Queries and Observations

• In a recent interview Britney Spears admitted she had "hit rock bottom." But few people realize that she continued that statement by saying: ". . . two years ago."
• Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a.k.a., Dr. Death, is being released from prison after serving 8 years of a 10-25 year sentence, and I have a few people who I would love to send his way: 1) Paris Hilton--she's not necessarily in agony but the rest of us are in agony because of her, so it's definitely a mercy killing; 2) Barry Bonds--he's been mercilessly hounded by the media about his alleged use of steroids that he needs a way to escape it--I wonder if Dr. K's machine reacts negatively with "soy protein"; 3) the cast of Studio 60--talk about putting one out of their misery; 4) Rudolph Guiliani--he's been slipping in the polls and I think that a mercy killing would be a clever tactic for him to move up in the polls; and 5) Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell--see explanation for Paris Hilton.
• The FBI has asked MySpace.com to hand over any information they may have on sexual predators. In an attempt not to sound defensive, MySpace.com responded: "What are you trying to say? Huh? For your information, we do NOT promote that kind of thing . . . we merely foster the perfect tool for accomplishing sexual predation." MySpace, I don't believe you.
• NFL star Michael Vick has been identified as a major player in the underground dogfighting circuit by multiple witnesses. In response to these allegations Vick responded: "Sure I might watch an occasional dogfight. But is casually participating in illegal activity a crime? If so, you might as well arrest me for embezzlement, lewd acts in public, assault with a deadly weapon, robbing a liquor store, identity theft, running an underground dogfighting ring, and possession of drugs--with intent to sell. But you don't see me arrested for those things, do you?" He makes a good point.
  
• Cindy Sheehan, a anti-war protestor whose son died in the war in Iraq, has finally given up her protest. When asked why she quit, she responded: "After seeing how stubborn President Bush is regarding the war, I realized that I should be fighting againgst things that are easier to change. That's why I'm now protesting about which religion is truest, what tooth paste is best, and how much infinity is."

Game Topic: Zoo Animals

There are a few things that Zoos should never have. First is horses. I've been to a zoo where they've had horses and I felt like I was ripped off. I don't want to go to a farm, I want to go to a zoo. I can imagine the conversation between the zoo administrators: "So we can't get the Mongolian white tigers?" "Nope, guess we'll have to go with the next best thing--horses!" Smart fellas, real smart.

The second thing that zoos should never have is trains. Almost every zoo has a train ride that makes every person on it over the age of 3 feel stupid. Look at this picture--even the kids on the back feel stupid.You know what they ought to have instead of trains? Bumper cars. They should rig the zoo to have bumper cars to get around--you get to slam other zoo patrons while you look at Rhinos--how is that not awesome!

The third thing that zoos should never have is starving animals. I went to a zoo once where there was a bear that looked like it hadn't had a good meal since it was a bearcub.I want some glam-animals. Dress them up in leather animal-pants, and have them perform--jumping through hoops or eating convicts or something.

There are plenty of things that zoos across the world should be doing to ensure that they don't suck. Here are a few more ideas to help them out--have the food court in the middle of the alligator pit. You're standing in line ordering a $12 hot dog, and unknowingly an alligator is floating up to you--looking like a log--the next thing you know you're trying to keep your hot dog above water while the alligator is dragging you under. Tell me that wouldn't spice up the food court.
The next thing that zoos should have are 3D displays--equipped with those cool blue/red plastic glasses. This would make the following animals not only tolerable but exciting: flamingos, zebras, tucans, sloths but NOT horses!
The last thing that every zoo should move to is free gorilla rides. I'm surprised this hasn't taken off yet. What could be more fun that riding a gorilla while it swings through the trees? Nothing that I can think of. I had this idea while watching Tarzan, and it was an epiphany that is going to change the world of zoos forever.

