Shaun's Holy Servant

Even the child-like optimism of Shaun Alexander - coupled with the around the clock prayer-a-thon with his family and friends - wasn't enough to heal the MVP running back's broken foot in less than a week. Maybe he should try sticking his foot in a rainbow, or better yet a bowl of liquid sunshine.

Now I'm not one to discount prayer as a powerful device, I've seen it work with my own eyes, but why is it that every professional athelete thinks that God is their personal prayer monkey - a primary source for healing every physical wound and brushing away every felony charge?

Alexander explained that the swelling was down in his foot, that there was less blood near the bone. It's almost as though God enabled the body to have a natural healing process that, over time, miraculously healed an injury.

Then again, Shaun has a reason to be optimistic; how many veteran running backs can say they've never missed a game due to injury (put your hand down Shaun, you're still not playing on Saturday).

Believing that God will heal your every scrape and shattered pelvis is as batty as believing that the cause of Alexander's injury is the Madden video game curse.

But come to think of it, there's much more evidence supporting the Madden curse.

Oversimplification: You Know You Want To

Today's blue plate abstraction special: Political Affiliation.

Here's a decent web site for finding out where you're firmly entrenched on a political scale based on a handful of questions:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/questionnaire

What's nice is that this site adds another dimension to the equation beyond mere left vs. right, which helps us, as mentioned in the link, differentiate between lefties like Stalin and Ghandi. Admit it, you thought they agreed on everything.

And here's where I landed, somewhat north-northeast of Ghandi, but pretty moderate overall (hence my proclivity for sweeping generalizations):

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-3.13&soc=-4.00

Feel free to post your personal 'score' as a comment so I can berate you for your ignorance. Or berate me for my ignorance. It's really up to you.

Conspiracy Alert: Cell Phone Suicide

Another diabolical consumer fraud attempt has reached my conspiracy trained eyes.

I was showering the pungent musk of countless denuded conspiracies off my own denuded body when my cell phone started vibrating (my phone is always set to vibrate in a vain attempt to simulate human contact).

Like an electronic lemming with a seizure (patent pending), my phone traversed nearly six inches of countertop and leapt off the edge, falling to the briny sea of linoleum below. There was no hesitation; the phone knew what it was doing, and only after a lengthy convalescence was my phone able to have its normal, healthy seizures again.

But why jump? I treat my phone well enough. Sure I push its buttons sometimes, but that’s bound to happen in a human-cell phone relationship. The only possible conclusion is that my cell phone has a built-in, intrinsic yearning to destroy itself, requiring its owner – after a short period of mourning – to buy another one.

But just like a piece of toast always lands peanut butter/regular butter/Nutella side down, cell phones always find their way to an edge, thus continuing the cycle of carnage.

The cell phone companies’ plan works too perfectly to be taken with a grain of salt from my brine-encrusted linoleum bathroom floor, because as soon as I realized what they were up to I was left with no means of calling them to complain.

Such is their brand of evil genius.

Not only that, but cell phones give you cancer. That proves the companies behind them are evil.

Our only hope of solving this problem is to appeal to the cell phone companies’ humanity. Alex Trebek recently informed me on an episode of Jeopardy that Verizon Wireless’ name comes from the Latin Veritas, meaning truth. Well Verizon, here’s your chance. Ball’s in your court; let’s see if you have any.

Potent Quotables

Trebek: “Welcome back to Jeopardy: Literal Edition with our contestants Pope Benedict XVI, President Bush, and a representative from the Militant Muslims Anti-Defamation League. Pope Benedict, since you are infallable, pick a category.”

Benedict: “I’ll take ‘Potent Quotables’ for ‘Jihad,’ Alex.”

Trebek: “Alright – and that’s our Daily Trouble, which today will focus on the Middle East. And everyone please remember to write down your answer in the form of a Medieval and religiously incendiary quote.

The answer is: A great thing to say when trying to open up peaceful interreligious discussion. You have 30 seconds.”

…

“Time’s up, let’s start with you, Mr. President. You wrote: What is ‘Get ‘r Done?’

I’m afraid that’s incorrect. We said a ‘Medieval and religiously incendiary quote,’ not a ‘Larry the Cable Guy quote.’”

