Feeling a little down, now that you have to trudge your way back to to crack of the whip that is dutiful employment?  Still entertaining fantasies of quitting your job and establishing your own line of artisan barbecue sauces, instead of pushing or otherwise physically manipulating paper, or perhaps, pencils?

I know just the thing to get your out of those dreary “This Whole Work Thing Is Not As Fun As I Remember” Blues:

On Saturday afternoon on the Mall, passersby watched as a mother duck and her offspring paddled in a series of man-made pools outside the National Museum of the American Indian. The five ducklings died when they were pulled into a drain, even as guards and maintenance workers rushed to save them.

Happy Tuesday that feels even worse than a Monday, everybody!

Interesting story in The Washington Post today about the racism some Obama campaign volunteers have faced while trying to get the word out about the Hopesmith. I’ve read more than enough stories at this point where the reporter quotes some uneducated “blue-collar” voter who refuses to vote for Obama because he is a radical Muslim black liberation theologist who will ban flags and swear his Presidential oath on a stack of your confiscated guns, but the shock and awe of it the overwhelming and willful ignorance never abates. Here’s some highlights from this story:

One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!”

…

In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock
Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this
way: “Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our
country. There is so much that people don’t know about his upbringing
in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the
ranting of his minister against the white America, you can’t convince
me that some of that didn’t rub off on him.

…

According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama’s face on Seifert’s
T-shirt and said: “He’s a half-breed and he’s a Muslim. How can you
trust that?”

Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause - washingtonpost.com

And we’ll allow this post to serve as public shame until I get off my butt in order to plop my butt down in front of this thing to start getting my word out to the people.  Or words.  Probably several.

My apologies for the spontaneous hiatus, everybody.  I just kinda stopped doing the whole blog thing on a moment’s notice, and that’s no way to get through life, I suppose.

I need to change the title, though, I think.  Identifying myself with a title inspired by my two years removed college major, not to mention it’s not particularly interesting or compelling isn’t a way to get through life, either.

But for those of you that still rattle this cage every once in a while, I just wanted to let you know that I’m gonna pick this thing up again soon.  Slap a new coat of paint on it and cover it in glitter.

 Apparently, there’s been a trend where Chuck E. Cheese enthusiasts (which apparently exist in large enough numbers to merit a ‘trend’) have been purchasing old animatronic, anthropomorphized, birthday-well-wishing robots and setting them up in their garages.  Aside from the fact that this is undeniably terrifying (I bet they watch them while they sleep), it allows them to modify them to do truly twisted and unbelievably awesome things like this:

NOTE:  If you watch any YouTube videos today in lieu of contributing to society, make it these videos.  You can thank me later.

Boing Boing: Chuck E Cheese bots modded to play hiphop

If you can call something I did once a tradition.

Anyways, I’m bringing back a feature I hoped to do regularly before abandoning it haphazardly, wherein I take a famous quote, and mangle it via advanced Internet Babelfish technology.  The quote that you once held so near and dear to your hearts will take a jetset tour across the globe, bouncing from America to Europe to the mystical Orient, returning to America with news of fabulous spices and jade statuettes and because it forgot its BlackBerry, then shooting back to Europe and farting around wholeheartedly amongst its many language-speakers, finally ending up back in the land of English much worse for the wear.

Then you get a chance to figure out what the hell was originally said.  It’s like the United Nations if all those translator earpieces shorted out and everybody started slapping each other.  How fun does that sound?

I used to call this Translation Sensation, but I’m not going to anymore because I don’t particularly like it.  From henceforth, this feature shall be known as Lost in Translation, Then Found Again Worse for Wear.

Today’s edition comes to you via Alta Vista’s Babelfish Translator.

And where has the quote gone today? Well, today the quote has traveled from English to Portuguese to French to Italian to French to Portuguese to English.  It’s a foreign language palindrome.  Like el race care le.

Here’s the oh so bastardized result:

 Wires, we live in a world that has walls, and these walls must be conserved of men with injector. Between which IDO? You? You, Waldo Faldo lieutenant? I have a responsibility greater than that possibly you could fathom. You weep for Carl Winslow, and you naval navigation fusiliers. You have this luxury. You have the luxury not to know that I know. Death of this Carl Winslow, when tragic, conserved probably of the lives. E my existence, when grotesque and incomprehensible to you, conserve lives. You are not the truth because profondement in deep in the places that you not word approximately in parts, me want in this wall, you you have me necessity in this wall. We use words as the honor, the code, honnêteté. We use these words given that the spine of a life spent to defend something. You it used as punchline. I was born the born moment the inclination to justify one uomo that very is arisen and is slept under the covering of the freedom that supplied, and is questioned then the way in which me supplied. Me to rather you have said to only thank it, and esteste in its way, thus not, me it you suggest that I will choose on a weapon, and are a place. Or one another way, dò riens what you think only is intitled.

As always, names which tend not to get translated have been replaced with cast members of your favorite TGIF sitcom.  Today, it’s Family Matters.

Go ahead, take a crack at it in the comments, and I’ll check back on you crazy monkeys later to let you know who has won the fabulous prize of winning.

Apparently, Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Leinart hate each other, at least according to Bill Simmons and Jimmy Kimmel.  For the ESPY’s, these two QB’s of the future had to be seated on opposite sides of the hall, I guess for fear that Leinart would pretend to not remember how the Steelers’ game against the Raiders went last year, and Roethlisberger would call Leinart a slut.

I imagine the Steelers organization played a part in this, because the last thing they want is a fight to break out between Big Ben and anybody, because if he gets hit in the head without by anything harder than the miniature baseball helmets you get with novelty sundaes, he forgets his name and how not to throw interceptions.

Of course, this rivalry does make a bit of sense if you think about it.  On the one side is Ben Roethlisberger, a blue-collar QB out of rinky-dink Miami of Ohio that found immediately huge success with the Steelers, and then suffered a series of setbacks that led some to question the rest of his career.

On the other hand, you have Matt Leinart, quarterback to the stars.  He was the biggest star in LA while he was at glitzy and glamorous USC, won a Heisman and a national championship there, was best friends with Nick Lachey, and dated Paris Hilton.  When it comes to the NFL, he did slip a bit in the draft, but has since been viewed as a potential QB of the future, despite not entirely living up to the title yet.

