Saturday, January 31, 2009

Medical Magic

Breaking news: Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double for the Harry Potter films has been rushed to the hospital. Though a spokeswizard for St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries refused to comment, inside sources tell us that he is being treated for a serious case of the Body-Binding Curse, as well as for a small outbreak of dragon pox.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Diagnosis: Cello

This is a load off of my mind. It turns out that cello scrotum is not, in fact, a real disease. Whew! This means I can play the cello naked for as long as I want, and suffer no ill effects.

Of course, this news is little comfort to the poor people suffering from diseases like guitarist's nipple, drummer's elbow, clarinetist's jaw, accordionist's toe, banjo player's gall bladder, and so many others.

My Heart Hurts...

...Just reading about this. Could you possibly make the Bacon Explosion less healthy? I suppose you could, but it'd probably involve deep-fat frying, chocolate, and powdered sugar.

It goes without saying, of course, that I really want to try this thing for myself. Anything described as being "spackled with sausage" is too good to resist.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Doorway to Change

Now, normally I'd mock the president mercilessly for making a mistake like this. But I'm afraid I've lost my credibility after an, um...incident this morning.

Anyway, I was going for a run this morning. I put on my shirt, sweater, gloves, and hat (it was a bit nippy out there). I step out into the hallways and start striding purposefully towards the door. Then I feel a bit of a draft...

Long story short, I had forgotten to put on my pants. If I hadn't caught myself, there's not telling how far I would've jogged in my underwear. Considering that this wasn't the first time I've made that mistake, I'd rather not know the answer to that question.

Rejected Tourist Slogans

Come to Sunny Dubai--It's Like Swimming in a Toilet!

Or how about, Dubai--The Vacation Lasts a Week. The Memories, a Lifetime. The E. Coli, 4-6 Weeks.

For Love of the Game

Most people like sports. They watch sports on TV, they listen to sports on the radio, and, in the name of sports, they paint their faces and act like idiots in front of tens of thousands of other people. Granted, most of those tens of thousands also have painted their faces and are also acting like idiots, but it still requires guts. I went to three football games before I finally loosened up enough to join in chants of “DE-FENSE!”

The NFL wouldn’t be a billion-dollar industry, and fantasy football a billion-dollar drain on workplace productivity, if there weren’t a lot of sports fans out there. Though I don’t have any hard figures, I’d bet the number of websites devoted to sports is second only to the number of porn sites. That’s a mountain that will never be scaled, but sports comes closer than any other subject.

But just like there are those who dislike the Beatles, or who think “The Godfather” was a terrible movie, or who think pizza is disgusting, there are a few oddballs who don’t like sports. I divide them into two categories. There are those I can stand, and those I cannot.

First, the tolerable ones. Heck, they’re more than tolerable; most of them are perfectly fine, sensible people. It’s just that, for some peculiar reason, they never got into sports. Maybe it was the way they were brought up. Maybe their parents were zealously anti-sports. Or perhaps they had a bad experience with sports in their childhood. They were terrorized by a mascot, or klonked on the head by a foul ball.

They aren’t aggressive about not liking sports. They appreciate that other people like sports, but they themselves are sincerely not interested. If they hear a game going on the TV, they might glance in, ask who’s ahead, and then pop out again. They view sports the way most of us see stamp-collecting: we know a lot of people enjoy it, and we can’t help but thinking those people are a little crazy.

Then there’s the second category. If the first group of people have a passive tolerance of sports, these people actively proclaim their hatred for all things sporting. They proudly say things like, “I just don’t understand what people see in football!” Or, “Who wants to watch a bunch of genetic freaks trying to stuff a ball through a hoop.” They say these things, and they’re dead serious about it.

To them, I would quote the semi-immortal words of the Joker: “Why so serious?” These kind of people are uniquely humorless when it comes to sports, or to fun in general. They turn up their nose at baseball, football, or basketball, not because they’re not interested, but because they want to seem superior. Rooting for a team? Painting your face? Getting worked up over a game? So common! So plebian! Yes, they use words like plebian. Trust me, I know these people.

As far as I know, there is no external cure for this form of anti-sports-itis. The more you urge these people to get over their hang-ups and actually watch a game, the more you play into their hands. Try it. Ask them to join you in watching, say, a college basketball game, and they’ll probably sniff about having more important things to do. Never mind that those more important things probably even lying in bed and re-reading “Harry Potter.” They’re busy, damn it!

No, like a soda machine, the change must come from within. They won’t like sports until they can appreciate that sports are fun precisely because they are meaningless. We can get wrapped up in them, pour all of our emotions into one match, one rivalry, one player, because there’s no risk. Sure, we’ll feel lousy if we lose, but only a nutcase is going to slit their throat because Georgetown lost last night.

