7:42 PM

We are live from ANZ Stadium near Sydney to bring you game 2 of “The State of Origin” series between New South Wales and Queensland.  One of my Aussie friends was explaining the background of this series as a running blood feud between the 2 regions that is usually one of the most hotly contested and violent series of the year.  It would be like having a  uber comeptitive all-star game in the middle of the NFL season and the players played for their hometowns.  It pits teammates vs each other and smashing someone in the face is acceptable and encouraged.  A few weeks ago game one of “The State of Origin” featured a fistfight at midfield and many blood soaked jerseys.  Color me intrigued.

7:55 PM

At least one thing is the same the world over.  A pregame conversation between a bunch of idiot commentators laughing at their own jokes.  One guy is looked like the lovechild of Terry Bradshaw and “Thing” from the Munsters.  I picture Powder being his only son.

8:05 PM

A rendition of the Australian national anthem sounds pretty ridiculous (almost like a discarded melody from the creators of “We are the World”… I picture Dan Akroyd and Michael Jackson collaborating on this in 1982 and am sad for Australia).  It makes me glad that the US anthem is pretty solid.

8:12 PM NSW 0 – QLD 0

Game on!  The ball is kicked away and there is a lot of lateraling and slamming of bodies.  Apparently there are 6 downs and you need to kick on the last one or it is a turnover.  A down consists of stopping forward progress as well as laying on/punching/spiking/kneeing/elbowing your opponent until he starts doing a kind of “centipede” style break dance move to get the defender off and the play is reset with more lateraling.  Within the first few minutes of action one of the NSW forwards has a gaping wound near his orbital bone and he is quickly wrapped up with a headband karate-kid style and marches right back out into the field.  When someone gets hurt the medical staff goes onto the field while they are still playing as long as it does not interfere with the action.  I love this.  It is almost like ‘Nam, continuing the action while your buddy is getting put back together.

8:25 PM NSW 0 – QLD 2

A penalty is called and I am confused.  Every other time a defender was manhandling the offensive carrier and trying to break his nose it was fine, this time there is a penalty and they kick a 2 point drop kick field goal.

8:27 PM NSW 0 – QLD 8

I am starting to get a feel for how the game works and am getting into it.  I feel the momentum shifting to NSW as they are winning the field position battle down the field.  Then QLD commits a penalty and NSW elects to kick a penalty ball instead of going for the try (a try is like a touchdown, 6 points, the penalty kick is worth 2).  He promptly mucks the kick off the goalpost and QLD rams it down their throat for a try the other way.

8:57 PM NSW 6 – QLD 8 – HALFTIME

NSW punches one in right before the half and after understanding the rules I already hate the QLD squad.  they have this scummy euro-type guy in a helmet that looks like a swim cap who I would like to see smeared across the field by one of the NSW bruisers.  2 things from halftime:

1 – The commercials in Australia are much more risque than the US.  One beer commercial implied that someone was fucking another guy’s mom complete with the guy slapping some cougar looking lady’s ass at the end of the scene.  Keep it classy Australia.

2 – I never know how much gambling went on here.  It is EVERYWHERE.  There is a casino in downtown Sydney, slot machines in every pub and TAB parlors (for sports and horse gambling) in every neighborhood.  At halftime some skeezy looking Australian guy was giving out the halftime spreads and urging people to log in to gamble on the game.  Fucking awesome!  There is no reason gambling should not be integrated into American sports in the same fashion.  One of the rugby venues is actually called Centrebet Stadium.  Australia, I think I love you.

9:15 PM NSW 12 – QLD 8

In the first “WOW” moment of the game happens as William Hopoate, the youngest member of the NSW squad, speeds around the corner and sneaks in a try to the corner of the end zone.  Impressive.

At this point of the night one of my friends came over as we had dinner plans but she was into the game as well so we watched until the end.  She was also able to explain a few more things that I could not figure out like: What don’t they try to strip the ball? (because it is illegal unless it is a 1-on-1 tackle) and: What is “knock-on”? (it is when an offensive player fumbles the ball forward, which results in a turnover).  She was explained the other rugby leagues that go on in Australia:

National Rugby League (what I was watching) – Is a sport played by a bunch off ass-necked meat-heads who enjoy slamming into each other.  It is kind of a grind and field position is very important.  It reminds me of watching NFL running plays or option sets in NCAA football.  This is the most popular form of rugby in Sydney.

Australian Rules Football - This is like a cross between soccer and rugby.  There is a lot of kicking and no tackling.  I have seen this in the bar a few times and been totally baffled by the rules.  My friend described this as “poofter rugby” and then went on to say that I would probably be good at it since I as tall.  Thanks… I think.  This is the most popular form of rugby in Melbourne.

Rugby Union - She explained this to me but by this point I was pretty rugby-d out.  Apparently no one really watches to much of this.  So there’s that.

9:25 PM NSW 18 – QLD 8

NSW punches in one last try and puts the game away.  Good times.  The crowd goes crazy and the team goes back into the locker room to determine how much blood was lost.  Well, all in all, it was a great first date with Rugby… I think this may be the start of a long term relationship.