Aside from the obvious differences in backgrounds, lifestyles, and probably personalities (Ben Roethlisberger is not a douchebag), I wonder if Ben doesn’t appreciate his status as the NFL’s top young QB being taken away by someone who hasn’t even made the playoffs yet.  He is the youngest QB to ever lead his team to a Super Bowl, and while last year was a disaster, there certainly were mitigating circumstances.  Maybe he thinks people have written him off too soon and thrown their hats in with Leinart?

Bill Simmons: Roethlisberger, Leinart Don’t Like Each Other - Sports Blog - The FanHouse

…and it was Dennis Kucinich.  And he was in the room for like 10 seconds.

That’s like saying you got to spend the night with a tall blonde with a sultry voice, but it was Dauber from Coach.

He likes to be the big spoon.

I’ve got no problems with Ellen Degeneres. She’s more often funny than not in that “neurotic, insecure 6^th grade Social Studies teacher” kind of way, and she’s not afraid to be an unabashed lesbian, proudly gripping the waistband of a sensible yet trendy yet flattering pantsuit, casting aside the patriarchal heels of heterosexuality and opting for the comfortable “I am who I am” sneaks. I don’t even begrudge her too much for having a talk show, which as far as I’m concerned is the last respite for human sanity and dignity, where both desperately attempt to cling to the edge of oblivion while listening to celebrities rehash pre-approved talking points in attempts to up their royalty checks/get their corporate puppetmasters off their waxed backs. I’m convinced that the shining visage of Dr. Phil’s bulbous noggin and sharklike row upon row of his horse-teeth will forever haunt me in my dreams, escapable only by the comforting grip of death, be it his or mine. Most likely mine, due to syndication rights. But hey, Ellen’s gotta make sure Ellen gets paid, right? I’d gladly laugh my ass off at the latest quip by William H. Macy or Chris Daughtry if I can dry my tears with a big fat paycheck whose memo says “DANG SON, YOU GOTS PAID”

I won’t hold any of this against Ellen Degeneres, lesbo laugh machine. However, I will unnaturally hold against her her desire to force all 40-something white women to dance about in a fashion that can only be described as “uncomfortable” and “wrong, just wrong.” These housewives, slathered in SPF 80, tickled pink to get away a while from Joliet, Illinois, to visit the bright lights of Southern California, are so inundated with the glitz and glamour (they saw Evan Marriott at the Hard Rock Café! They don’t usually tip bus boys, but there’s always room for an exception) that they don’t realize that they would never spastically gyrate and jerk in that fashion in their own homes, in the bathroom, with the shower curtain drawn, lights off, and husband off to the Gary, Indiana, Port-O-John and Excretory Technology Expo for the weekend, let alone on national television watched by thousands of other bored 40-somethings.

I don’t make Ellen Degeneres make out with me. I respect her natural inclinations towards other women, and have no desire to force my own perspective on what is normal and sometimes sexy. Then why does she get off making overly enthusiastic Wal-Mart greeters and their now-forever resentful husbands twist their hips to music that even the young adolescents who work in the Electronics department haven’t heard yet. Jerry Springer making two midgets fight each other for the love of an exhibitionist nun who is a gay transsexual is more natural than watching these loaves of Melba Toast attempt to remember how Lawrence Welk told them to get down when they still had two human hips.

Ellen, please. I’m not even home jobless to watch this concentration camp of rhythm anymore, and I still get night sweats knowing it just exists out there, on film, waiting to be dug up by Martian anthropologists trying to determine what went so wrong. Just stop. Would it help if I got your buddy Jeremy Piven on the phone with a request to “hug it out, bitch”? I’m not sure if lesbians can “hug it out,” but I can look into it.

Apparently my attempt to attach a lecherous and skeezy attitude to a presumed innocuous celebrity may not have been that misguided after all.

From Best Week Ever:

Well, it turns out in college, the All-American Jared was known for something entirely different. According to our source, while studying at Indiana University, Fogle ran a very successful pornography rental company out of his bedroom. His porn collection was vast and extensive, and Fogle took his business pretty seriously. A video would run a patron a dollar a day (cheap!), and people would come from all over to take advantage of the deal. Needless to say, Jared had enough porn to keep his customers happy.

As far as his incredible weight loss goes, it turns out it wasn’t as motivated as you would think. In fact, what got Jared hooked on Subway in the first place was laziness. The sandwich chain had opened a branch on the first floor of Jared’s dorm, and what with his busy porn company, Jared began eating the sandwiches out of extreme laziness. It was the closest fast food available! Just imagine how different our lives would be if an Arby’s had opened up there instead? We’d probably be watching Jared on some TLC special about how he hasn’t gotten out of bed for 6 years. Though, we imagine his right arm would still be in tip-top shape.

Huh. So Jared Fogel is living a lie, in that he lucked into his now average BMI because the only somewhat healthy fast food chain on the planet happened to be within spitting distance of his successful DIY pornography rental service.

I’m sure Michael Strahan is heartbroken. He probably doesn’t know who to trust in this crazy world anymore.

Bill Richardson is the governor of New Mexico. He is also running for President of the United States. He won’t win, but he probably has every right to hold the position. Maybe he’d make a good Vice President, and then he could be my neighbor. Couldn’t be any worse than Dick Cheney. Dude lets his shrubs get out of control, and didn’t even send regrets to my block party invitation.

Odds that this man now regrets this picture:  1/1

Remember Jessica Simpson?  The one who wasn’t Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, and the one who was married to the guy who looked like he should be assistant manager at your local Lids?

For an all-to-brief period of time, Jessica Simpson and her skeezy husband Nick Lachey captivated people with nothing better to do on their MTV show Newlyweds.  Every week brought about new intrigue and mystery.  Will Jessica discover that canned tuna is in fact tuna . . . or is it chicken??  What kind of dog will they get . . . big or small????  How exactly do you pronounce . . . Lachey?????? (cue dramatic organ music)

However, things recently haven’t been so great for the young happy couple.  They got divorced, and Nick presumably retired to an underground cave with his brother Drew to start a new civilization with a currency based entirely on barbed wire tattoos and trucker hats.  Jessica, meanwhile, has vanished from America’s radar, exacerbated by the fact that Britney Spears decided to go so nutso that Kevin Federline, by comparison, looks like someone you would approach for some sound financial planning.

