Search For the Holy Google

So I was doing some upkeep on the site recently when something took me by surprise. Normally, traffic on the site is really slow in between my posts, but for some reason I had over 40 visitors yesterday. My first thought was that I had accidentally posted embarrassing pictures of myself. But luckily I checked the data and it showed that all of the people were just looking at my most recent note on a gazing healer named Braco. (And just in case you have seen the photos: no, I don’t know if it is safe to do that with a squeegee and yes, that badger is trained.)

Anyway, the reason that particular post became so popular is that a lot of people have been Googling Braco (that sounds dirty, or a great band name), and my blog kept coming up apparently. Now, I’m not naïve to think that everybody that visits my site intended to. Most of them made a mistake, and all of them regret it. But I’m not complaining. In fact, many websites and blogs try to use keywords or phrases that will make them pop up in Google searches. That is why you will often see me subtly mixing in oft-searched terms like “Twilight,” “how the hell do you use a bidet,” “naked pictures of Lindsay Lohan,” “how long does pot stay in your pee,” “making meth in your basement for dummies,” “where do lizards keep their reproductive organs,” etc.

Google is very interesting like that. It truly is a remarkable technology that enables anybody from anywhere in the world to simply type in a few keywords and, with a simple click of the mouse, get pictures of naked people. I mean, you could Google “mother teresa nuns sesame street” and you would get pictures of naked people. The sites and pictures that show up on Google almost never have anything to do with what you were searching for.

So this got me interested in what searches were leading people to my site. Now don’t worry, I can tell what searches led to my site, but not who performed the search. So your privacy is safe, unless Google sells all that stuff to the Chinese or something. And it is probably a very good thing all this stuff is secret, because you people out there Google some very disturbing things. All I am going to say is that the word “semen” appeared in over a dozen searches. Now, for those of you pointing out the fact that searching “semen” leads to my site makes me the sick one, you are missing the point. The point is that you almost never get what you want from Googling things.

For instance, the most read post of all time on my site is the one I did on philosophy. The main reason for this is that apparently there are a lot of nervous philosophy majors out there who have no idea what to do with themselves. So a lot of them end up on the site by Googling things like “what do I do with a philosophy major?” This sucks for them, because I never answer that question in the post (mainly because nobody knows the answer). Through the searches, you can actually trace what happens to a philosophy major in college (and I swear I am not making any of these up):

• “I’m good at philosophy for some reason”
• “how do you know you should be a philosophy major”
• “what courses should I take with my phil major”
• “what do you learn in upper division philosophy”
• “Confused in my philosophy class”
• “I don’t like my philosophy class”
• “I hate my philosophy class”
• “Don’t do philosophy”
• “Philosophy degree is ridiculous”
• “People’s reaction to my philosophy degree”
• “Next destination depression”

I’ve listed a few of the other interesting search terms that led people to this website, and I promise I am not making any of them up, and I left the spelling as it was. Frankly, I have no idea how I would even be able to make them up. Some of them are so weird you wonder how the heck the searcher came up with them, much less felt the need to Google them. I’m still not sure which is worse, these searches or the fact that my site popped up for all of them. Anyway, here goes:

