It's Obamatime

President Barack Obama today issued an emphatic challenge to the NFL’s plan to change overtime rules for playoffs, causing a firestorm of outrage from Republican leaders.

At a press conference called to discuss the recent Health Care Summit, a reporter from ESPN asked the President his opinion of the proposed overtime rules. Obama replied, “It seems like a good idea. As a fan, ah, I’d like to see a .. simple system .. for all .. overtime games. Something similar to the, uh, college system … where each team gets, uh, an equal chance .. to score, regardless of whether .. it’s a, ah, touchdown or .. field goal.”

Reporters then peppered the President with questions about whether he planned to have the federal government step in and direct the NFL to enact a more sweeping change of the rules. Obama tried to evade the inquiries by attempting to steer the discussing to others topics, such as healthcare, but the media insisted on sticking to the overtime issue.

Following the press conference, Republicans were quick to attack the President’s NFL overtime proposals. Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell (R, KY), remarked that “Mr. Obama’s plans to overturn the overtime system are an affront to American sports and hard-working American fans. The free market system has given America the finest professional sports in the world. There’s no need to change it.”

House Minority Leader, John Boehner (R, OH) had a slightly different take on the controversy, but was no less opposed to Obama’s proposal. Appearing before the media on the steps of Congress, brandishing a ream of copy paper, Representative Boehner asserted that “the administration’s plan would require this much paper to explain to the new overtime rules to the average American. The ‘Obamatime’ system will increase NFL ticket prices putting the game beyond the reach of hard-working Christian Americans.”

The National Tea Party held another Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to exploit the rancor being generated by Republicans. Ron Paul addressed the conference, arguing that, “We do not need new overtime rules in the NFL; in fact, we do not need rules at all. Teams should be free to play as long as they like, unimpeded by government regulations. Restrictions against holding, grabbing facemasks, spearing and end zone celebrations are also unconstitutional and must be eliminated.”

Sarah Palin got the biggest response from the CPAC crowd when she asked “How does Mr. Oba-maaaa, have the gumption to tell the NFL how to run the game? His origins are in Af-ricaaaa, where they don’t speak American, let alone understand American sports like football and hockey. Obama grew up in Ha-waiiii, far removed from the professional sports. He went to some elitist college, so naturally he wants to impose those rules on us. Socialist Obamatime college rules are too convoluted for regular, hard-working, white, Christian Americans like you and me. You know what else, his kids play soccer which is football in European”

Senator John McCain (R, AZ), who lost to Obama in the most recent Presidential election, said, “For the President to interfere in the most sacred of American institutions is an outrage. It’s an outrage. I did not spend years being tortured in a Viet Nam prison so that we could have Obamatime rules destroy our national treasure, the NFl.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) met with fellow Congressional Democrats to try and work out a compromise overtime proposal. “Maybe the President went a little too far,” mumbled a contrite Reid. “We’re open to the idea of removing the equal opportunity option from the overtime plan.” Pelosi, obviously nauseated by Reid’s whimpering manner, chimed in, “We feel an appropriate solution is to have a coin flip determine which team gets the ball in overtimes. Then the first team to score wins. We call it ‘Sudden decision.’”

Republicans are reportedly meeting to come up with negative adjectives to describe the “Sudden Decision” plan. At last report, the leading invective was “Democrats wouldn’t know a decision if it bit them in the ass,” which resonated with voters of both parties.

Olympic Dreams

I know you don’t want to hear about it, but last night I had a dream in which we were cleaning out our tiny tenement house in some crime-infested section of a big city.

Nobody wants to hear about anybody else’s dream. It’s always, “so then we were in this tenement house but it turned into a carnival and some guy – it might have been Moses or maybe Jethro Tull – anyway – he had this cow, which was really a blueberry muffin …” and so on. But I have a point, so bear with me.

The house in my dream was “secured” by doors with giant dead bolts, but the doors themselves were ¼ inch thick, rotting wood that would not stop a determined fly from breaking through, let alone the neighborhood thugs.Why the criminals wanted to break in I don’t know, because the house was filled with only piles and piles and piles of old clothes we were cleaning out of the closets and drawers. They were possibly all the clothes that were missing in all my other lifelong dreams about showing up late for important tests and interviews.

