SIC SAD WORLD^TM

This from Reuters Notable Quotes:

"I don't do anything anymore that feels safe. If it doesn't scare the crap out of you, then you're not doing the right thing."

-- SANDRA BULLOCK, now starring in "Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous," on choosing her movie roles.
 

LEAVE EVERY TINY LITTLE THING TO US

Holding hearings on steroids in baseball, issusing a subpeona to Terry Schiavo...welcome to your new and improved Full Service Congress!

You have a problem? We'll take it on! No problem is too small. Sure, we used to worry about stuff like war, civil rights, the Hawley-Smoot tariff, whatever the heck that was, but not anymore. Now we're focusing laser-like on your personal life. Yeah, you, buddy!

Got a neighbor playing his stereo too loud? Sounds like a job for the House International Relations Committee. Well, if your neighbor is Indian or something. God knows, sitar music isn't for everybody. The point is, Congress has nothing better to do! Nobody cares what we say about Iraq, Iran, or any of those other crazy places, or Social Security, or proliferation of nuclear material, or global warming (pffft!). Which is cool with us. We'd rather get some face time mediating disputes involving narrow issues that lots of our constituents are on one side of. It makes things so much easier.

So, sign up today! Contact your local Congressperson, and if you favorably answer the questions on our brief questionnaire (Question 1: Has this problem appeared on television on at least one major news network? Question 2: Do all your Republican friends agree on this issue?) we'll be holding hearings before you can say "abuse of power".

ANOTHER GOODBYE



Tiger
c. 1990 - March 4th, 2005

Grieve not,
nor speak of me with tears,
but laugh and talk of me
as if I were beside you...
I loved you so -----
'twas Heaven here with you.

Isla Paschal Richardson

YOUNG LOVE

Come on, it's Valentine's Day, send these two lovebirds a gift.

DYNASTY

ASK MONICA

Bill Clinton is being tapped by the U.N. to head up the tsunami relief effort.

Great choice. He's got a lot of experience dealing with wave after wave of!...oh, wait, wrong waves.

HYPE PRESSURE AREA

Many people say there's too much Super Bowl hype. TCP says, "There's too many people who say there's too much Super Bowl hype!" Before we descend into a self-inflicted death spiral, we thought it would be helpful to provide a guide to Super Bowl week so that you don't actually have to watch it (or comment on it) yourself.

MONDAY:

Eagles Press Conference. Questions will include, "Is T.O. going to play?"; "Can T.O. be ready by Sunday?"; "If T.O.'s fibula were a tree, what kind of tree would it be?"

Patriots Press Conference. Questions will include, "Are the Patriots a dynasty"; "When will you decide you're a dynasty?"; "If you win, is Bill Belichick going to change his name to Blake Carrington?"

TUESDAY:

Eagles Media Day. Questions will include, "What exactly is in a cheesesteak?"; "Who cracked the Liberty Bell?"; "It was T.O., wasn't it?"

Patriots Media Day. Questions will include, "Why do they call it Beantown?"; "Is it Foxboro or Foxborough? Or maybe Phahcksbireau?" "How about them Red Sox?"

WEDNESDAY:

Eagles Press Conference. Questions will include, "How's T.O. doing?"; "Is T.O. any closer?"; "What would T.O. want God to say when he arrived at the pearly gates?"

Patriots Press Conference. Questions will include, "How great a coach are you, Coach Belichick?"; "Are you guys the greatest team ever in the history of the universe, including the Roman Legion?"; "Coach Belichick, could you do my son's Advanced String Theory homework?"

THURSDAY:

Eagles Press Conference. Questions will include, "How about it?"; "Any chance?"; "How about if I ask that T.O. question in one syllable?"

Patriots Press Conference. Questions will include, "Is there any way on God's green earth that an unstoppable juggernaut with the smartest coach in the history of sentient beings can lose?"; "If you guys lose, would a black hole come up from under the field and swallow the whole city of Jacksonville."; "Would that be an improvement?"

FRIDAY:

Eagles Press Conference. Questions will include, "Well? (see I told you I could do it!)"

