The Big Game

Play-by-Play Guy: With about two and a half minutes left and the Little Rock Hudsons trailing the Waikiki Vandeweghes by 18, it looks like the Vans will be moving on to the next round. The Stars were the favorites at tipoff, but it will be the Vandeweghes facing the Scottsdale Carnegies in the championship game.

Crotchety Old Analyst: Not so fast, the momentum has shifted in the last several minutes.

PbPG (incredulous): How so?

COA: Well 7 of the last 10 times the ball has gone through the rim, the Hudsons put it there.

PbPG: I'm not sure I understand...

COA: You have to admit, it raises serious doubts about whether Waikiki can close the deal.

PbPG: While the stats you cited are in a sense accurate, the Hudsons hit six foul shots and a layup while the Vandeweghes knocked down three three-point shots. The Vans have actually increased their lead slightly during the period of the game you're discussing.

COA: That's a good point. You have to admire the offensive efficiency of the Hudsons.

PbPG (flustered): I don't think I implied that.

OMA: The Vans can't play in the paint. It's all well and good to hit threes in the semis, but only a team with a good post game can win in the Finals. You need high percentage shots to win. The inside game has been the foundation of the Bi-Coastal Conference for fifty years. They're not going to beat the Flyover Central League champ Carnegies without that.

PbPG: Regardless, the game is decided by the score.

COA (condescendingly): Is it?

PbPG: Yes.

COA: Ultimately though, the Hudsons have the better chance of beating the Carnegies. We've seen the Vans miss quite a few open looks. You think the Carnegies won't exploit that?

PbPG: Mathematically however it's virtually impossible for the Hudsons to catch up.

COA: You can't make that determination until all the baskets are counted.

PbPG: What are you talking about?

COA: The Hudsons had an outstanding shoot-around. It is wrong to disenfranchise those baskets.

PbPG: Now come on! We all knew when we started that those baskets wouldn't count. The Vans weren't even on the court during part of that time!

COA: That's why it's up to Conference officials to step in here and award this to the Hudsons. They can send the Vandeweghes home. They have the power to do this.

PbPG: Why would they invalidate the results of a fairly played game?

COA: Because the Conference needs a title badly. They don't want the Carnegies strutting around. Especially since the Crawford Brimleys of the Flyover Central League have been such abysmally bad champs. This is Bi-Coastal Conference's best chance to win it all.

PbPG: Shouldn't the rules we all agreed on at the beginning continue to mean something at the end?

COA: Hold my headset. I'm going to go move the goal.

FIN

Horrified/Horrifying

Heckuva Job, Bushie

Laura Bush today said in a press conference that the Burmese junta failed to adequately warn folks before the cyclone struck. Because no democratically elected government would ever dick around while a storm kills thousands. Also, the $250,000 in aide is totally inadequate for the type of infrastructure you need to survive a future storm of this magnitude. As any NFL owner could tell you, it costs at about 200 times that to build a decent dome which is by all indicators the best any government can do for its people during a catastrophic storm.

We call it "Bad Newz Stables"

I don't get all the gnashing and wailing over Eight Belles. In the horse fighting ring Dan Fouts and I run, those poor bastards break legs constantly.

eat 5 to 9 a day

so, i'm sitting at home listening to internet hockey and snacking on my peeled mini carrots from kroger. you with me? well, on the bag of peeled mini carrots from kroger is a logo that says "EAT 5 to 9 A DAY" and i've included that logo to the right. however, there's a problem: every fifth carrot i eat tastes bad.

i wanted to do it right, so i tried what anyone would try: good carrot, good carrot, good carrot, good carrot, BAD CARROT! i tried again: good carrot, good carrot, good carrot, good carrot, BAD CARROT! i tried this a bunch of times and every time it was good carrot, good carrot, good carrot, good carrot, BAD CARROT! on my final try, which JUST happened before this sentence started, i tried something else: good carrot, good carrot, good carrot, good carrot, GOOD PICKLE!

i'm left satisfied.