Over the past two weeks we have heard all about Olympic athletes “dreaming of this day” and “pursuing lifelong dreams”, yadda, yadda, yadda. No one has dreams like that. The only pursuit in dreams is that guy (who might be Moses – or maybe Jethro Tull) pursuing you with the intent to do something horrible involving a cow muffin. The only worldwide exposure you dream about is standing naked on the ice – late for your event but with the entire media still there. Only Johnny Weir enjoys this dream.

I’m not saying that no one ever actually dreams at night about Olympic victory but that, when they do, it would have a bizarre twist to it. Liner visualization of winning an event occurs when we imagine or fantasize or maybe daydream about achieving it. And I’m not saying that all night dreams are bad dreams. I have had a good dream about being on the Olympic medal platform. Naked. With Lindsey Vonn. The media is not there. And I know you don’t want to hear about it.

Start By Asking What The Hell You're Talking About

Thank G-d for the cautious rationality of Kathleen Parker. (For those uncomfortable with the idea of a single deity or of openly printing the name of it, I have censored it while I study the effect it might have on comprehending this post).

Parker wrote a column for the Washington Post last week about the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy (I need to start reading a real newspaper - I didn't see this article until it was reprinted in the Cincinnati Enquirer today).

Parker explains that "gays and lesbians are equal to the task of serving in the military ... it is so obvious and true" and that "Equally absurd is the notion that gays cannot abide by the rules against fraternization. There's no evidence that gays are less able to control their libidos than are heterosexuals." and that "gays and lesbians already have served honorably and valiantly, so what ... is the big deal?"

This is why she is such a great writer, because just when you think she is caving in to "the enlightened views of a few urban dwellers" she sets us all straight with the fact that "the military really is not about you. And the right to serve belongs to no one", that "In combat ... unit cohesion is crucial. Whether serving as 'openly gay,' ... will affect that cohesion is the great unknown" and we need extensive further study to decide whether the military can survive overturning "DADT".

It should be obvious. The question goes beyond gay people. We are fortunate that the military has not forced white soldiers to serve with people who are openly of African, Mexican or (G-d fobid) Japanese origin until we can study what effect it would have on the morale of xenophobes and their ability to function cohesively.

I am forced to reveal here that I was, at first, of a different orientation that Parker. I sent her an email asking "Is this satire? Take your column and substitute "Jewish" for "homosexual". Would you seriously state that a study is needed to determine how it would affect "unit cohesion" if Christian soldiers had to serve with soldiers who were openly Jewish?" I am embarrassed to have been that openly ignorant.

Parker brilliantly replied, simply, "I'm sure you are aware that skin color and ethnicity do not equate to sexual behavior." What was I thinking? i forgot that being Jewish means being of a different ethnicity and skin color, having a funny accent and a hooked nose. We must continue to force Jewish soldiers to hide the fact that they don't believe Jesus is the son of G-d or that, in the privacy of their homes, they light funny candlesticks with those of their ethnic persuasion - at least until we can study the ability of Christian soldiers to serve effectively alongside them, knowing what they are.

The only group that should not be subject to a Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is bigoted homophobes. First of all, they can't help being who they are. secondly, as long as everyone they hate or fear or are uncomfortable with is prohibited from revealing their differences, there will be no disruption of unit cohesion when they act upon their unnatural proclivities.


Click here for related post.

"Retard" Is Just a Four-Letter Word

I love my wife. I also love my sister. I love pie too. To say I love them all equally would be one thing; to say I love them all the same would be creepy.

It’s so fine, it’s sunshine, it’s ambiguous, it’s overused, it’s the word, “love”. Love is the most used word in song and verse, theater and literature. And yet we really don’t know love at all - because we love the word so much that, like sugar and spice and ketchup, we use it on everything.

Affordable” is a word that gets tossed around a lot lately. It’s as popular, though not as weighty as love. No one has written a sonnet asking, “How do I afford thee, Let me count the ways.” No one is making a movie called “I Can Afford You, Man.” It is not even always a positive word. Having stuff that is not “affordable” to everyone gives us status.

““Right” is another word we love. People on the Left assert that everyone has the right to affordable health care. The problem with “affordable” is that, like love, its definition is contextual. Steven Wright tells us “everything is within walking distance … if you have enough time.” Likewise, everything is affordable … if you have enough money.