Ironically, it’s these anti-sportites who overvalue athletics. And that’s why they will never, ever, find anything fun. They can only like something if it’s not fun. They’re the kind of people who take up something like…oh, coin collecting, I suppose.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Mini-Review: The Best Game Ever

Mark Bowden’s “The Best Game Ever” is as straightforward as its name implies. There was once a game. It was the best ever. Mark Bowden will tell you about it. It’s a slim little book, less than three hundred pages. But it packs more explosive power than a dozen Tom Clancy novels pasted together with plastic explosive.

The Best Game Ever might be a bit of a misnomer. To be precise, it’s the best football game ever. The year—1958. The place—Yankee Stadium. Yes, Yankee Stadium. Remember, back in the 50s “America’s sport” meant cowskin, not pigskin. As Bowden points out, football was still a sideshow to America’s pastime. It was a sport for rowdies and roughnecks, played by men who clobbered each other for a couple months and then spent the rest of the year doing real jobs.

The game itself was the 1958 NFL Championship game between the New York Giants and the Indianapolis—sorry, the Baltimore—Colts. This was way, way back, when Colts-Giants didn’t mean Manning vs. Manning. It meant Unitas vs. Huff.

“Unitas,” of course, is Johnny Unitas, the flat-topped gridiron god still considered by many to be the greatest quarterback in history. The name “Huff” is a little less familiar. But Sam Huff was big back in his day, and in 1958 he was a bigger star than even the Golden Arm. He was the originator of the middle linebacker position, a ferocious competitor who declared that his only goal was the hurt everyone he hit.

That’s one of the greatest pleasures of Bowden’s book. It introduces us to the football heroes from the days of yore, back when a pass of any kind was considered a “long bomb” and when offensive lineman still looked like beefy people rather than beefy mastodons.

There’s Alan Amache, nicknamed “The Horse,” a massive fullback who was unstoppable near the goal line. Gil Marchetti of the Colts was one of the most feared defensive ends of the day. For the Giants, there was Frank Gifford, the glamorous halfback with movie star looks and Hollywood ambitions. Charlie Conerly, the Giants QB, didn’t just look like the Marlboro Man—he was the Marlboro Man. And then there’s my personal favorite, “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, the gargantuan defensive lineman who once asked, after sacking an opposing quarterback, “Little man, what you run so much for?”

Where Bowden excels is his ability to describe things. He doesn’t go in for much philosophizing, though he does toss in a few paragraphs about how the 1958 game CHANGED FOOTBALL FOREVER. He just tells things the way they were: how the Colts got there, how the Giants got there, and how things went when the unstoppable force of the Colts offense meant the Giants defense, the original immovable object.

He breaks down the game, making it understandable even to someone like me, the sort of person who knows only two football plays: “pass” and “not a pass.” When Bowden describes the thrilling last-second drive engineered by Unitas, you’ll swear you can hear the Yankee Stadium crowd howling right in your ear. When lineman Gil Marchetti goes down with a broken ankle you might find yourself feeling a twinge of pain yourself.

Bowden’s best known book, the wonderful “Black Hawk Down,” deals with how men perform under pressure, as individuals and as a team. The stakes aren’t as high here; losing a game, even a championship, isn’t on par with losing your life on the blood-soaked streets of Mogadishu. But don’t tell that to Johnny Unitas or Sam Huff. For the men who played in it, the Best Game Ever was a life-and-death struggle.

Fitting, then, that the game went to sudden death. I won’t give the ending away, though the curious will no doubt check Wikipedia beforehand. But the last chapter alone, “Living to See Sudden Death,” is worth the price of admission. Especially at 1958 prices.

Monday, January 26, 2009

???

Put this down on the list of Most Cryptic Headlines Ever. From CNN: "Banana Hammer Cold." Um...yes?

Straighten Up and Fly Right

This list is so funny, I won't even attempt to add anything to it. So instead, here's a joke free of charge!

Steve is driving down the road when he sees a man standing off in a ditch, yelling something at a grove of trees. Curious, Steve pulls over and steps out of the car. As he approaches the man, he hears him saying:

"And when we don't know the value of a number, we use x as a variable. A variable! Do you understand?"

"What on earth are you doing?" says Steve.

"Why," says the man, "I'm teaching these trees algebra."

"You're crazy!" Steve replies.

"Crazy?" the man shoots back, "Tell me then. How can you expect them to learn calculus without understanding algebra first?"

Ba-dum-dum. Sorry, that one's a work in progress.

Science Friction

Wired magazine provides a list of "10 Science Fiction Films I Cannot Wait to Share With My Kids." No! Don't do it! There's no childhood disease more lethal than sci-fi fandom.

The symptoms are subtle at first. Low-grade fever. Blotchy skin. Compulsive desire to read novels based on Star Wars movies. All treatable with regular doses of Vitamin C and ESPN.

