An American Hero

I've always had difficulty answering questions about who my heroes are. I suppose I have always been hesitant to believe that a person can rise to a level of excellence that deserves the total, unabashed admiration of complete strangers and the label "hero".

Today, however, my highest hopes for mankind have finally been realized. The zenith of human achievement has been reached, and we all stand in awe of a true American hero: John Giboney.

That's right, my friend. That photo you see here is real, and it really does depict John (who once famously drank a 24 oz bottle of maple syrup in 20 seconds) chugging an enormous quantity of pickle juice, a stunt which he miraculously survived unharmed.

With the performance of such a spectacular feat, how can anyone place a limit on the potential of man to achieve, to conquer all obstacles in the single minded pursuit of greatness? Surely the cure for cancer, the control of nuclear fusion, and the return of good Simpsons episodes must be just around the corner, as word of John's accomplishment spreads around the globe, inspiring a generation of young people.

So for those of you who know John, buy this man a drink. And for those of you who don't, you can still raise your glasses and drink a toast to a true American hero.

Canada Sucks

Some of you out there may not approve of the title of this post, and I might even be accused of being a racist. However, the Canadiens are not a race, they are a hockey team, and the Canadians aren't a race either, they're just polite Americans with funny accents and free medical care. In fact, the title of this blog entry is a little misleading, as I have been to Canada twice and found it to be a very nice place filled with friendly people and progressive politics.

What I really meant to say, and what would have been a more appropriate title, is that Magdalena, New Mexico sucks. That's much better, because not only is it the way I feel, it's an objective fact. If you don't believe me, read its Wikipedia article (keeping in mind that Wikipedia's policies prevent articles from stating that something sucks, so you might have to read between the lines a little), or just look at it here on Google Maps. Seriously, this place is a barren, God forsaken hell hole out in the middle of the desert. It has one gas station, the entire town lies directly on the highway, and its entire economy is dependent on speeding tickets given out by their cop (singular).

Which brings me to my next point: I am a fugitive from justice, and I can never again risk entering the state of New Mexico for fear of incarceration. That's right, I refuse (or repeatedly forget) to pay the extortion fee leveled against me for reaching 65 mph eight seconds too early, and so a warrant has been issued for my arrest (I think). So if anyone from New Mexico is reading this, the next time you're down at the Department of Motor Vehicles, tell them that they can have my $65 when they pry it from my cold, dead hands (or when I finally remember to mail that damn ticket). And Magdalena, New Mexico (and not Canada after all) sucks.

Save Yourself

It occurred to me a while back (read: three and a half minutes ago) that I've gotten away from the original purpose of my blog: convincing people that the Internet is a weird, terrible place, and that your involvement with it will, sooner or later, cause your brain to explode within your head, leaving your lifeless body propped up in your computer chair reading blogs. This is not a joke, and your life is in serious danger.

The only way to save yourself is to immediately navigate away from my site and purchase a plane ticket to Dhaka. As soon as you're done with that, go to the garage, get out your ladder, climb to the top of your house, and throw your computer from the roof. Climb down and set what's left of it on fire, then run over it several times with your car until you're sure that it's dead.

I realize that it's a little late to lecture you, but you probably should have listened to your fourth grade teacher when he/she told you to read all the directions before you start something. Because if you didn't, then now you're stuck with a destroyed laptop and an expensive plane ticket to a place you've never heard of, you have no idea what to do next because the rest of the directions are online, and you're pretty much screwed. If you're still reading this, though, congratulations! You did learn something in grade school, and our public school system seems like a little less of a dismal failure. You're still in pretty serious trouble, though, so stay with me here.

Now that you've killed your computer before it could kill you, and you have your plane ticket, get your ass to the airport and abandon civilization. You can't risk staying here, because by the end of the week your TV will have convinced you to buy a new computer, and you'll be right back here drinking whiskey from the bottle and crying yourself to sleep while you update your Facebook profile.

