Effing Effingham

This past weekend I drove halfway across the country and back again over the course of about four days. I learned that America is a pretty weird place.

As demonstrated by a mildly retarded man from Texas winning two Presidential elections, most of America is a pretty religious place. Some people demonstrate their religion by helping poor people and stuff like that, things Jesus would have done. Others, however, like the residents of Effingham, Illinois, decided to build the biggest cross in the world. So yeah, there’s a 198 foot tall metal cross along I-70. Truckers are, of course, welcome.

This wasn’t the only cross I saw though, as it was pretty common to see three crosses on hilltops. So here’s what I’m thinking. When Christianity first started, it was really popular with women and slaves, because in Rome their lives sucked, and that whole Heaven thing seemed pretty sweet. This same thing helps explain why it took so long for people like the Vikings to convert: their afterlife is much better than Heaven, they just drink and fight all day, every day, so there’s really no reason to convert. I think that what I’m basically getting at here is that most of the center of this country, like Effingham, really sucks, and the people who live there are already looking ahead. Clinging to their religion (and guns).

Crosses were only the second strangest thing that I saw along the road. First place goes to a series of billboards stretching across Ohio and Indiana, advertising RVs and homes. The name of the RV company, as you may recall if you’ve also been forced to pass through what I’m sure Sarah Palin would describe as the pro-America America, is Tom Raper RVs. How is that someone’s name? If your last name is Raper, just change it.

One of the coolest parts about driving for 14 straight hours is learning all sorts of place names. Driving from Philadelphia to St. Louis is a pretty international experience; I passed London, Lisbon, Brazil, Troy, and Rome. I guess that it’s pretty tough to come up with original place names for an entire country, as demonstrated by Nameless Creek and Arnold City.

Ok, but that’s enough about that journey, I have more important things to talk about. First, science. I’ve made no secret of my desire to see scientists just start doing really cool things, and do them well. I don’t necessarily care what it is, cloning, flying cars, robots, anything like that, I just want to see cool things. Dick knows of this, and the scorn I’ve been heaping on scientists for their failure to keep me properly amused, and sent me this article to show that they’re doing stuff. I’m not impressed. Yeah, it’s cool that they were able to save some guy’s hand. But they used leaches. Come on, doctors have been using leaches for centuries. I’m surprised that they didn’t sacrifice a bull too. And anyway, the guy still doesn’t have feeling in his hand yet. I am not impressed with these scientists.

At least astronomers are still making moves. As this article says, some guys are speculating that there could be tons of earth-like planets scattered throughout our galaxy. That would be pretty cool. If there are alien lifeforms out there, these guys were thinking that most of them would be the kind of things that were on earth hundreds of millions of years ago, not cool things like people or wookies or even dinosaurs, but single cell organisms, and things like that. Which makes me think, how cool would it be if by the time these things get to where we are, evolutionarily speaking, we’ve mastered interstellar travel? We could be the conquering aliens that plucky planet bound movie stars would have to fight off. There could even be an alien President Whitmore. He would give such a good speech, I bet. Europeans are taking the first step here, running an isolation experiment to see if people could handle a trip to Mars. Getting to Mars and back would take over 500 days, so they want to make sure that people could deal with that. Fuck it, I'm sure I could do it. They wouldn't even need to pay me. Just put me in some spaceship on my way to Mars, 18 months in space wouldn't bother me; I don't think anything would. It would be so cool.

So John McCain is on twitter now (here's the story about it, there's probably a link to his twitter page too, but I felt no need to go look at it.) I’m not excited. First of all, fuck twitter. It’s completely unnecessary, who feels the need to put out vapid updates several times a day. Their character limit is going to finish what AIM and texting have started; I cant w8 2 c the first book tat looks liek this. Fuck. Anyway, McCain. What’s his deal? He clearly can’t be considering another Presidential run in 2012; he got his ass kicked this year, he’s going to be even older then, and if he gets in her way, Sarah Palin may shoot him from her helicopter. So why is he trying to stay in the spotlight so much? Doesn’t seem real mavericky.

I just saw a commercial for some show that the Golf Chanel is doing, The Haney Project, where the world’s best swing coach is going to try to fix Charles Barkley’s swing. The commercial said that the show would be uncensored, and I guess to underscore this point they had Barkley saying “shit” after a swing. But they bleeped it.

So it’s looking conceivable that Nadya Suleman won’t be able to take her octuplets home with her. It would suck if the kids have to be put into foster care, but that’s gotta be best for them in the long run. She’s out of her mind crazy, and doesn’t need to spread that crazy around. I’m still really frightened by her. When she has another four kids next year, and she will, someone will hopefully step in then and steal her uterus or something. She’s just terrifying.

I think that’s pretty much it for now. Happy Marty Brodeur Day everyone.

Chalk 1 up for SI!

This was totally our doing...right?

I mean, in no way could this have happened unless we alerted positively no one to the cause by reporting it on this site, right?

Right. That's what I thought.

Update: Biggest homophobe prize still up for grabs

Thanks to this late entry by Utah State Senator Chris Buttars:

(Concerning the "radical gay movement"): "They're probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of."

Right. People having consensual sex in the privacy of their own homes is going to bring us all down. That and not the failing economy.

And the coup-de-grace of the article:

Now, in the interview, senator Buttars also talks about a certain type of reported gay sexual activity which he claims is taking place.

But ABC 4 does not consider that appropriate for its news content.

Gotta wonder what that is, don't you?! And how would Buttars know about it? Hmmmm...

Things I Don't Understand

Sometimes things happen that I am just not capable of understanding. I’m ok with admitting this, because some stories are just absolutely outrageous, I feel like no one could see them coming. This story from outside of Buffalo is one of those. A Muslim man, Muzzammil Hassan turned himself in to police the other day and admitted to killing his wife. Yeah, this really sucks and all, but it’s not the most unheard of situation ever. But, the man in question just happens to be the founder and CEO of Bridges TV. Through Bridges TV Hassan had hoped to portray Muslims in a more positive light. Um, swing and a miss on that one.