That being said, what has Jessica Simpson been up to?  Worry not, loyal readers/misguided Google searchers, Papa Bear’s gonna take care of you.  (shut up, you were worried, admit it).  I’ve scoured the Internet for the latest in Jessica Simpson dish.

If this were a movie, my search would consist of me poring over microfilms in a dusty library, fueled solely by stale coffee, a determined piano soundtrack, and the guarantee that I would get to sleep with my feisty and independent co-protagonist once I’d solved this mystery but before the final credits roll.

However, this being a post-Imus, now-YouTube, impending-robot overlord world, I just needed to type ‘Jessica Simpson’ into a Google News search, and I’m immediately gorging myself on the latest Jessica Simpson news and views.

With that in mind, what is she up to lately?  Has she taken her heartbreak and frustrations to an artistic level, growing as a musician as she works on a new album?  Or perhaps she’s decided to take her public relationship problems to print, penning a self-help book alongside Dr. Phil?  Maybe she’s decided to use her extensive capital to make the world a better place, donating to dozens of charities and digging wells in Darfur?  Let’s take a look-see, shall we?

Jessica Simpson’s Breasts Kept Her From Jesus
Jessica Simpson: You’ll Never Catch Me Panty-Less
Jessica Simpson extending herself by designing clip-on hair

Really, it’s good to see her keeping herself busy . . . making fake hair and wearing underpants.

Care of the sycophants at Kissing Suzy Kolber, I witnessed something that wouldn’t make my Top 1000 Things I’d Expect to See Anywhere Ever: Brady Quinn, Quarterback Extraordinaire and Mussed Hair Prodigy, dressed up as an oversized bottle of mustard.

See, I told you. I told you straight out what I was talking about, and you’re still shocked when you see it.

That being said, it’s obvious the picture was taken at a Halloween party. Either that, or there’s suddenly much larger concerns about Brady than his accuracy on throws over 30 yards.

Since it’s a Halloween party, we can somewhat safely assume the picture was taken in South Bend, and we can only somewhat safely assume that his Catsup Cohort is probably a fellow football team member. We can assume that because only other football team members don’t look like mutant dwarves next to Brady Quinn, and because he’s a black guy in South Bend. Kidding. Kind of.

With all this in mind, who the hell is this guy? Most ND students learn the faces of the football players relatively well, but I can’t for the life of me place Heinz 57 over here.

So, Irish fans, thoughts on who Brady’s fellow condiment is?

UPDATE: Savvy commentator ‘Anonymous’ pointed out that Brady’s bud is most likely former free safety and high school classmate Chinedum Ndukwe. Here’s a pic for comparison:
Looks like a match to me. Of course, considering it was the Ndukwe family that pointed out to then head coach Tyrone Willingham that there was a super-great quarterback from Chinedum’s high school who loved Notre Dame and maybe they would want to consider extending an offer, I think it’s only fair that Brady let Ndukwe be Ketchup, King of the Condiments.

From Romanesko:

An Indiana University study finds that Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly calls a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.

Every 6.8 seconds? I don’t care how rational you are, you have to almost admire Billdo’s work ethic regarding slandering anyone and everyone around him that doesn’t happen to be Bill O’Reilly.

He’s like the John Henry of hate. But I don’t think we’re lucky enough to expect his heart to explode anytime soon.

Ain’t got nothing on Hatin’ Bill.

Do these pants make me look fat? Haha, I know, it’s funny, right? I mean, you’re Subway’s Jared, and you used to be like super fat. Fat like you lost track of various areas of my body fat. Fat like you could see people shifting uncomfortably when they had an open seat next to them on the bus fat. Stretch marks on your chin fat.

But that was old Jared, now you’re Subway’s Jared, you sexy piece of ass you. That’s right, the people love you. You gave them hope. You showed the world that if a man is willing to eat vegetable subs and walk every day for the rest of his life, he can triumphantly wear a 35-inch waist pair of Dockers. They’re stain-resistant, you know.

You made it happen. Now the world is your oyster. You can walk into any Subway in the world, smell that sweet sting of vinegar and oil, and know that You. Are. The. Man. Remember the look on the pimply face of the kid behind the counter when he saw you walk through the door of the new Subway at the Galleria? It was awe. And respect. And I’ll be god damned if you didn’t inspire that kid to make the best six inch vegetable sub on Italian bread his $6-an-hour hands could possibly muster.

You knew he wasn’t sure how to handle it when we reached the cash register, none of the new kids ever do. I mean, on the one hand, you just had the honor and privilege to make Jared’s sub, do you dare have the gall to ask him for payment? He knew, deep down in his sandwich artist soul, how could he possibly ask the man who has done so much for Subway for money? He knew in his heart that if anything, he should be paying YOU for the right to make his sandwich. You made him a better sandwich artist and a better man that day, and he could never truly repay you. But it’s alright, you handled the situation like The Man that you are. A quick snag of the bag, a finger pistol shot in his direction, and a smooth whisper of ‘Eat Fresh’ as you strutted out the door for the walk back home.

Yea, you didn’t need to look back, you knew he just lost his mind. You know he went home and told his parents, and they lost their mind. They probably made him call up Grandma and make her lose her mind too. That’s the Jared Effect, baby. Losing minds all over the world.

Shoot, I need to give Kimmie a call. Yea, Kimmie Meisner, the cute figure skater from the commercials, you know Jared is triple lutzing the bejeezus outta that. Jared selected her from rows of hopeful women, all desperately wishing for the opportunity to spend some screen time with J-Red. Hopefully get some of that Fogel Magic rubbing off on them. Shit, look at Michael Strahan. Dude’s got the nerve to enter into the Less Fat/More Meat debate with me? Did he even know who was stepping into the ring with? I’m Jared Fogel, Sandwich Sage, Hoagie Ombudsman. It’s LESS FAT, numbnuts. Now look where he is, messy divorce, crazy ex-wife, jacked-up teeth. Take your ‘More Meat’ schtick back to Blimpie, Alfred E. Newman. Now, Kimmie, I’ll be more than happy to let her have more meat once I’m done blowing the minds of these kids.