• “Bacon saddlebags”
• “My philosophy is don’t think” – Okay I can see how this one led to me.
• “Glasses make me look sexy” – This one too.
• “The back of my toe hurts”
• “What does mitch bade mean?” – I get a lot of these. Mitch Bade is actually a term used by rapper Techn9ne as a replacement for b**ch made.
• “looks good” “stupid glasses” “car commercial”
• “love Canada”
• “Can’t believe it butter (fire retardation)” – From my experience, butter is actually very flammable.
• “Buckle up and bunker down”
• “Why doesn’t david caruso make eye contact?”
• “Casa bonita if rape Disneyland”
• “Chimp can you hear me now”
• “Counter argument for love is in the air”
• “CSI semen funny” – Well thank god someone else thinks it is.
• “Dude where’s my car and philosophy”
• “Face contorting”
• “Gas hydrates”
• “Facial hair t-shirts philosophy” – If you don’t get why these go together, you have clearly never had a philosophy class.
• “Geriatric sibling rivalry”
• “Glee cast member plays connect four”
• “Horny photo”
• “I am looking for a job egg farm in abbotsford” – Not to be a downer, but I think you need to be a little less picky when you are looking for jobs.
• “Is she dirty blogspot”
• “Mad scientist birthday ideas”
• “Joe jonas + glasses”
• “Mitch the Barbie” – As it turns out, they don’t make one. But they should. It could be the next hot Christmas gift every child wants.
• “Mande Mitchell tranny movies” – Hey, I was working my way through college.
• “Semen on figure blogspot”
• “Reword the prompt”
• “Roofies”
• “Sememn everywhere in CSI”
• “Sexist jokes” – I can’t express how proud I am that this search leads to my site.
• “Spell booh-yah”
• “Where to buy butter bear”
• “Trebek quotations for soccer”
• “What can I do with my philosophy ma” – Learn to finish words would be my first suggestion.
• “Wog”
• “A little pitchy dawg t-shirt”
• “Alex trebek is not smug”
• “Alex trebek smug” – Clearly this person had no luck with the previous search.
• “Black greek sandals”
• “Barbie face sobing”
• “Barbie.com kicing”
• “I can’t beleve it’s beer” – Judging by your spelling, I can.
• “I’m on a high horse tonight”

And, drum-roll please, my all-time favorite:

• “once justin beiber hits puberty he’ll be able to grease his hair with his own…”

That’s how it ends. I’m not sure if this person was hoping somebody would finish that sentence for them. Feel free to finish that sentence in the comments section, so this person can find what they are looking for. After all, isn’t that the point of Google?

Healing Gaze

So I woke up the other morning and walked out into the living room to find my mother on the couch watching a DVD. The DVD was about this guy from Croatia who apparently has the power to heal people – simply by staring at them. I swear I am not making this up. He simply goes by the name Braco, and he has supposedly rid people of cancer and helped people walk again and is reportedly the mastermind behind Britney Spears comeback (okay, so I made that last one up). Apparently he has the ability to manipulate energy or something and heal people, and does this by just staring at rooms full of people.

I wasn’t really surprised that my Mom was watching this; my Mom is one of those people who is always trying the latest weird healing methods. Technically, nothing is ever wrong with her except for the fact that all she ever does when she isn’t at work is sit on the couch eating snacks and watching DVDs about mystical healing methods. At various points, our house has been filled with things that sounded like ingredients to a magical smoothie. At one point, we had tons of cases of something called gogi berries. At the moment she is preaching some things she learned in a book about eating right for your blood type. She told me that since I have blood type O, I am supposed to avoid pork, milk, cookies, meat, fish, lettuce, tomatoes, air, frozen foods, refrigerated foods, red foods and any foods with more than three vowels. According to this diet, I can basically eat only celery and dirt (unless you are one of those weirdos that count “y” as a vowel).

Anyway, so these new “gazing sessions” are her latest fad. Apparently Braco is in Hawaii, so my Mom asked me if I wanted to come with her to a session. Since my New Year’s resolution was to be open to trying new things, I enthusiastically jumped up off the couch and said “No.” Then I sat back down, because sudden movements hurt my back. I am the opposite of my mother; I’m not a big believer in any sort of medicine or healing. When it comes to healing, I believe in the holy trinity: sleeping, eating and beer. So I was not about to go pay some money to have some guy stare at me. I mean, I had my doubts that somebody staring at me would make me feel better (unless that somebody was Megan Fox).

But I was a bit curious about how this whole thing worked, so I eventually went. Plus I was really, really bored. Besides, it was only $6. Apparently the guy is loaded and doesn’t need the money and practically does this stuff for free. I mean, except for the fact that you have to pay for his plane ticket and his hotel room and buy his instructional DVDs and jewelry and autobiography.

So after we got our ticket, we took a seat in our room. We were told to sit wherever our “energy” directed us. And as with most of my college classes, my energy was directing me to the back row where I could sleep, because I used up all of my energy trying to figure out where to sit. But my mother’s energy apparently was telling her that we should sit in the smack-dab middle of the room, next to the weird couple that was clearly way too into this.

The first thing I noticed was that the crowd was clearly made up of a certain demographic. That is to say, everybody was old and white. I was easily the youngest one there. Part of it is that there is actually a warning outside that prohibits people under 18 and pregnant women due to – again I’m not making this up – “the potency of the energy.” At that moment, all I could picture was Yoda using Jedi mind tricks to fly me across the room, and I was beginning to wonder if that was the real reason my Mom wanted to come to this thing.