Another thing that I don’t get is why people seem to have so much trouble understanding how great a President Andrew Jackson was. Recently C-SPAN polled 65 historians, having them rank all 42 former Presidents in a variety of categories, and then used these rankings to put together an overall ranking of every President since Washington. It seems they do these rankings every time a President leaves office, maybe so they can track how the perception of that President has changed over time. Bush was 36, two spaces behind Hoover. The top was predictably boring, with Lincoln coming in at first overall, followed by Washington, FDR, Teddy, and Harry Truman. Places 6-10 were equally uninspired: JFK, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Wilson, and Reagan. What the hell, how did they leave Jackson out? He came in at #13, just edging out Monroe and Clinton. Seriously, what the hell, where did they go wrong?

The first category was Public Persuasion. Jackson came in 7th; this seems fair; while he had the public pretty much eating out of his hand for all eight years he was in office, there was still that nonsense with the Tarriff, so I couldn’t see him going any higher. Jackson then rated 6th in the next category, crisis management, which again seems fair. Undoubtedly, he would have ranked higher had he actually invaded South Carolina and hanged Calhoun.

Things start getting pretty absurd though, in the next category: economic management. During his Presidency Jackson not only balanced the Federal Budget, but he completely paid off the national debt. No President in history has governed a country without any debt at all. Except Jackon. I was an incredible achievement, as current economic nonsense is emphasizing. Despite this, Jackson is rated only the 29th best President. What the hell? Is every one of the surveyed historians descended from Biddle? Fuck the Bank.

The next category is pretty fucking stupid, and a pretty obvious way for C-SPAN to make up nonsense to benefit people like Lincoln: moral authority. Moral authority, are you fucking kidding me? And as dumb a category as this is Jackson ranks 18th. As much as it pains me to say, because this is a retarded category anyway, but I guess this is fair. People and priests were flipping out at him because of his Secretary of War’s wife (I’m not doing research for this, just take my word for everything), and it was just a crazy religious time back in the 1830s. Also there was that garbage with Rachel. Whatever, people needed to chill the fuck out back then too, I guess. Still, idiotic category.

Next comes international relations, and here Jackson ranks twentieth. Most of what Jackson dealt with was domestic stuff, so I guess I understand where they’re coming from. I just really don’t understand how Lincoln ranked third here. Seriously, I think that people just see the name Lincoln and rank him towards the top, without really even considering what he did or didn’t do. With regard to foreign relations, Lincoln really didn’t do much. Administrative skills are next, and Jackson ranks 18th there. Seriously, what the hell? I looked all over C-SPAN’s site trying to find out anything about why they picked these categories, or what they really meant, but there was nothing. And since there was nothing, there also wasn’t anything to convince me that this wasn’t also an idiotic category. How can administrative skills be as important as economic leadership? Most administrative work isn’t done by the President anyway.

Jackson ranks 14th in relations with Congress, which I guess seems appropriate, considering his feud with Clay and the nullification dipshits. But he was able to forge a consensus to get done pretty much everything that he wanted, receiving support from all over the political spectrum, including Webster, so he could be ranked higher. Also, I would probably have James Monroe ranked higher than 9th, considering that there really wasn’t an opposition party during his term. Vision/Setting an Agenda is the next category, which seems to overlap a lot with Public Persuasion and Administration Skills. It’s dumb. Jackson ranks 9th. This has not been a well done survey.

The next category is Pursued Equal Justice For All. Lincoln is number one, benefitting greatly from the unwritten corollary to this rule “except for people in border states.” Lincoln didn’t free the slaves to be a good guy; he did it to win a war. He wasn’t pursuing equal justice for all; he was trying to win. LBJ not being #1 here strikes me as pretty unfair. Jackson came in at 35, 18 places behind Jefferson, who was fucking his slaves while writing about the equality of men. People seem to still be hung up on this whole Trail of Tears thing. Ugh, every President before Jackson had a plan drawn up for Indian removal too. Also, W ranked 24th, because illegal wiretapping and secret prisons just scream justice.

The last category is Performance with Context of Times. Again, not really sure what this one means. Is it a way to give like extra credit to Presidents who had a lot of shit going on? I don’t know. Jackson ranks 9th. But he had a lot of shit going on, and did a really good job. Should he be rated higher in this category? I don’t know, because I’m not sure how this category works. Gut reaction, though, says he should be higher. So there’s that. Whatever. This whole survey has been terrible. I mean, of the 65 historians, I’ve heard of Robert Dallek, who is a real historian, and Robert Greene, who is more of an asshole than a real historian, and I feel like the name Ken Ackerman is somehow familiar. And then I read about some of theses historians, like William Allen, who writes mostly about the Third Reich, and how Hitler came to power. Clearly, he is best suited to compare Jackson’s economic policies to Clinton’s. This is just a dumb list. At first I was pretty upset by it, by then I realized that it was too fucking stupid to take seriously.

And lastly, here’s one more story that I hope everyone has seen. A Chinese tycoon (the word tycoon really isn’t used enough) felt he needed to cut back on his mistresses because of the economy, so he went about this in the only logical manner: he had them compete in a contest, survivor-style. But, well, it didn’t work out so well; after the first woman was eliminated, she drove a car, in which the guy and his other mistresses were also riding, off a cliff. Yikes. But I guess her plan backfired, as she was the only one who died. The story somehow manages to get weirder, as the guy continued the contest, seeing it through to its conclusion. The winner was able to achieve her lofty status by dominating the final round, a drinking competition. Everything about this is so weird. The tycoon even had to pay the dean woman’s family a couple hundred thousand Yuan in compensation for her death. What the hell, she tried to kill him?!? People are fucked up.

The Biggest Homophobe in the World

We here at SI really, really despise Fred Phelps (I'm going out on a limb here and speaking for everyone involved). But at the same time, I (and assuming again, everyone else here) am painstakingly fascinated by him.

In case you don't know, Fred Phelps is the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, a super fundamental Christian Church founded out of the pure, unadulterated hatred of gays. The church's website is GodHatesFags.com. Straight to the point those fundamentalists.

If the name of the church sounds familiar, you've probably read about them in the news. They're the ones who protest the funerals of American soldiers who died in Iraq. If you're now confused about that jump (from hating fags to protesting fallen soldiers) allow me to connect the dots for you. The WBC is protesting those funerals to make sure all are aware that American soldiers are being slain by God as penance for our fag-loving ways. If that sounds illogical to you, you have a sound understanding of logic. They place a lot of this blame on George W. Bush. George W. "I love homosexuality so much I want to constitutionally ban it" Bush. These people do not praise rationality as much as they praise big ol' JC.

