Monday, February 27, 2012

The Day I Tried To Hide My Giant Black Penis

My wife and daughter went out yesterday afternoon, leaving me at home on a Sunday for the first time in a while. The perfect time to do something incredibly important that I couldn't do with other people around:

Hide My Giant Black Penis

Oops. I think I need to go back about a year. My father is a Selectman for a small New England town. Every year they have a "winter festival". Normal Americans go inside each winter and wait until barbecue season comes around again. But in rural New England, sub-zero temperatures are a great excuse for an outdoor "festival". Every interest group in town contributes some sort of sculpture. The local high school builds a unicorn. The Rotary Club builds a fire truck. The Lions build ... (wait for it) ... a lion.

The next morning, before sunrise, my Dad gets a call that they need "help" with the cleanup. He shows up to find that right next to the unicorn and fire truck, someone has a deposited a giant black penis. Or, at least, a reasonable facsimile thereof. Solid rubber. About two feet tall. Mostly erect (but not entirely). With one giant round testicle to either side. Jiggling a bit despite the hard frost on the ground. It probably weighs thirty pounds. When I say "black", I mean black. It's not Obama black, or even Wesley Snipes black. It's Darth Vader black.

Apparently it's the job of the town's 2nd Selectman to clear the Town Green of any and all giant penises, before the town's residents see it on their way to church. As he picks up the penis, one of the testicles falls off. I guess that's why the pranksters were willing to part with this giant black dildo. Once it breaks, you can't use it anymore. You have to go buy a new one.

My father didn't know what to do with the penis. So I called dibs. You never know when you'll need a giant black penis.

I brought it home and hid it in our abandoned chicken coop. I wanted to put it somewhere that my 11-year-old daughter (and her friends) wouldn't accidentally find it. But by the time Autumn rolled around, they were playing hide-and-seek in the yard. A lot. And the chicken coop was the perfect hiding place. Thankfully, no one found it. When you hide, you look *out* to see if anyone's going to find you. So you don't notice it when you are squatting down on an absurdly over-sized rubber dildo.

Nevertheless, the penis needed a better hiding place. I should have moved it when the power went out for nine days and I was bored. But I didn't think of it. So now it's February and I have some privacy. Time to hide the penis.

Because I can't really think of a better hiding place, I figure that I will just conceal it. I grab a large cardboard box from the garage and head out to the coop. The penis won't fit in the box. I head back in to get a tape measure so I can measure the penis.

Now here's the problem. I have ADD. And it's been really bad recently. I lost my ADD prescription so I've run out of ADD meds. Last week I started siphoning kerosene into my kerosene heater and wandered away. I didn't realize this until I heard the kerosene overflowing and splashing onto my driveway. Then I proceeded to leave an open container of kerosene in the back of my pickup truck. When my wife went to get the truck inspected, she was driving a 50-mile-an-hour Molotov cocktail.

So now I have a thirty-pound black dildo, standing upright in my side yard. Visible from my driveway. And I've gone into the house to get a tape measure. I find a tape measure, but it isn't the *good* tape measure. And I like my good tape measure, so I keep looking. Then I realize I have to send an important email to Korea before they get to work on Monday and since they are 13 hours ahead, I have to get it written and sent right now. And I have to bug my co-worker about checking in some computer code. And then I see that my friend Matt has played "ZITHER" in "Words With Friends". Now it's my turn.

Thankfully, I have some ADD coping skills. One is to set the oven timer to 5 minutes when I'm starting a task, to remind me to get back on task. The oven beeps three times and I realize there's still a big black dong in my yard.

I decide the wise thing to do is to just go measure it with the crappy tape measure. Back out into the cold. The penis is twenty-three and a half inches. And about a foot wide (if you include both the attached and unattached testicles).

Back into the house for a bigger box. And then the basement. And then the garage. I come to the stark realization that I don't have a box big enough to hold the penis. And I've started to re-organize the shelves in my basement. Oh, shit!!! What was I just doing?!?