Yea, you ready to make the kids at Calvin Coolidge Middle School lose their mind too? They’ve been waiting for this day for months. Classes are cancelled, and their butts are jammed into the seats of the auditorium/cafeteria/gymnasium. Those butts are for you, Subway man. All for you.

Alright, let’s do this shit. Gimme my oversized pants.

Now, I consider myself a pretty adventurous eater (I don’t even know what’s in Buffalo sauce besides buffalo!), but even this would be a challenge for me. I guess I’m just not a huge fan of trying to eat something that fights back.

Of course, there is the added bonus of your entree being able to feed itself to you. Take that, you stupid arms!

These commercials have always made me vaguely uncomfortable. Recently, I figured out why. First off, the entire concept of television commercials for toilet paper is off-putting. I don’t care that they call it bathroom tissue, it’s paper that you use to wipe residue poop from your butthole, and we see it between debate sessions on The View. You can call them Immaculate Wipes for all I care, we’re still talking about poop smears.

That being said, the Charmin commercials are especially bad. Back in the day, they had ‘Don’t Squeeze the Charmin,’ and while it seemed like it should be a little perverse and dirty, it really wasn’t. Now you’ve got bears blatantly talking about wiping their butts on national television. Furthermore, Charmin engages in some good old fashioned fear-mongering by showing the dangers of their competitors bathroom tissue. That’s right, if you use the other guys’ stuff, look at how much blue liquid transfers from the paper to their hand. THAT’S POOP ON HANDS, PEOPLE, FECES TO SKIN CONTACT. Buy Charmin or get human waste all over yourself.

Also, it doesn’t appear on this commercial (as an aside, I can’t and don’t want to even begin to comprehend the type of person that records a Charmin Toilet Paper commercial and then uploads it onto the Internet), but other Charmin bear commercials blatantly show the bears rubbing the paper all over their furry butts. “It’s Great For Bear Behinds,” get it, punsters? They play it off like it’s a fun dance, cha cha cha and all, and the bears are just using the toilet paper in lieu of the feather boa they loaned to the Gay Skunk. Nonetheless, the bears are undeniably indicating that toilet paper is meant to be rubbed on butts. We get it, Charmin, we know what it’s for, don’t animate it and make it dance for us.

Oh, and I was made plenty uncomfortable by just these atrocities, but then I realized the worst part of it all: this campaign is based entirely on the jokey cliche, “Does a bear shit in the woods?” For the Love of God, people, we’re seeing cartoon advertisements focused entirely around scatological colloquialisms!

Charmin is brow-beating us with fecal suggestions, using the constantly pooping bears in woods, showing them rubbing the tissue all over their tooshies, and threatening us that dung-covered hands is the inevitable result of using the competitor’s shoddy bathroom tissue!

I’ve had it, Charmin. We’ve all made it this far in life knowing that toilet paper, or whatever the hell you want to call it, is made for cleaning up our leftover waste. We don’t need you to animate it and cover it in a coat of fur, we all understand each other, you freaks.

Cha cha cha, my ass.

Dude made a robot heart. The engine that drives this crazy thing called life, the single device that keeps us going every day, allowing us to watch American Idol, organize our bank statements and run through meadows of assorted flowers, he made one.

He also creeps me out, big time. You’ve seen the commercials for Dr. Robert Jarvik, creator of the Jarvik artificial heart. He sells us Lipitor, and he sells it well. I don’t even have high cholesterol, and I want Lipitor. He points to clear torsos and says that this drug has a success rate of 70%. Nicely done, Lipitor.

I don’t know what it is about Dr. Robert Jarvik. Sure, he’s pretty much the biggest celebrity in the medical field this side of Florence Nightingale and McDreamy, but something just doesn’t seem right about him. Maybe it’s his cool confidence while he’s wearing the tieless blazer that says, “Look, I’m a professional, but I also know how to have appropriately conservative fun.” I’m thinking it’s his slicked-back hair, it sets me on alert. That haircut makes me think Jarvik could be the kind of guy who hangs out at the country club after a quick 18 and makes off-color jokes, and you’re forced to awkwardly laugh at them, lest he deny you Lipitor.

Regis Philbin, the man who manages to enjoy the company of both Kelly Ripa and Kathy Lee Gifford. He’s still creeped out by his date, Robert Jarvik.

It also doesn’t help that he’s married to Marilyn Vos Savant, the woman declared Smartest Person in the World. She’s in the Guiness Book of World Records for highest recorded IQ. What does she do with her once-in-a-lifetime mind? She writes a weekly column for Parade Magazine. Try and tell me she’s not secretly evil. And for crying out loud, most people skim over her column looking for the latest celebrity Q&A and the cartoons about the silly big dog who does silly big things. Marilyn Vos Savant, smartest woman in the world, puts her gifts towards writing in a publication that most people acknowledge as just making their Sunday newspaper too thick, along with all the department store bra advertisements.

Congratulations to Jarvik for saving countless lives with your cool, calculated mechanical heart. And congrats to Marilyn for completely wasting her exclusive gift on fancy Sudoku puzzles. You both creep me out.

Let me tell you a little bit about my fiancee. She’s a grad student at Georgetown, getting her Ph.D. in pharmacology. I don’t need to tell you that she’s significantly smarter than I am. Well, that’s not entirely true: guess which one of us can still sing the entire theme song to Salute Your Shorts (we run, we jump, we swing and play…) [UPDATE: My lovely fiancee decided to continue to display her superiority over me by singing the entire theme song. However, I'm confident things evened out when I had to explain to her who Rick James was later in the evening.] and can still remember the number of Britney Spears first ex-husband (George Costanza). Unfortunately, they don’t offer a Ph.D. in Crap You’ve Learned When You Could Have Been Learning Valuable Job Skills Such As Excel Proficiency and a Can-Do Attitude. To summarize: Megan is getting her Ph.D. in Pharmacology, and I have no idea what Farmuhkologee is, and I’m not supremely confident in my ability to spell it.

Getting her Ph.D. in a super-science field, she’s surrounded by very modern equipment, bordering on futuristic. She works every day with machines that are worth more than both of my kidneys, and she deals with mice stem cells every day, growing in petri dishes little mutant mice hearts that I hope and pray never decide to rise up against her tyranny and beat her to death (rimshot).