Anyway, the session lasts about 30 minutes, but Braco is only involved in about eight of those minutes. The first fifteen minutes or so was people sharing their experiences, and of course the first person to speak was the lady next to me. She started talking about seeing “balls of liquid crystal” and “bright rays of light,” which raises several questions. What type of drugs is she on? Where can I get some? What the hell does liquid crystal look like? Not coincidentally, she and her husband also had tropical drinks from the hotel bar, so maybe showing up drunk helps with the “energy.” Give me enough Mai Tai’s and I’ll be finding balls of liquid crystal everywhere.

Finally, we all stand up and Braco comes in and gets on a stand in the front of the room. And then for ten minutes he just stares at you, and it is indescribably creepy. He doesn’t say anything (in fact nobody has heard him speak publicly for years) or do anything, he just stares out into the crowd. Some people also hold up photographs of loved ones, because supposedly his gaze is supposed to be able to go through photos (apparently it can also work through Skype). But mostly, you are just supposed to stare back. It's like a really bad first date.

After it is all done (and the guy next to me stopped having weird spasms), you just leave the room. And I’ll tell you what, despite my cynicism and disbelief, I left the room feeling something very strong deep within myself: hunger. Frankly, I was starving, and standing up for ten minutes and staring at this guy was exhausting.

In conclusion, I have no idea why I am paying money to go to school when I could be making money by staring at people. So I’ve actually been practicing on people here, and I think it’s going well so far. I’ve only been pepper-sprayed five times.

Flight 666 to Hell, Pt. 2

So this is the second part of my story of how I managed to get home despite the best efforts of the airline companies. (Read Part One here).

So now I’m checking into my hotel, which is called the Sleep Inn. I now realize that the reason they call it the Sleep Inn is that sleeping is literally the only thing you can do there. It was not exactly Caesars Palace (or even Caesar’s outhouse for that matter). So I’m checking in at the front desk with the concierge, who is clearly upset that some idiot had the nerve to actually stay at her hotel. I’m pretty sure the only reason this hotel exists is because of the incompetency of Phoenix International Airport. It’s like a love motel, except instead of going there to get screwed by your mistress, you go there to get screwed by US Airways. The only people I ever saw in the building were the workers and one of the other travelers who had missed the Kona flight.

Of course, it was barely past noon at this point, and I was stuck in this place until 11:30 the next morning, so I figured I would make the most of it. Instead of moping around in my hotel room, I was going to go explore an area that I might never come back to, absorb the culture and sights and experience what made this city truly unique. So I went to the hotel bar.

You see, I had no car and my toe still hurt so I didn’t want to walk very far (and even if I did want to walk, apparently nobody in Phoenix has ever heard of sidewalks). So I was restricted to the tourist attractions that were in the immediate vicinity of my hotel bed. As far as I could tell, that consisted of lots of cactuses and dirt. I was sort of hoping to catch a cop in action enforcing one of Arizona’s many racist immigration laws, but I wasn’t that lucky.

So after a drinking for a while, I realized that it was still barely even 3 p.m. Then I tried the hot tub before realizing scalding chlorinated water was probably not the best thing for my bloody toe, and eventually settled for watching TV in my room. Luckily at that moment, Avatar was on HBO, which meant I had a diversion for at least the next four hours. Speaking of which, falling asleep while watching Avatar after drinking is going to lead to some very strange dreams. And for your sake that is as much as I’m going to say about that particular subject.

Anyway, when I woke up I suddenly realized that I hadn’t eaten anything for almost ten hours. Planes don’t give away food for free anymore, even if you are flying at lunch time, as I was. In fact, planes charge you for everything these days. There are now coin slots where the emergency oxygen masks come out. So I looked at the room service menu before quickly deciding that I was not going to pay $25 for a hotel sandwich.

Unfortunately, the only place to eat within walking distance was a Denny’s. Now, I had been at Denny’s only two nights before to say goodbye to a friend. Human beings are not designed to eat at Denny’s more than twice a month, and here I was eating it twice in one week. What made it worse is that I was the only guy in the entire restaurant the whole time I was eating. It was so depressing at one point I just slammed my forehead into my plate of Moons Over My Hammy.