So I just grab a big black plastic garbage bag and go back outside. I wrap up the dildo and tuck it in the darkest corner of the chicken coop. It turns out that wrapping black plastic around a giant black penis doesn't help much. It just adds wrinkles. Before, it looked like a giant black penis. Now it looks like a giant black uncircumsized penis.

There's only one place left for the penis. The people who built my house didn't finish building it before they sold it to us. There is an unfinished room above the garage. The only way into this space is through an exterior door. The door is 13 feet off the ground. There are no stairs. It's the one place my daughter and her friends would never hide.

Into the garage to get the 20-foot folding aluminum ladder. Back to the chicken coop to get the 23-inch penis. Back to the house. Lean the ladder up against the house. Prop up one side with a loose rock to try to make it level. Tuck the penis under one arm. It's heavy and awkward, but I've been working out.

Halfway up the ladder, I hear some beeping noises. When I went outside, I took my phone with me. I wanted to be sure that my wife or daughter could reach me if they needed to. The phone is in the front pocket of my leather jacket. Right next to the penis. It seems that the penis has just "butt-dialed" someone. From my pocket, a woman's voice says "hello?".

But I don't have time for small talk. I'm halfway up a ladder, in February, with a thirty pound penis. I must soldier on.

As I get to the top, my left hand (the one without the penis) has trouble grabbing the ladder. It's below freezing and very windy. The sun is setting and I just spent the last ten minutes unfolding my rusty aluminum ladder. Aluminum isn't supposed to rust. But this ladder doesn't know that. The ladder has three joints that each lock at a variety of angles. By the time I have the ladder unfolded, my fingers are numb from the cold. On my right hand, my fingers aren't as cold. They have been protected by the black plastic bag that holds the penis. I have to switch the penis to my other hand. I have to roll the giant balls across my body so that that head of the penis is facing my house, and then grab it under my left arm, all without letting go of the ladder. And I have to do it quickly. Before my daughter, and her friend, and her friend's parents, pull into the driveway.

It's difficult. I almost drop the penis. But I don't drop it. I don't want to break it. The head of the penis, about the size of a cantaloupe, is now resting peacefully against the sill of the doorway.

Just then, something shoots out of the penis. It hit me in the face and then darts away. A bird! There is a bird's nest in the corner of the doorway. I had assumed it was empty. I was wrong. It seems that a giant penis blocking out the sun is enough to scare a small bird into abandoning it's nest.

"Startled" is an understatement. After I watch the bird fly off into the trees behind me, I realize that the top of my ladder is no longer touching my house. Everything moves in slow motion as the ladder tips farther backwards. I look down at the jagged boulder I'm about to fall on. When I die, my obituary will say "Died Holding A Thirty-Pound Penis". Or "Killed By A Giant Black Schlong".

But the ladder stops moving. The penis saved me!!! Without thinking, I have straightened my left arm. I am holding thirty pounds of simulated penis meat at full extension. Our center of gravity is now on the other side of the ladder, and the ladder inches back towards my house. As the ladder clatters into the vinyl siding, I thank God for my giant black penis.

I can still feel my heart pounding in my chest. But the doorknob is within reach. I open it with my right hand, slide the penis in, and slam the door shut.

By the time my family comes home, the penis is shrouded in total darkness and the ladder is folded up and put away.

Yay!

-- President, Sports Mogul Inc.
cjd@sportsmogul.com
http://www.sportsmogul.com 

Sunday, February 26, 2012

When Zombies Attack ... Morons


The Walking Dead is dumb. The premise is dumb. The writing is dumb. And the characters are especially dumb.

Nevertheless, I have watched every episode (some of them twice). So I guess The Walking Dead is like a golden retriever. A dumb animal that's fun to play with and keeps bringing the ball back.