Game 4 topic: Glass

I was sitting with unfamiliar people at the dinner table, which usually is no big deal, but today was Thanksgiving and there wasn't a relative around. I looked to my left, where a 60 year old man, with a wickedly bushy mustache was trying to explain to me how the government was trying to keep him from retiring. Needless to say, I was really, really bored.
I'm not against useless conversation with people who I don't know, but I am against having to act like I like it.
Anyway, back to the story . . . I was definitely eyeing the stuffing (a personal all-time favorite), and trying to avoid having to look interested. Earlier in the day the mother of the house had been bragging about her family recipe for rolls and how this year was the first year her daughter would be making them. This was a conversation I was actually interested in because it directly affected the amount of food I would be ingesting--self-interested, I know, but it was Thanksgiving and that's what Thanksgiving means to me.
I eventually got to the greatest moment in life: the point where food is in front of you, ready to be eaten. I dove right in and quickly realized that this was a feast. I was like a horse in a parade with blinders on--all I could see was the food in front of me--though I was in the midst of a whirlwind of meaningless conversation.
And then came the famous rolls. You usually don't expect a roll to look particularly appetizing, but these "legendary" rolls truly looked fabulous. I grabbed one and took a huge bite, noticing that the daughter who had made them was looking at me waiting for any sort of approval for her culinary efforts. But shortly after biting into the roll, I felt a very distinct crunch. I decided to chew through it, thinking that maybe if it was like a piece of crusty bread or something like that I wouldn't have to draw attention to myself and ruin the daughter's life by telling her she'd screwed up the family tradition. But as I chew the crunched item was splitting and grinding--that's never good when it comes to food.
Realizing that this situation was serious, I shamelessly started to dig through the soggy, chewed-up bread in my mouth. Those who hadn't been watching me eat the roll (everyone but the daughter) started to notice what I was doing.
Finally I found the pieces of whatever I had been crunching and grinding on. I pulled it out: glass. I had been chewing glass.
"Is that glass?!" The mother seemed horrified. She shot a glare over at her daughter who was humiliated.
I could explain the outcomes on the daughter, mother, and everyone else, but I'd like to focus on the fact that I chewed glass! What the crap is glass doing in a dinner roll? Does this family's family recipe for dinner rolls call for 1 part flour, 2 parts beer bottle? How do you respond to that? "Oh it's no big deal, last year I had a hypodermic needle in my yams"? No. You can't come back from chewing glass. Thanksgiving shouldn't be the time when you give thanks that you don't have to try to digest shards of glass.

Game 3 Topic: The 2008 Presidential Election

Never before have I heard more and cared less about an upcoming presidential election than the 2008 election. So many people have written and debated about the candidates, so I decided that I would offer my advice to the main candidates, you know, because my opinion is likely to make a difference. So here are some of the messages/slogans/sayings that I think would really help the various candidates win the presidency.

Hillary R. Clinton

• The 'R' stands for robot.
• The lesser of two Clintons.
• Even though she talks like a man, thinks like a man, and even kinda looks like a man (in the face), she's actually a cyborg.
• Vote for her, because she reminds you of the lady who beat you up.
  
• Even though she has illegal campaign funds from China, she won't cater to Chinese interests like her husband did . . . and continues to do. . . because he solicited illegal funds from China for his wife.
• Hillary: is there anything we can say about her that's nice? No, not really.

Barack Obama

• More like, He-rocks O'rama!
  
• His deep, raspy voice could soothe the soul of any lost sailor. . . bless those cigarettes and the rich, republican-supporting tobacco companies that sell them.
• Barack will bring the Democrats back to the White House like Bush brought the middle-east to its knees. Wait, I shouldn't have made that comparison. Or should I have? Whatever.
• Yeah he's only served one term in congress, and yeah he might not have as much "political" experience as other candidates, and yeah people generally agree that he doesn't have any real hands-on experience when it comes to foreign relations . . . I guess that's all I have to say.
• Vote for Obama, because most people don't really know where he stands, they just think he's cool.

John Edwards

• He's young, he's handsome, he's pretty much everything you're not!
• He's running for president even though his wife is dying of cancer--so most likely, he'll put your interests ahead of his own when he's elected, right? No? Okay.
• Vote for him and he'll wash your car! By 'wash', I mean 'destroy', and by 'car', I mean 'soul'.
  
• Last time you saw him he was running with John Kerry . . . so you know he's a winner!