She works at a very modern university. They have Wi-Fi, they have Starbucks, they have electric go-karts, they have co-ed living. Believe me, for a Catholic University, co-ed living are like freaking hologram laser jet packs.

They also have a modern gym, complete with the latest technology to maximize your efficiency in getting buffed and toned. They have ellipticals, Nautilus, and other assorted impressive-sounding machinery. Megan uses these intimidating machines, and I only fear a little bit that they will rise up against her tyranny, since I don’t think they’re sentient, but I don’t exercise enough to know.

The other day, Megan was using this modern gym at a modern university where she is a modern student. She was cruising away on the ellipticals, which is a completely sexist machine by the way. I mean, what if I, a red meat eating, chest hair having man, want to have a low impact workout? Just because I use a razor on my face instead of something called the Bikini Zone (sounds like a location in a Godzilla movie) doesn’t mean that my joints don’t occasionally hurt.

That being said, what does she see in front of her? Another girl. What does she see around that girl’s waist. A fanny pack, the item of clothing/storage device that is only acceptably worn by Moms on vacation and 1985. What’s in that fanny pack? A Walkman. A device that plays cassette tapes. Why didn’t she just drag the old phonograph to the gym, or hell, why not bring her minstrel and lute to play for her? And besides, what could she possibly be listening to on her Walkman? A mixtape given to her by the Berlin Wall?

She doesn’t remember if the girl was wearing Hypercolor and L.A. Lights.

FBI explores strange letters about cheerleaders on TV

Seems there’s a Grade-A wackjob somewhere in the Pacific Northwest sending out angry letters to television stations and athletic departments across the country. Some of them even include deadly pesticide, which I presume is super-deadly if a pillbug opens the letter. He’s (I’m presuming it’s a he, crazy women don’t write angry letters, they just buy thirty or so cats) been railing for his cause for years apparently.

His magnum opus? The exploitation of cheerleaders on television. The obsessive words straight from Nutjob Johnson’s pen:

We are fed up with networks exploiting women in sports coverage. ABC/ESPN exploit collegiate and professional cheer squads in their coverage of football and basketball.

Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, so on and so forth, another extremist weirdo who has decided it is his life’s calling to rail against the exploitation of women in sports, like so many self-righteous others.

Let’s take another dip into the pool of insanity, shall we?

They do this by parking their TV cameras on these women for their own personal entertainment, but only give TV time to squads that wear long sleeved shirts, jackets, sweaters, etc. The squads that don’t wear these types of outfits? They get EXPLOITED.

Snuh?? Wait, this guy is claiming women are being EXPLOITED because the ones wearing skimpier uniforms don’t get enough TV coverage?

. . .

This man is a true leader, taking it upon himself to lead a grassroots movement to right what has been a grave injustice in this great nation of ours for far too long. His is a lone voice crying out for freedom, justice, and bare midriffs. Godspeed, Portland-area letter writer, and may you ride along the wings of the bald eagle.

Don’t worry, he’s fine. Except for the 30 stitches he had to get in his head. But really, who didn’t manage to cheat death when they were still young enough to hold up their hands and say, “This many!” when asked for their age? I thought it would be a good idea to race my friend down his mile-long gravel driveway on a bike, only to get scared halfway through and slam on the front wheel brakes, pitching me over the front of the bike for a nice deep tissue gravel massage on my face. I looked like I lost a fight with a cheese grater. I also managed to get shot by an arrow. Four year olds are made of Teflon, Silly Putty, and Stainless Steel.

And for those of you that are still feeling kind of bad, there’s this:

“It was kind of scary ’cause I got bonked by the football,” the boy said, hugging his own football. “It kind of hurted.”

There you go, feel all gushy inside again? Thought so.

• The Ledge
• The Shelf
• Watch Out, I Might Give You a Papercut
• Seriously, Watch Your Step Around Me, It’s Slippery
• The Curb
• That Sucking Feeling You Get When You Get Too Close to Me

I told you I’d offer a more thorough recap of my weekend in South Bend, and I told you I’d do it last night. I got it half-right. Let’s roll.

I flew into Chicago’s Midway airport about noon on Friday, and then took the L to visit my friend Mark. We had a delicious Chicago deep dish pizza for lunch, during my time my arteries rued the day they developed from stem cells. We then headed downtown for a romantic drink on top of the Hancock Center. 96 floors above the city, we found a girl clicking away on her laptop, working on a paper as if she were not surrounded by wide-eyed tourists from Nebraska and swanky young people with money to burn, but rather engineering majors thinking about throwing themselves off the building and English majors wondering how the hell they ended up in a library. Afterwards, we cruised on in to South Bend, met with a couple of buddies, and ate more pizza at Rocco’s. We then closed out Oyster Bar and retired to our air mattresses reeking of smoke and tasting the sour taste of too much light beer on our pallettes.

We woke up the next morning to a beautiful day, and immediately tackled it for all that it was worth by drinking the cheapest beer we could find and playing cornhole. Don’t jump to any conclusions there, buddy boy, let me explain cornhole to you plebians.

Cornhole is an amazing game. If horseracing is the sport of kings, cornhole is the sport of the shadow government that secretly runs things and ensures the monarchy is never deposed. On the eighth day, God didn’t make cornhole, but when he did finally see it, he said, “Holy crap, that looks awesome.” Cornhole is the only game fun enough to get away with being called “cornhole.” You throw bean bags onto boards and attempt to get them into holes. Think horseshoes without the risk of severe bruising.

After many a game of cornhole, we stumbled to the stadium, where we found ourselves relegated to the upper deck. The game, as I’m sure you will read countless places elsewhere, featured several football plays, all of which were successful (and failures) for the Irish. The game ended, and I presume somebody won.

Afterwards, we retired to Turtle Creek, being sure to avoid the always dangerous razor-sharp shards of defeated Solo Cups. We hung out for a little bit, then went to a barbecue, then a bar, then to greasy LaFortune Sbarro at 2 in the morning.

For those of you that have never been students at Notre Dame, I’m sure this all sounds fairly rote and uninteresting. For those of you that have and since moved on to commuting via public transportation and carrying briefcases, you get it. Cheap beer, football of any sort, great weather and lots of greasy pizza? The recipe for a perfect college weekend.