If left unchecked, though, things can get really dangerous. Many is the parent who missed the warning signs. The next thing they knew, their kid was attending DragonCon dressed up as 7 of 9. And that's a fate worse than death.

Why I Try to Avoid Working in Retail

I really sympathize with the customer in this story. I'm sick and tired of having my keys stolen by witches. Once or twice, I can stand; four or five times, and I start to lose my temper.

Funny Money

I tried this once, and almost got away with it. Unfortunately, I had to spend all my ill-gotten loot paying a $75 luxury tax. Damn it all!

Mini-Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is a curious little movie. Well, maybe “little” isn’t the right adjective. Other words spring to mind more readily, words like “gargantuan,” “titanic,” or, to be more straightforward about it, “really, really, really long.” “Benjamin Button” sprawls out for two hours and forty-six minutes, and it feels every bit as long—if not a couple hours longer.

I admit to having a bit of a prejudice against long movies. They smell like pretension. For a director to lavish two hours and change on his movie means he thinks very, very highly of himself and his art. I ask: no matter how great your story is, does it really merit two hours of my time? My time is precious. I could be doing something valuable, like learning to play the flute, or baking a nice carrot cake. Now, I grant there are exceptions. “The Godfather” was nearly three hours, but it was worth it.

“Benjamin Button” is no “Godfather.” Heck, it’s not even a “Godfather, Part III.” It’s a nice movie that’s been overblown to grotesque proportions, like a water balloon stretched to the bursting point. Filled with sludge, I might add.

The movie’s central conceit is that the main character, the titular Benjamin Button (played by Brad Pitt) is born old and gets younger and younger. He sprouts hair from his bald dome, grows a new set of muscles, and loses his fondness for “Wheel of Fortune” and all-you-can-eat buffets. Well, I’m kidding about that last part. The rest is God’s honest truth. We follow Benjamin as he grows from a gnarled and warped centarian into a strapping Brad Pitt.

It’s an interesting idea, and director David Fincher pulls it off wonderfully—for the first act of the movie. That first hour is tinged with the wonderful, the magical, and the grotesque. We’re bombarded with fantastic images: a 100-year-old baby, a clock that runs backwards, an empty hotel in the midnight sun. It’s feels like some kind of Latin America magical realist novel brought to life.

Benjamin begins—or ends?—his life in a New Orleans old folks’ home. Unlike in the latter half of the movie, here Fincher really explores the possibilities of Benjamin’s curious condition. What would it be like for a young boy to live in the shell of an old man? Who would take care of him? Who would befriend him? Where would he find a job, find love, find sex? That last one is answered quite a few times. I still haven’t decided whether I found those scenes disgusting or hilarious.

Then we get to part two of the movie and things fall apart. Benjamin spends the first part of his life as a sailor, but it’s not till he ends up on shore that the movie goes adrift. The aging-backwards thing goes out the window. Sure, perhaps Brad Pitt’s face gets a little less lined, and some of the gray vanishes from his hair. But it’s still Brad Pitt, mostly unchanged. The idea that he’s aging in reverse is completely ignored during the movie’s middle third.

Instead of the magical realism of the first hour, we get stuck with a drearily pedestrian love story. Man-boy meets girl, man-boy loses girl, girl goes to New Orleans to find man-boy, man-boy goes to New York to find girl…you know it all by heart. Benjamin will spurn his love, Daisy (Cate Blanchett), because that’s the way it’s always done. He will feel guilty about it. And he will track her down and have passionate make-up sex.

Never let it be said that I’m not generous. I lay the blame at the feet of everyone involved, from Fincher on down. Fincher’s guilty of allowing the movie to drag. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, for their part, make a singularly uninspired couple. I think Pitt’s trying to play an Everyman. Someone ought to tell him there’s a reason nobody wins an Oscar for playing Everyman: he’s as boring as hell. We know Everyman. We live down the street from him, or work with him, or see him every day at the grocery store.

Somehow, the final third of the movie lags even more. It’s so damn slow, you expect the film to start running backwards, rather than Benjamin’s biological clock. When Benjamin leaves Daisy because he can’t take care of their kid—him being on his way back to childhood, after all—I thought the movie was over. When he meets Daisy again a few years down the road, I thought that was the end of the movie. When Daisy discovers a ten-year-old Benjamin at the hospital, I really, really hoped the movie was over. And when Daisy starts taking care of a diaper-ready Benjamin, I was praying for God to put the film out of its misery.

Finally, he did. Benjamin’s dead—how, I won’t say, but it’s singularly disappointing given all the possibilities—and so is Daisy. Wow, what a trip that was! And it only took two hours and forty six minutes. Next time, I’ll just make a carrot cake.

Oscar MAAAAAAAAAAADNESS!

