BWAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

BALLIN'!!!!!!

Fresh off displaying his strong (basketball) fundamentalism playing in a USMC shirt with a diverse crowd of ballaz (in the cradle of hoops fundamentals, no less), Barack steps up his game to workhorse college player of the year Tyler Hansbrough and the powerhouse Tarheels. Now that is good pandering, imo!

Substance Abuse

Don't you love it when politicians complain about negativity getting all the play, then lament the dearth of coverage "substance" gets on the campaign trail? Lately Bill Clinton, for example, has been playing the victim, but he's just one of many.

First off, and most obviously, bottom lines are bottom lines, and bottom lines for media (especially one that's struggling to perpetuate its existence in a rapidly changing technological environment) coverage is numbers. More importantly, let's suppose that political stump puffery really is a significant body of information that the American public deserves to hear, and that the media should somehow be compelled (through force or shame) to provide it. Imagine pages and pages (and hours and hours) of Bill Clinton's legacy-laden homilies, the candidates' nearly indistinguishable sound bites, and focus-grouped oratory from every man on a soapbox who can get in front of a camera.

Now that's public service!

updog

Couture and Mamet have a new movie coming out. I hope it's as good as this one.

Would the Jets pass up on selecting Darren MccFadden? it's just the dumb move the Jets have been known for.  

venture bros season 3.

last weekend I was in a line to see this. Season 3 coming in june 

..... it should be noted that my sn was named after this  and not Rusty Venture. Both voiced by Terminator: the Sarah Conner Chronicles' James Urbaniak.  

Honor Thy Parents

Nice to know there are ways to make money during a financial crunch. For instance, filling stock is way up!

"People are really cashing in. If a dentist passes away, their kids come in with a big pile of gold teeth," said Scott Taber, owner of Taber Coins, a Shrewsbury, Mass., coin dealer that buys dental gold and then resells it to a gold smelter.

Who knew dental hygienists were sitting on such precious nest eggs?

the new indiana jones movie

I have a horrible feeling this movie will suck. It's hard to believe that Sr Spielbergo would ever cast a shia laboof in anything but evidently he did. did Spielberg not remember JAKE Lloyd? yes one person can kill a franchise. A shia laboof has the annoying quotient of a jar-jar with the acting chops of a lloyd.  

Nucear Fallout

Nuclear nonproliferation is usually a good thing (I guess), but I do wonder where all those now unemployed Russian nuclear scientists are going to go from here. Good thing due to proliferation in other parts of the world, there are a number of peaceful civilian nuclear projects going on around the world...

Sacred Vows, Part III

I had to start with the phone call I wanted to make last —it was the only way to do this thing. I drew in some breath and pressed the digits, my fingers shaking, jumping now to the wrong row, now to the wrong column. She’d slammed the phone twice already.

“Grandma, will you talk to me? You’re coming as Chewbacca…yes…a large, furry character from her favorite movie…no, I have not been sticking needles in my arm…it’s already paid for —we have size and all, Grandma…it’s only for 2 hours or so…everyone is donning something…I don’t know why Chewbacca….no, it’s not because of your facial hair…no, Marisa loves you, really…her grandma is Grand Moff Tarkin…yes, human, but pretty unimportant…everyone loves Chewbacca—he is affectionately known as Chewy…yes, I am serious.”

Dunking my head right under the tap, I lapped up the warm, soothing spray of fluorinated water. One down. Fifty-five to go. Our Judaeo-Catholic matrimonial alliance carried with it the curse of two large families —and, necessarily, gave Marisa the opportunity to dip into Lucas’ extended universe —including cartoon and book characters so obscure I couldn’t dig them up without the help of some friends in the IT trade. Now there was room for Clegg Holdfast, Stass Allie, and Gizor Dellso.

The sheer breadth of the cast of characters/guest list made me wonder how my wonderful Marisa —the girl who was always too busy with mock trial, animal activism, and psych experiments for long phone conversations or horsing around in our dorm suite —had found the time to study the most trivial and arbitrary details from the mind of an overgrown sci-fi nerd. I suppose we all have private pockets where no hand but our own can gain admittance.

The bell rang. It was Mom. Luckily, Marisa was out shopping for art supplies with her former roommates to build a set from the forest moon of Endor. Kids from both sides of the family, whom I’d projected as my easiest targets, were in a silent revolt against Marisa’s unilateral decision to cast them all as Ewoks. “What’s an E-Wak?” my youngest nephew asked. “Is it an iPet?” Clearly, Marisa and I were the Lost Generation here. Half the brood wanted to be Harry Potters. The other half wanted to be home playing video games.