Why do I laugh so much at this video? So far as I can tell, it basically falls under the Apple Jacks Edict; I just do. So screw you, Dad!

Alright, I don’t have the time to write up a thorough recounting of my wonderful weekend in South Bend right now, but I’m planning on whipping one up tonight (translation: Don’t count on it, but I may surprise you and actually do it). That being said, here are a few quick thoughts now that I’ve reentered the drudgery of Adult Life:

• The Spring Game, while a drop in the gaping maw of football addicts, never fails to be kind of boring. But hey, we’re all desperate enough to watch a team play against itself where the outcome is entirely meaningless, so we kind of have it coming.
• The South Dining Hall boasts an amazing spread of food that went completely unappreciated during my time there. It also now has a fancy-pants Slushie machine, which seems completely ridiculous to me.
• In April of what should be his senior year of high school, Jimmy Clausen heard the cheers of 50,000 strangers without having to do anything but trot on the field. In April of my senior year of high school, my crowning achievement was drinking an entire gallon of nonalcoholic sangria made for the Foreign Language Club’s Cinco de Mayo party, and then promptly throwing it all up.
• The Shirt is fine. Not great, not terrible, just fine. I’m getting kind of tired of the “Dramatic Collaged Image Flanked By Inspirational Quote” Motif (more of my opinions on this later)
• I can’t drink like I used to.

As a proud alumni, I will do the following things:

• Ask students for directions. I will always employ outdated names to these buildings, and may potentially ask for directions that haven’t existed since this person was alive.
• I will lament the administration’s recent policy change, pointing out that it has done nothing but make Notre Dame a college full of liberal bisexuals. I will assert that when I was a student, Notre Dame was inhabited entirely by men with voluptuous hair both of head and chest who did keg stands during Organic Chemistry Exams and slapped their professor in the mouth for questioning them.

I’m going to back to Notre Dame this weekend for the Blue-Gold game/my bachelor party. For those of you not in the know, the Blue-Gold game is the annual Notre Dame spring game, the occasion when football fans going through withdrawal can return to Notre Dame stadium to watch a team play a football game against itself, only without tackling, an accelerated clock or a strong competitive drive. It’s like offering an alcoholic some Listerine; a bitter alternative, but the only thing to relieve the chills and shakes and black emptiness.

I have fond memories of the Blue-Gold game. As a student, it fell in that sweet spot when classes were winding down, but studying for finals wasn’t anywhere in my field of vision yet. Also, it typically is accompanied by beautiful weather, except for the time my senior year when it snowed a couple of inches. We still stood out in the snow in the middle of April to watch a football game where the outcome was wholly irrelevant because we’re sad obsessed individuals.

However, this time I’ll be back to see the game for the first time as an alum. The kid gloves are off, and while my previous days were occupied with smelling old dishes to see if the fuzz was mold or kiwi skin, then eating from it regardless of the determination, now my days are concerned with making sure the weird guy on the bus keeps all of his bodily fluids to himself.

As an alumni, I recognize I now am part of a far-reaching club with a proud history, and it is my responsbility and duty to live up to that heritage. With that in mind, here are some of the things I will set out to do this weekend to ensure I am living up to my maximum alumnitude:

• I will wear nothing but crew neck sweatshirts and hats that jauntily balance on the tip-top of my head. This ensemble will be complemented by a pair of stain-resistant Dockers and a sensible pair of beige Rockports.
• I will storm into random freshman dorm rooms, expecting them to welcome the total stranger into their room with open arms because I once puked in their sink.
• Once I’ve attained entrance into their home, I will regale said freshman with stories of my college depravity and lewdness, all the while reminding them that things were way better when I went to school. Now it’s basically for sissypants and feminists. No regard will be taken for their interest in/coherence of my monologue.
• I’ll also tell them stories about people I knew once that they will never know, spending 75% of the time trying to remember where they were from and what their major was.
• I’ll ask if a professor in the Medeival Studies department is still there. If the students have heard of the person, I’ll recount stories of the professor until they can take no more. If the student is an international Physics major with a tenuous grasp of English, I’ll recount stories of the professor until they can take no more.

More to come later, but it promises to be an amazing experience for everyone involved. Except for those poor, poor freshmen.

And that’s low brow physical comedy. It’s a tough situation right now, so just sit back, shut off the brain for a while, and enjoy the parade of idiocy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz0ADwkD-IA">

I don’t claim to help the situation, I simply hope to provide some means of relief. Through morons.

I’ve been meaning to write more on this blog, but I didn’t want this to be the catalyst. I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but a series of two shootings at Virginia Tech has left 32 dead, with 21 more wounded. The gunman started at a dormitory, then moved on to an Engineering classroom building. There was a period of about two hours between the two shootings, during which time classes remained in session.

It appears that the gunman killed himself, but that is still unverified. He is dead, however, it just remains to be seen how it all went down.

Here are some other rumors I’ve heard tossed around. I offer them unverified and unproven, simply for matters of edification:

• The shooter could be a student from Radford, distraught that his Virginia Tech girlfriend dumped him.
• He supposedly was duel wielding pistols, and was seen with a vest stock with ammunition clips.
• Rumors have it that he may have chained doors shut to the classroom building, trapping students inside.
• There are reports of students jumping from upper floor windows in attempts to escape.

I’m sure all of this will come to light as this thing sorts itself out, but right now it appears that things are under control on Va Tech’s campus — well, as best as things can be under control in this type of a situation.

It’s easy to lose perspective on this event, because it seems like every year there are a couple of university-related violent incidents. Hell, just a couple weeks ago there was a shooting at the University of Washington — an obsessed ex-boyfriend hunting down a woman who had a restraining order out on him.

But this event, provided the numbers shake out as reported, which appears to be true, is the worst civilian shooting massacre in U.S. history. It’s two and a half Columbines, and that’s assuming all the wounded recover.

Things are never going to be the same after this. And having a sister who is a freshman at Notre Dame, it’s more than a little spooky how easy something like this can happen on a college campus.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to accomplish by writing all this, but right now, there’s nothing else to even consider writing about.