My Best Picture pick--"Milk," for those of you who don't keep up with all things Will-related--is looking less and less likely, especially now that "Slumdog Millionaire" captured the top film prize at the PGA awards. I could be wrong, but I also think it took home the SAG award. And then there's the CGA and OAG prizes, but the less said about those, the better.*

I didn't really think Slumdog could do it. I thought, and still sort-of think, that the Academy will be reluctant to hand the little bald boy off to a movie that doesn't involve 1) pretentious, highbrow themes 2) a major historical figure or 3) a major historical figure caught up in pretentious, highbrow themes. Remember, Academy voters are liberal about everything except their films. When it comes to those, they're more conservative than Jerry Falwell at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning.

I've been a bit lazy, so I haven't done a full Oscar breakdown. But I'm sure you've all been craving one, so let me assure you: your patience will soon be rewarded!

*Not real prizes**

**As far as I know***

***Which isn't really that far****

****I'll stop now

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Frizion Vision

I don't have much to add to this besides: Ooh! Pretty pretty!

Backstabbers

Put this pretty high on the list of things you wouldn't want to hear a stranger yell at you:

"Dude, you got a knife in your back!"

Book 'Em

As someone who once owed more than $500 in library fines, this story makes me a little nervous. If this woman can get jailed over $13.95, I've got no idea how long they'd put me away.

Even worse, it'd be pretty hard to get cred on the inside with a rap sheet like that.

"So, what're you in for?"
"Overdue library book."
"Stay away from me, you damn sicko!"

Just not happening.

A Brief Essay on Mexican Food

College students, as a group, are not discerning eaters. Their philosophy is simple: if you can put it in your mouth, and it doesn’t kill you, it’s probably worth eating. They will eat anything, up to and including the cardboard that their pizza comes in. I am dead serious about that. After all, the quality of the pizza at most campus delivery spots is only a notch above cardboard. Why, then, shouldn’t they eat the box? It tastes the same and probably is a little more nutritious.

Why this indiscriminate gluttony? First of all, because college students are poor. Sure, there are some lucky folks who can coast through college because their great-great-great grandfather was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor of Standard Oil. The rest of us, though, protect our dollar bills as if they were our children. Our green, papery children, but our children nonetheless. We cling tightly to our cash. Every dollar you spend brings you one step closer to hawking your kidneys for textbooks.

Then there’s the issue of energy. Most college students keep ungodly hours, and the ones that keep godly hours probably aren’t having enough fun. The average college student’s schedule goes something like this. They wake up at 8, go to class at 8:30, attend classes until 4, do homework until 8, and then party until 7 the next morning. An oversimplification? Maybe. But a friend of mine did tell me that once during exams he went without sleep for 50 hours. “I started to float!” he told me cheerfully.

So, naturally, we college students need something to fuel our fast living. After all, nothing’s worse than passing out during a Poli Sci exam and awaking to find that you drooled all over your essay about the British parliament. This helps explain the enduring popularity of Red Bull on college campuses. Why else would students chug down a can of something that is chemically indistinguishable from steroid-laced motor oil?

Lastly, and most importantly, there’s the issue of greed. It’s a plain, simple fact. Most college students are, for the first time, free from the nagging demands of parents, doctors, and everyone else who is remotely concerned about the state of their arteries. Nutrition be damned! If a college student wants to make a sandwich out of a slice of pizza between two doughnuts, just like he’s always dreamed, no one’s going to tell him no. Soda with breakfast? That’s par for the course. In fact, the Coke is probably the healthiest part of the breakfast. It’ll be used to wash down an unholy mishmash of processed meats and cereal so sugary you go into diabetic shock just looking at it.

Just because college students are indiscriminate eaters doesn’t mean they’re completely tasteless, though. Yes, they will eat anything. But there are some foods they’ll search out more eagerly than others. There’s pizza, of course, but pizza is hardly a college student food. Pizza holds the unique status of universal junk food. No matter who you are, where you live, or what you do, you recognize pizza as the ultimate guilty pleasure. It’s bread! It’s cheese! It’s 90% grease! (Assuming you get the good kind of pizza)

No, the quintessential college food, as opposed to the all-around garbage that is pizza, is Mexican. It fits every college student criteria. It’s cheap. The Mexican restaurant I frequent at Chapel Hill has so many deals that sometimes they pay me to eat there. Truly! There’s half-price Mondays, and quarter-price Tuesdays, and then on Wednesday they cut their prices to celebrate some Mexican holiday that comes every Wednesday, and so on and so forth. If you go into a Mexican restaurant and you don’t see something on the menu that’s half-off, you’ve wandered into uncharted territory.

I haven’t even mentioned the chips, which are always free and will be brought to your table with such frequency that sometimes overeager servers will start cramming chips into your mouth while you’re still chewing. They’re an inescapable part of Mexican cuisine; you would no more have a Mexican restaurant without chips than without oxygen. It’s a natural law, like E=mc2 or Finders keepers, losers weepers.