If you're still reading this, what the hell is wrong with you? Do you not understand what is at stake here? Get on the plane, get off the plane onto a goat, and ride the goat out into the Bangladeshi wilderness where the Internet won't find you for at least two years. Godspeed, friend.

Jackass.

Are you a communist? Or maybe you're indie? Do you listen to horrorcore, or belong to the Church of Scientology? Has it ever occurred to you that the moon landing was faked, or that the CIA killed Kennedy to cover up his involvement with the mob? Do you own a t-shirt with a picture of George Bush with a swastika tattoo? Are you a fruitarian?

Well good for you. It's great to see someone thinking outside the box. You must be really, stunningly original to realize that Stalin has been demonized by the media because people just weren't ready for his revolutionary ideas, that Christianity is really just another cult trying to scam you for cash, and that Bob Dylan completely sold out even before he went electric.

I'm just glad that someone has the courage to assert that feminism is racist, that TV emits subliminal mind-control rays, and that there's no real proof that cigarettes cause cancer. Seriously, you are so independent-minded and free thinking to recognize that mainstream culture is a mass produced fraud sold to us by corporations, and that revolution is the only solution.

You're not like the rest of these mindless zombies playing follow the leader, happily living their safe, bland, shallow lives. That's right, you're no sheep. You're just a jackass.

Parenting 101

It has recently come to my attention that the world is a dangerous, terrible place in which to raise children. If you don't believe me, just turn on the evening news, and witness for yourself the horrible carnage that I assume to be representative of everyday life for most people. That said, I wanted to use my extensive knowledge of child rearing to help parents confront some of the tough issues facing them today. So without further ado, here are the answers to some questions that I imagine I would have received from readers if anyone actually read this.

Q: Thanks to Oprah and 60 Minutes, I fear that my children will be destroyed by the evil influences of TV, the Internet, and rap music. How can I prevent my six year old from accessing mass media behind my back?
A: Unfortunately, you can't, as today's children are simply too far advanced to control their access to media. For example, while you have trouble operating a conventional toaster oven, your six year old son is locked in his bedroom with a screw driver, a soldering iron, and a set of plans from the web for removing the V-chip from your TV. Once this nefarious project is complete, you will have no choice but to sit back and cry while he consumes all the disturbing pornography and violent rap music he likes from behind his locked door. Your only real option is to immediately put your son on Ritalin.

Q: My daughter is 14, and she is starting to get curious about boys. Pat Robertson tells me that this is an ominous first step on the road to becoming a crack whore, so I withdrew her from public school, burned all her CDs, and removed all phallic objects from my home (yes, especially the salt shaker). Despite my best efforts, she continues to ask me questions about this disgusting subject, even when I put my hands over my ears and shout abstinence slogans. Should I shout louder or just give in and buy ear plugs?
A: Both. The more your daughter learns about sex, the more likely she will be to start bringing home strange men from the truck stop. Fortunately, though, children who never hear anything definite about sex will never become involved with it, instead choosing to live clean, healthy, well adjusted lives. Remember, allowing your child to figure out what a condom is will only send the message that you want her to become a pornographic actress, a prostitute, or some other kind of feminist.

Q: My ten year old daughter constantly shouts obscenities, smokes my cigarettes, and stays up past her bedtime watching lewd cartoons on Adult Swim. What should I do?
A: You should probably check with Dr. Phil on this one. TV usually knows what's best.

Q: I was a two-time state champion wrestler in high school, but my 13 year old son is only interested in drama and music, and I'm afraid he might turn out gay. Can I beat him into being normal, or do I need to step it up a level and get him some steroids?
A: Steroids can be dangerous for a child's physical and emotional development, so you should probably save that option for a last resort (if he starts expressing interest in ballet, for instance). Instead, I recommend a steady program of painful mental and physical conditioning. It is important for your son to realize that art is for women, and that if he doesn't give up on this pansy stuff and start focusing on football, he will probably become gay, which is just a half step from actually being a woman. If all else fails, remember that you can always take refuge on the couch with a bottle of whiskey and pretend that you don't have a son.