I support getting more people health care because healthy people will contribute more to society, but there is a limit to what we can afford. A while back, everyone had the right to affordable housing. People bought houses they couldn’t afford and now they can’t buy things for the people they love because the economy got fucked up. Pardon my French.

If I remember the story correctly, one day my niece, who was not quite old enough to drive at the time, used the word “fuck” in a sentence. Although she undoubtedly used it properly, my sister, who was driving her home from school, objected to the word. My niece said, “Mom, it’s just a word.”

Of course it is. But words have meaning and, more importantly, they have the weight of whatever emotions we invest in them (e.g. the word “love”). My niece knew that, but she was possibly trying to appear cool to the friend who was in the back seat with her.

In advance of pro-am night at Go Bananas, comedians are warned that their sets must be “TV clean”. This always puzzled me since the words “shit” and “fuck” and a few others are spewed out on the stage by the majority of performers. Recently someone clarified for me that the forbidden words are all c-words: “You can’t talk about putting your c-word in her c-word or c-wording on her c-word”. So George Carlin’s list of seven words you can’t say on television is reduced now to just two? At least for Go Bananas, TV clean includes “piss”, “shit”, “fuck”, “motherfucker” and “tits”, but not “c-word” and “c-word-sucker”.

Not mentioned by the G.B. guidelines was a word that is available to black comedians but not the rest of us. That is of course the “n-word”. I would sooner write the c-word here than the n-word. There is so much more emotion and conflict tied up in it and yet it all depends on who uses it.

Getting a lot of press lately is a word that people are responding to as if it were the n-word; that is “retard”. Rahm Emanuel recently characterized a proposed strategy by some liberal Democrats as “fucking retarded” and many were upset by it, especially Sarah Palin, who has a developmentally disabled child.

“Mentally retarded” is a benign term used to describe someone whose intellectual development is prevented from progressing “normally” by some condition such as Down Syndrome. But “retarded” has taken on such a negative connotation that where I live, the Hamilton County Board of Mental Retardation has become Hamilton County Developmental Disabilities Services (just as the County Whacko Ward became the County Mental Health Clinic).

Does using the word “retarded”, in the way Emanuel and others have, demean people with that particular mental disability? Defenders of the term say that it does not; that saying “that’s retarded” means someone is behaving as if developmentally disabled. Just as saying “that’s crazy” means they are behaving as if mentally ill, saying “that’s so gay” means behaving as if they love someone of the same sex, saying "that's so dumb" means behaving as if they are mute, or saying “that’s so lame” means behaving as if they have severe leg injuries. By saying the proposed policy was “fucking” retarded, Emanuel meant it was like someone developmentally disabled having sexual intercourse, which, as far as I know, would be just like anyone else having sexual intercourse; so I find his comment odd at best.

When someone calls someone else a retard, it conjures up, for me, images of degrading stereotypes, suggesting that people who are actually retarded are lesser human beings because of the way they look or speak or act. It seems a very mean word, expressing a cruel thought (just as "c-word" and "c-word" are very nasty names for otherwise very functional, important and enjoyable parts of our anatomies). "Retarded" may become (already is to some people) so pervasive that it loses that emotional weight and becomes like “crazy” or “lame”: words used everyday without a thought to their origin. For now though, I will avoid using the r-word as an insult or as part of a joke on stage and I will try to spread more “love”.


“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
-Unknown

Snow Men Need Kids

No doubt about it, I should have had more kids or a shorter driveway.

This morning I was half an hour into clearing the 5 inches of snow off the driveway when the Catholic guy across the street brought out his home-grown work crew and put them to work. They were done and back in the house drinking hot cocoa before I could even find the path to my front door, let alone shovel it off.

Time to think about that snow blower again.

FROM 12/23/04
Six a. m. Wednesday morning the sleet and freezing rain started. Fortunately, I get up that early to go to work. Fortunately I had stopped on the way home and bought some ice melter. Fortunately, they had 3 20 lb. bags left. (Why is "lb" the abbreviation for "pound"?)
"Do you want help carrying those to your car?"
"No, I need to warm up for lifting heavy shovelfulls of snow." So I carried the 60 pds. (makes more sense) out to my car.
As the sleet pinged off my coat early Wednesday morning, I sprinkled the driveway with ice melter and went off to fight through the morass of terrified drivers clogging the route to work.