Energy! God, yes, Mexican cuisine will get you jumping. Though they may give them fancy names like “fajita” and “burrito” and “taco” and “almodovar,” every Mexican dish is really the same thing. It is meat, wrapped in bread, covered in cheese. Sometimes there is something on the side, which something lumpy and brownish that might, at one point, have been a vegetable. Needless to say, this stuff is packed with carbs. When Dr. Atkins dropped acid, he must’ve had nightmarish visions of fanged chimichangas crawling up the walls. Mexican food is energy in edible form.

Then there’s the greed aspect, which, if you recall what I wrote a couple paragraphs back, is the driving force behind a college student’s appetite. Mexican food is not only cheap; it comes in huge, gut-busting, stomach splitting, duodenum distending portions. The last time I ate a Mexican restaurant, I ordered a burrito and ended up getting something that looked like the Hindenberg, as designed by an engineer who preferred bread and beef to aluminum and hydrogen.

The portion sizes at Mexican restaurants are so large they boggle the imagination. My imagination is being boggled as I write this. It is so boggled I canpoidfhgaodfh sorry about that. There are three portion sizes in Mexican food, and they are as follow:

1. Small—You can eat it all, but you’ll feel like you just swallowed a couple basketballs doused in cheese
2. Regular—You could eat until you’ve got pico de gallo coming out your ears, and you’d still have enough leftovers to fill up a couple suitcases
3. Large—God help you

I feel sorry for Mexico. It gets all the lousy parts of Mexican culture—the corruption, the drug abuse, the endemic violence. All the good stuff goes to America: sombreros, Santana, and Mexican food. But college students wouldn’t have it any other way. I mean, do you know how much a sandwich costs nowadays?

Balls on the Court

I'm not in favor of streaking. I am, however, in favor of making tennis less skull-shatteringly dull. As you can imagine, that means I have mixed feeling about this story.

President From Another Planet

Some wingnuts question whether Barack Obama was born in the United States. Now, though, we face a more pressing question. Was he even born on Planet Earth? Click here to see shocking new evidence that Barack Obama may be, in fact, an alien. Details to come, as soon as I think them up.

Beam Me Up!

Scientists have succeeded in teleporting information between two atoms. It's a remarkable achievement, truly, but scientists caution that we're still a long way from teleporting actual matter, let alone humans. They say we shouldn't get too excited over this.

To that I say: screw you scientists! I'll get excited when I want to, and right now I'm pumped to know that human teleportation will be possible in the next couple years! Finally, the 21st century is starting to live up to the hype. We might not have rocket cars or moon bases yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

Quick Change

If only O.J. had thought of this! He might still be a free man--er, a free goat--today.

Friday, January 23, 2009

The Will Schultz Cookbook

While I'm on the topic of food, I might as well offer you one of the healthiest things in my cooking repertoire. Here's my tried-and-true recipe for Will Schultz Salad! It's named for my favorite chef, Will S. Salad.

1. Put some lettuce in a bowl
2. Hmmm...anything else in the refrigerator?
3. Look in refrigerator
4. Any bacon in there?
5. Yes
6. Add bacon to bowl
7. Not bad, but is there any cheese?
8. Yes
9. Add cheese to bacon
10. Now we're cooking...how about some chocolate syrup
11. Why the hell not?
12. Add chocolate syrup to cheese, bacon, and lettuce mixture
13. And heck, that leftover pasta is just sitting there...
14. Add pasta to the unspeakable thing you have created
15. Eat...very carefully

The Fat of the Land

The votes have been counted and the results are in. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new Worst Food in America: the Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake! I've never had one of these babies, but that's certainly not for lack of trying. Apparently, it's the equivalent of 20 bowls of Fruit Loops. My God. That's enough to make an entire kindergarten class hyperactive for at least an hour!

There's also a list of a few other "worst foods," my favorite of which has to be the "Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing." I do appreciate the refreshing honesty of its name, though. It tells you flat out: "If you eat this, you will die from massive cardiac arrest very, very soon." If only all our other foods were so straightforward.

Narcs of the Future

Boy, I can't imagine what's in store for this kid when his dad gets out of jail. He'd better resign himself to years of early bedtimes and broccoli for dinner.

Royal Pain in the...

Mocking somebody: a bad idea. Mocking somebody when said mockee is carrying an M-16 rifle: a very, very, very, very bad idea.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Come Together

Let's hope this idea never catches on. I don't look forward to living in Amexica or Canerica or, God forbid, the United States of Canamericexico.

Beware of Dog

President Bush took a lot of flak for going head-to-head with a pretzel and losing. But say what you will about our former president--I think he'd be more than a match for a clinically depressed poodle. Sadly, the same thing cannot be said about certain other former world leaders, who shall remain nameless.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Ouch!