But the WBC doesn't just frequent funerals, they're also lovers of the arts. They love picketing theatrical productions like "The Laramie Project," the play written about the violent murder of Matthew Shepard in an effort to curb homophobia. A few years ago, GodHatesFags.com had a running counter of the number of years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds that Matthew Shepard had been in Hell. Nice.

Well, in an effort to halt the world's slow descent into hell, Fred and his followers are traveling to England to protest a performance of "The Laramie Project" there. The church recently answered some questions about their trip there. I recently tore apart those answers:

1) Is this your first picket in the UK?

1. It is the first actual picket. We have been preaching by so many means to the UK for years. The arm of the Lord our God is not shortened by oceans and things, all of which, he created, and all of which he knew about when he considered these last hours of the very last days of all.

So in response to the question you actually asked, Mr. Interviewer - - yes. This is our first picket in the UK. Period.

But since you've graciously provided us with more than we asked for (like always!) allow me to pay you back with my thoughts. Let's assume God did create "oceans and things." If he created all of these things, he most certainly created the tools necessary to make anal beads. Just a fun thought.

2) Are you flying across to Britain, or is the picket being carried out by members in Britain? If you are flying over, how many protesters are you expecting and when are you arriving?

2. Considering that your nation has tried in many ways, including with draconian laws to shut up the Word of God from OFF your landscape, and to make it a crime to plainly say what the STANDARDS of GOD are, (e.g. THOU SHALT NOT lie with mankind as with womankind, it is abomination or THOU SHALT NOT commit adultery, etc.) that I will not be telling any details of our business to get where we need to be.

First, go ahead and add your own [sic]'s in there. I don't have the energy to type the same thing dozens of times. Second, I think we made her angry. She's writing in the big letters.

But while we're talking about standards from the Bible, how's this from WouldJesusDiscriminate.org concerning Matthew 19:10-12:

Here Jesus refers to "eunuchs who have been so from birth." This terminology ("born eunuchs") was used in the ancient world to refer to homosexual men. Jesus indicates that being a "born eunuch" is a gift from God.

This is in addition to all of that "love one another" and "be good stewards of my creation" nonsense JC was always babbling on about.

3) What is your objection to The Laramie Project?

3. We don't object to it, we see it as a glorious preaching moment. It creates a PERFECT backdrop for us to help YOU connect the dots. From the least to the greatest of the people of the UK, including your lamenting and rebellious and disobedient Gordon Brown. You taught your children FOR GENERATIONS now that God is a big fat liar and that HIS standards are on the table to dispose of. You BROKE their moral compass.

The prophet said - WHAT WILL YE DO IN THE END THEREOF. That is to say for you rebels - WHAT will you do when you get to the end of this road of your filthy disobedient manner of life and find that you have incurred the wrath of God and you find that his promises to make your people to be ALTOGETHER WORTHLESS, GOOD FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! And what will you do when you all land in hell FOR EVER where the worm that eats on you NEVER dies and the fire is NEVER quenched and the smoke of your torment ascends up for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever - never ending...

FOR-EH-VER. Sorry, I just really love "The Sandlot".

...Now suddenly you see that they have NO standards! And then you can add to this pleasant little happy UK family moment that another 13-year-old boy has arisen to dispute paternity! Oh yea baby - you UK rebels truly have it goin on! You are like the Doomed american rebels - just a big shameful MESS!!

You just got served, fag lovers!

I say we are dot connecters! THAT is our job! We use the Laramie Project to tell you unambiguously and unapologetically that your DUTY is to fear God and keep his commandments and that you are required to give the glory of all his judgments that he is executing RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSE, TO HIM! The God Smacks are HIS WORK!

We are the dot connectors! We slay that shit on the kids menu at Friendly's! Where you saw a smattering of dots we saw the truth! And that truth was a polygon-ized quasi Shrek looking thing that we fleshed out in crayon! Yeah!!!

4) Why have you decided to widen your protests to Britain?

4. Here is the reason - from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ, to wit: Mt 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come...

Yada yada yada, fire and brimstone, blah blah blah, misappropriated biblical quotes, yap yap yap. Same old, same old there. But notice one important thing there: the legalese of "to wit". That's right, there are tons of lawyers in the Phelps family. Tons! In fact, Freddy himself used to be a very successful and lauded Civil Rights attorney. Until he was disbarred.

Moving on...

The antichrist is sitting now, in the Whitehouse, the time is SO SHORT - the Lord is coming and this generation is DOOMED!

Only Americans would assume the root of all evil would have to be housed on our soil. Typical.

You see the destruction already before your eyes! As filthy america goes down, and The Beast Obama, That Son of Perdition, that Man of Sin gets his power grab on, you will all give over the power of your government to him and when you see that phony façade fall away, and he gets his war on and all your fawning over him turns to great fear, then you can remember these words.

Is it weird that when I hear about Obama "getting his war on" the President takes on a decidedly Leon Phelps-ian look in my mind?

In that hour, if you or any other soul in the UK has a heart to know your God, and you understand that the end is near, you can yet put away your idols, your false gods and your FILTHY manner of life and you can serve the Lord your God in truth! THAT is your only hope.

Right. Serve your God in the truth that you should advocate violence against innocents. Right.

Well, this whole rant must be nearing a close. All of this fag hating is tiring! Time to gear up for the final sermon. Crack your knuckles, sharpen your righteousness, here it comes!

Thanks for asking!

Shirley Phelps-Roper

Oh come on! You can't work me up like that and not finish me off! What was all that hot sodomy talk about if you weren't going to let me finish?! Fuck, now I'm pissed.

Moving on...

I’m sure that everyone will be pleased to hear that we successfully resolved this SI-writers pissing contest, as Dick acknowledged that he was wrong, realizing in the process that trying to beat me in meaningless competitions is a futile endeavor. In his defense, he is capable of addition, he was just working from the wrong set of numbers, which included unpublished drafts in the total. I hadn’t realized that any of those were floating around, but two were. One was a sentence that I had written and then probably lost interest in, the introduction to what seems like a post about crazy stuff I want scientists to invent. The more promising draft, also just a sentence, was by Winston, and had the title Ninja Pirates or Pirate Ninjas. I’m intrigued.