I was so tired from my ordeal that I got home from dinner at 7 and was asleep by 7:30. That is, until my alarm went off one hour later, because I had accidentally set my alarm for 8:30 p.m. instead of a.m., which meant I was running around in a dark hotel room trying to get ready for a shuttle that was not going to leave for another twelve hours. I think it was around this point that what little sanity I had flew out the window (when of course Phoenix air traffic control told it to wait on the runway for another hour).

The next morning I headed down to the lobby to eat the continental breakfast. I love how hotels always brag that they have free continental breakfast. Of course it should be free; all it consists of is stale bagels, generic cereal and a waffle maker that never quite cooks the waffles enough. Plus, considering I was paying $65 for a hotel room I should never have had to rent in the first place, I hardly considered it free.

Finally, I hopped into the shuttle and once again arrived at Phoenix airport to see how they could possibly mess up my travel plans today. Thankfully, aside from some confusion about seating and a last-minute gate change, my plane left without any further problems. Six hours later I finally landed in Kona, where I proceeded to French kiss the tarmac. Sure, I looked like hell since I hadn’t been able to shave or change my clothes in a day, but I was home. But next time I want to travel, I’m riding a donkey. After all, if I have to deal with asses when I travel, it might as well be one that doesn’t talk.

Flight 666 to Hell, Pt. 1

Now, my friends always used to tell me that one day karma would catch up to me for all the horrible things I’ve done and I would end up being struck by lightning, hit by a bus and eaten by a bear at the same time while suffering from syphilis. Unfortunately, this past weekend karma had an even crueler fate in store for me: airline travel.

Now, let’s start off this story where all stories begin: with drunken French people. I was at a party the night before I flew home when one of them accidentally kicked my one healthy big toe and ripped my toenail off. Now, just as a refresher, the same exact thing had already happened to my other toe. So now, I had two gimpy toes and I was about as mobile as a truck with square wheels.

On top of that, the weather, which had been nice all week, decided to turn on me and start snowing. So I’m sitting at a bus stop by myself crying in the snow at 4 in the morning in shorts and slippers with toilet paper wrapped around my toe. You couldn’t have taken a sadder picture unless you threw kittens into a pot of boiling water.

Anyway, I finally get on my US Airways 8 a.m. flight to Phoenix and we begin taxiing to the runway. But while we are sitting on the runway, our pilot comes over the intercom. I’ve been flying often enough to know that it is never a good thing when the pilot comes over the intercom. He never announces anything good, like the flight attendants are giving out free backrubs. No, he is always announcing in the most soothing voice he can muster that something is wrong with the plane, but don’t worry, it is a minor problem. It is always a minor problem. The right engine could be on fire and the left wing could have fallen off over the Pacific Ocean and they would say it was a minor problem.

Anyway, the pilot came on and announced that due to fog in Phoenix, we were not allowed to take off. Instead, we sat on the plane for two hours, and the flight attendants wouldn’t let us recline our chairs or put down our tray tables, because that would upset the airline gods. Now, my connecting flight was supposed to leave Phoenix at 11:45, so with the delay I was cutting it very close. Luckily, or so I thought, we finally took off and it appeared I would still be able to make my flight.

Now, you experienced travelers are laughing heartily to yourself. “Haha,” they are saying. “Nothing ever works out during holiday travel. What a cretin.” Sure enough, we land in Phoenix at 11:30, and it seems like I can still make it. Then, the pilot came on the speakers and announced that they could not find somebody to drive the rampway. After 15 more minutes, the pilot announced that they had found a driver, but the rampway was not working. This is why I like Kona airport, where there is no rampway. They just toss you out of the cabin and onto the tarmac. Sure, you are left on your own to dodge planes and baggage carts, but at least you never get stuck on the plane for 45 minutes, like I was in Phoenix. I swear, if Leslie Nielsen wasn't dead I would have bet money that I was in some sort of bad "Airplane" sequel.

I finally get off the plane, and even though I realized I have a better chance of catching a cold in hell than this flight, I decided to try and make a run for my flight. But whoever designed Phoenix International Airport needs to be stranded on an isolated island with an irritating person, like Robin Williams or Fran Drescher. To get to a different gate area, you have to leave security. And even though my connecting flight was on the same airline, I had to change gate areas. Add to this the fact my toe was limiting my movement, and by the time I get to the gate, the flight had been gone for about an hour.