By Wednesday afternoon, the roads were getting packed with holiday drivers, semi trucks, workers leaving early, and ice.
I left at about 3:00 and it took me only an hour and a half to go the 15 miles on the expressway from downtown to my house.

It kept on snowing until Thursday morning. At our house we had from 8 to 10 inches of snow. I was not about to do a scientifically accurate measurement, which would have involved trudging about the yard, poking a yardstick in various spots as if I
was trying to see if our yard was done or needed a few more minutes in the oven.

I didn't have time for that; I had to get started shovelling so I could get out and go to work. But wait: Our county was under a "level 3 snow emergency" meaning only emergency vehicles were supposed to be on the road. So no work for me. Yay! I didn't have to go sit in a warm office eating Christmas cookies, meat and cheeses, nuts and candy from clients and vendors! I got to stay home shovelling snow off my driveway!

I also did not scientifically measure the volume of snow removed from my driveway. But my educated guess, given the length of the driveway, the width I cleared, and the 9 inch depth, is that it was between several buttloads and about a hunnerd sh-tloads.

It could have been worse. Had I not put the ice melter down, there would have been a layer of ice becoming one with the cracks and crevices in my driveway. As it was, it only took me a little over three hours to clear one minivan width plus enough space for a sedan on the other side of the garage to possibly maneuver into the cleared path.

This process was made more fun by the snowplow that drove by every hour and spewed a couple inches of slush back onto my clear driveway.

Down the street I saw the neighbors who own snow blowers shooting arcs of snow away in about 1/6 the time it took me to shovel. Aw, snow blowers are for sissies! They foul the air with their gasoline emissions and their obnoxious motor noises!

Later my next door neighbor and across the street neighbor came out and began manually shovelling their driveways. We are real men. A real man enjoys the gentle "scrape, scrape, scrape" of the shovel, the fog forming around his head as he breathes in and out strenuously, the sensations in his back, legs, arms and chest that let him know he is alive - but perhaps not for long - the snot dripping from his nose, greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes ---- wait, sorry, I'm still a bit delirious from hypothermia.

God, I wish I had a snow blower.

1/6/10
Today I started with the mound of snow the plow had left out in the street at the end of the driveway. Sure enough, just when I got that done, the plow was coming up my side of the street again. As he got near my house, the driver spotted me, slowed down, lifted his plow and bypassed my driveway, leaving the neatly cleared path I had made. I ran after him to give him a big kiss, but he got away.

Click to see a related snow post

Short Stop In the Wry

I find it a poetic coincidence that the banning of a dictionary containing the definition of “oral sex”* came out in the same week as the death of J. D. Salinger who wrote The Catcher in the Rye, which "had the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the nation and the second-most frequently taught novel in public high schools” (Whitfield, Stephen J. "Raise High the Bookshelves, Censors!")

“Catcher” contained “what Catholic World reviewer Riley Hughes called an "excessive use of amateur swearing and coarse language".

I did not know that there was amateur and professional swearing. I wonder how I can get involved because, with all the practicing I do while driving home, I am sure I could go pro. I wonder if there is league play. Are there teams in my area? Can I make enough money at it to quit accounting?

And what is “excessive” amateur swearing? Wikipedia says, “One diligent parent counted 237 appearances of the word ‘goddam’ in the novel, along with 58 of ‘bastard,’ 31 of ‘Chrissake’ and 6 of ‘fuck.’ I checked with Riley Hughes and he said he would have been more comfortable if it were reduced to, say, 79 goddams, 19 bastards and 10 chrissakes and he would have been satisfied by a couple of random fucks.**

MSNBC's story reports that the real danger of a book like Catcher in the Rye and a character like Holden Caulfield was found by more inciteful sources such as the Christian Science Monitor: "Fortunately, there cannot be many of him (Caulfield) yet. But one fears that a book like this given wide circulation may multiply his kind - as too easily happens when immortality and perversion are recounted by writers of talent whose work is countenanced in the name of art or good intention." (I assume “immortality” is a misprint and the Monitor actually said “immorality”.

The Monitor is wise to understand that any young people reading about the sweet, sweet life of Holden Caulfield would immediately aspire to be acne-faced, angst-ridden, adolescent outcasts like him. Sixty years after the fact, they are proven to be correct.