Bush: “I didn’t write that.”

Trebek: “Um… with all due respect, yes you did. We saw you.”

Bush: “C’mon, fella: be a uniter, not a divider.”

Trebek: “Moving on: Pope Benedict, you wrote: What is: ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached?’

That is correct! MMADL representative, let’s see if you got the same answer: What is: 'I’m going to kill you, you Western whore.' That is not only incorrect, but amusingly ironic in light of the Pope’s quote – Pope Benedict you have won today’s Daily Trouble and the Jihad that goes along with it. We’ll be right back with more Jeopardy after this…”

Signs of the Apocalypse: Sign the 1st

As we all know, the apocalypse is nearing. It's not a question of if it's coming or even when it's coming, but of who gets into the heavenly VIP room with such greats as Martin Luther, Mother Teresa, and Strom Thurman.

With that in mind, I bring you Sign the First that the apolalypse is nigh:

Mathmatical Incompetence.

I was renting a U-haul the other day to prepare for my move to heaven (remember, it's nigh, and I gots a-heaven-of-a-lot of material possesions that I plan on bringing) when I overheard the following conversation, which is paraphrased in order to protect the innocent - and my crappy memory:

Customer: "What's bigger: the 6x12 trailer or the 14 foot truck?"
Employee: "I don't know. Let me check."

Needless to say, I pulled my spleen from trying to hold in a vicious laugh that would've certainly kept me off God's VIP list, or at least forced Him to take away my heavenly U-haul privileges.

This, coupled with the recent news that half of all Washington State WASL testers can't pass the math section of the exam, creates a two-headed hellhound of shameful arithmetical ignorance in this country. I call it "Spot." But I don't feed Spot, because I want that ignorant beast to die.

Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like Spot will visit us soon. The mark of this beast will be spread around the world, and it will look something like this:

12>14?

Conspiracy Alert: Alternate Facts

I feel I may have been a bit hasty in my earlier conspiracy theory about XL T-shirts.

I didn’t even stop to consider an alternate theory, for if my first theory is proved wrong then surely the this one will be, nay, must be correct.

Perhaps it's not the Fast Food Industry whose at fault after all, but those conniving sewing-machine jockeys in 3^rd world Asia. Perhaps they are producing XL shirts by their own impetus to mock our girth.

If this is the case, we can’t allow them to link our proud national bulk with apple pie as an accurate way to describe what we are “as American as….”

Shut up. That makes perfect sense.

As a deterrent, I propose we give our sweat shop employees a pay cut to say... 9/10 of a cent a day. A preemptive strike would've been ideal, but some people want “proof” and “evidence” before action. These people are Communists. Or hippies.

I know, I know, it's not that big of a pay cut – heck it may even be a raise – but it's the message that's important. Besides, these people have to have enough money to eat three square meals a month so that they will have the strength to make my new Air Jordans in time for Christmas.

I gots to have my sneaks.

But that's not the only benefit of my 9/10^{th of a cent} Proposal. The ala mode on this Pac-rim pie comes from within our own impenetrable borders: that fraction of a cent is a clear shot at Big Oil, deflecting some excess mockery in their direction.

I mean, come on, 9/10 of a cent? Do you think I even care? Bring it on Big Oil, it doesn’t even cost me triple digit$ to fill up my gas tank... yet.

We Contentious Wordsketeers

I recently joined a multi-participanted (not a word) blog called 'The Logomachist' (http://logomachist.blogspot.com/). Here's a little preview of our inane banter, including the definition of 'Logomachist.'

I'll admit it: when I joined the blog I had no clue what 'logomachist' meant.

That's not entirely true; using my vast(ly inferior) knowledge of Greek and English I determined that it probably referred to some kind of 'word robot.' After six hours of giddy googling, yahooing, and other various gerund-ing attempts I gave up my search for said word robot and resigned myself to a lonely, word-robotless existence.

As it turns out, a logomachist is one who "contends about words." I guess that jives pretty nicely with the purpose of this blog, but I'm not fond of the awkward preposition choice, so I decided to subscribe to an alternate definition of 'logomachy':

"a game played with cards, each bearing one letter, with which words are formed."

To make things easier, we'll call it Scrabble Poker. Ante up.