Without greeting or a customary kiss, Mom stepped through the doorway and proceeded to the bathroom, dropping two large shopping bags to the floor. “What’s that, Ma?” I inquired.

“This?” she asked, with histrionic ire. “This, is what you think of us, and of yourself.” Without another word, she pulled out a peasant robe. With the limited number of female Star Wars roles, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Marisa wanted my mom to be Shmi Skywalker.

“Oh, get out —you think that’s bad? This is the easiest role in the whole wedding party! Uncle Borya is going as Jabba the Hut. Jabba, Ma! He’ll probably need time off from work to start putting on his costume if he wants to make it for the wedding.”

“I’m no fool, Vitya. I saw The Phantom Menace. I saw the Attacking of the Clowns. This Shmi, she is some sort of floozy, no? Is that what Marisa thinks of me?”

“Well, no, not quite…she’s a slave —it’s different. She’s sold to the Tusken Raiders, and it’s not really explicit about what she does.”

“Marisa wants me to be a work slave, that’s better? Funny, I don’t see her parents going as a Tuscan prostitute or Mandalorian pimp.” It was plain as day; Mom had been brushing up on her Wookiepedia.

“Dad’s not a pimp, Ma. He’s Jango Fett, a very important bounty hunter. Very powerful. And you know it was Marisa’s idea, so, you know, her mom is Queen Amidala and her father Bail Organa. Woman’s prerogative, and all that.”

She looked at me blankly, without reproach, blinking wordlessly, now pathetically, the fire in her eyes extinguished. Sinking into my Goodwill-acquired couch, Mom buried a doleful look in her weary hands and sobbed.

It was too much. My mom. The one who birthed me, defended me from Dad’s crazy whims and tenacious dogmas; the one who supported my every decision, no matter how moronic or ill-conceived. Till now. If she wouldn’t stand with me, how could I stand? Why was I standing at all? On the cusp of this momentous breakthrough, Mom beat me to it with one of her own. “Your father wanted a crazy wedding? Out all day with his damn partners doing ‘estimates.’ Well, he’s getting one!” And with that, she picked up a sample invitation, commending Marisa’s character while carping about her taste. Her spiteful alliance would be a toxic comfort.

Golf

Ronnie Lott played a game with a SEVERED finger. 

Aaron Ross separated his shoulder TWICE against the Cowboys in one game making tackles.  

Brett Farve didn't MISS a game for 15 years. 

Fedor Emelyanenko was slamed on his HEAD and ended up submitting Kevin "donkey kong" Randleman. 

Renzo Gracie would NOT TAP OUT even thought Sakuraba had broken his arm with a Kimura. 

Larry Bird suffered a concussion in the first half of a game and RETURNED in the second half to lead his Team to a victory. 

Tiger Woods played the Masters with an ouchie on his knee. 

Wait, what?

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/extramustard/03/28/25.toughest.athletes/index.html

Recently Sports Illustrated named Tiger Woods the toughest athlete. Anderson Silva was ranked 3rd. Evidently their definition of tough involves  fist pumps more than avoiding fists. please!

More importantly, golf is not a sport. Just like darts isn't a sport. As Max Kellerman says golf is a game for middle aged white guys to play and feel like they're still participating in a sport. Golf is weather porn. Please espn and sports radio, no more Golf talk.    

Sacred Vows, II

“If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a tacky wedding. People always take the path of least resistance – well, I won’t settle. I want it to be personal and unforgettable, all about us, and I want it to really mean something. You know what I mean by that? Not some hokey vows we scrap together surfing poetry.com. It’s not style over substance, it’s substance that speaks to you,” she lectured.

“Honey, you know I wanna be on your team here. But I was also born to a team that believes wholeheartedly in tacky weddings, and last I checked, I’m not a free agent till I win the World Series.”

“Okay, I think you can switch off the strained sports metaphors. I could have dated a lax player for those.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he would have given you the new-age wedding of your dreams! ... Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” I relented.

“If you asked me for something that meant as much to me, you know I’d go to bat for you,” she snuffled, “and yeah, I know I’m back on baseball.”

Using the small opening she gave me, I decided to soften the tone. “You know that I’d do anything for you. But this­ ­—this is lunacy! I mean, ask me to beat up that asshole kid in your painting class who’s always drawing sketches of you banging the cafeteria guy…ask me to buy you that vintage bike with the stripes…ask me to get rid of a second-tier friend, even —come on!”