Matt Taibbi rips Thomas Friedman at least four or five new ones in his review of Friedman's newest book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded." He begins by calling Friedman a "porn-stached resident of a positively obscene 114,000 11,400 square foot suburban Maryland mega-monstro-mansion." And that's downright complimentary compared to the stuff that follows.

Stoned Love

If you ever needed a reason to drink lots of water, the pictures in this article should do the trick.

Note: those of you who have particularly weak stomachs--or weak kidneys--might not want to read it.

Not-So-Super Bowl

For those who might be betting on the Super Bowl (hint hint, my one regular reader), here's a list of the 10 worst football teams to ever reach the Super Bowl.

And in case that "hint hint" was not enough, I'll say it straight. The Cardinals are listed as the WORST TEAM TO EVER PLAY IN THE SUPER BOWL. EVER. And if Fox Sports says it, who are we mere mortals to disagree?

Though I might disagree just a little. After all, can the Cardinals really be worse than the 1983 Green Bay Packers? If you recall, that team went 3-13, lost its last 9 games, and was ranked dead last in the NFL in total offense. That, of course, was the reason the NFL instituted a playoff system, scrapping the then-existing policy of drawing straws.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The Art of Comedy

People sometimes ask me, "Will, how can you be so funny?" Well, that don't actually ask me that, because I'm not actually that funny. But if they did, here's what I would tell them.

"Humor is nothing more than a very refined state of recognition, an extreme self-awareness. Because what is laughter, really, than a knowing acknowledgment of the unusual, the unique, the bizarre? We do not laugh at something because it is funny. It is funny because we laugh at it. It is a cycle; we recognize something as humorous, and therefore make it humorous for others.

Also, humor is a street sign that says 'Booger Branch.' Now that's comedy."

Pool Rules

1. No children allowed in the pool during adult swim
2. No horseplay or running around the side of the pool
3. No diving in the shallow end
4. No not-diving in the not-shallow end
5. No swimming when the chlorine has been replaced with sulfuric acid

What a Cut-Up!

What's the worst possible mistake you can make in a marriage? Is it:

A) Forgetting your anniversary
B) Forgetting your partner's birthday
C) Having an affair
D) Dismembering your partner with a chainsaw

Hmmm...D is pretty bad. Then again, though, I know what it's like to have your birthday forgotten, and it ain't pretty.

The Never-Ending War of Man vs. The Animals

Strike!

And counter-strike!

When will it end, for the love of God? When will it all end?

I Now Pronounce You Amphibian and Wife

Hey, Jerry Falwell warned us that something like this would happen if we legalized gay marriage. He just forgot to mention that it would happen in India, I suppose.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Get On the Bus

This happened to me once, only instead of a bus, it was my family car, and instead of accidentally, it was on purpose, and instead of "was treated for hypothermia at a local hospital," it was "contracted hypothermia and nearly died."

OK, that's not quite true either. That never actually happened. But I'm not one to let reality get in the way of a bad joke.

Coming Soon to a Museum Near You

Vladimir Putin solidifies his status as the greatest Russian prime minister/painter since Chernenko.

Map Happy

There's only one thing I like better than lists: maps. In their graceful contours and bold shadings, one can read the very pulse of history. Plus, I like the pretty colors.

To recap: I like lists. I like maps. Imagine my mind-boggling joy, then, when I discovered this list of maps. Why, the only thing that could make this better was if it mentioned William McKinley.

Take a look at these maps and see what cool things you can find. Here are some things I learned in just forty-five seconds of browsing:

1. There's a town in Moldavia called "Bender"
2. Genghis Khan conquered some people called the Tanguts, whoever the heck they were
3. Sargon's empire was a bit overrated, to tell the truth

You see? The fun just never stops!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Mayors Gone Wild

When the mayor promised that he cared about the young people of the city, this is not what most people had in mind.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Pick 'Em

Bill Simmons, of Bill Simmons fame, offers his NFL playoff picks. Be warned: the man went 0-4 last week.

Of course, I can't claim to be doing much better. In my infinite wisdom, I picked the Carolina Panthers to win the Super Bowl. And barring some unforeseen circumstance--namely, the sudden and inexplicable death of everyone on the Eagles and Cardinals--that's probably not going to happen.

So what are MY picks, as if you care? For your reading pleasure:

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES beat the ARIZONA CARDINALS
Simple mascotnomics. A cardinal cannot beat an eagle.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS beat the BALTIMORE RAVENS
Mascotnomics doesn't apply here, unfortunately, because nobody knows what the hell a Steeler is. I pick the Steelers, then, because their quarterback has the cooler nickname. In fact, he's the only quarterback with a nickname. No contest, really.

Now go out and place those bets! And remember, I get half.

Bullseye!

