my roster – 11
*Number of students who actually attend the first class – 5
*Number of students who proudly proclaim to have a learning disability which will require that I give them three extra weeks to write those ridiculously long 15 sentence essays that I assign – 5
*Number of students who self-disclose to everyone in class that they have recently been incarcerated – 1
*Number of times during 90-minute class that Mr. McMugshot reminds us that he did time in the slammer – 12
*Number of authority figures that I suspect Mr. McMugshot has killed – also 12
*Number of students sporting satanic tattoos – 5
*Number of students with illegitimate children – 4
*Number of students' illegitimate children sporting satanic tattoos who have recently been incarcerated – I don’t know. But they, too, are destined to be in my class someday.
*Number of students who can write a complete sentence – 0
*Number of students who have completed a sentence – 2
*Number of students who think they are being polite by keeping their cell phone calls in class under 15 minutes while I am lecturing –2
*Number of students employed – 3
*Number of students who own a car – 1
*Number of students who have stolen a car – 4
*Number of students who have purchased the book? – “Book? What book? There’s a book for this class?”
*Number of students who have been booked – 3
*Number of students who admit to cutting class – 5
*Number of students who admit to cutting throats – 2
*Number of students who pray daily for a good education – 0
*Number of students who will pray daily for me to die a horrible death – all of them

A New Semester -Or- Time To Put Mom Back On Suicide Watch

For those of you who don't know, my mother is an English professor at a small Midwestern community college somewhere. A creative writer herself--on top of being some sort of freaky grammatical prodigy--she could easily be working to inspire the next generation of poets and novelists, or at least the next generation of creepy manifesto authors. Most often, though, she's teaching high school graduates (now pay close attention--I did say high school graduates) that by putting words together, you can make a sentence! Wooooo!

My mom, having raised my brother, has become pretty accustomed to teaching people with the academic tendencies of, say, a sea cucumber. And she does it with unparalleled zeal--always coming up with wacky writing prompts and wearing costumes. But first day of class is always a killer for her. That's the day everyone must submit a paragraph so she can gauge how much improvement they need. I should mention that the main objective of this course is to be able to compose a full, comprehensible paragraph. That's...pretty much it. Which a person might think to be a pretty feasible task, until said person sees some of the unbelievable shit from the first day.

I rummage through these paragraphs like they're naked pictures of the Golden Girls--guiltily entertained, but always left sad and thinking "they're too old to be making mistakes like that". There's no other way to explain it but to show you one (no editing tricks, people, the real deal), the author to remain unnamed, and let you see for yourself. Before you start judging me, remember three words: high school graduates.

cats vs snakes

Both animals are good doing lots of thing but there are drffrents thing that set them apart. Both can cach other animals like mice rats rabots brids and each other. Both can life up to there repotashon and are fun to have. A cat can be good around little kids and they are vary playful and amusing to watch. A cat is a stress relever
after a hard day at work. you can train a cat to do almost anything and use it's head to get into things. A snake is an odd pet to have you only need to feed it one's every few weeks it needs sunlight to stay alive you need to keep it in a cage. for it does not eat your naybor anoying dog or cat. Which you mite be happy with they really do not needed alot of attchon gust food and water. You can get any size of snake that you want or what is leggal. With what ever your chosie is with picking out terdes your life stile that you live or whatever you want to creap people out with it's
you chose is.

Jeeeeeeeeeeesus. I know they taught us to "sound it out" if we didn't know how to spell something in grade school, so let's see how our author fared.

Rabots: Ooh, this one was close. Unless they were talking about some bionic rabbit, in which case it's totally correct.
Repotashon: Here's where shit gets weird. The only word that fits in context is reputation, in which case they're only SEVEN LETTERS OFF.
Attchon: Action? Attention? Achtung? Only one person knows. And that person, if I were to guess, is out huffing gasoline somewhere.
Terdes: I've got nothing, here. Picking out turds? Maybe the author is suggesting you pick out something with bowel movements that suit your particular lifestyle (may I suggest a rabot--they don't even poop!) Or maybe they meant "towards", in which case they're just...well, dumb.

While the author told me a lot of what I already knew about cats and snakes, I was excited to learn that you can train a cat to use it's head to get into things. That would be a stress-reliever.



Ahhhhhhh....I can just feel all of my worries slipping away.

From the looks of the paragraph, I think I know someone who could use a few curious trained cats this semester. Good luck, mom. I'll be by your place to pick up anything with a sharp edge that might be lying around.

Dumb Crap I Won't Be Doing In 08

I was munching on a bacon sandwich (lovingly prepared by the guy downstairs who runs a eensy-weensy little makeshift lunch stand that is more or less a card table and a George Foreman) when I overheard someone talking about their New Years resolutions.