Patriots Press Conference. Questions will include, "Coach, do you think your team could defeat an army of Romulans, Aliens, Predators, Mongols, Huns, Nazis, Al Qaeda, the Manson Family, the SLA, Ted Bundy and Scott Peterson, with their hands tied behind their backs, blindfolded, and their feet tied together simply by using their minds?"

SATURDAY:

Official Hype-Free Day, brought to you by Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Taco Bell, Burger King, Coors Light, Bud Light, Miller Genuine Draft, Tostitos, Cialis, Monster.com, Quiznos, Subway, Siemens, BASF, Charles Schwab, TD Waterhouse, Chunky Soup, Lexus, Toyota, GMC Trucks, EBay, Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil, Archer Daniels Midland, Halliburton, and Lockheed Martin.

SUNDAY:

FOX Pre-Game Show, starting at 12:00.01 AM.

12:00.01 to 2 AM - Terry Bradshaw acts all crazy and shit
2 AM to 4 AM - Howie Long calls Bradshaw crazy and challenges him to a rasslin' match
4 AM to 6 AM - Jimmy Johnson gets his hair shellacked
6 AM to 8 AM - Joe Buck reacts to Randy Moss' bootleg sex video
8 AM to 10 AM - Pam Oliver interviews Terrell Owens and finally gets the spanking she deserves.
10 AM to Noon - J.B. does nothing, but with class and quiet dignity.
Noon to 2 PM - Cris Collinsworth tries to stir up controversy until everyone realizes he sucked with the Bengals
2 PM to 4 PM - Troy Aikman makes broad, obvious statements that even a 70's Brian Wilson would consider sane and rational
4 PM to 5 PM - Johnson's hair gets a second coat prior to gametime
5 PM to 5:01 PM - Actual game analysis. Everyone agrees that the Pats should win, but that the Eagles could win if they "force at least eleven turnovers and Charlie Weis calls the offensive plays using the Jumbotron"
5:01 PM to 6:30 PM - Ogling Jillian Barberie (well, we can hope, anyway)
6:30 PM - Kickoff! Brought to you by The Simple Life: Interns

Halftime - FOX Super Bowl Halftime Special, starring Laura Bush, Mary Lou Retton, Celine Dion, and the FCC Approved Dancers

Enjoy the week everybody! And bet with your head, not over it. (Note: Super Bowl wagering is illegal in 49 states and the District of Columbia. *snort!* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Seriously, take the under, unless T.O. looks healthy.)

YOU ASKED...

Washington Post columnist Maggie Gallagher was paid $21,500 by the Department of Health and Human Services to defend in her column President Bush's $300 million program encouraging marriage as a way to strengthen families. When asked by Post colleague Howard Kurtz if she felt she had violated journalistic ethics, she replied, "I don't know. You tell me."

Ok, Maggie. Read closely:






Scroll down some more...






Just a little more...






You'll be glad you did...





YES!

SIC SAD WORLD^TM, Volume Next Highest Number

From Salon.com's The Fix, on the decidedly non-fatal nor massively destructive breakup of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt:

"Speaking on behalf of Us Weekly, Wenner Media general manager Kent Brownridge put it this way: 'For a celebrity weekly, this is our tsunami.'"

THE "ME" ENTRY

Why did it just occur to me today that both of Tony Orlando and Dawn's big hits are about non-verbal communication?

Sorry, searchers, Bitty Schram still isn't nude anywhere on my site, but today is my birthday! In honor of me, I've decided to list my many accomplishments.

Little League, 1976 - Hustle Award. Boy, have I changed.

Little League, 1978, 1979 - All-Star. My dad was the coach.

8th Grade Graduation, 1981 - Four of nine academic awards. That little b*tch Maureen, who now writes occasional book reviews for the New York Times (seriously), moved to my town for the last half of the year and took the other five. I'm not bitter. Hey, at least Michiko Kakutani didn't move into my town, or I wouldn't have won jack.

High School Graduation, 1985 - Valedictorian. It was a small town, and Maureen had long since moved away.

College Graduation, 1989 - Bachelor of Science, Chemical Engineering. Notice the distinct lack of Latin phrases after that.

Personal, 1993 - Marriage License. Just in case my wife ever discovers this blog.

Work, 1994 - 5 Year Service Award. Pretty much self-explanatory. And all-encompassing.