But since the title of this post is moving on, that’s what I’ll do. Biggest story, in my eyes at least, is the collision of two satellites over Siberia, one owned by Russia, the other by the United States. If this had happened during the Cold War we would all probably be dead right now; fortunately, it’s actually making people call out for some sort of Solar System Traffic Control situation. So many satellites have been thrown into orbit since Sputnik, and very few have been brought down, creating an unintentional minefield of space flotsam. The United States hasn’t been helping this situation, as in the past year we decided, “Hey, let’s shoot missiles at some of this crap.” While a pretty cool idea, it just made a lot more crap. So while I guess it sucks that satellites are crashing, it does highlight what could be a pretty big need in the coming decades. We really need to get some laws for space, before everybody gets up there and it’s just like anarchy.

My next final, on Monday afternoon, is Civil Procedure. It’s open notes though, unlike torts and property, which is a huge relief. More than any other class, this is one where you can just look at the rules and figure out what’s going on. And this quarter we covered substantially less than last quarter; basically all I have to worry about are pleadings, joinders, and preclusion. Hopefully this works out, as clearly I’m confident enough to type this while studying. I’m pretty sure I’ve devised a good system: two pages of an outline, one paragraph here.

A friend of mine was telling me earlier about Birthright, some system or whatever that lets you go to Israel for ten days for free if you’re between the ages of 18 and 26. The only catch is you have to be Jewish. Honestly, I think that the rest of Europe needs to get in on this. Pretty much all the important European countries (I’m not considering places like Moldova or Slovenia) have negative birthrates and declining populations. Sure, immigration from places like North Africa and Eastern Europe is keeping things afloat (that might be the one thing that I learned from that terrible Italian cinema class I took in Roma, from the movie Quando sei nato non puoi piu nasconderti), but if they want to get really serious about bringing up populations they should be taking people back from America. Giving away free ten day trips to suggestible kids would probably be beneficial. Also, at least in Italy, they may want to consider shutting down some churches. There are probably more churches in an Italian city than Starbucks in most American metropolises. Basically we need the mafia to step up, and start funding programs that would let me go to Italy for free. Joey Merlino needs to get on this after, you know, he gets out of jail.

What’s going on with satellite radio? Like, a couple years ago everyone was all about it, and it was supposed to be the future. Howard Stern switched over, cars were being equipped with it, Sirius and XM were feuding, it seemed like it would be around for a while. And now I’ve just read that Sirius XM, is about to file for bankruptcy, and have almost $200 million in debts. What the hell, how did this happen? I understand that giving Howard Stern half a billion dollars probably wasn’t the best business decision, but there isn’t any competition now, shouldn’t they be raking in money? Sucks for them. I wish I had something more insightful to add here. Meh.

Every year or so it seems like a minor league sports team comes up with an absolutely inspired promotion. The St. Paul Saints have been at the forefront of this movement, giving away toy boats in recognition of the Vikings’ Lake Minnetonka shitshow, and last year by creating a Senator Larry Craig Bobble-Foot doll. But now they’re being challenged by the Milwaukee Admirals, an AHL team. On February 19th, the Admirals are hosting “Don’t be Like Mike Night,” in response to this pot nonsense Michael Phelps has gotten himself into. DARE graduations can get into the game for free, as can anyone named Michael, Phelps, Mary Jane, Cheech, Chong, or Weed. One lucky fan will receive a weedwacker signed by the team, and everyone can bring incriminating photos of themselves to be shredded. But the real prize is, of course, the most difficult to win. If the Admirals score with 4:20 left in any period, someone will receive season tickets for next year. I can appreciate this promotion, because there’s a lot of humor in it. I’m still sick of sanctimonious reporters pontification about the evils of marijuana. Let’s be honest, most of these people were probably journalism majors, in college in the ‘60s and ‘70s; there’s no way that they didn’t smoke pot. Most of them have probably smoked more than Phelps. Hell, at least the last three Presidents have smoked pot, and they’ve gotten less shit than Phelps. I a little bit wish that Phelps would call a huge press conference, show up stoned off his ass, and say that he smoked before every race in Beijing. He listened to Lil’ Wayne before every race, so this isn’t outside the realm of possibilities. Just think, how many heads would explode? I’m pretty sure that would make the world a better place.

You might infer from my defense of Michael Phelps that I’m not a big fan of outrage and indignation. If that is the case, you would be wrong. I can’t stand when outrage is directed at the wrong person, like Phelps or A-Rod, but some decisions are absolutely despicable, and the people who made them need to be called out. It seems like most of those people, assholes who make terrible decisions and fuck good things up, are members of the Maryland Jockey Club. In quite possibly the worst policy decision since the French decided to pour all their resources into the Maginot Line, the Jockey Club is banning outside beverages from the infield at Preakness. In years past, the Pimlico infield would be a magical place filled with booze and bad decisions, and now these horse-racing assholes want to stop that. I don’t understand why. In all seriousness, Preakness probably hasn’t actually been about horse racing for years. I went a few years ago, the year that Barbaro ran, and didn’t know he had broken his leg until watching Sportscenter later that night. In all seriousness, you have to make a legitimate effort to see a horse if you have infield tickets. And that’s awesome. The rationale behind banning fun at Preakness is that they want to improve the overall experience. So they’re replacing bring your own beer with a ZZ Top concert (meh) and a Women’s Volleyball Tournament (again, meh). Clearly though, the real reason for this is so that they can charge $3.50 a beer, make a shitload of money, and bastardize a great American tradition. I am willing to state, unequivocally, that the Maryland Jockey Club hates America.

In the last 24 hours, I’ve watched Stephen Lynch’s second Comedy Central Special twice. If it were on again right now, I would watch it a third time. In all seriousness, Lynch is probably the best stand-up comedian going right now. But also, he’s probably one of my favorite musicians too. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for the music industry, but he’s really good. Not since Bob Dylan has an artist been as tapped into the social conscience of America as Lynch is, with songs about the Special Olympics, divorce, religion, and euthanasia.

Yesterday Loyola was an option on ESPN’s Streak for the Cash, hosting Iona. This was clearly a game they should have won, but, well, it’s Loyola, so the Streakmaster deemed it to be even enough. Jon texted me pretty early yesterday, wondering if he dare risk his streak of 4 on the Hounds. I had no such reservations; Loyola was getting even a little bit of national exposure, so I was going to take advantage of it. I checked the Loyola box. And they lost. I really haven’t had any faith in Loyola basketball since Andre Collins left for Italy. Well, hopefully my streak will rebound tomorrow with as AS Roma win over Atalanta. Oh, and speaking of Loyola Fucking Basketball, they come to Philly to play Drexel two days after finals end for me, on February 21. And I can’t go. Oh well.