J-Woww

I imagine this chicks vagina to look like the Gettysburg battleground of STD’s.  She has obvious, poorly done fake tits that look like they are migrating in opposite directions to her shoulder blades.  She fashions herself as somewhat of a bad ass saying that “I am like a praying mantis. After I have sex with a guy I will rip their head off.”  Instead of J-Woww she should have probably gone with “Black-Hearted Slut” – much better nickname.

Pauly D

He won the award for Jersey Shore Cast Member I would least like to be trapped with on a desert island.  He has a cock piercing and takes at least a half gallon of gel with him wherever he goes.  In other words, do not try to get this guy through the checkpoint a the airport.  J-Woww and Pauly D were flirting in the second episode… I hope she does not try to rip his head off, she may cut herself in his hair.

Snookie

She wasted no time in the first episode getting wasted and bouncing from Guido to Guido in the hot tub like a little Italian exercise ball.  After puking away her first morning in the house she spent the next few hours complaining to anyone who would listen that no one liked her.  The Taliban should send out tapes of this to the insurgents for propaganda – a over-privileged skank complaining about how much her life sucks at a beach house steps from the ocean is exactly why the terrorists hate us.

Jolie

She is the Patrick Roy of cock-blockers.  Anytime one of the Guidos gets some random ass into hot tub she is around staring daggers at them or when provoked actually calling them out as hoebags.  One thing about skanks is that they hate other skanks – they are like wolves… very solitary and territorial.  When she is not busy trying to ruin someone else’s good time she is cheating on her boyfriend and “forgetting” the whole incident the next morning.

Sammi Sweetheart

Sammi is SUCH a sweetheart that she says “If you are not a Guido then get the fuck out of my face”.  Yep, she is a regular Mother Theresa.  She managed to make out with 2 of the other cast members in a 10 minute span yet she still looked down at Snookie for her hot tub activity the first night… oh sweet irony!

Vinny

The most regular out of all of the cast members except that his mother still cuts his food.  Huh?  I picture his mother finishing up cutting up Vinny’s dinner and then turning to his younger brother and regurgitating food directly into his mouth like a baby bird.  He is the guy at the club wearing sunglasses at night.  Two kinds of people wear sunglasses at night… assholes and the blind.  Which are you sir?

Ronnie

The most apelike of all the cast members, Ronnie is the large douchebag at the club that you see getting pulled out of the bar by 4 bouncers screaming something about how he is not getting any”respect”.  However, he seems pretty harmless and thinks of himself as a real ladies man (shocker) saying that women come to him “like flies on shit”.  Hearing Ronnie talk hurts my brain a little bit.

The Situation

The Situation is a paradox.  He is the most overconfident insecure person I have ever seen.  His nickname is derived from his abs and how “sweet” they are.  To me a “situation” is clogging a friend’s toilet at a dinner party or having my room mate walk in on me getting blow job.  I give him an “A” for effort with that though, if “The Situation” doesn’t think his abs are sweet, no one will.  He seems to be the most likable of the cast members because of his “loser with a heart of gold” vibe.  However, being “most likable” on this show is like being the “least painful” form of herpes… in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king

All of these Italian Americans will be working for the summer at a t-shirt shop on the beach.  When they have scenes filmed in the shop my eye drifted into the background and I thought to myself “Would I wear any of the shirts hanging on the wall?”  The answer is No, no and no.  It really helps get the vibe of how things are down there when you see rack after rack of “affliction” style shirts with “Seaside” hidden into the swirling design.

Honestly after 2 solid  hours of this I was pretty much spent.  I was on the fence if I would ever watch another episode after enduring a pseudo-heartfelt scene of “The Situation” staring out into the sunset cut with shots of his lost love, Sammi Sweetheart, after she dissed him at the club.  Then… it happened… the preview of whats to come for the rest of the season and Snookie gets punched in the face by some random Guido.  Damn you sneak preview!  Now I am locked in to watching at least until she gets cold cocked.

Did you watch this train wreck… what did you think?

PS – No post on Friday – there is a lot of salt to be mined this week and if I don’t do it no one will – stay tuned for more fantastical ultraparadoxical revelations on Monday.

I was only half paying attention to the game and half surfing the web because I knew that the Bears were destined to shit another winnable game away.  That’s not the point though.  With only a few minutes left in the 4th quarter NBC decided it was a good idea to show a slow-mo replay of Devin Hester’s bare ass.  I did a double-take – then almost a spit take… then rewound it just to make sure that I had really seen that happen.

Immediately I thought of:

… but I know that Hester was not at a Bodega trying to score weed (at that moment – probably later).  That’s not the point either though.  The point is that there was just a half naked dude on TV and everyone was OK.  No one died – no children were warped or perverted – there was a naked ass shown, the announcers were super awkward and the game went on.

This was almost the exact same thing that happened at the Superbowl when Janet Jackson’s nip popped out except with that event there was an absolute uproar.  People freaked out.  I never understood why people cared so much about that.  People got fined, and major changes were made to how live events are presented (they included more of a delay to certain events) and the FCC got a lot more sensitive to what kinds of things were getting on TV.  Writers were forced to adopt a more conservative take on whatever they were presenting to the audience.  This has loosened up a bit recently but it is still repressed.