New York Times
CNN
MSNBC

Sorry for being a lair, everybody. I know I said I’d brief you on the poll results a few nights ago, but I didn’t. And honestly, if you’d read much of this blog, you shouldn’t be surprised, because sometimes I attack this blog with the lethargy of a Titanic passenger in Hour 10 of treading frigid arctic waters.

Anyways, to cut to the chase, I won’t be doing a Notre Dame blog, which is probably a good thing, considering I can’t even maintain a single one with any semblance of regularity. It would have been like a chronic alcoholic with 12 DUI’s deciding he wanted to become a MEDEVAC pilot; it could only end in disaster and oh so many tears.

So I’ll be sticking around these parts, but I will include a few ND updates as I see pertinent. In fact, this weekend I’m flying out to ND for the Blue/Gold Game and my bachelor party. Considering that I smashed my face coming home from a South Bend bar and requiring stitches a week before proposing to my then girlfriend, it should be interesting. I can tell that story later if people would like.

Well, that’s about it for now. I promise I’ll update when I get the chance/think of something funny. Until then, click on an ad and send me a few cents, why don’t you?

10. James K. Poke
9. ChestHer D.D. Arthur
8. Woody Wilson
7. Andrew Jacks-On
6. Lied-on Big Johnson
5. Frankly Piercing
4. Rub-her-hard B. Layes
3. Dick Lixon
2. Scorin’ G. Harding
1. Millard Fillmore

I have the poll results. I’ll blog them this evening. Stay tuned, superfreaks!

When I graduated from college, I knew I was entering a new stage in my life. Gone were the days of optional shaving, more time spent playing NCAA 2006 than sleeping, and making sweatpants the only pants. I was now an adult, and I needed to find people who would pay me to do things for them, and nobody will pay a grizzled youngster with Spaghettio stains on his sweatpants to do anything, except to get the hell away from them.

I needed to grow up. I started shaving every day or so, retaught myself how to work zippers, and got myself a briefcase. A leatherbound, pocket-festooned personal carrier filled with maturity and responsibility. I received it for my 22nd birthday from my parents. When I turned 12, I got a bike with a sweet water-bottle holder and a poster of Michael Jordan. Things sure have changed.

I’ve had this briefcase for almost a year now, and I’m still not entirely sure why I have it. I carry it to work every day, place it under my desk, and then pick it up and leave with it at the end of the day. Most days I won’t even open it. I’m like some sort of Atlas in Business Casual Atire, doomed forever to carry my briefcase as some sort of retribution to the gods of 401K’s that I’ve wronged.

I really don’t know why I have a briefcase. What I use it for could be accomplished with a grocery bag or perhaps a pair of accommodating pockets. The only thing I’ve found it useful for is when I want to look busy on the bus, during which time I can rifle through its empty pockets, as if I’m looking for the Witherspoon file or some other such important business-related document.

On a productive day, I’ll use my briefcase to carry my lunch. This bag, which my Mom
probably paid good money for at Wilsons Leather, replete with no less than 8 different compartments of varying sizes and a padded strap to carry it with, is used mainly to haul Lean Pockets and the occasional leftover Hamburger Helper. It’s depressing to think that, at 22 years old, my briefcase accomplishes the exact same thing an item plastered with Smurfs could.

Gargamel knows my shame.

I feel like a fraud. I highly doubt that the businessman wearing a power tie and typing away on his BlackBerry next to me uses his satchel as a glorified lunchbox. He probably has it filled with documents, files, reports, presentations and other assorted business paraphenalia, all of which is essential to the success of his business and vital in his efforts to contribute to our great nation’s economy.

One time, when I had really bad allergies, I carried a little portable pack of tissues in mine.

Aside from carrying my lunch, my briefcase fulfills one more important duty: whacking strangers on the bus. Why must you constantly be my foil, briefcase? Is it because you know you could be getting pulled out in a high-powered business powwow, and instead you are used as an impromptu umbrella? Every time I turn around on the bus, I hit somebody with my briefcase. Then, when I turn around to apologize, I hit the person on the other side with my briefcase. I continue on this whacking spree, until about 5 or so people who have known me all of ten minutes are convinced that I’m bumbling retard and are determined to hate me for the rest of my lives.

I have a briefcase. I also have a 2-foot tall action figure of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I am equally effective with both.

Aaand here’s where we stand with one day left for voting! It was a tumultuous day here at Majorly English HQ, with the Hantaphiles coming out of nowhere to jump ahead by like 50 votes, only to see the Yes’s coming roaring back like some sort of tiger on a motorcycle. I’m going to leave the poll open for one more day, and we stand right now with a 7 vote difference between the two major contenders! There’s plenty of time left though, so hang in there, chad!

. . . .

. . . .

God, I’m sorry. There’s one day left, vote if you want. Or don’t.

So stupid! Why would you say that, nobody thinks those jokes are funny! Nobody thought those jokes were funny when it was actually relevant, you moron! What are you going to do next, tell a real knee-slapper about John Wayne Bobbit and Furbys??

Here’s where we stand so far on my new Notre Dame blog proposal. The ‘nays’ started out strong, but the grass-roots efforts of the ‘yeas’ came surging back. I’m going to leave the poll open until Good Friday, then close it, and then open it back up again on Sunday for 40 days.

Actually, I’ll just leave it open until Friday, when your voices shall be tallied and heard. I just want to say that I’m very proud of all of you for avoiding the lame ‘hanging chad’ joke. I’m proud of everyone except the one person who did click on it. Shame on you, go back to 2000 and listen to your Sisquo.

Vote early, vote often!

Um, I’m not really sure where to take this post beyond the title line. It kind of says it all. When I was leaving work the other day, I crossed paths with an albino on a Segway. Right in the middle of the street, smack dab in the center of our nation’s capital, a man with a genetic deficiency for skin pigment was riding a gyroscopically balanced personal wheeled vehicle.

I couldn’t help but wonder about the decision-making processs behind his purchase. Did he wake up one day and say to himself, “Well, I’m already albino, might as well go get a Segway.” Because let’s be honest, we all kind of want a Segway. If somebody came up to you on the street and said, “Hey buddy, I’ve got a Segway here for you. Enjoy!” how many of us would immediately say, “No, thank you, kind stranger, I’ve got two perfectly good legs here for the using!” No, nobody would say that, because Segways are awesome. Not only do you get to cruise around in wheeled style, you also get a good foot or so in height, so you can tower over all of us legged losers the way Cortez probably looked at the Aztecs before he shot them all.