Disclaimer: The author of this blog is not a licensed medical professional of any kind, and most of the advice in this column is based on information gathered from lifestyle magazines and cable television outlets while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. That said, it is probably safe to assume that it is all completely accurate, because that's a lot easier than figuring anything out for yourself.

Crack, Hitler, and Pacman

Ever since some asshole first mixed freebase cocaine with baking soda back in the '80s, crack has been the worldwide standard against which all addictions are judged. Just as any person who does not agree with you can be compared (by varying degrees) to Adolf Hitler, any behavior that is in any way compulsive or unhealthy can be compared to crack addiction. This scale is used by media outlets to gauge the addictive potential of an activity or item (or to measure its similarity to Hitler).


Originally, this kind of comparison was usually sarcastic, serving only as humorous social commentary. But, like all good social commentary, its literal accuracy was soon discovered, and a powerful scientific tool was born. Now it is possible to quantify precisely (according to the color gradient), just how addictive the things you do every day are. And even better, you can now live in a state of constant fear that the things you like to do will eventually seize control of your life and violently end it. Which brings us to today's topic: video games.

Before the development of the "Crack/Hitler Scale", video games were seen largely as a passtime. At best, they were considered enjoyable entertainment that could improve your hand-eye coordination and critical thinking skills. At worst, they were just a complete waste of time. Thanks to the Crack/Hitler Scale, though, society is now aware of the dangers posed by video game addiction, which, according to Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (MAVAV), is "comparable now, even to drug and alcohol abuse."

That's right, parents. More kids are exposed to the dangers of video games every day on television, at friends' houses, at school, and even in their own homes. Video gaming has risen to the level of epidemic, and there is no immediate end in sight. In fact, chances are that your child has already begun experimenting with games, venturing onto the slippery slope of addiction. But there is hope.

People can now undergo counseling for this crippling addiction, and recent research has suggested the use of an innovative, national level solution called "prohibition". This program, based on similar programs designed to control dangerous political speech in North Korea, China, Cuba, and Belarus, among others, will rescue our children from the dispicable, smut pedaling, computer programming deviants who are erroding the moral fiber of America. Soon, our country will be safe from the destructive influences of games like Hitman, Doom, World of Warcraft, and Pacman, because all video games will be illegal, just like crack.

So support your local prohibitionist chapter. It's your only hope to save your children from becoming homeless, jobless addicts who can't control their urges to commit unspeakable acts of violence. And if that doesn't bother you, do you know who else didn't care about video game addiction? Hitler.

F*@k The Black Eyed Peas

If you were born in America between 1981 and 1986, and your parents make more than $100,000 a year, chances are that you are shallow and materialistic. You probably listen to terrible music and buy into ridiculous fads (think about that trucker hat in the back of your closet before you start arguing), and you are probably borderline illiterate even though your parents are paying for that interdisciplinary studies degree from someplace you barely attend class.

At this point, you might be wondering when I'm going to stop insulting you and start on my title subject, your new favorite artist. You might also be wondering what all those funny squiggles are that your smart friend is reading to you off the computer screen.

To be honest, this isn't really about The Black Eyed Peas. It's about one particular song: "My Humps". If you haven't heard this song, you must not be in college, or you must be enrolled in a small school in rural North Dakota, in which case you should consider yourself lucky for the very first time. Congratulations, Minot State University. "My Humps" is the worst song to become popular in the U.S. since the Macarena, which was marginally better because most Americans only speak English and couldn't understand the lyrics. I'll spare you the entire thing, but here's a sample to help illustrate my point:

What you gonna do with all that junk
all that junk inside that trunk?
I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
My hump, 8x
My lovely little
lumps,

Check it out
I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily,
They treat me really nicely,
They buy me all these iceies.
Dolce & Gabbana,
Fendi and then Donna
Karan, got me sharin'
All their money got me wearin' fly, whether I ain't askin,
They say they love my ass in
Seven Jeans, True Religion,
I say no, but they keep givin'
So I keep on takin'

This is garbage. Pure, triple platinum garbage. According to Rolling Stone, though, this trash is "irresistible", and it has become ubiquitous on college campuses, playing on millions of iPods, car stereos, and home sound systems. Although no one could possibly like this song, everyone apparently does, and the reason is simple: college students are sheep. No one knows anything about anything, and we all get our ideas from TV commercials and People Magazine. Our generation's best and brightest are not even bright enough to make basic decisions about what they do and don't like, and would prefer instead to have the smallest details of their life determined for them by MTV (or, for those independent-minded rebels out there, MTV 2).