In a show of maturity and manners, I proceeded to spew strings of expletives and gobs of spittle at the gate attendant while gesturing at them with my bloody slipper, which I still had in my hand because I had not bothered to put it back on since I got molested at the security checkpoint. The gate attendant then told me there wasn’t another flight to Kona until the next day, and told me to call a hotel. Then, as I was walking away, she remarked in a sarcastic tone, “and try to show up on time this time.”

At that point I lost it. What follows is a rough estimation of what I said to her, minus several words that I omitted to keep this post family-friendly:

“Listen up, it’s not like I overslept in my soft bed and waltzed over here an hour late hoping you would make the plane wait for me. I’m late because your airline doesn’t know how to land planes in a little fog and this airport doesn’t have people to drive rampways or organize your gates. I would rather swim all the way to Kona and get eaten by sharks than ride your goddam airline ever again.”

Sure, I’m not proud of this moment. I’m normally a pretty calm guy, but traveling could make Mother Teresa shake a baby. Thankfully, my tirade scared her or something, because she gave me a slip and told me to call the number on it to get a discounted room. So I booked my room, and walked out of the airport when I realized that I had a bigger problem on my hand. I was now going to have to spend the day in… Phoenix.

DUN DUN DUN

To be continued…

Canadian Chicken

I’m all done with finals but I’m still here and I’m a bit bored. So I figured I would refer to the suggestion board and write about some of the things you unstable creative people have come up with when you stop taking your pills reflect on important issues. The last time I did this, I got some positive reaction from the person who put the suggestion up about the Old Spice guy. Or at least I think she liked it. She was telling me this when I was inebriated, so I can never remember the whole conversation.

Speaking of things people like to do drunk, the first suggestion is hockey played with samurai swords. Now, I’m not sure if the hockey season has started, but for our purposes let’s assume it has. Whoever wrote this suggestion also thought that this would somehow solve unemployment. I’m not sure exactly how this would work. I’m assuming they were referring specifically to the sword making industry. I mean, I’m assuming that it’s a dead profession these days, like print journalism.

Now, the addition of swords to any activity tends to do several things. Sure, it does make things more exciting, and lord knows hockey can use all the help it can get. But the problem is that swords are, brace yourself here, sharp. Hockey players hurt each other enough with their skates, I don’t think we need to help them by giving them swords.

While we’re on the subject of Canadian things, the next suggestion is: rainbow Canadian socks. Now, normally I frown upon anything Canadian, but I actually own rainbow Canadian socks. No seriously, I do. About seven years ago, my family went to Canada to visit some family friends who lived on a chicken farm in a tiny little town in British Columbia called Abbotsford. By the way, if you have never been to a chicken farm, they are actually pretty cool. You just stand next to this conveyor belt and pick up the eggs as they go by. At one point, my mother got so into the whole egg conveyor belt thing that I’m almost certain she was going to quit her job and move us to Canada to start our own egg farm. You think I’m joking. Clearly you have never met my mother.

Anyway, the family sewed us some socks out of this colorful fabric. They were maybe the warmest things in the world, and I loved them, which is saying a lot coming from a guy who wears socks maybe once a month. I used to always wear them to my high school swim meets, which brings us to the next topic, the old guy with a beard and a white van full of malevolent, giggling girls. Now, this suggestion requires a bit of background. When I was in high school, I served as a team manager for the girls water polo team along with a few other guys. We all played water polo, but our school didn’t have a boys team, so instead we just helped the girls practice and kept stats and took care of equipment. It kept us involved in the game, plus we got to skip out of school for games.

The only problem is that in order to get to the game, the eight or so girls and the four managers would pile into a fifteen-passenger van with our coach to head to the games. Now, a van is no place to coop up a whole bunch of teenagers for three hours, and apparently the guy who wrote this suggestion down agreed (and yes, I know exactly who this person is).

Now, I personally was in various states of unconsciousness for most of these rides, so I don’t remember many specific cases of malevolence. I do, however, remember one particularly odd moment. On the drive back from one game, one of the girls decided to try and put makeup on one of the guys. I have no idea why she wanted to do this and I have no idea why he let her do this, but I do know that it didn’t turn out well. For one thing, she was trying to apply it in a moving van on a windy road, plus the guy kept giggling and couldn’t keep still. Let’s just say the end result was not something you are going to see in the next issue of Vogue. I used to tease him about this, until I had a similarly unfortunate incident happen to me last year.