Corroborating what school counselors have observed nationwide, a new study found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with mental health issues as students that were surveyed during the Great Depression. (I can’t believe they wrote that without even a winking emoticon).

I blame it all on Catcher in the Rye. Ironically, Holden Caulfield, who wanted only to protect children from the stresses and despair of adulthood, has lead generations of young people into depression.

J. D. Salinger said that Catcher was semi-autobiographical. Obviously Salinger had his own mental health issues, which show up in his other stories as well.

In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” the adult Seymour Glass stands in the ocean with a little girl and tells her about bananafish, which, he says, are "very ordinary looking" when they swim into a hole, but once in the hole, eat so much they cannot escape. Freud says sometimes a cigar is just a cigar but I say a bananafish is a penis and Seymour Glass is a pervert. I imagine Seymour invites the girl back to his blanket on the beach so they can lay down and watch the submarine races.

In another story, young Seymour throws a rock at a girl’s face because she is so beautiful that it disturbs him; therefore, it must be destroyed. Salinger’s real life treatment of women and his own children does not do anything to counter balance the troubling elements of his stories.

His work was either highly praised for his portrayal of disaffected youth or highly criticized for the “excessive amateur swearing” and descriptions of Holden’s wanton “immortality”. Somebody should have tried to get Salinger help rather than laud or criticize the language of despair.


*personally I found it more shocking that a student actually used a classroom dictionary in the internet age.

** I previously told about my grandmother counting goddams in the book, though she quit after finding too many on one page for her sesibilities.

Damn Favre

The play, Damn Favre, opens with a scene in 1977 St. Cloud, Minnesota, when the Vikings lose their 4th Super Bowl out of 4 tries. An aging Brett Favre mutters that he would sell his soul to the devil for one Super Bowl victory for the Vikings before he dies. As soon as the words come out of his mouth, he is greeted by Satan himself, who claims he can make Brett’s wish come true. The Devil agrees to give Joe until the last quarter of the NFC championship in January, 2010.

Satan gives Brett a circuitous route to his goal, making him a young high school phenom from Kiln, Mississippi. Brett considers dropping out of the deal but Satan summons his seductive right-hand girl from hell, Deana. Once the ugliest woman in 18th-century Kiln, Lola sold her soul to the Devil for eternal youth and beauty.

Favre becomes a Green Bay Packer and a hero to many except the Vikings. Beginning to doubt that he will ever lead his beloved Minnesota team to victory, Favre tries to retire but is tricked into staying in the game by piles and piles and piles of cash.

Finally at age 40, Brett Favre joins the Minnesota Vikings and takes them to the playoffs. Brett’s regrets are long gone as he realizes his deal allowed his aged body to hold up through a grueling season. But he should know that the Devil never allows anyone to succeed. In an attempt to cheat Favre, Satan starts a rumor that Brett threw three potential championships while in Green bay, in 2003, 2004 and 2008, by forcing bad throws. Brett vows to clear his name.

The Devil believes he can keep Brett in the game and cause the Vikings to lose at the same time, creating excitement and controversy which will kill several Viking fans who will end up in his dominion.

The time limit on the deal expires and Brett Favre becomes every bit of his 40 years and throws a game losing interception that not only kills his dream it also secures several new souls of New Orleans fans who made deals to get their team in a Super Bowl after 40 years of frustration. “See how I set this all in motion 40 years ago,” he gloats to Deana. “Favre should have known a guy in league with me couldn’t beat the ’Saints’. I learned a lot from that whole ‘Damn Yankees’ debacle 50 years ago!”

Arguably a Move to the Right on Rights

The Supreme Court Right-wing of the United States (SCROTUS) has ruled that corporations cannot be prevented from paying for advertising supporting political candidates.

The case before them started when a federal court ruled that “Hillary, the Movie” was actually a campaign ad against Mrs. Clinton and therefore subject to campaign financing limits. The makers of the film petitioned the SCROTUS with a brief that said, “Look, it has the word ‘movie’ right in the title; that makes it a movie." Opposing attorneys argued that, if that was sufficient grounds, then “Hannah Montana: the Movie” would be a movie and not a 102 minute commercial for Hannah Montana merchandise.