The NBA All-Star game is this weekend. The NBA sucks, but its All-Star game is better than the NHL’s, the Pro-Bowl, and the MLB All-Star game when it’s ending in a tie. Seriously, where does Bud Selig get the moral standing to say that Alex Rodriguez shamed baseball? I mean, Selig has done so much deplorable shit that listing it all is difficult. Off the top of my head, I’d just throw out his involvement in collusion in the late ‘80s, which is killing Tim Raines’ HOF chances right now, his usurpation of the commissionership, and how he’s been throwing all sorts of benefits towards the Brewers since, expanded to the point that he had to threaten the Twins with contraction, the all-star game tie, the mess he made out of game 5 of the 2008 World Series, the one that the Phillies won, making them the World Fucking Champions, and of course he’s just as guilty as any player who took steroids. By turning a blind eye towards steroids since the Bash Brothers (the fake ones, Canseco and McGwire, let’s leave Fulton and Dean Portman out of this) were tearing shit up in Oakland all the way through Barry Bonds’ annihilation phase, Selig was ok with everyone shitting all over the last 130 years of baseball, and if not for grandstanding congressmen it would still be rampant. Fuck Bud Selig. And now he’s gonna be making moves for a salary cap, because dumbasses like Houston’s owner got pissy when the Yankees signed some free agents (obviously that Carlos Lee monster contract doesn’t count), when he makes more per year than all but like 7 players. Seriously, this past year that motherfucker made 18 million dollars. I would ruin baseball for half that amount.

One of the biggest things that I miss from college is the opportunity to have conversations with Jeff where we don’t use any real words, and when we do they have entirely random meanings. Like, I feel that I could communicate pretty much any thought through some combination of blame, tame, flow, shooter, jumpshot, pistratica, berkey, meh, allora, and berkey. You won’t be able to convince me otherwise. In closing, I now have a 30-page outline for Monday. I really need exams to be over so fun can exist again.

The Real 100th Post

Like this post would have anything other than this:

Dickhead

Wow. It's a good thing you teach chemistry and not math, Mr. Gerber. And anyway, I actually had no idea how many posts we've had. But since we are getting close to 100, and it seems like something you want, I'm not going to let you have it. This post, and the one that comes right after it, will have much less content than your attempt at 100. Fucker.

Century Mark

Honest admission: I just posted that last thing half-heartedly so that I could make the 100th post. Doing this isn't especially important to me, but I know it's something Gimpy really wanted. So - - suck it, Gimpy.

Update: Lincoln still cool, dead

Some pretty cool stuff happened to commemorate Lincoln's birthday over the last few days. Obama gave a great speech, they had flower-laying ceremonies at his grave, the state of Illinois collectively ejaculated, and you can't count the number of articles that have been written about him. Speaking of which, do you know that only 2 people have more books written in English about them than Lincoln? And those two people are Jesus and Shakespeare. That's a pretty ballin' top 3.

But something else happened for Lincoln's birthday: they re-opened Ford's Theatre.

Now if you were Abraham Lincoln, and you were able to rise from the grave just for the ceremonies marking the 200th anniversary of your birth I'd have to imagine you'd have mixed feelings about this. Flowers at your grave? Touching. Speeches in your honor (used to wield power over an impending vote ahem ahem)? Great. Visiting the site of your unexpected and gruesome death? Not as much fun. "But Abe, we'll be reading your speeches and reciting some of your work! You have to be there!"

"No, I think I'll take a rain-check on this one," reincarnate Abe would likely say. "Still have a bad taste in my mouth from the last time."

Bulletin Board Material

Bud Selig is a great guy. He's been on the watch for steroids for well over a decade, just ask him. Recently, speaking about all this A-Rod nonsense, Selig mentioned how he sent around a bulletin in 1997 about steroids. Well, I wanted to see this bulletin for myself, because I didn't believe him. So I called up Darren Daulton, and we went time traveling back to the summer of '97. Here's the message that Selig sent to every major league club:

Attn: Players

It has come to my attention that a lot of you have begun to TAKE STEROIDS. I can't stress enough that we at MLB do not want you to TAKE STEROIDS. It is not GOOD FOR THE GAME. It will not play a role in INCREASING VIEWERSHIP AND REVENUES. So, once again, PLEASE do not TAKE STEROIDS. STEROIDS ARE not GOOD. Thank you,

Fucking Bud Selig

Happy Birthday to y - - Holy Shit! Both of you were born today?!

That was essentially my reaction when Gimpy told me that Darwin beat out Abe Lincoln for the jazzed-up Google logo today, though both of them turn 200 today. I find it pretty remarkable that Darwin beat out Honest Abe for greater notoriety. Darwin did some ground-breaking shit, but by any metric, Lincoln is one of the top 3 Presidents (if not by quality, than certainly by importance).

It would probably be appropriate at this point to admit that I have a huge boner for Lincoln. I've read 2 biographies of him and (I think) every one of his speeches let alone some of his written work. He's an incredible person, and if you don't believe me read Lincoln's Melancholy. It's an incredible look at the life-long depression that that gangly motherfucker faced.

But the more important thing here is that both Darwin and Lincoln were born on the exact same day! What the fuck?! That is absurd! That's on par with Jefferson and John Adams both dying on the same day within hours of each other. Oh, and that date of their death also happens to be the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (Look me in the face and tell me those two weren't euthanized, though. You can't. That's how unbelievable that is. But that's a story for another day.)

No single person has had a greater impact on science since Newton than Darwin has; and I'm including Einstein in that. Darwin's theory was so impressive that it touched almost every area of daily life, including how it impacted American social structure for the next 50-odd years. And Darwin's thoughts impact far more people on a daily basis than those of any other scientists and maybe any other thinker of the last two centuries. Think about it.

But Lincoln. Every grammar school kid knows what Lincoln did. Every presidential scholar (or close to it) considers Lincoln to be the best writer of our 43 Presidents (see below if you think that number should be 44). Lincoln was so important that everyone still knows John Wilkes Booth's name.

But I've glossed over the most important revelation here: given that these two titans of history were born on the same day, you have to wonder - - who shares a birthday with me?

