News Of The Week

Some of us knew about the biofuel boondoggle a couple of years ago. Back then, the problem was that this supposedly environmentally friendly "alternative" fuel used as much energy to produce as it created and led to deforestation as farmers clear-cut to grow more. The problem now? Well, when food is used to make a gas additive rather than used as food, it causes food prices to go up which causes hunger in the third world (well, more hunger actually). I guess the environmentalists will be okay with that as long as the decomposing bodies in Africa don't emit greenhouse gases. Actually, in the US, the pathetic thing is that the friggin' farm lobby is the problem. They've managed to get the ethanol industry heavily subsidized which means agribusiness does well while people starve. Outstanding. Bet that never comes up during the Iowa caucus. I'm very concerned because while I don't eat corn (and can live without corn chips), bourbon is 50% corn based.

Normally I wouldn't give two craps about some British (I assume) film critic deciding to name the worst movie ever. Until he said it was Heaven's Gate. For those select few lucky readers who followed the soft core porn/fantasy football reports I wrote for the TRU Fantasy Football League, you might remember the couple of years that the weekly report included a Bad Movie Review. Well, week 8 included one of Heaven's Gate. WARNING: the link is safe for work, but none of the weekly reports are (I know my audience). I never considered Heaven's Gate the worst movie I ever saw (although it was shockingly bad), but the article that claims it is does have a point. Based on expectations, budget and bad stuff that ever happened afterward, it is the biggest disaster of a movie. By the way, week 6 has the movie I consider the worst I've ever seen. I thought about copying those reviews into the blog just to fill space (and I thought they were funny), but since I decided to keep the language (not content) relatively clean here, it would be too much work to take out the dirty words.

Some people might consider this a sad story. I don't, but some might. A dude wins 5.1 million pounds (since he's in England, I'm assuming that's money there and not weight) in the local lottery. Nice little extra note that he also won another 500 pounds celebrating with bingo which is important because winning 5,100,500 pounds is more impressive than winning 5,100,000. But he's lost it all due to bad investments. What a loser. If you're going to blow that much money in three years, at least make it interesting by wasting it on hookers and blow. Granted, if I won that kind of money, it wouldn't be good for anyone. It would be payback time. That girl in high school who wouldn't give me the time of day? Let's see how much money it'll take to make her sleep with a hobo on film?

I may have insinuated that I like college days at Keeneland because the girls wear skimpy outfits, but I'm beginning to hate it. I was out Friday when it was college day, and college students suck. They have no clue what they are doing. Let me explain something to novice bettors. Know your bet before you get to the window. If you want to do an 8 horse 10 cent superfecta, know what combinations you want before you get to the window. If you are going to bet on the electronic machines, learn how to do it before you get in line. If you don't know how to use the machine, go to a window with a person who might be able to help. Don't go up there wanting to do a 3 horse exacta box and not know $2 isn't enough to make that bet. Learning how to bet by machine five minutes to post is a good way to piss off a lot of people. A fight almost broke out in my line Friday when some schmuck was taking forever to make a bet. When his conversation with his girlfriend degenerated into "Who do you like? I don't know. Who do you like? I asked you first.", another patron announced if you're too stupid to pick a horse, go to the window. And no, it wasn't me, but I was hoping for a fight because that would have taken two spot out of the line. Thank God the beer was cold and I won a couple of hundred bucks. Of course, due to that crap, I'll probably go out this Thursday instead of Friday because the last day of the meet is usually more crowded which means more morons in front of me.

Oh, and we had some kind of earthquake this week. Surprisingly, it did wake me up. The bedroom light fixture started rattling. I figured it was the upstairs neighbors getting freaky early. And it was 5:30 in the morning, so I wasn't going to get up to find out otherwise.

And on to the reunion tour no one wanted. New Kids On The Block. I was a little surprised that the whole group made it back. Now, most of the bums probably needed the work, but I thought Donnie Wahlberg had a credible enough acting career that he could avoid crap like this. Funny story about my introduction to New Kids On The Block. I moved from north Georgia to Maryland in 1989 while still in high school and completely oblivious to a boy band (that can't really be called a band because they didn't play instruments) called New Kids On The Block. I met up with the daughter of one of my father's army buddies when I got there, and she was all excited that she was going to a New Kids On The Block concert (NKOTB as she called them). I couldn't understand why she was so excited because I thought she was talking about the disabled puppets that I had seen in grade school called Kids On The Block. Sadly, excitement over seeing NKOTB is about as pathetic as excitement over seeing KOTB.

This story shows the downside of videoing something and putting it on Youtube (not to mention putting stuff up your butt). Some Filipino doctors are in trouble for videoing the operation to remove a body spray canister from some guy who got drunk, had a gay one night stand and can't remember how it got there. I've got a few ideas how. Granted, the fact that the doctor sprays the canister around the supposedly sterile operating room is not a good thing, but I'm not sure why this is such a big deal. They don't even know who the patient is. Well, they didn't, but he says that he's going to press charges which is not really a good way to remain anonymous. He says he's embarrassed and should be, but I think we can all take a lesson from this. When you get drunk and stuff foreign objects up your ass, give specific instructions to the attending physicians that they are not to video it's removal.

Speaking of people who stuff things up their rear, a CNN reporter got busted in Central Park for having some meth. If it was just meth, I wouldn't care, but apparently he had a sex toy in his boot (I'm assuming that was a boot on his foot and not British slang for somewhere else). Even better, he had a rope tied around his neck and junk. That takes on a funny note when you read later in the article his reporting style was "known for hollering antics". Well, I'd be hollering too if I had rope around my johnson all the time. I wonder if this is why Brett's always yelling. Truthfully, I'd rather not know.

I'm sure I could relate this story to the previous one, but it's in Canada where I have much lower expectations of logical behavior. Some guy is taking the police to the Human Rights Commission because he couldn't get a chauffeur's license because he's a pagan bondage freak. I won't get into the question of why the cops are issuing chauffer's license or why they think a bondage freak isn't deserving of one. I am curious how they figured it out. Was he dressed like the Gimp?

I remember selling candy bars for school fund raisers. I don't remember the PTA selling nude calendars to raise money. Well, that was tried in Spain and failed. A group of local women there tried to raise money by posing for a nude calendar, but something went wrong and they ended up in debt. You know, the local schmoes doing a nude calendar to raise money shtick has gotten old. I didn't sell very many of the nude calendars I did last year.

But at least they haven't banned tag like some wuss schools are doing in this country. Why don't we just wrap kids in bubble wrap. They already took away dodge ball at a lot of schools. What's next? No more Smear The Queer because it sounds homophobic?

Now, here's a nice story. A dog loses her two front legs, but learns to walk around on her hind legs. Which should shame some of those people on the scooter at Kroger simply because they are grossly overweight.

And news from the police state that is now central Florida. A young lady decided to help out the authorities with traffic congestion, and what do they do? They send her away for a brain check just because God told her to help. Well, and she was doing it topless. Damn shame that chicks are no longer allowed to create a dangerous situation with a little public nudity anymore.

God, I love stories out of Africa. You never hear about 53 schoolgirls (and two obviously gay guys) having a group hysterical fit in Dayton. But you do in Senegal. What really makes this funny to me is that I know where the term "hysteria" came from (and it predates the Def Leppard album). It's an old medical term for female horniness for which the modern day woman can thank for their vibrators.

And finally, I'm not Catholic so I'm pretty indifferent to the Pope visiting. As a figurehead, I would put him ahead of the Queen of England. As a head of state, I would put him above most European leaders. And I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, but I don't really care. However, it did lead to one good thing. I've always been a sucker for military bands.