“Thanks, I can take care of myself. A real man would find a way —he’d find a way no matter what. Stand up to your family for once in your life, will ya? Or what’s the point?” she threw up her hands. Then, walking over to the nightstand, my lovely Marisa grabbed the latest issue of Mademoiselle and disappeared behind the screen door on the balcony.

There it was, then, the stinging ultimatum of unconditional love.

***

Of course I could have broken her down or buttered her up and, in a few days, she’s drop it. I could have held my ground and asserted my muscular self-governance. But in the end, I knew I’d be giving her the first ammunition to stockpile for a later date, the inevitable surprise attack. So I set out to do the impossible.

“She wants what?!” Trying to focus on my dad, I could hear my brother choking from laughter in the background, no doubt exaggerating his mirth with milk-snorting sound effects.

“Dad, you have to understand, this movie means a great deal to her. Her mother adored…it was the only thing that cured her depression when she was getting chemo. Marisa thinks the second one helped her mom recover…I mean, she had a death sentence!”

“Which one’s the second one? Remind me. Jabba Hut?”

“The Empire Strikes Back. Luc Solo gets petrified. It’s generally acknowledged as the greatest.”

“So we play the stupid movie on a TV at the youth table. We set up a room, we have a special viewing party and we play the movie on the big screen —she’s happy, you marry, she has boy, then girl, The End.”

“Uh, I’m afraid not. She already said no to everything I could think of. Marisa doesn’t do compromise. She had a sociology professor lower her C to an F. Trust me, we have to do this.”

“Have to? Did I have to send you to that stupid school in Maine? Did you have to take ‘Physics for Poets’? Did your grandma have to spend her pension on your Native American drumming classes? Did you have to date an Episcopalian from Portland? Now you want me to spend our hard-earned savings on this silly American child fantasy? When are any of you growing up!”

“You’re right Dad, maybe I’m not ready for marriage. Maybe marriage is not for me. I’ve been thinking, Marisa and I should just pack it up and move to Thailand. She can help start a group counseling child prostitutes and I can teach English to destitute villagers.”

There was silence on the other end. The silent intermission before success.

yeah

I know what you're thinking, two posts about this?

the fact is, the c-walk is the way of the future. 

 

Suburban West Coast Asian Teens Can C-Walk

Garcia Marquez He Isn't

Speaking of offenders, it's amusing that every time I Google this particular company *ahem* something shady inevitably pops up.

I have no major quarrel with this man's grievance (and choose not to comment on the likelihood of this scenario), but I will note that the author is both grammatically and mathematically illiterate (run those numbers again) as per his letter. VP, whoever they are, should really raise their admission standards for the Beginner Novel Writing Program.

Mr. Marquez-Garcia, would that your hyphenation were inverted, the sword of justice would swing swifter.

Grandma, Holding Strong (As of 9/7/2007)

Remember Sarah Van Etten? Maybe the word "Grandma" will jog your memory. That's right, everyone's favorite narcoleptic, turn-a-blind-eye beer purveyor from Ithaca. This hard-hitting expose (some might say Daily Sun hatchet job) was a long time coming. Even the MSM has picked up Grandma's story.

We learn that Grandma likes the work:

Grandma said that her favorite part of the job is “dealing with the people.” Interacting with kids — especially teenagers — is tough, she said. She added that, in general, she has a very interesting, never-boring job. Grandma said the students are all good kids and she appreciates the help they give her by lifting heavy 30-packs and shoveling her walkway.

Of course, it might have occurred to Grandma to reward these sweet youngsters with Twizzlers, not 40's of Cobra.

The feel-good story takes another ugly turn:

In 2004, police caught a high school student drinking in Stewart Park in downtown Ithaca, and he said he got the alcohol from her store. She assumed “he stole it here” — but she was strapped with a $6,000 dollar fine.

A logical assumption to make, considering Sarah's scrupulous enforcement of federal law and careful scrutiny when it comes to potential offenders.

Grandma leaves us with a stern warning:

“watch out for ‘townies’ — they’re bad.”

Indeed, Grandma. Indeed. As Doug Adams would say, so long, and thanks for all the beers.

Bohemigrant Crip Walk Week

It is my utmost pleasure to present the First Annual Bohemigrant Crip Walk Week. Post your crip walk video. All proceeds go to improving Bohemigrant's dance technique.