Getting me to watch really isn't the hard part. As a lifelong Dungeons & Dragons fan, I'll watch anything about a band of multi-talented adventurers trying to survive in hostile territory. The Walking Dead is just The Lord Of The Rings ... in Atlanta.

I haven't read the books, so maybe I'm missing something. But I can't believe the premise, no matter how hard I try. The zombies are mindless. They don't bother to look under cars or behind doors. If you put a drop of blood on the ground, they stop to lick at it, instead of attacking the 180-pound meal right in front of them.

A band of raccoons would be more dangerous than a band of these zombies. Raccoons are faster and smarter, with better offensive weapons (claws and teeth) and much better defense (try killing a scurrying raccoon with a .45, with one shot). And yet our world hasn't been taken over by raccoons. So it's hard to believe that it would be taken over by the zombies portrayed in The Walking Dead. I can't even think of a dumb animal to compare them to, because evolution didn't make anything that dumb and harmless. Perhaps a drunken sloth on Valium.

In order to take over the world, zombies need an edge. Something that makes them scarier than the coyotes that steal chickens from my yard.
  1. The writers could have made them strong. They didn't.
  2. The writers could have made them fast. They aren't.
  3. They could have made them smarter than earthworms. They didn't.
  4. They could have given them improved senses, to hunt out fresh meat. They didn't.
  5. They could have made the disease spread easily. They didn't. Our heroes splash zombie blood all over themselves every day and don't get infected.
  6. They could have made the disease hard to detect. This is how diseases spread in real life. You can't tell who has HIV just by looking at them.
So we have a bunch of dumb slow weak zombies, that are easily identified (and whose victims are easily identified). It makes no sense that they could overtake a country with 2.9 million trained soldiers, 900,000 police officers, and more than 270 million guns in civilian hands.

The only way such a "threat" could bring on the apocalypse is if all humans were complete morons. Luckily for the zombies, the humans in The Walking Dead are just as dumb as they are:

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Final Republican Nominee

Photo by sfgamchick on flickr

There's a poll over on the Sports Mogul Forums, asking which Republican should be the next president.

The results:

CandidateVote Percent
Ron Paul30%
Rick Santorum13%
Mitt Romney9%
Newt Gingrich4%
"A potato"44%


If the Republican Party could nominate a potato, I'm sure they would. I think that was the logic behind Rick Perry entering the fray.

In all seriousness, it's hard to write negative ads about a potato.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Monday, February 13, 2012

Obama's New Budget Doesn't Add Up


I don't understand the math for the Department of Education in Obama's new budget.

First, we have a new $8 billion program to get community colleges to actually train people for jobs that are going unfilled.

Second, we have a reduction of college loan interest rates from 6.8% to 3.4%. According to House Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member George Mille (D-CA) and Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), this will give 
more than $2,800 per year to about 7 million undergraduates.

Seven million times $2.800 is about $17.6 billion.

Finally, there's the $2,500 "partly refundable" tax credit for college education. There are about 21 million students currently enrolled in college programs that would qualify for this credit. This tax credit is aimed at "low income families", which the government defines as families earning less than $160,000. Wow. That's almost 4 times the median household income, and includes some families in the top 5% of household income. That's what happens when you let millionaires write the laws: they decide that someone earning $80 an hour is "low income".

Anyway, let's be conservative and assume that only 80% of those 21 million qualify for the credit. That's another $42 billion.

Forty-two billion plus $17.6 billion plus $8 billion is $67.6 billion.

But the article says that the Dept. Of Education budget is only going up by 2.4% (to $69.8 billion).

So there are $67.6 billion in new programs squeezed into a $1.6 billion budget increase?

Which means these proposed expenditures are hiding somewhere else in the budget...