That's right, I'm talking about you, my trendy friend, with your $300 designer sunglasses, your strong preference for whichever lite beer had the best ad campaign when you started drinking, and that Jimi Hendrix t-shirt you bought even though you can't name one of his songs. You like "My Humps" because it has a simple beat that you can drunk dance to without thinking about the insipid lyrics, but mostly you like it for the same reason you like Grey Goose Vodka, Paris Hilton, and $600 blue jeans: because everyone else does too.

I hope that you will read all this without feeling insulted, decide that I must go to a shallow school, and go back to listening to Frank Zappa and solar paneling your roof to cut down on your energy costs. More likely, though, you will never read this blog again because you think I'm some kind of pretentious jerk who just doesn't like to have a good time. Well, you know what? I may be a pretentious jerk, but I never payed $30 for a trucker hat. And f*@k The Black Eyed Peas.

What the Hell is Wrong with the NBA?

For those of you who watch ESPN frequently (and both of you New Orleans Hornets fans out there), you probably know that a player named Chris Andersen (pictured on the Denver Nuggets) was dismissed from the NBA for violating the league's drug policy. My first reaction to this was to think how nice it is that the NBA has a tough steroid policy, unlike baseball. Unfortunately, no one is ever punished severely for steroids in any professional sport. Not ten years ago, not now, not next year, and not if they bought commercial time during the Super Bowl and took five different performance enhancing drugs live on national television with the Supreme Court and the Senate present as witnesses.

That's right, Andersen has never failed a test for performance enhancing drugs, and he certainly hasn't failed the required four times to warrant dismissal from the league. Instead, Andersen was dismissed from the NBA for a minimum of two years for a first offense involving an unspecified "drug of abuse", a category which includes cocaine, LSD, amphetamines, and heroin.

Now I know that some of you out there (if anyone actually reads this, anyway) might be saying, "But guy who writes this blog, drugs are bad. So the people who do them must be bad too. Why should I feel sorry for a bad person like Chris Andersen?"

That's a good question, reader. Actually, Chris Andersen donated $25,000 to charities last season to buy Hornets season tickets for underprivileged kids, but to emphasize my main point (and to avoid an argument about the idiocy of workplace drug testing in general), let's pretend that your argument makes sense. The reason that you should feel sorry for Chris Andersen is that, unlike other notorious drug users in sports (Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, Florence Griffith-Joyner, half of the 2004 Super Bowl Champion Carolina Panthers, etc.), Andersen has been severely punished for using recreational drugs, rather than being richly rewarded for using performance enhancing drugs.

"But guy who writes this blog," you might say, "isn't Chris Andersen setting a bad example for those same underprivileged kids? And if so, shouldn't we burn his house to the ground and hang him from the nearest tree to set a better example for those kids?"

Another very astute question, reader, but the problem with your argument (or at least the main problem), is that while Chris Andersen may not be the best role model, the NBA's drug policy makes exactly the wrong kind of statement. The penalty for a first offense involving performance enhancers is a 10 day suspension, and not until the fourth offense can a player be dismissed from the league. Handing out a slap on the wrist for steroids (which not only set a bad example, but compromise the integrity of the sport), and punishing people severely for drugs that have nothing to do with sports, sends a terrible message: drugs are evil if you take them for fun, but it's OK to take them for a competitive edge, because winning isn't just the best thing, it's the only thing.

So remember kids, winning is a substitute for integrity, and people will overlook almost anything, including cheating, if you are good enough at something. But there's one thing that no respectable person can stand for: degenerate, drug abusing hippies like Chris Andersen.