Manny

The Yankees need to sign Manny Ramirez. Up until this weekend, this wasn’t a necessity. It would have been cool had it happened, but the Yankees and baseball fans in general didn’t need it. They do now.

From a purely baseball perspective, it would make the Yankees terrifying. The heart of their order would be some awe-inspiring combination of Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, and Manny Ramirez. Yankee fans would fawn over this, and it would really be a focus of animosity from other fans. But just as a baseball fan, it would be really fun to watch a lineup like that.

I would also like to see the Yankees do it as a way to taunt people clamoring for a salary cap. There is absolutely no reason for a salary cap in baseball; there is the same competitive balance across the league as there is in football. Seriously, the Lions went 0-16 this year, the salary cap sure didn’t make them competitive. And football, despite its salary cap, has had more repeat champions in recent years than baseball has; since 2000 only the Red Sox have won multiple titles, compared to the NFL, where in that same time period the Patriots have won three Super Bowls, and the Steelers two. So hopefully people will just back off this salary cap nonsense, and even though this signing wouldn’t cause people to calm down, the righteous indignation and fury that it would stir up would at least be entertaining.

Finally, it would get people talking instantly. Nobody would benefit from talking about Manny more than Alex Rodriguez. If not completely, it would shift the majority of the spotlight from A-Rod’s steroids disclosure onto Manny, the enormous amount of money that the Yankees paid, Manny v.s. the Red Sox, and all sorts of other storylines. Derek Jeter didn’t come through and stick up for his teammate (really people, he’s a terrible captain. Can’t field his position either), at least he could gush about Manny as a hitter. I’m sure Skip Bayless would love to yell about Manny on First and Ten. ESPN has an article up now about how Bud Selig is considering punishment for A-Rod. I don’t even want to get into how reprehensible it would be to punish him, so I’ll just say that it can’t help him for this conversation to be floating around. Manny would steal that conversation, and he’s such a weird guy that it wouldn’t even matter.

Finals Interruption

So I’ve been mired in finals for the last week or so, and the end is nowhere in sight. It’s a pretty miserable experience; torts was yesterday, and property is Friday. (As an aside, I really don’t know if torts should be handled as a singular or plural word. Like, I know that when you commit multiple torts it’s obviously plural, but what about referring to torts class? I’ve been struggling with this for a couple months. Do I say “torts sucks” or “torts suck?”) Finding time to write here has been tough, but since I’ve already done a lot for Friday I figured I would find some time to share some of the things I’ve been thinking about.

First of all, Mike Vick is getting out of jail soon, and I would love for him to end up on the Eagles. My dream scenario would be for the Birds to sign him and draft Tebow, and then run a double wildcat option formation. Just have both Vick and Tebow out on the field at the same time, with Westbrook too, and defenses wouldn’t know where the snap was going. Defenses would be paralyzed, and it would be so much fun to watch. Also, it would mean that McNabb is playing somewhere else, which is definitely a plus.

I watched President Obama’s press conference the other night, and thought he did a really good job pointing out how retarded some of the criticisms of the stimulus package are. I’m really afraid that he’s just too smart to be President, and people just aren’t going to get him. Also, how is it a story when he hits his head getting into his helicopter? Was it really necessary for Drudge to have it up, with a picture, for like two days? Let’s be honest here, I’m pretty sure that Andrew Card had Bush wear a helmet in the Oval Office for the last eight years.

There’s a lot of pressure in picking a team name for a keeper fantasy baseball league. Because it’s going to be around for years, current event references don’t really work. I’m torn between doing something sorta timeless, like Waddell Fire Co., or throwing out some absurd prediction of something that I think may happen five years down the line. I’m probably going to spend more time thinking about this than I am a draft strategy.

I guess it was last week when some crazy woman, Nadya Suleman, had another eight babies, bringing her total to fourteen. She needs to be sterilized, for the sake of humanity. Obviously she has a publicist, and will probably make a ton of money off of people who for some reason think that a book of her parenting tips would be worthwhile, but she’s really just going to fuck up 14 kids’ lives. She’s an uncomfortably weird woman.

I would like to take this paragraph to write an open statement to the residents of Coatesville. Stop lighting shit on fire. It’s really not a good idea; there’s no reason to burn someone’s house down. Doing it more than twenty times is ridiculous. So seriously, stop it.

A-Rod took steroids. Meh. All this talk of Hall of Fame exclusion is ridiculous. So he took steroids to gain a competitive advantage. Babe Ruth got a competitive advantage by not having to play against any black or Latino players. Maybe we should limit the Hall of Fame to players who played between 1947 and expansion in the ‘60s, because after like 1962 the talent pool became diluted. Or maybe that’s as bad an idea as keeping steroid users out of the Hall; everyone was doing it, Bud Selig didn’t care, it happened, it’s part of baseball history, it should be recognized in Cooperstown.

It really bothers me when something that sucks has a really cool name. For instance, I really like the word flowchart, it’s a great word. Actual flowcharts kinda suck though. Same thing with chinchillas. Chinchilla is a phenomenal word, it’s fun to say and to write. But actual chinchillas suck, they’re terrible animals. And I hate when people say that they’re pets. There’s one rule for whether something is a pet or not: if it can save a child from a burning building. If an animal can’t rescue a child from a fire, it’s not a pet, it’s merely an animal that you’re saving from being eaten by a bigger animal.

I’m ridiculously jealous of my younger brother’s tenth grade English class, they’re able to read some really cool things. Obviously they’re doing stuff that everyone does, like Gatsby and the Odyssey, but they’re also doing modern fiction. Last semester he got to read and do a presentation on I Love You, Beth Cooper, and this semester he could have done a research paper on Michael Chabon’s stuff. Even though it’s a little unwieldy at times, and parts of it definitely could have been cut, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a great novel. This doesn’t seem fair when I think about my last high school English class. Writing a paper on the weather in Ethan Frome? A third grader could have done that, why was it assigned in an AP class? Probably for the same reason that we spent 7 days reading Slaughterhouse-Five aloud in class; I wasn’t upset when I hear that teacher got fired. Dumbass.

Bret Favre says he’s retiring. I don’t believe him.