Saturday, February 11, 2012

50 Albums For A Desert Island


Rank
Artist
Album
1
The Beat
I Just Can't Stop It
2
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Californication
3
Oingo Boingo
Dead Man's Party
4
U2
War
5
The Police
Outlandos d'Amour
6
The Clash
London Calling
7
Madonna
Like A Prayer
8
R.E.M.
Murmur
9
Duran Duran
Rio
10
Bruce Springsteen
Born To Run
11
Fleetwood Mac
Rumours
12
Dire Straits
Love Over Gold
13
Queen
A Night At The Opera
14
The B-52's
The B-52's
15
Good Charlotte
The Chronicles Of Life And Death
16
Elvis Costello
This Year's Model
17
Rush
Permanent Waves
18
The Who
Who's Next
19
Yes
90125
20
David Bowie
Changes
21
Everclear
So Much For The Afterglow
22
Elton John
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
23
Van Morrison
Astral Weeks
24
Blues Traveler
Four
25
The Rolling Stones
Let It Bleed
26
Depeche Mode
Violator
27
311
Transistor
28
Genesis
Abacab
29
Public Enemy
Fear Of A Black Planet
30
Roxy Music
Avalon
31
Sting
Ten Summoner's Tales
32
The Cure
The Head On The Door
33
Hole
Live Through This
34
No Doubt
Tragic Kingdom
35
The Specials
The Specials
36
The Offspring
Smash
37
Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel (1982)
38
Jethro Tull
Aqualung
39
New Order
Substance
40
Cake
Comfort Eagle
41
Owl City
Ocean Eyes
42
The Smiths
The Queen Is Dead
43
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin II
44
The Pretenders
The Pretenders
45
The Eagles
Hotel California
46
Barenaked Ladies
Gordon
47
Billy Joel
Glass Houses
48
Talking Heads
Remain in Light
49
James Taylor
Sweet Baby James
50
Coldplay
A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Worst Ad In Super Bowl History?


OK. I realizing I'm feeling hyperbolic tonight. But my jaw dropped when I saw this Silverado ad in the first quarter.

The first 38 seconds were an amusing depiction of the impending 2012 apocalypse. But then our driver meets up with his friends and wonders why one of them hasn't arrived yet:
Chevy Driver 1: “Where’s Dave?”
Chevy Driver 2: "Dave didn’t drive the longest-lasting, most dependable truck on the road. Dave drove a Ford.”
Bzzt. Wrong answer!

Here's what they should have said:
Chevy Driver 1: “Where’s Dave?” 
Chevy Driver 2: "Dave didn’t make it. Dave didn't drive a Silverado.”
Why this ad failed:

1) Every ad man knows you don't spend good ad dollars just to plug the competition. But the most memorable line of this $7 million-dollar debacle ends with the word "Ford" and doesn't include the word "Chevy" (or "Silverado"). Oops.

2) No women. Forty-six percent of Super Bowl viewers are female. Not including the animated ads, this was probably the only ad (other than the creepy one for David Beckham's underwear) that didn't include women. Seriously, what's the point of surviving the apocalypse if there's no one to breed with?

3) Ten years after 9/11 and four years after the Wall Street meltdown, you aren't going to win any points by bashing another American brand. GM could have picked on Toyota or Nissan, the only two full-size truck brands that have actually gained market share over the last 10 years.

4) When you take $50 billion in bailout money, you don't get to use it to bash a company that employs over 100,000 Americans. Sixty-one percent of GM is still owned by the federal government. Your tax dollars are being used to bash the one major American car company that didn't need bailout money. Not good.

5) As if in response to the above, Chrysler aired this brilliant ad at the beginning of halftime. During the Super Bowl (America's national holiday) you don't sell American cars by denouncing American brands. You sell American cars with optimism and patriotism.

This ad just felt like the execs at GM trying to start a pissing match with Ford. Ironically, Ford won the pissing match without even wasting any pee. And the folks at GM are just left standing there with their pants down.