Here's news you can use. From Salt Lake City:

A US man had his gun confiscated after he accidentally shot a lavatory bowl in a restaurant toilet.

The 26-year-old man's handgun went off while he was hitching up his pants, reports the Salt Lake Tribune.


You know what I think? He ought to be grateful that the bullet ended up in the toilet and not...well...someplace rather more sensitive.

The Will Schultz Cookbook

GRILLED CHEESE, WILL SCHULTZ STYLE
1. Get cheese
2. Grill cheese
3. Eat grilled cheese

BONUS RECIPE! GRILLED CHEESE W/TOMATO SOUP
1. Get cheese
2. Grill cheese
3. Get tomato soup
4. Eat grilled cheese and tomato soup

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Love/Hate Relationship

Kids these days, with their bizarre language fads! "Hot" means cool! "Bad" means good! "Phat" means, hell, I don't know what "phat" means! And now it turns out that "hate" means love! I miss the good ol' days, when we all spoke Esperanto and we liked it!

Let Me Lick Your Love Pole

Wow. He probably should've held out for the quadruple dog dare. No reaction yet from Scut Farkus.

First Among Alcohols

Breaking news from the country formerly known as the USSR: Dmitri Medvedev is still far less popular than his predecessor Vladimir Putin, according to the Russian equivalent of the Gallup poll.

Monday, January 12, 2009

When Ninjas Go Bad

I'm no expert in Ninjology, but it seems to me like the ninja in this story violates several cardinal rules of the Ninjocracy. To wit:

1. Getting caught on camera
2. Being so out of shape that you're described as "portly"
3. Trying to steal an ATM--what need has a ninja for money?
4. Living in Florida

If he keeps that up, he's going to get his ninja license revoked. And we all know how tough it is to get that back.

I'm Just Buzzed

This experiment gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "busy as a bee." It also gives a new meaning to the phrase "scientists have a lot of time on their hands, and apparently a lot of illicit drugs as well."

List-O-Mania, Part II

Tell me: how is it that I, a total list fetishist, have remained unaware of Listology for so long? It's not just right up my alley. It goes right up my alley, to my front door, knocks politely and lets itself in, and sits down at my kitchen table for a nice chat. Sorry for the somewhat overly-elaborate metaphor.

But anyway, where else could you find a list like "The O.C. Episodes Ranked (1st Season)"? Or "The 10 Most Enjoyable Basketball Players on TV"? (Which is crap, by the way, as watching Ben Wallace play is about as enjoyable as brushing your teeth with steel wool and chili pepper).

And if you prefer "high" art, you can check out lists like this one of "The 100 Greatest Paintings of All Time." Granted, it's not really a GOOD list. The fact that the creator puts "The Potato Eaters" above "I and the Village" forces me to question his taste, good judgment, family history, and personal hygiene.

But that's what lists are for! That's why we make them! That's why I obsess about them way, way too much! Go check out listology, and if you're feeling in a listy mood, make up a few of your own. I'm currently working on my listum opus, "The O.C. Episodes Ranked (2nd Season)"

Need-Based Scholarship

Dear University of North Carolina,

I'm currently a junior at this fine, fine institution of higher learning. Recently, I have been having some trouble paying for the cost of my education. Though you were kind enough to grant me a scholarship, that annual stipend of $5.56 is no longer enough to pay for two more years worth of college.

Thus, I humbly request that you increase the value of my scholarship, to at least $15.00 a semester. If not, I may have to resort to drastic measures.

Sincerely,
Me

Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Thrill of Defeat...and the Agony...of Defeat

Yes, UNC lost. Again. Dropping us to 0-2--tied for last place--in the ACC. Maybe I'm being a Gloomy Gus, but I don't think we're going to go undefeated this year.

But moping won't fix anything. Let's try to look on the bright side of things. Every cloud has a silver lining, right? Here are some of the positive aspects of tonight's loss:

1. Tyler Hansbrough did not break his leg
2. Ty Lawson did not contract tetanus halfway through the game
3. Deon Thompson did not suffer a psychotic episode (though considering the way he played, maybe a touch of psychosis would have done the trick)
4. Danny Green did not die

See? I'm feeling better already! I feel happy...oh so happy...I feel...I...OH GOD IT'S ALL OVER WE'RE NEVER GOING TO WIN ANOTHER GAME WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

Sorry. Sorry. Slipped into a funk there. But really, I'm going to keep hope alive for a little longer. If we win the championship, nobody outside Winston-Salem and Chestnut Hill will care that we lost to Wake Forest and Boston College.

First, though, comes winning the championship. And it looks like we've got a long way to go before we play with the big boys. My recommendation to Coach Williams? Call a team meeting. Select one player at random, though preferably not one of the good ones. Take out a gun and blow him away. If that doesn't send a message, I don't know what will.