A kid in my class has an interesting idea: what if we experiment with zombieism to the point that we can learn how it works, and use it. Like, we take the aspects of zombieism that make someone indestructible, but exclude the brain-eating impulses and stuff: we could unlock immortality. I think that scientists need to focus more on this; if all of the funding that is going to AIDS and cancer research went to this, we would be set, and there wouldn’t be a loss, because AIDS and cancer can’t kill someone rendered invincible by partial zombieism.

Speaking of zombies, somebody wrote this book, and it’s gotta be awesome. Yep, he took the text of Pride and Prejudice and wrote zombies into the story. I think that this might be the future of literature, as so many books could be improved by adding a few zombies. What if they had to fight zombies on the Pequod, or Nurse Ratched was a zombie, and her brain obsession led to McMurphy’s lobotomy? I really think that this could be the future of literature.

So that asshole still won’t admit that the Holocaust happened. He won’t go to Auschwitz, but is willing to study the scientific evidence and may possibly change his mind. This guy strikes me as pretty anti-Semitic, even quoting St. Paul’s statement that the Jews “are our enemies for the sake of the gospel.” What the hell? What possible benefit could there be for having this guy back in the Church? What an awful decision.

Finally, PECOTA has predicted that the Mets will win the NL East this year. They made the same prediction last year. If you’re wondering how that went, I’ll let Chase Utley enlighten you:

ESPN Headlines

Overrated - The A-Rod story.  Why is baseball so holier than thou when it comes to this crap.  Baseball was in the tank, homeruns brought it back, but lets string up the hitter by their needles.  If you wanted it fixed you'd test like the olympics do.  End of story, your stats are bullshit, but the players shouldn't be on the hook for all of this.

Underrated - Lane Kiffin - Urban Meyer mud slinging.  I hate Florida, I hate Tebow, and Meyer is a cold calculating SOB. Kiffin is shit talking, and taking the heat for his comment that Meyer cheated.  Meyer didn't, but who cares, this is the alumni circuit.  Get your fan based geeked up, truth is secondary at best.  I want Kiffin to do well because everyone is throwing him under the bus, and if he beats UF next year the national title race will open up wide.  

PROGRAM ALERT!

At 10pm exactly, in typical do-you-know-where-your-children-are fashion, ESPN informed me of a program alert: "Sportscenter will be coming on next. Sportscenter will be coming on next. Sportscenter will be coming on next."

Can't fault a company for telling its audience that it's moneymaker is about to hit the booty-do, but let's look at this a little more critically, shall we?

This wasn't just 10pm on a Monday, this was 10pm during the Border War basketball match-up that was tied with about 45 seconds remaining. If some sports fan turned on ESPN at that point in search of our beloved and beleaguered Sportscenter (in other words, highlights and news about sport and great sports games), I don't think they would have been distressed to find a great sports game happening in its stead.

And if they were, two things would have happened. One, they could have clicked off for a second to see what was coming on Nick-at-Nite, and then switch back 5 minutes later (if they really were interested in getting their highlight fix).

Or two, they would remember that this airing of Sportscenter would be exactly like the one airing at 6pm and marginally, if not unnoticeably, different than every Sportscenter for the last 2 days and for seemingly the next 5 weeks - - A-Rod, A-Roid, A-Fraud, and A-Hole. On and on, ad infinitum. What were you really updating me on? "The same thing will be continuing shortly. The same thing will be continuing shortly. The same thing will be continuing shortly."

Film time

A quick wrap up for the films out there worth watching.  Nobody wants to read reviews quick snap shots are better.

Wrestler - If you love the anti-hero, it's for you.

Frost/Nixon - Historian will love this shit, great humanization of nixon.

Revolutionary Road - If you've ever felt trapped in life, this one could suffocate you. 

Taken - If you've ever been like, one more thing goes wrong today I'm going on a rampage, then this 90 minute revenge porn is just for you.

The Wackness - Great 'make the best out of your shitty life situation' I've seen in a while, and they did the early 90s well...as i remember it.

Appaloosa - zzzzzzzzzz.

Zach and Miri Make  A Porno - All the great things about Kevin Smith and the bad parts too.  LT can't go back to his first few years and neither can Smith, sad.

Religulous - Religion is complete madness, but he takes us down the road to hell with a smile on his face.

Gran Torino - McCain meets Dirty Harry.  With a lot of ethnic slurs.  Surprisingly funny and fresh for an old director/actor.

In Bruges - Tip toed that funny/serious line with grace, who knew fucking Phone Booth could act?

Doubt - Only really enjoyable if you dealt with priests and nuns in school, they got every last detail down perfectly.

Role Models - I'd say they did the buddy comedy perfectly. 

The Reader - It was like watching a great performance in a Clipper game, it was great but who cares?

Tropic Thunder - I'd say vastly overrated, but it has plenty of memorable moments.

Milk - A great cast, who actually delivered on their promise.  

They're on the move!

And headed for a stronghold near you!

Repent! The end is near!

This is it. It's happening. This is not a drill people. First zombies in Texas, now raptors in Indiana. I haven't read the Bible in a long time, but I'm pretty sure that dinosaurs are the second sign of the Apocalypse.

We're being attacked from the North and the South! We can't fight a two front war against humans, let alone a two front war against zombies and clever-girl raptors! This is the end! And I never made to another Super Bowl that the Giants won after last year! Damnit!

To be honest, I see no hope. I live no the second floor of my apartment building, and I will be retreating there to barricade the stairwell, fortify my apartment, and camp out with Molotov cocktails, but it's only a matter of time.

The only foreseeable escape is if we can train the zombies from the South to hunt the raptors in the North, pitting foe against foe, and praying that the collateral damage from the Second Zombie Dinosaur war doesn't kill off the human race anyway.

Hug your loved ones and grab you ankles - - rapture is here.

And while we're on commercials...

I was not nearly as critical of the commercials as Gimpy is. I genuinely enjoyed the Pepsuber commercial (and the MacGruber skits that mind-birthed it are well worth a half hour on Hulu). The Cash4Gold.com commercial got some play on the DeadSpin live blog. But it deserves so much more than that; there is nothing funnier than people pointing out their failings, and you can't find many people who are swimming in more failings than Ed McMahon and MC Hammer.

You had your nut shots, your animals acting as people, your talking babies, and even a smattering of really awful local advertising out here in St. Louis. All pretty well-worn territory, but still enjoyable if only for one night annually.

But all of this discussion of commercials has inspired me to write a post I've been meaning to tackle for some time: those stupid fucking Burger King retarded whopper family ads.