Rudolph Giuliani

• The Republican who acts like a Democrat!
• He's pro-choice, pro-gay, and Republican somehow--so you know you can trust him!
• Because he was on 'Saturday Night Live' and was hilarious! Seriously, have you seen it? No one in the history of television has been more awkward than Giuliani on SNL. Really, you should Youtube it, you will laugh until you vomit!
• Vote for Giuliani because of all his experience in Congress . . . I mean, with the White House . . . no wait, with . . . um . . . okay, you probably really shouldn't vote for Giuliani.

John McCain

• McCain was in a POW camp for like three decades people! How does that not qualify him for the White House, huh? C'mon!
• John McCain: the oldest, and therefore best candidate.
• John McCain: he made steroids in baseball his top priority, which we all know was a pressing issue--so he'll bring important issue to the White House (please ignore the fact that he supports the war, and focus on the steroids issue, which admittedly, is pretty inconsequential comparitively).
• More like: John McRad!

Tommy Thompson

• Who?
• Seriously, who is that?
• Just interject into his name Tommy "rubbernose" Thompson and he sounds like a 1950s triple-A pitcher.

Mitt Romney

• With a name like 'Mitt' he has to be good!
• Vote for Mitt, because he says things he doesn't mean! (That's not a good thing? Seriously? Because I don't think he knows that that's a bad thing. Someone should tell him.)
• A Mormon in the White House?! What's next, an Amish attorney general? A wizard as Senate majority leader? Wait, we already have a mormon senate majority leader? Really? Oh, well then bring on Mitt!
• Vote for Mitt, he's the former Republican governor of Massechusettes--I know, that's like saying he's a Black leader of the KKK or an ugly handsome person or an educated West Virginian or trustworthy female or a calm Irishman or a mad Buddhist, or an attractive news anchor or a good summer movie or a terrible sandwich, but it's unique--and everything that's unique should be President of the United States.

Game 2 Topic: Everyone Plays the Guitar

Don't get me wrong, I love the guitar. Playing the guitar is one of my greatest joys in life, and has been since I was 15 years old. But there are way too many people playing the guitar these days. I would like to mention two topics in conjuction with this--the first is why everyone is playing the guitar.

To illustrate my point, here's President Bush playing the guitar. The leader of the freeworld is playing the guitar. Does he look cool doing it? No. Neither do all the other countless people who play the guitar just to look cool. They are missing some key elements to make them look cool. First, they fail to play the instrument well at all. If you're in a frat house and some yahoo in cutoff shorts and sandals grabs a guitar and starts awkwardly plucking out some song that's unrecognizable until he starts singing: "Desperado . . . why don't you come to your senses?" you're likely to dub that guy uncool. Which is exactly the opposite of what he is going for (too bad for him). He only learned how to fake that song in order to look cool.

The second element that fake guitar players are missing is what I like to call not-being-stuck-on-themselves. I know, I know, I know, you're probably saying: "Wait a second, ever other rocker throughout the history of man has been stuck on themselves." But there's a difference . . . they learned to play first, and then they got stuck on themselves. The fake guitarist is stuck on himself, and then learns to play. People who learn just to look cool only do it because of their undying love for themselves.

I could say more about why people learn to play the guitar but I'd like to get optimistic for once and focus on the multitude of instruments that are getting ignored because of the rapid influx of fake guitar players.

First off, what about the oboe? It looks and sounds like a clarinet that has been involved in a horrible biking accident, which certainly makes it a head-turner.

Second, if someone wants to look cool and unique, why not play the lute?

Look at this guy's face and tell me he doesn't know that everyone in the room is looking at him. Minstrels have been declining in popluarity over the centuries, but if we could recruit a whole slew of college guys to play the lute, minstrels will be bumping.

Third, why not play the saw? Picture this: that same scenario with the frat house except that yahoo doesn't pick up a guitar, he picks up a saw and a bow and starts that saw a-singin'! Nobody can deny the cool factor of playing the saw.

There are countless other instruments that deserve more attention: the basoon, the didgeridoo, the jug, and many more. Needless to say, the guitar may be cool, but there are so many other pathways to coolness out there (e.g., playing the saw).