The conservative majority of SCROTUS was predisposed to rule in favor of the film makers but had to make it appear to be a fair trial, so they watched the entire Hillary and Hannah Montana films with their hands manacled to their chairs so that they could not plug their bleeding ears or try to scratch their own eyes out. After being forced to endure that ordeal they were doubly mad and decided they needed to go further than just ruling in favor of the Hillary filmmakers.

So the SCROTUS, unable to find a way to bring Roe v. Wade into this, found some old campaign finance limitation laws they didn’t like, overturned them and set them on fire. Videos of the incident taken by onlookers show that Scalia and Roberts seemed especially gleeful at obliterating the McCain-Feingold law; analysts believe the opportunity to further humiliate that moderate loser, John McCain, gave the justices raging woodies.

The basis of the SCROTUS ruling is that corporations are individuals for purposes of applying 1st amendment rights to free speech. There are precedents for this view in previous decisions so it is nothing new. The reasoning behind it is that the first amendment gives individuals the right to associate and not have their free speech hindered by the government. Corporations are a form of association and therefore protected. The SCROTUS should have made a distinction between not-for-profit corporations: associations of like-minded people serving some shared, specific agenda and for-profit corporations, an association of unrelated investors providing goods and services for a profit who might seek to influence elections for their own monetary gain. (The corporation which made the Hillary film is not-for-profit, so the opportunity was there, but the conservatives associated for the specific intention of overturning laws they didn’t like, and therefore slipped that distinction right on by.)

As sort of an aside, I think the majority erred in including this reasoning: “(3) because speech itself is of primary importance to the integrity of the election process, any speech arguably within the reach of rules created for regulating political speech is chilled.” The SCROTUS should avoid defending anything simply because it is “arguable”. Every case they review is arguable or else it wouldn’t come before them. Listening to the arguments of the two sides more or less defines what the SCROTUS does.

Well now that the SCROTUS has reinforced the notion that huge, profitable corporations are individuals, the Court has a couple more controversial cases coming before it. In the State of Connecticut v. Mr. And Mrs. Behemoth Insurance, two insurance companies, denied the right to merge by anti-trust laws, seek the right to marry and form a family.

The case of the State of New York v. Slick Oil, Inc., stems from a ruling that Slick Oil, Inc. is an individual who acted in self-defense when he shot and killed a rival oil company attempting a hostile takeover. Slick Oil was nevertheless convicted and jailed for illegal possession of guns. The case before the SCROTUS argues whether that Slick Oil had 2nd amendment rights to keep and bear arms.

Expect to see similar cases as long as the current makeup of the SCROTUS continues.

The Devil Went Down to Haiti

Some people think Pat Robertson is crazy. But he seemed fine when I saw him today. We had breakfast at Mom's Country Cholesterol and Vegan Home Style Diner. Over some roasted red pepper hummus and chorizo omelet’s, I was up in his face about this statement he made:

“And you know Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True Story. And so the Devil said ‘OK, it's a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

How would you even know about this pact with the devil?

And Pat was all like, "Now, JohnnyB, did you listen to the broadcast? I said, 'True story.' And I don’t lie; that’s a sin. I was just playing pool with Satan yesterday... "

I was like, "Wait. What? You were playing pool with the devil?"

"Sure, it's like the police and bad guys in the movies. We have some professional respect for each other. Off-duty, we hang out a little. The next day, when I clock in, I’ll do everything I can to shut down his operation – you know, collect money from true believers, hire someone to improve the graphics on ‘700 Club’ broadcasts, and whatever.

“Anyway, we were playing pool and the news comes on about Haiti and, right in the middle of lining up a shot, he stands up and starts watching the TV. He cocked his head toward the TV, looked at me and said, ‘Dude! Nice work, eh?’

“I responded, ‘Oh, no! You did that?’ and he told me about the deal, and I rebuked him, saying, ‘I am going to have to bring you in for this one.’

"And he replied ‘No way. Statute of limitations, man. They made the deal over 200 years ago.’

“So there is nothing I can do except pray for the people of Haiti.”

Really, I said to Pat, but it’s so harsh that the people in Haiti 200 years later are cursed this way. They had nothing to do with the deal.

“Oh, my, you are mistaken about that, JohnnyB,” Pat insisted, “those are the same people. True story. Everlasting life on Earth was another part of deal.”

Everlasting, I shrugged, subject to earthquake, hurricane and such.