Finally, I have an email here from Siam that I need to address:

“Hi....I googled the word 'pitchy' as in 'the voices were a bit pitchy' and, your May 2010 blog post came up.... Although I have sung, mainly in Asia, in opera, mainly, I have never heard this term. I can sort of guess what it means, but can you tell me what it specifically means?

Thank you, Siam”

First off, I think I need to put a disclaimer at the top of the site that clearly indicates I never have any idea what I’m talking about, so facts are not my forte. But to answer your question Siam, it basically means that somebody can’t hit the right notes, i.e. “Justin Bieber is pitchy.”

If anybody else has suggestions or questions that they want me to halfheartedly answer, feel free to put them on the suggestion board or send me an email. And as for the suggestions I didn't get to, I'm writing a whole article about those, so I'm getting to it. But they need more "research."

Shakespeare In Love

So I had my only final of the semester yesterday, but before you get jealous of me, let me tell you that the final was on Shakespeare. And frankly, after one semester of studying this brilliant author’s plays, I have just one thing to say: “Kisseth mine sizable behindeth.”

First, a little background on how the hell I even got into a Shakespeare class. In order to graduate, I had to take an elective class this semester. I began asking around if anybody knew of any good elective classes when Baddie and Midget suggested I take Shakespeare with them. Figuring that since I was taking this class as a pass/fail anyway, I would just show up, fall asleep, Google the plot and then take the multiple choice test. Piece of cake.

This just proves that in four years of college, I have learned nothing. I had forgotten a key flaw in Shakespeare’s writing that made his plays so hard for me to grasp: nobody ever taught Shakespeare actual English. For such a supposedly brilliant guy he sure did make up a ton of words. For instance, I found all of these words in one passage of King Lear, and I’m certain all of them are made up: “parricides,” “alarumed,” and “ghasted.” Although some of his words do sound cool, like “exeunt.” It sounds like an inappropriate body function.

Some books have the translation, but the book we are using for this class just has footnotes, which is irritating. Do you know what my professors would call my writing if somebody had to go back over it years later and insert an explanation for every other word? “Crappy.” Plus, I don’t even understand the footnotes most of the time.

All of this means that most of the time, I have no idea what is actually going on in the play. It’s like watching Lost all over again. It’s really hard to appear intelligent during a discussion about Romeo and Juliet when you are unaware of key plot developments.

Teacher: “So what do we think about Juliet’s suicide?”

Me: “She died?”

Teacher: “Yes Mitchell, because she couldn’t stand to be without Romeo.”

Me: “Oh, she liked that guy?”

Teacher: “Do you have any idea what is going on?”

Me: “Well, the princess poked her finger on a sewing machine but then she woke up after the guy killed a dragon.”

Teacher: “Mitchell, that’s the plot to Sleeping Beauty.”

In fact, to this day the only plot I understand is the one from Twelfth Night, and that is only because the movie She’s the Man is based off of it. Don’t ask me why I have seen that movie. It’s none of your darn business. But it was a very manly reason.

As you can see, I know as much about Shakespeare as Paris Hilton knows about underwear. But then there are some people who know a lot about Shakespeare and choose to quote it constantly. And they always say the passage and line that it came from, as if this will somehow make their point that much better. And they find any occasion they can to do this, and it almost never even made sense. I could ask them a simple question and they will respond by saying something like, “Well, as Ophelia said in Hamlet, act two, scene three, line twenty, ‘Where is thine horse?’” I mean, you don’t see me constantly quoting The Door’s songs when I talk to people even though Jim Morrison was way cooler than Shakespeare, in the sense that he did way more recreational drugs.

Anyway, luckily for us this class didn’t really require you to actually read the books. Instead of testing us on what happened in the book, our professor just gave us a passage and asked us to say what it meant. I mean, this isn’t much easier. If you could dig Shakespeare out of his grave today even he would probably have no idea what he meant. But as a journalism major, I am used to writing a lot about things I know absolutely nothing apart. This site is a very good example.