OMGLOLROFLWTFOLLZBDOQRSZ5

Now, this might come about from me being a cranky old man trapped in the body of a college student. But don't you think that 14,528 text messages in one months is...well...just a wee bit excessive?

According to the article, that averages out to "one every two minutes of every waking hour." Basically, you'd simply be reporting on every moment of your life. It'd be like being permanently hooked up to Twitter! Eventually, you'd start sending text about how you're sending texts, and then you're trapped in a meta-cycle of despair from which there is no escape.

PS. Wasn't a "meta-cycle" something from "Judge Dredd"? If not, doesn't it sound like it?

Shark Attacked

Yes! Another victory in the never ending war of Man vs. Nature!

I do have to salute this Aussie for his presence of mind. If I were attacked by a shark, my first instinct would be to roll over and die of fright. I get the feeling 95% of human beings would act the same way.

Australians, though, are made of sterner stuff. And punchier stuff. They don't care what they punch--if you bite an Australian in the leg, you're asking for it, buddy.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

The Labyrinth

Y'see, here's what I don't get. The headline is "Hoarder Dies After Becoming Lost in Maze of His Own Trash." I understand that. Happens all the time!

But then there's this tidbit from the story itself: "Neighbors raised the alarm after failing to see him leave his house in Broughton, Bucks, for several days."

Here's my problem. If a guy lives in a house filled with floor-to-ceiling piles of rotting garbage, why was anyone puzzled when he failed to set foot outdoors? I can't imagine most trash-dwelling recluses spend a lot of time out and about. Just wondrin'.

Me Lucky Charms

When you win the lottery once, you're lucky.

When you win twice, you're very, very lucky.

When you win three times, you're so damn lucky you could go skydiving without a parachute and come out without a bruise.

When you win twenty-one times in 13 months...well, I'm guessing you must say your prayers extra hard every night.

Spidey Sense Tingling

Why, this might be the greatest convergence of politics and pop culture since Richard Nixon appeared on "Laugh-In"! Or, at the very least, since Bill Clinton appeared on the "Arsenio Hall Show."

My favorite part of the story:

The comic starts with Spider-Man's alter-ego Peter Parker taking photographs at the inauguration, before spotting two identical Obamas. Parker decides "the future president's gonna need Spider-Man," and springs into action, using basketball to determine the real Obama and punching out the impostor.

Geez, Spidey. What if Obama was having an off night on the basketball court? You might have ended up punching out the president-elect. Talk about being trigger-happy.

The Will Schultz Cookbook

For years, I've been in search of hobby. I've picked up a few things along the way, but nothing has stuck.

For a while, I tried collecting things. First I collected stamps. Then I realized there is nothing more boring in the world than collecting stamps, except maybe collecting coins. Sadly, I realized that only after a brief stint as a coin collector.

I also did sports, to even less avail. I was too slow for soccer, too short for basketball, and too male for women's volleyball. Fencing was OK, until I had an unfortunate mishap that I'd rather not talk about for reasons both personal and legal.

But I think I might have finally hit upon the perfect hobby: cooking! True, it destroys whatever manliness credentials I had. The only way I could be considered manly again is if I took up mixed martial arts.

Cooking does have one big, big advantage, though. Whatever you make, you eat. Can you say that about coin collecting? No! I found that out through personal experience. A very painful personal experience.

Anyway, I thought I could use this blog to share a couple of my favorite recipes with you. Look for "The Will Schultz Cookbook" as yet another regularly irregular feature of this blog. For my first number:

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Chocolate Chip Cookies
1. Pour ½ cup of sugar into a bowl
2. Add 2 eggs
3. Buy a package of Chips Ahoy!
4. Put Chips Ahoy! In bowl with eggs and sugar
5. Mix indifferently
6. Take out Chips Ahoy!
7. Eat Chips Ahoy!
8. Mmmm….

If you're in a hurry, you can skip steps 1 and 2. If you're in a big hurry,, you can skip steps 1-7.

Haiku News

Fiery embers
Smolder in deepest winter
"No smoking?" Ha! Ha!

Don't Cross Me

So a British church has taken down their crucifix because it's "too scary"? Hate to break it to you, vicar, but the whole idea of Jesus dying on the cross is pretty important to Christianity. It's not just a minor plot point.

But whatever! We can roll with it. Here, in honor of the Reverend Ewen Souter, is the story of Christ's passion, with all the scary stuff removed:

"One day, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and was met by a bunch of people waving palm branches. Then a bunch of stuff happened. And after that, Jesus ascended into the clouds and was never seen again."

There! That shouldn't frighten the tykes. Next up: my non-scary version of the story of Passover.

Jelly, Jelly, in My Belly

Hey, anybody lose a large, white, jelly-like substance recently? If so, there are some people in New Zealand who would like to talk to you.