These open source developers have modest aspirations

Today I learned that the Firefox spell-checker recognizes the word "vagina" but not "vaginas."

one year anniversary

it's been exactly one year since four string samurai performed our first independent show. please congratulate us or wish us a happy smurfiversary.

we'll wait.

Link: NYT presents Mad Magazine fold-ins

About a month ago some blog or another linked to this interactive archive of Mad Magazine fold-ins in the NY Times. I enjoyed it immensely and promptly forgot about it until yesterday when in a conversation with my brother the topic of Mad came up. I explained that the archive is animated so you can drag the fold, to which he replied (slightly incredulous), "So you mean the folds actually line up?!" Indeed.

The Drinking Drinking Game

It's so hard to get amped up for a big night of drinking that honestly folks need a little motivation. And since Americans are winners, the best possible motivation is a game. Normally drinking games require you to have some cards or a specific movie or television show cued up. Not so the Drinking Drinking Game. The best part about the Drinking Drinking Game is that all you need to participate is some people who are drinking. Not only do they not have to be involved, it works best if they have no idea what's going on!

• Any time someone takes a sip, takes a sip.
  
• If someone with a cigarette says, "I don't smoke... normally" take a drink.
  
• Any time someone asks what you're drinking, take a sip. If your drink is in a clearly labeled bottle, take a drink. If it's the only option available or if the person asking is drinking the same thing, finish your drink.
  
• Any time someone tells an anecdote about a previous drinking experience, take a drink. If said experience occurred in college and the person is more than five years removed from graduation, finish your drink.
  
• Any time someone raises the roof or says "Woooo!" ironically, take a sip. If done unironically, leave without finishing your drink.
  
• If someone asks you to "Wait right here!" finish your drink slowly over the ten or fifteen minutes it takes you to realize that she's not coming back.
  
• Any time someone changes the music, and the new selection is worse than the previous one, finish your drink.
  
• Any time the conversation turns to politics or religion take your drink to another room.
  
• Any time you finish a drink, get another drink.

Feel free to adapt the rules to fit the peculiarities of the folks you drink with, or to submit additional rules via comments.

This has gone on almost long enough!

For April Fool's Day I switched one of my coworker's google settings to return only pages in Danish. This is very funny because he doesn't speak Danish, which you would know if you worked here. He also doesn't like to ask for help with his computer. He tries to hide it when he doesn't understand something. You know the type I'm talking about, or at least you would if you worked here.

It was very funny to watch him knowing that he was getting all this Denmark stuff on his computer. He was scratching his head and he made his browser text size bigger. This doesn't address the problem, at least not in Internet Explorer. He uses IE 5.5 which is hilarious if you know anything about browsers.

Anyway, today I noticed a gash an inch deep on his head and blood and hair and skin under the fingernail of his index finger. That's the finger he uses to scratch his head when he doesn't understand something. You'd know that if you worked here.

When I walked by, his IE 5.5 font size was so big he could only display one letter on the screen. It looked like this:

ø

i'll take mine with a fried egg

in reality, i was asleep before it aired, but by the power of the internet, i got to see jon stewart interview obama and was really happy to see the primanti's plug at the very end - SPOILER ALERT! stewart didn't pronounce it like a pittsburgher (he said it more like it was a british pub or something), but whatever. i hope obama went dahn to the strip at 2am last night. can you imagine being drunk and hungry and seeing obama ordering a cap n cheese? high fives would certainly be in order.

lots of eyes are on my home state of pennsylvania today.

The tenuous nature of politics, or, Scholastic rivalries that 99.9% of the nation could give a crap about

Today's Clinton itinerary:

The two [Hillary and Chelsea Clinton] will also be at Haverford College at 2 p.m. for a "conversation with families" at Founders Hall, 370 Lancaster Ave.

Woooooooooooooooooooooooo! Haverford! If I were there I'd have her autograph my plush black squirrel! Then we could split a plate of sweet potato fries! Senator Clinton totally has my vote!

Chelsea Clinton will also be at Swarthmore College at 11 a.m.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooo! Swat sucks! Gratuitous link dumping on their defunct crappy football program! You've lost my vote forever!

I'm throwing my support behind Jeff T-F.