They started out ok. "I wish I'd never been broiled" made me chuckle. The spare napkin/condom spot was done well enough to make me uncomfortable about similar past conversations. I think there were one or two more that were good enough not to draw my ire and mediocre enough to be largely ignored.

But then they got terrible in one fell swoop. With the house party. And Spicy Chicken.

Knowing that any of you who might be unfortunate enough to stumble upon this blog probably haven't been consumed by this commercial as much as I have, I'll bullet all of the brain-racking fallacies located therein below:

-We learn that Whopper Jr and Spicy have friends. Human friends. This just feels weird to me.

-We also learn that Whopper has a daughter. She's a human girl. This opens up a wealth of dilemmas. Is burger-dome the recessive gene? Is it sex-linked? Is the daughter adopted or is Whopper's wife a human burger-lover? If she's a burger, what adoption agency would allow two sandwiches to adopt a white girl? If she is a woman, how exactly does a Whopper impregnate a woman? You know what, I don't actually want to know the answer to that question. I just know that my girlfriend isn't allowed to eat Whoppers anymore.

-In perhaps the most infuriating move, Whopper discovers that little bastard Spicy putting the moves on his daughter. I would eat him if I were Whopper. Commensurate with that sentiment, Whopper charges at Spicy - - but he can't get through the fuckin door! What humor! A giant sandwich struggling to get through a door! But, wait a minute. This is his fucking house. That's his fucking door. He is the burger lord of his burger domain and he can't build a door that a burger can fit through? What the fuck?

-But then there's something even more wrong with that scene - - Spicy is already in the fucking room! What sort of black magic does a chicken sandwich possess that allows him to move through walls like Nightcrawler that a burger can't summon from the depths of the Underworld?

I don't know the answer to any of these challenges. I just know that I hate that I care so much.

Super Bowl Stuff

Congratulations have to go out to the Steelers (and a hearty “fuck you” to the Cardinals) for winning last night. Obviously I watched the game, and have a couple thoughts I wanted to share.

First of all, yeah, the Eagles probably would have lost to the Steelers the way they played, so I can’t really get all that upset about things. It was pretty painful watching Roethlisberger lead the Steelers on a game winning drive in the last three minutes of the game when two weeks ago McNabb had the same opportunity and couldn’t get it done. Last night made it pretty clear why Roethlisberger has two Superbowl rings and I’m still hoping Donovan gets traded to the Bears.

I loved the roughing the holder penalty called against Arizona. That was definitely something I had never seen before, though I must admit that I would love to see more teams take runs at the holder on field goals and extra points. Football is getting boring; some unnecessary violence could reenergize it.

Santonio Holmes, during all that postgame stuff, had a great line that I think merits some attention. Channeling the ghost of Freddie Mitchell (he’s dead, right?), Holmes declared that he stepped up on that final drive because “I wanted to continue to be great.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Al Michaels said something that really pissed me off. I don’t remember the context, or when in the game it happened, it may have even been after the game, but anyway, Michaels declared that football was the national pastime. No, it’s not. Baseball is. I don’t care about ratings or revenues, football has nowhere near the place in American culture that baseball does. No one writes poems about football, NFL players aren’t in classic songs, there have been maybe three good football movies, none of which measure up to The Natural, Field of Dreams, or Pride of the Yankees. Football is just a sport; baseball is a part of American history.

Even though pretty much everyone watches the Superbowl, other stations still need to throw up something. ABC went with a shitload of Wipeout, which seems like just a more bland, American MXC. A bunch of other stations went with a different approach, showing nonsense like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, What Women Want, and the Devil Wears Prada. I wonder what demographic they were trying to lure away from NBC.

But the best Superbowl alternative, which was fortunately replayed like six times yesterday, was Puppy Bowl V. Basically, they threw a bunch of puppies in a pit that was decorated like a football field, threw in some stuffed animals, and let the dogs go nuts. Of course when Michael Vick did this he ended up in jail, but when Animal Planet does it PETA is silent. Whatever, fuck PETA. Anyway, there were a couple highlights from Puppy Bowl. First, the puppy named Eli got bitched around a lot, legitimately tackled by some other dogs. Another puppy, Griffey, got ejected for just beating the hell out of the other dogs. Hopefully Bad Newz Kennels had some scouts there. But the best part about Puppy Bowl was the commentary. Harry Kalas was doing play by play! And it was every bit as awesome as you would think. Seriously, it’s February, I’ll listen to Kalas call pretty much anything at this point. Pitchers and catchers still seems so far away.

And there were commercials. Meh. The Doritos crystal ball commercial seems to have gone over really well, winning The USA Today’s prize, but I was underwhelmed. Yeah, a guy got hit in the balls, but that’s hardly groundbreaking. Budweiser disappointed too; the horses were awesome when they were playing football; doing anything else is just mediocre. And can we stop with this Great American Lager nonsense? You’re owned by a Belgian company, and no one is being fooled. Pepsi also came up short: the Pepsuber one was awful, and the side by side generation one was only slightly better. Having Belushi and Jack Black side by side was pretty terrible; I’m pretty much a huge Jack Black fan, and I can’t say he’s anywhere near Belushi’s level. Also, fuck Carlos Boozer. He has time to be in an Overstock.com commercial, but not to actually play basketball and be a worthwhile second round pick for my fantasy team? What the hell?

Some other stuff happened this weekend independent of the Superbowl. Sarah Palin came to DC, but blessedly kept her mouth shut. Rush Limbaugh is still an idiot. Scientists cloned the extinct Pyrenean Ibex, but it died in seven minutes. Spaniards are close to cloning a fighting bull, hopefully they’ll have more success. Michael Phelps got caught smoking pot, and people were outraged. But fortunately nothing is going to happen to him, because NBC set Olympics ratings records when he was swimming. If he wants to, he’ll be back in London, WADA be damned. Seriously, all he did for the last four years was swim; if he wants to smoke every once in a while there’s no reason to stop him.

But the biggest thing coming out of this weekend is the first trailer for the GI Joe movie. Oh man, it’s going to be the coolest movie ever. Honestly, I probably would have bought a movie ticket just to watch the preview. Seriously, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes going head to head, Duke and Ripcord blowing shit up, the trailer was incredible. And the movie is going to be even better, I just know it. Seriously, I’m so excited for this.