Related post: Worst Call In Super Bowl History

Worst Call In Super Bowl History

Photo by Ed Yourdon
I realize that it's hyberbolic to call today's safety call the worst in 46 Super Bowls. But somebody needs to do it. Right now, there are thousands of people out there Googling "worst super bowl call ever", and they need to be able to find something.

On the Patriots' very first play of the game, Brady dropped back in the pocket, couldn't find a receiver, and threw the ball away. The refs called intentional grounding, and awarded a safety because Brady was in the end zone at the time. WTF?!?

This led to 2 points for the Giants, and gave the ball back to New York, leading to another 7 points. The Giants' first 9 points were a direct result of this absurd call.

Brady didn't even throw it out of bounds like he normally does. And he didn't just spike it into the ground like Peyton Manning always does. He threw it 45 yards downfield.

I have never seen intentional grounding called on a 45-yard pass. Never. And I can't find anyone who has.

The average NFL quarterback "throws the ball away" a couple times per game. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady probably do it three or more times each game. Twelve minutes later, Eli chucked it out of bounds under similar conditions. But no grounding call.

I'm not blaming the game per se on that call. The Giants D played well, Manningham made an unbelievable catch, Eli was surprisingly accurate, and Welker couldn't hold on to the most important pass of the game. But that is certainly the worst call I can remember in a Super Bowl.

The offensive pass interference in Super Bowl XL was pretty dubious, but it was a judgment call that the ref had to make in real time. So if the ref see a lot of contact and throws a flag, that's the way the ball bounces. But on today's safety, the refs had all the time in the world to get together and make the right call, and they still blew it. That's the amazing thing. You can't criticize the refs too badly when they have to make a call in real-time on a close play. But when you have the time to get it right, you should get it right!

Considering how bad this call was, I'm surprised that Brady and Belicheck didn't throw a complete hissy fit. But keeping a level head was the right thing to do. NFL rules don't allow for a penalty to be overturned, so it's not worth getting ejected. Also, I think they were just stunned at seeing a call that has never been called in the history of the league.

Cris Collinsworth, in an attempt I assume to quell any controversy, did point out that the referee's call matched the rules in the rulebook: Brady was under pressure, in the pocket, and in the end zone. But he sounded surprised as he made this argument. As in "I've never seen this call before, but I'm being told that this counts as intentional grounding according to the letter of the rules."

Photo by Abqtrucker on flickr
Of course, Collinsworth and everyone outside New York knew it wasn't intentional grounding. It was just another QB throwing the ball away when he can't find someone open -- something that Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have been doing for 10 years (and a skill that has helped pave their way to Canton). If Eli Manning had made the same throw I wouldn't have been screaming for intentional grounding. It wouldn't have even have occurred to me. Instead, I would have been commending Eli for his poise in the pocket, and getting ready for 2nd down.

I have seen worse calls in the playoffs. But I haven't seen a worse call in the Super Bowl. Perhaps this is payback for "The Tuck Rule". By all common sense, Brady fumbled the ball in that game. But according to the rulebook, it was incomplete. So, this call was the same thing. Everyone knew it wasn't intentional grounding, but the refs chose this one play to apply the rulebook as written (and then ignore that section of the rulebook for the rest of the Super Bowl).

"Throwing the ball away" is so common in the NFL that we have a phrase for it. If every time you "threw the ball away" you were called for intentional grounding, we wouldn't call it "throwing the ball away"; we would call it "intentional grounding". And we wouldn't have every talking head on ESPN heaping praise on every QB who chucks the ball out of bounds instead of trying to force a play downfield.

Heck, even Madden even has a player rating called "Throw The Ball Away" that specifies whether a QB is more likely to thow an intentional incompletion or try to make something happen. And, as we already knew, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning have high ratings in this area.

As an NFL fan, I would like to see intentional grounding called more often. The defense should be rewarded for getting pressure on the QB. But you don't all-of-a-sudden decide to start calling this penalty in the last and most important game of the season.

Related post: Worst Ad In Super Bowl History?