"Tsk, tsk, no, those are God’s punishments for the Haitians making the deal with Satan. Just as God punished the homosexuals and liberals in New York with 9/11. Just as God punished the sinful people of New Orleans with a hurricane (with unfortunate collateral damage to cities and states in the general vicinity). Kanye West’s opinion’s of George Bush aside, it’s God who hates black people and gays.”

We finished up and I dropped a tip on the table. Pat picked it up and said, “God has told me that our waitress is a very slutty girl. She kissed some other girl at a college party. As punishment, she is cursed to go tipless. I will use this money in my work.”

Yeah, Pat was totally on his game this morning.

Pat's statement and his possible mental illness are not really funny. The disaster in Haiti is not a joke either, it's a horrible tragedy. Please pray for the people of Haiti but also consider donating to Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross or other organizations trying to actually help the people of Haiti.

I'm Level 5 Pisstified!

“F the offseason, this is some bull droppings, i am supposed to be in meetings right now, im level 5 pissed=finding out side girl is pregnant.” The Cincinnati Bengals lost their playoff game Saturday and are thus in the offseason earlier than intended. Still, they had to go to team meetings yesterday. Their great wide receiver and only source of entertainment lately. Chad Ochocinco, FB posted and tweeted about how this made him feel.

Obviously Chad was pissd off to level 5 and giving an example of what level 5 is that everyone can relate to: your side girl is with child, and, presumably, it’s yours. But, it seems that a few of his fans/followers misunderstood. Shortly thereafter Chad had to explain, “Being level 5 pissed is like finding out your girl is cheating with your best friend, people yall dont understand my pisstivities yet! 1-5.”

I guess not everyone got that because a few minutes later Chad had to add, “some folks are so slow thinking someone is pregnant, geesh im using examples to show my level of pisstivity!!!!! “. So offseason team meetings = side girl pregnant = your girl is cheating with your best friend = people are slow to understand your post/tweets!!!!!! The only thing that remains is to clear up whether the hypothetical side girl is hypothetically pregnant from you or the hypothetical best friend – I mean, are those two different pisstivity levels?

I am curious because this pisstivity scale has is a very practical tool for letting people know how upset you are about something. However, I need to develop my own personal pisstivity level definitions. I am about as likely to have a side girl as I am to be an NFL team member at a post-season meeting. I think being the latter would increase my chances of having the former but I’m really not looking to have a side girl because it would push my wife’s pisstivity off the scale, pregnant or not.

My levels of pisstivity, 1-5, with one being the lowest, would go like this:

Level 1 – I packed a lunch for work and left it at home. This is not so bad, because I can just go out for lunch and bring that packed lunch the next day. But I’d be more pissticated if my wife ate the packed lunch.

Level 2 - Someone used last of TP in stall in restroom at work and did not get a new roll out of supply closet. At some point this probably would have been level 3. However, I’ve learned to check the rolls every time I go in now so my connection with the pisstication is farther removed and thus mitigated. Maybe I need a new level 2.

Level 3 - Someone in left lane going same speed as person to the right and refuses to allow others to pass. This is a former level 5 that I have learned to cope with and calm myself down.

Level 4 - Computer glitch loses 1 or more hours of work. At this level, there’s plenty of pisstivity to go around. I’m pisstified at Bill Gates, I’m pisstified at the computer manufacturer, I’m pisstified at out IT guy even if it’s my home computer, and I’m pisstified at my wife for no specific or good reason at all.
Invariably, whenever a computer glitch does lose all my work, some one will say, “Well, you have only yourself to blame, you should have saved your work as you went along.” And, THAT, my friends and followers is my Level 5 of pisstivity.

If your dog gets run over, I’m not going to go up to you and say, “Well, you shouldn’t have let him run into the street.” No, I’m going to try and comfort you. When I lose all my work, confronting me with my own failure does not correct the situation, it only ratchets up the pisstivity. You need to soothe me and point out the ways that Bill Gates, the manufacturer, the It department and my wife are responsible for this tragedy.

By the way, today Chad came out with a new one: “My level of pisstification has exceeded my 5 levels of pisstivity at this point which I've now chosen to call my anger NUKE mad<-COD.” I’m working on identifying what would put me at that level.

And, oh god, please Chad, don't be pisstified at me for writing this.