Video at Ten

Well, the wife has taken over the television for the evening, (apparently the dual-tuner DVR isn’t enough, she must also watch programming at the same time), and frankly, sitting doubled over in the chair in front of the computer feels better for the stomach ache than reclining on the couch. Now if only I can keep my eyes open long enough to finish this we’ll be in good shape.

Both the Patriots and the Colts emerged from the weekend unscathed, setting up what may very well be the game of the millennium. I know, the millennium is only seven years old, but the only way any regular season game could be bigger than this one would be if these same two teams were both 15-0 and playing on the seventeenth Sunday of the season. So pop some popcorn, park your butt in the recliner and prepare to be blown away. You don’t have to wait until February for the Superbowl; it will be played this Sunday in Indianapolis at 4:05pm.

Sticking with football just a little while longer. Let’s roll play for a moment. I’ll be Patriots coach Bill Belichick – except I’ll actually answer reporter’s questions. Here we go.
Curious Reporter: Coach Belichick! You were up 38-0 and still threw deep passes to Randy Moss and went for it twice on fourth and one. Don’t you think you might have been rubbing it in a little bit?
Belichick: Absolutely.
Bewildered Reporter: Um, wait, so you admit to running up the score on the Washington Redskins this past Sunday?
Belichick: Oh you bet! And not just them, every single team we’ve face so far this year!
Hapless Reporter: But Coach, don’t you think that’s unsportsmanlike?
Belichick: Does this look like the face of a man who gives a crap what any of you think? I’ve got the world’s sexiest man at quarterback, a receiver who catches passes with his elbows, and an invisible linebacker who not only sacks opposing quarterbacks, but wanders uncovered into the end zone to catch touchdowns on offense. Why don’t you take your “unsportsmanlike conduct” B.S. and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Embarrassed Reporter: Um, okay. But, um, why are you being so belligerent?
Belichick: Why did you people accuse me of cheating? I don’t want to say the two are related, but maybe if I hadn’t been accused of cheating to win my three Superbowls I wouldn’t have to beat these junior varsity jokers into submission every week. You want to see belligerent? Wait ‘til we play the Jets again this year. Man-genius my ass! Yes they deserve to die, and I hope they burn in hell!

Last week President Bush demanded an additional $42 billion to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These billions who come in addition to the $100 billion he received from Congress in May of this year. In a moment of deja vu, Democratic leaders on the Hill have vowed not to issue the President a “blank cheque” with regard to war funding. They have instead decided a platinum MasterCard with no limit might suit the President better. That way he won’t have to try to squeeze all those zeroes into the tiny little “amount” box on the cheque.

Rapper Inga Marchand (a.k.a. Foxy Brown) was sentenced to 76 days in solitary confinement after a brawl with another inmate at Riker’s Island jail where she is serving a sentence for violating her probation in a case stemming from a fight she had with manicurists in a New York nail salon. Apparently the conditions of that probation required her to attend anger management classes. Classes she probably shouldn’t have skipped out on. I guess she’ll have plenty of time to manage her anger during the 1,748 hours she’ll be spending alone in a 5’x5’ concrete cell.

Seventeen Magazine is circulating what it calls a “Body Peace Treaty”, which encourages young women (and I suppose any young men who read Seventeen Magazine) to, for example, “realize that the mirror can only reflect what’s on the surface of me, not who I am inside,” and, “quit judging a person solely on how his or her body looks…” I guess the point of this exercise is to help build positive self-image among young women who are daily bombarded by media images of tall, blonde, size zero models and celebrities with more replacement parts than my ’98 Acura, featured in sexy, revealing clothing on the pages of Seventeen Magazine, and others like it. Perhaps the Body Peace Treaty should read more like this: I vow never to touch, pick up, look at or read Seventeen Magazine, Glamour, Vogue, the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue, or any other such piece of mindless drivel so long as draw breath. Amen.

New archeological research indicates that some Neanderthals may have had red hair. And I had microwave spaghetti for lunch. Whooptee freakin’ do! Why should anyone care that Carrot Top could have been a caveman? When you revive a redheaded Neanderthal you’ve found frozen in the ice, let me know. Until then, aren’t there some ancient ruins you people should be looking for?

According to an article on CNN.com, television sex scenes are becoming so hot they now rival porn. What kind of lame porn are these people watching?

In perhaps the most bizarre story of last week, a lock of Che Guevara’s hair was sold at auction for $100,000. What exactly does one do with a lock of a dead guy’s hair? I know the man is a legend, got his face on tee shirts and all that, but what are you going to do with his hair? Doesn’t sound like it’s enough to complete a comb-over. It’s certainly not enough to make into a weave. I guess maybe if you were trying to fill in an eyebrow or something…

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that Genarlow Wilson be released from prison after serving two years of a ten year sentence for engaging in oral sex with a fifteen year old girl when he was seventeen, labeling the sentence “cruel and unusual punishment.” Wilson’s original conviction sparked the Georgia legislature to change the law that sent him to prison to include a so-called “Romeo and Juliet exception” to prevent this from happening to other teens. But for some reason, the prosecutor (what is it with Southern prosecutors?) felt Wilson should continue to rot in jail, even after the sponsors of the original law under which he was sentenced testified they never intended it to be used in the way it was. Rational thinking – 2, Southern prosecutors – 0.

Miss England revealed last Friday that she was told to fatten up for the upcoming Miss World competition in China on December 1 of this year. She said that pageant organizers “want their girls to be more voluptuous and womanly and curvy, you know, rather than the stick-thin, size-zero models you see around.” But Miss England isn’t exactly a broomstick. She’s 20 years old, 5’-8” tall and a size four. Now I know the average American woman is something like a size twelve or fourteen or so, but I don’t know, maybe British women are different. She’s at least four sizes above non-existent, give the girl a break. As long as she’s not standing in front of the donut table with a Hannibal Lecter mask on, wasting away for want of Boston Crème, let her be who she is. Of course, being a Brit, Miss England says she’ll give the whole weight gain thing a shot. How long do you think it’ll be before the pageant committee regrets this decision?

Finally, the Sunshine State provides us with what could be described as an example of road rage gone wrong. One angry male and one enraged female passenger realized the Toyota Corolla they were riding in just wasn’t’ big enough for the both of them, and decided to take their dispute outside. Outside in this case just happened to be the State Road 4 Northbound on-ramp to I-595 in Davie, Florida, a little after 4 a.m. last Thursday. Unfortunately, as they were beating the tar out of one another on the pavement, they failed to see a second Toyota accelerating up the ramp toward the Interstate. The combatants were struck by said Toyota and died at the scene. The cause of the fatal argument is still unknown. The moral of this story? Always look both ways before brawling in the middle of the street. Seriously. Both ways.