Rats! I knew I forgot something on New Years Eve (besides forgetting that when climbing on furniture around people with cameras, one should seriously consider the length of their dress). It's the eleventh of January and I didn't make any resolutions. It should be known that while I've always made resolutions, I've never successfully kept a single one longer than a few months (read: days that feel like months). Of course, I usually make really lofty attempts at self-improvement, like becoming more versed in current events, being more involved in the political process, or limiting my alcohol intake to the low end of the "problem drinker" category. Maybe '08 should be the year I just get real.

Still, '07 was chockfull of life lessons and it would be silly to go into the New Year without making a few personal tweaks. But since resolutions haven't really worked in the past, this year I'm calling it "Dumb Crap I Won't Be Doing In Aught Eight".

Encouraging People to Write on Me in Permanent Marker

Perhaps it's because I've made it to my 26th year without any tattoos and only a few piercings, but every time I'm drinking and there is a Sharpie within twenty feet, I need to be defaced. This is the token passed-out girl's worst nightmare, and here I am handing markers to people and telling them to go to town. Whether it's a few letters on the knuckles, an anchor tattoo, and most recently, having party guests sign a massive bruise (to take attention away from it, natch), my body has been a canvas for more than enough impromptu artistic expression (if you call sloppily-penned phrases like "I LUV PEEN" artistic expression). Nope, I choose not to reduce myself to having to bathe with pumice soap every other Sunday in '08.


Shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch

Besides piping so much of their signature fragrances through the ventilation system that I have to browse for sweaters while dry-heaving, I get glares from the employees like I'm a childless, 45 year-old-man in Chuck E. Cheez, wearing nothing but a trench coat filled with Tootsie Roll Pops and Golden Retriever puppies. Maybe it's because I'm ten years their senior, or maybe it's because they know I'm going to make them retrieve pants in a size that they've shelved fifteen-feet in the air, where they keep clothes that fit those we do not speak of (read: anything above a size 4).

Watching Nip/Tuck

Okay, this one's going to be a toughie, but I think I've allowed this show to rot away enough of my soul for one lifetime. Contrary to popular belief, the Writers Strike started about two seasons ago but apparently only the Nip/Tuck writing staff actually left their positions. FX had them quickly replaced with a mix of sexual deviants, out-of-work prop comics, crayon-wielding kindergartners and Andy Dick (who in a way represents the culmination of all of these groups, I suppose). The result? Story lines involving midgets performing oral favors in Santa's workshop. Meth-addicted scientologists turning tricks for drug money. A menage-a-trois with the devil. And Rosie O'Donnell. I'm probably going to miss it, but after contracting chlamydia in both of my eye sockets from watching it, I think it's time to tune into something a little more wholesome, like HBO's Real Sex or a Flava of Love marathon.

Giving Restaurants Too Much Credit

Over the holidays, I woke up hungover at my friend's place with a serious gravy craving. And we're talking about savory, brown gravy--nothing perverted. Fortunately, by the time we got to Denny's it was after eleven and I could order off of the lunch menu (to my dismay, brown gravy hasn't made it into a breakfast entree yet...but believe me, I am working on it). So while the others were opting for your typical Dennys fare, I was searching for the perfect vehicle for my brown gravy. And since I didn't want my gravy delivered atop a "hearty mushroom chopped steak," my only other option was Denny's Slow Cooked Pot Roast. Of course when I ordered it, my friends immediately began to mock me. I didn't care, though--I'd have the last laugh when they were eating soggy sandwiches or Moons Over My Hammy and I was enjoying a delicious pot roast, covered in "velvety brown gravy." Then they brought out my pot roast. Oh. My. God. This meat had been slow-cooked in a way that prison wine is slow-vinted in a toilet tank: just sitting for weeks in the dark and fermenting. When I finally worked up the nerve to chew on a piece of it, I realized that it tasted like baby tears and Purina. What was I thinking?! As my friends belittled me, I gingerly scraped some brown gravy off of the saddest pile of instant mashed potatoes you could imagine and licked my fork. That was pretty much all I could eat. Forty minutes after we had left Dennys, it was clear that my body was rejecting the piece of pot roast, along with everything else I had eaten in the last 72 hours. So in 2008, I plan to exercise my best judgement at restaurants instead of being blinded by gravy lust.

All in all, I'm being pretty ambitious. Still, if I could go a few months without having to go about my day stricken with food poisoning and covered in Sharpie graffiti, I think it could be a pretty good year. Or at least a less stupid year.

Happy 2008!