Viva la Liberte!

It's good to see a healthy sense of humanism alive and well in the world. Especially when freedom-loving French martyrs leap at handicapped torch-bearers in defense of Tibet, a horror worse than the Holocaust.

Yearning for Zion

I really shouldn't laugh at this awful violation of child welfare, innocence, and what have you, but...

investigators finished executing a house-to-house search of the 1,700-acre property, which includes a medical facility, a cheese-making plant, a cement plant, a school, numerous large housing units and an 80-foot white limestone temple that rises discordantly out of the brown scrub.

If ever you're holed up at a polygamist compound, make sure your cheese stores meet or exceed capacity. The cheese shall keep you free! Every time a dirty old man wants to polish his nob, no man can stand between him and a 15-year-old waif; Jesus firmly by his side.

Leonid Utesov in Full F/X

Sacred Vows

“Now this is a party!” slurred the second cousin of my second cousin downing his umpteenth double shot of Balinoff. Slapping me on the back with glazed camaraderie, Vadik slithered back unto the lacquered dance floor, elbows ready for the dropping as the strobe lights danced like intoxicated prison yard searchlights around young couples, soused middle-aged men, and —inexplicably —several elder ladies forgetting to lift their chiffon hems.

Nodding to no one in particular, I sipped from my own sloppily poured shkalik, sweeping the room with a surveying swivel. This is a party alright. $90,000 of my uncle’s money later, everything was in its proper place. The uneaten lobster bisque was cooling on approximately 180 plates. Unopened Grey Goose bottles lined the tables, their ice-cold inertia contrasting the dance floor decadence: not a reflection of the guests’ temperance, but a testament to my family’s “better safe than sorry” mantra. No guest goes hungry on our watch, my mom’s face seemed to intone from across the room, where she was chatting up one of our more abhorrent relatives.

“Eh, Vitya, whaddaya say?” Dad interrupted. “Jealous, ey?”

I had little to offer but a shit-eating, cognac-chugging grin.

“Want one like it, eh? Don’t worry, go back for your master’s, and we’ll put on a feast they’ll be talking about from Santa Monica to Sochi!”

As implausible as the prospect sounded, in my still youthful mind, coated with top-shelf spirits, spinning copies of the New Russian Word, Moscow Times, Izvestiya, and Odessa’s Slovo carried front page announcements of my own nuptials to my college sweetheart. Vitaly Siroy, Of The Medical Supply Siroys, Weds…Speaking of…sweetheart? Where are ya? Missing her seriously for the first time that night, I remembered the awkward unpleasantness of her absence and flipped my shiny new phone open to drunk-text her:

Grandma’s finE. False aLarM. Ospital prohibtz cell, Wll call frm home.

The band, suddenly shifting from the Russian golden oldie standard “My Dear Old-Timers,” feting my aunt and uncle courtesy of Cousin Misha’s prodigal best friend, played the first bars of “Who Let the Dogs Out,” a tribute to the youth in our midst. “Ey, Vitya, dance floor, toute d’suite!” ordered my younger sister Valya, who’d just completed her study abroad in Provence. But my mind was still on the song:

My old timers got old,
Unnoticeably as it happens,
And all of a sudden,
My mom is now called a grandma.

Even the liquor couldn’t freeze out my better senses. I looked over at my parents, one at a time; at 65, an age once considered old. Despite my protestations, they did, too. Time was running out and we all knew it. “My old timers got even older…” Dad would croon around the Sunday dinner table, in jest, Mom sighing. No, it was no joke —they wanted grandkids. To make up for the gifts I’d received over the years and hadn’t reciprocated––birth, food, and a healthy sense of shame––I was finally returning the favor by coupling and planting the seed of the only American fruit Mom and Dad had yet to taste. Married?…my God. Where is she, anyway? I searched the room, as if expecting her to come from behind the fake marble Ionic column propping the old rabbi making his third toast to my grandfather’s health. Baby...oh, right, I didn’t bring her. Marisa was knitting wool socks at home, wondering if my grandma’s cerebrovascular accident was resolving. More than happy to report that Grandma was full of punch, tisking disapprovingly at the slow-grinding session my younger cousin Vera was now engaging in with her boyfriend, but, for obvious reasons, I could not. An infrequent liar, tonight I’d committed the most mundane and dishonorable of fibs: I didn’t want my New England-bred, vegan, drama-major, petition-signing girlfriend to see how Russians got married.

TBC...