I actually got a perfect score on an entry I did where I basically said that Shakespeare was writing about some guy’s balls. Of course, when the professor tried to get me to explain my revelation to the entire class, I pretended I had no idea what she was talking about. I’m not going to stand in front of a room and say that the first thing that popped into my mind when I read a passage was nuts.

Anyway, none of us are really sure how we did in that class. Continents drift faster than our teacher grades work. So in the meantime, we had to get creative with how to occupy ourselves, and thankfully that’s when Pumpkin showed up. Now, this guy’s wardrobe was ridiculous. He would always wear a hat that matched his outfit, and often in ridiculously bright colors like green and orange (hence the nickname). Even Maddie was impressed by how well his clothes matched, and this is coming from someone who chose to freeze in the cold because her winter jacket didn’t match her shirt. So we started trying to guess the color of his outfit every class and totaling points. As far as who won? Well, to quote Iago from Othello, act three, scene one, line 55, “I don’t remember.”

Exeunt.

Fantasy Island

Sports-wise, I’m a little depressed today. My fantasy football team lost.

Fantasy sports, particularly fantasy football, have taken off in the past few years to the point where they might be bigger than the actual games themselves. “Fantasy football” used to just mean you sat there on the couch and fantasized about the Detroit Lions ever winning a game again. Now, it is a billion dollar industry that tons of Americans waste their afternoons playing.

Now, I’m upset that I lost this past week, because it was a very important game. I’m in a league with a bunch of my friends, so of course, as with anything I do with my friends, I want to crush them. I want to be able to do an exotic victory dance in front of them at parties to both embarrass them and alert nearby females as to what a classy stud-muffin I am (although since I am Irish, I prefer “stud-scone”).

Unfortunately, the women will have to wait, because my fantasy football team laid an egg this week. It’s actually a little more humiliating when your fantasy team loses as opposed to the real teams. When the real football team you root for loses, you technically had nothing to do with it. You instead get to blame the people that actually contributed to the defeat: the players, the coaches, Tim Tebow, the referees, Obama and God (hey, if He gets credit for wins He has to take the blame for losses; it’s only fair big guy). Whereas you assembled your fantasy team, so you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Thankfully, even though I lost, I’m still in the playoffs. This is actually unusual because I tend to suck at fantasy football. The only time I ever won a league was a fantasy baseball one this summer, and I think that was mainly because the fantasy baseball season is really long and everybody else just stopped playing or died.

Anyway, there are several reasons that I am not good at fantasy sports. For one, I know a lot about sports, but I am not a big numbers guy. Some fans see a player and can rattle off important stats and information. My evaluations of players tend to be more general. For instance “that guy sucks,” or “He couldn’t catch crabs at a Red Lobster.” Numbers are very important in fantasy sports. In fact, there are countless number crunching nerds that we real sports fans use to make fun of in high school that are now making lots of money telling fantasy players what to do on ESPN.

The other reason is that I tend to let my emotions get in the way. For instance, I am a big Jacksonville Jaguars fan, so I tend to draft Jaguars players even though scientific studies have proven that Jaguars players were never actually taught how to play football. I also tend to skip over players that I personally do not like. Unfortunately, as a jealous non-athlete, I tend to dislike all fast, strong, successful athletes. I tend to root for the slow underdogs, which is how my fantasy team ends up being 75% kickers.

Some people take days to prepare their drafts, getting together with their friends and organizing comprehensive lists of players and back-up options. I tend to forget when my drafts are taking place. Take my last few drafts. My baseball league was filled with people primarily in Hawaii, and was scheduled for 6 pm Hawaii Time. Four time zones away though, I was soundly asleep. Then I was in a basketball league, but the draft took place after I came back from the bars. So in my drunken haze, I drafted ten centers and used my first round pick on J.J. Redick, who is 6’4”, white, scores about 4 points a game and is about as athletic as a pile of Play-Doh. I was completely awake and sober for my football draft, but I was too busy talking smack on the chat room smack-board to actually draft players to back up my smack-talk.

But I’m in the playoffs anyway, and I’m guaranteeing a victory right here. I even have my victory speech ready:

“I’d like to thank my CPA, who handled all the number crunching. I have to give credit to my internet connection, which allowed me to make several key pickups before anybody else noticed. Oh, and God.”