However, none of us would ever go out and buy a Segway. Number one, they’re disgustly expensive, a couple thousands dollars or so, I believe. That money is better spent on food, rent, and a bike for God’s sake. No matter how cool a Segway may look, they’ll never say, “I’m cool, check out my gyroscopes.” They’ll always first say, “I’m fiscally irresponsible.”

Let’s look at the world’s most famous Segway user, G.O.B. Bluth. For those of you not familiar with this character, shame on you. Seriously, it’s your fault the most brilliant show created this generation was canned before it could even complete its third season, and you should be embarassed for opting instead to watch According to Jim or some other such garbage. You’ve made a huge mistake.

But back on task, G.O.B. Bluth is the epitome of the guy who does things that should be cool, but definitely aren’t. He’s a magician, and everybody wishes they could do a little magic. If you could make a quarter appear from behind someone’s ear, or be mauled by a Siberian tiger and live, that should be some cool-ass stuff. But it never is, because magic is always performed by guys with waxed eyebrows and Aquanet hair who wear shirts with sequins. The kind of kids whose moms insisted they take dance lessons, and they told the kids at school that Bo Jackson took ballet, but it didn’t matter, because Bo Jackson did it for football, so it cancelled it out. And Bo didn’t know intermediate jazz dance. Magic, the bending of the laws of physics and the time-space continuum should be the coolest thing a guy can do, the type of thing that makes men envious and women ovulate, but instead the coolest guy magic can produce is Criss Angel, who Number One goes by ‘Criss Angel,’ and Number Two looks the love child of Steve Perry and Fozzie the Bear. He looks like Chris Kattan’s character from Goth Talk.

The coolest wizard in the world. Magic!

Now I know what you’re going to say, the old magician fallback argument: David Copperfield and Claudia Schiffer. “David Copperfield got a supermodel, and he’s a magician meememeememee” is what you sound like. However, I’m convinced that supermodels are so far at the extremes of the beauty scale, their perspective of beauty is skewed, and what appears to be a person more beautiful than them is really the person at the other end of the spectrum, as they’ve reach the end and gone back to the beginning. See: Heidi Klum and Seal. Also see: Lupus. I sincerely question supermodel dating criteria legitimacy, among other things.

The second coolest magician in the world. Please note, this magician no longer does magic, instead resorting to masochistic pleas for attention, like the kid who ate worms from your kindergarten class.

G.O.B. Bluth also rides a Segway. It establishes his character as reckless with his money, and as someone who really has no idea what cool is, despite his best attempts to the contrary. That’s where the Segway, a technological marvel with few peers, sits in status in our country.

The epitome of should-be coolness.

OK, we’ve covered the Segway, let’s move on to the albinism. Segways are a technological marvel that have gotten wedgied by public opinion, and albinism is one of the few disabilities in America today that is still acceptable to mock and still have it be considered in good fun. Why is that the case? Is it because they look like they’re just extremely pale, or because they have to wear floppy hats in the sun? Is it because they sometimes look like they came from the future, where people live underground or on the moon or something? I don’t know what it is, but albinos are still capable of being mocked. An albino in a wheelchair suffering from Parkinson’s? Not so much. An albino on a Segway, the perfect combination of misplaced mockery, is enough to merit its own overly long and rambling blog post about how absolutely freaky it is.

I saw an albino on a Segway the other day. I salute that pasty man, for sticking it to the Tan Man, saying screw you to convention and proudly screaming, “I’m an albino, and I’m riding a Segway because I can! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to apply some sunscreen before I turn on my computer monitor!”

Hey everybody, remember me? The guy who occasionally provides you with silly videos of crotch trauma or riotous commentary on news stories?

I know I haven’t been around much lately, but there’s a reason for that. I’ve been thinking about this whole blog thing. What’s it all mean? Why do I do what I do? It’s been two years, how can I still be so creeped out by the word ‘blog’?

When I started Majorly English, way back when, I had just cast aside the chains of a Premed major, and fled to the warm and succulent busom of an English major. The only problem was, after graduation, a Premed major becomes a Med student, and then goes on to become a Postmed doctor who then saves lives and affords luxury sedans. An English major? There is no career plan; you can either try and teach English to a bunch of teenagers, attempt to enter into the cutthroat world of Colonial-era romantic novels, or learn to fit your whole fist in your mouth so you can scare a few bucks out of passerbys on the street.

I knew I had to do something, I had to develop whatever skills an English major has to develop, besides procrastinating and wear thick-framed glasses. So I started a blog, and I started writing things. I really had no idea what a blog was or what a blog was supposed to be, I just knew that it was a place on the Internet that was free and allowed me to publish words for public consumption. I hadn’t even read a blog before I started my own.

Now, two years later, the blog game has changed a lot for me. I’m now trying to pay my rent while bouncing from internship to internship, and I’m reading more blogs than I ever did before. And therein lie the trouble. I got caught up with the big boys of blogging, the ones that actually break news, have informants, and make money. Next thing I know, I’m no longer writing multiple thousand word dissertations on Spring Break Shark Attack, instead I’m scouring news websites, trying to get that silly picture that makes it look like Dick Cheney raped a dead dog before some other people do. I tarted up the website with a billion features, ever-changing layouts, and basically made it look like a French whore. I tried to be Web 2.0, I think, whatever that means.

And it just wasn’t as fun anymore, I wasn’t spending my idle time sorting colors from whites (laundry, you latent racists) thinking up funny things to write for the blog, and approached it more like a preteen approaches a lawnmower.

Well, no longer, I’m taking this bad ass mofo old school. If there is some rip-roaring good time news story that I think is hilarious, you’ll still see it. But I’m hoping the majority of the content will once again be me writing my own stuff again, essentially my Internet version of blowing my mouth really hard inside the crook of my elbow to make a farting noise. No more links in every post, no more getting the scoop, back to the good old days of making fun of Star Jones and MS-Painting pope hats on a wide variety of celebrities. ItR