With the proliferation of the internet, television and print communications we can express ourselves like no other time in history.  The expansion of our ability to participate in mass media allows many different voices to be heard and is a positive thing.  Why do we need to lock down television and regulate it’s content?  Queue the pro-censorship people to say “Won’t somebody think about the children!!!”  Which is a bullshit cop-out that always has a hand in getting stupid censorship laws passed.  Congress tried to lock down the internet (unsuccessfully) with numerous bills including the Child Online Protection Act and the Communications Decency Act which both attempt to insert government filtration of the internet to “protect the children”.  They were both (correctly) struck down by the supreme court.  I agree that children should not have the ability to turn on the TV and see anything that their parents don’t want them to see.  However, it is the parent’s responsibility to regulate it, not the governments.  Personally I find “The Hills” far more offensive than 3 seconds of Janet’s nipple.  The only person who should be able to regulate my viewing is me -  not a bunch of creepy old men in congress.

I propose that television is given as much openness as channels like HBO or Showtime.  There are already mechanisms within televisions and cable boxes to protect children’s viewing without restricting mine.  Giving writers the flexibility to express themselves in any way that they see fit is a good thing.  It will improve the viewing experience for everyone that wants to see it and for the people that don’t want to see it… DON’T WATCH IT!

To the people who know me and know what I do in real life this post will seem very ironic – to those people I say – Fuck You!  Do as I say…. not as I do!

By the way – No posts until Monday due to the holiday… stab someone for mentioning Tryptophan for me!

I watched it religiously all through grade school and into high school.  Then it became syndicated and I was able to watch it every day.  This continued through high school and even into college where the 2 hours that the reruns played were dedicated solely to Simpsons viewing.  In college my house would literally shut down during this time of the day.  To be honest though I have not watched a new Simpson’s episode in a few years and disavow all knowledge of any new episodes being created after 2002.    My hours of couch time spent watching this show has given me an encyclopedic knowledge of any Simpsons episode from seasons 3-13 (the early episodes have not aged well).  So in honor of Marge Simpson appearing on the cover of Playboy I am examining the best of the best Simpsons episodes from those years:

9 – Rosebud – October 21st, 1993

“64 slices of American cheese…”

Turning the tables on someone who has more power over you is always fun… except when you are an idiot and you have no idea how to use that “something” to your advantage.

8 – Itchy and Scratchy Land – October 2nd, 1994

“We have another jumper on the roof of TGI McScratchy’s”

Of all of the episodes I may have watched this one the most.  I happened to tape this one sometime in high school and watched it whenever there was nothing else on.  One thing though, Marge says “See Homer, that’s why your robot never worked” (pointing to the circuits in the head of an robot Scratchy), I still don’t get that joke – but for some reason I laugh at it.

7 – Take My Wife, Sleaze – November 28th 1999

“When in an interview, try not to call your employer a punk or a skank.”

Not much to say about this episode other than can’t think of a better name for a biker gang than Christ Punchers.  Also, any time someone says the word resumé, I immediately think of the biker gang members…

6 – Lisa the Vegetarian – October 15th, 1995

“Another Whopper for the COPPER!”

A part of me always knew… but this episode confirmed that “You don’t make friends with salad… you don’t make friends with salad.”

5 – El Viaje Misterioso De Nuestro Homer – January 7th, 2009

“In your face Space Coyote!”

This episode reminds me of college and gave me some indispensable advice, specifically I knew exactly what to do if I ever woke up hungover in a sand trap.  As well as that you never kick a turtle in the ass if he is trying to lead the way to your spirit guide.

4 – You Only Move Once – November 3rd, 1996

“Did you ever see a guy talk to a pair of shoes?”

This episode never shows up on any of people’s favorites list but for me it is one of the best.  I watched this many times in college and it helped me develop my skewed view of what the job world awaiting me would be like.  Add that to making fun of developmentally disabled schools “They think I’m slow because I’m from Canada”, make this one a winner.

3 – Homer Goes to College – October 14, 1993

“NNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSS!”

This episode was one of Conan O’Brien’s last episodes and one of the best of the series.  For the simple fact that this introduced the word “Nerdlinger” into my vocabulary it is essential on this Top 9 list.

2 – $pringfield – December 16, 1993

“That’s a right triangle, you idiot!”

I love gambling and to see an unlikely target for vice, Marge, get sucked into Gamblor’s evil neon claws is especially rewarding.  To this day I still want to see the episode of The Gong Show with the break dancing robot that caught on fire.

1 – Deep Space Homer – February 24th, 1994

“I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords”

This episode typifies the intelligent commentary on media, politics and everyday life that drew so many people to the series (and still sneaks in a joke about Mr. T).  It was a show that exemplified the truth about the world we live in more than any show before it.  It  paved the way for the age of entertainment we live in today where we are more likely to get our news from comedians and laugh at politicians.  In the end this episode may be truly prophetic “Wait… that was our Planet!”

As I started to write this article I had no idea how difficult this was and I know I missed a bunch.  Are there any glaring omissions?