News and Notes - 05-05-05

• Hola, Senors e Senoritas! Happy sink-oh-d-my-oh to y’all! We are presented with yet another wonderful situation where an ethnicity’s holiday gets to be hijacked by people who bear no claim to that ethnicity! So with that in mind, be sure to eat lots of chips and salsa, drink tons of Jose Cuervo® brand margaritas, wear sombreros, beat the shit out of piñatas, and get shot by the vigilantes patrolling the Texas border as you try and cross the Rio Grande to a better life! Fiesta!

• My world is collapsing around me. I have lost all faith in humanity. I don’t know who I can trust anymore. Life, as I know it, has lost all meaning. All this because of the scandal that has rocked the set of American Idol – a scandal involving singing lessons, mulattos and deceit, and therefore containing all the key elements of any good scandal. It appears that some guy who got booted off of Idol for not disclosing his shady arrest record (a prerequisite of every Idol season) back in that turbulent spring of 2003 was being coached and manipulated to the point of orgasm (I’m assuming at different times) by Idol judge Paula “I’m Not Crazy as a Shithouse Rat, I Just Act That Way” Abdul. This has all but shattered the integrity of the toughest panel of judges this side of the Supreme Court in what has become an epic contest that more Americans seem to care about than what’s happening at said Supreme Court. Given this information, I don’t see how we, the American People, can trust any of the judges’ opinions of the next pop stars who will soon fall hopelessly into obscurity ever again. I hope 2003 Idol Ruben Studdard enjoys his tainted victory as much as Paula enjoyed the dismissed mulatto’s 'taint.

• One of Michelle’s favorite things to Tivo is the Oprah show. For the most part, when she fires up that sassy southern soul sister and her patented brand of talk therapy, that is my cue to retreat to the other room where I work valiantly to help the Chicago Blackhawks defend their Stanley Cup Championship courtesy of the fantasy world I call PS2’s NHL 2004 (currently, I lead the team with 40 goals and 43 assists – I am a very balanced player). However, I will begrudgingly admit that there are times where the lure of Oprah’s topic is too much for me to ignore – like the sweet song of the siren, it lures me in and implores me to witness what this Nubian princess has to say. While I can do without the self-serving interviews with the likes of Julia Roberts or Ashton Kutcher, I am easily fascinated by couples who are $90,000 in debt, swingers, and seemingly normal people who live in absolute squalor. Well, last night was no exception as the topic of health came up, and approximately 1/3 of the show was devoted to one of my favorite topics: Shitting. Yes, it was a regular dookie fest on Oprah, where I learned some interesting turd-bits about shitting:

o When shit comes out, it should be a) brown, b) shaped like an ‘S’ or a banana, and c) silent.
o The average person farts 14 times per day, a number I usually “blow away” by 9:30 AM.
o Shit is green until it passes through your bowels, where it adopts its preferred brown color.
o Shitting only once every five days is not a good thing.
o Oprah’s shit doesn’t stink.

OK, I made that last one up – you got me. But rest assured – when the topic of shitting comes up on TV, Virtual J will be stuck on 40 goals until further notice.

• White Sox! White Sox! Go, go White Sox! Can you say 20-7? Shove that up your ass, Jeff Brantley and all you other Minnesota Twins kiss asses. Now, let’s keep the line moving for the next, oh, 5 months or so.

• I heard this sentiment on the radio this morning, and I could not agree more: What kind of a “man” has his fiancée disappear on him two days before a 600 guest wedding only to admit to fabricating a story about being kidnapped because she had cold feet…and then takes her back??? Probably the kind of man that watches Oprah. Uh, strike that…

• Last night I had a dream that I went to see a concert at a bar, and when the performer got on stage to sing, he instead pulled out a spoon, lighter, syringe and some heroin and prepared a dose for himself…only to shoot it directly into my foot. I noticed that the expiration date on the needle had passed, so I confronted the bar owner and told him the next time he heard from me, I’d have my attorney with me, and then I stormed out of the bar. On an unrelated topic, I really need to stop eating Indian food so close to bedtime.

• My nine loyal readers out there know how much a terrible commercial drives me absolutely insane. The latest radio spot to catch my ire would be the SBC-Yahoo DSL commercial featuring two losers talking to each other about how they can access Eric Clapton concert footage using their SBC-Yahoo DSL service. “Hey Dorky Friend, did you hear my new ringtone that I got from my SBC-Yahoo DSL service?” “No, Fellow Shithead, I didn’t even know that SBC Yahoo DSL service could produce a ringtone featuring that horrible song ‘Wonderful Tonight’ by Eric Clapton.” “That’s right, I enrolled in my SBC Yahoo DSL service…” and on, and on, and on. Who the fuck talks like this? “Get away from my McDonald’s Chicken Selects!” “Check out the Tivec home wrap on my home, that’s T-I-V-E-C…” I know it’s radio and all, but give me a break – if you want to pound your brand name into my head, don’t try and make me believe that normal people work it into their everyday conversations. I’m not a fucking ape, and will not adopt the same approach.

• Kudos to Burger King, for wisely following up the success of the Enormous Omelet Sandwich with the equally lethal Double Whopper with Cheese! Over 1,000 calories? Check. Almost 70 grams of fat? Check? Deliciousness? It’s in there, baby. Get fat – it’s the American way!

• If anyone wants to take a peek into the disturbing psyche of an insanely rich, manically depressed human being, go to www.billycorgan.com where former Smashing Pumpkins front man Bill Corgan whines incessantly about living in his father’s vermin-ridden shithole of a house, where he regales you with tales of how he has not bathed in 6 weeks in an effort to mock vanity and other lighthearted fare. As the website (as well as my desire not to utterly depress you) asks me not to reproduce the information contained within without written permission, I implore you to go examine this text book case of a problem that could easily go away with 10 rounds of electro-shock therapy and a full frontal lobotomy (thanks to Jeremy for contributing).

Until next time…