Game 1: Topic: Current Girls' Fashion

The other day I was walking on campus and I saw a girl wearing those over-sized, novelty sunglasses that you likely imagine clowns wearing. However, the closer I got to this girl the more I realized that she was wearing these sunglasses, not as a joke, but in an attempt to be fashionable. The glasses stuck out from the sides of her face approximately 6 inches on either side and the lenses faded dark to light from top to bottom. But this was not the only peculiar thing about her "fashionable" attire. She had shoes that looked like slippers, maybe oriental slippers, but these slippers looked like they had be Bedazzled. They had cheap looking rhinestones on them and looked like slippers you might find at the dollar store. To top off the outfit, she had a WWF professional-wrestling type belt on, around her stomach and over her blouse. She also seemed to walk like she was walking down the runway at a fashion show (you know--arms swinging slightly behind her body, head slightly turned with chin up, and swinging her hips like she was trying to put out a flame on her backside). I looked around to see who was watching--because, in a weird way, as she walked I knew that she was walking this way so that people could watch her. Although this girl's appearance may seem like something you'd find on the 31st of October, it's not--and there are many, many similarly dressed females walking around campuses, high schools, and middle schools across America.

Current girls' fashion is a deep and endless topic. So I'd like to focus, not on its current state, but on who's to blame for it. I've narrowed it down to three people--who I like to call The Unholy Trinity of Horrible, Horrible Role Models for Young Women or The Ridiculously-Dressed Axis of Evil--Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan (in that order). These three "ladies" are much like Medusa of the ancient Greek mythology--any person (in this case young woman) who looks at these three immediately turns to stone (or in other words, their hearts turn into stone and they care about no one but themselves--particulary, about how they look). A friend of mine has referred to girls who are under this narcissistic spell as Chufettes (pronounced: choo - fetts). Paris, Britney, and Lindsay (or Prindsay) have inspired a whole nation of chufettes who have become robots that only care about buying expensive, ridiculous-looking clothing, and then matching that gaudy look with a personality that is quite peculiar. The chufette look, created and perpetuated by Prindsay, poisons the personality of the girl wearing the look to the point that her personality becomes shallow, pointless, and boring. This malady is very easy to diagnose, but very difficult to treat--but always results in girls selling themselves short by attracting only the most stupid of boys--or Chufes.

Ramblings about stuff . . .

Politics make me laugh. Seriously, think about politics and try not to laugh. Go ahead, I'll wait. (long, long pause for laughter . . . wipe the tears away, and--) If you didn't laugh then you might be a politician--because politicians DO NOT laugh. They can't, unless they see everyone else laugh first. That's what politics is all about--do what you think others would do if they were you, except make it seem like you're the one who thought about doing it. Honestly, if human beings were lemmings running off a cliff, politicians wouldn't be in the front, they'd be in the middle of everybody--they'd just be running off the cliff louder than everybody else.

Seriously, politicians are all about entertainment, because politics hinges on the idea that human beings need someone to talk to them in an entertaining way about obvious things. Take health care, for instance--you think that everyone doesn't already realize that we need good health care? I don't want to hear someone talk about health care unless they're entertaining, because I already know about health care. I expect Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama talking about health care while putting each other down, waving their arms, or using a funny voice (a different funny voice, for Hillary). That's why President Bush Jr. could not lose. He is hilarious!

This leads me to my next point about politics: they don't matter. Government matters--politics doesn't matter. Let me use an analogy to illustrate my point. In any sport, there are some things that are required for that sport to exist. Like basketball: you need referees, you need players, and you need equipment. You DO NOT, however, need cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are there to tell everyone which team they think should win. They're dressed up in bright uniforms and they have formal cheers that indicate that they have prepared and are ready to yell at you. But when was that last time cheerleaders did a cheer that really made anyone think? Do you ever go to a sporting event and after hearing a cheer, say to yourself, "Wow, they really put that in a way I've never thought before. You know what? I was going for my team, but I think I'm going to switch." No, it never happens. Politicians are cheerleaders--there, I said it. You can quote me on that: politicians are cheerleaders. Loud, useless, and loud some more.