Home, 1996 - World's Greatest Dad, as awarded by my cat via my wife as proxy. This award was presented under a cloud of suspicion, where it remains today.

Other Work, 2003 - 5 Year Service Award. Somewhere along the line I decided that the 10-year Service Award at my first job was too challenging.

Well, that's it. Only two more years until I win the coveted Black Balloons of Middle Age award!

A (REALLY BORING) CHRISTMAS STORY

I promised more. I never promised good.

Our Christmas started at the Philadelphia International Airport. It remained there several hours later as a single lonely US Airways employee slowly loaded bags into the cargo hold of our plane to Orlando. Very slowly. More slowly than Estelle Getty completing the Ironman Triathlon.

Finally, we arrived in the Seasonal Rain State. The rental house my niece booked did, in fact, exist, and we all settled in for the week. We called the maintenance guy to turn on the heat to the jacuzzi. It may come on sometime next week. It never heated up while we were there, but it was fun imagining we had a jacuzzi.

Day 2 was Christmas Eve. My sisters, their families, and my mother came over. Absolutely nothing happened. I mean, things happened, but I was too busy watching football and playing PlayStation with my brother to have paid attention. We played Trivial Pursuit. It was aptly named.

Ah, Christmas, when 33 adults and 9 children cram into a rental house and eat enough to feed several villages worth of tsunami survivors. The best part was when my grandnephew ran head first into the sliding glass door, and appeared to improve. My nieces organized a $20 buy-in Texas Hold 'Em game in lieu of watching their children. Who could blame them? I snagged two scratch-off lottery tickets in the Yankee Swap. I hope to parlay the $5 I won into a recording contract. Actually, I bought five Florida Lottery quick picks.

I'm getting tired of writing this, and let's face it, Christmas was the money shot anyway. Let's condense. Princesses (or at least really hot actresses playing princesses) everywhere at Disney. My grandniece peed on her mother. Traffic on I-4. My sister's dog peed on my wife. Traffic on 192. I conflated Susan Sontag and Erica Jong (I'm such an idiot). Several cell phone calls. More visits with my sisters. Lunch at Universal. "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" (loved it). More traffic on 192. The Pats beat the Jets (real life), and the Eagles beat the Falcons (PlayStation. I was the Eagles). An uneventful flight back to Philadelphia. And now I'm here typing this.

The Florida Lottery drawing is tonight. Wish me luck! If I win, either I never have to write in this blog again, or all I ever have to do is write in this blog. I hope I find out.

THE REAL REAL WORLD

This is the true story of nine people, picked by birth and marriage to live in a house in Florida around the Christmas holiday and have their lives blogged. Watch what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting...familial.

It's that time of the year, when people who have nothing in common with each other besides serially subletting the same womb get together to celebrate the birth of someone they probably have even less in common with. My family will gather in the "I Can't Believe It's Not A Democracy" state of Florida, where many of them already live and are disenfranchised. Most of the rest of us who live in states where they actually count the votes will gather in a rental home picked out by my niece from a list of about 6,700 web sites, according to Google. The house has an address, so we're hoping it actually exists. It may end up being imaginary, in which case we'll kill my niece and serve her in a rich bearnaise sauce.

As far as I can divine, this particular house has no high speed internet access, making actual blogging problematic. Nevertheless, I am packing the Official Laptop of The Crossbow Project, which I recently purchased with money that should be in my 401K. Since the house supposedly has phone lines (how quaint!), I should be able to partake of NetZero, assuming my housemates exclusively use their cell phones to contact their dealers. That sister-in-law of mine, what a crank fiend!

We depart from Philadelphia's piquant (or, more accurately, urine-soaked) airport on Thursday. More to follow...

DOWNWARD UPWARD MOBILITY

Wackenhut, the security firm essentially fired after 9/11 by the US Government from their bang-up job of protecting the nation's airports, is now protecting the nation's uranium stockpile, with predictable results.

What if the sports world and the private sector worked like the government? Here are a few historical headlines that might have been:

1973: MUNICH BASKETBALL ARENA TIMER TO RUN SWISS WATCH COMPANY

1979: JOE PISARCIK TABBED AS GIANTS OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR

1987: BILL BUCKNER TO RELEASE FIELDING INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO

1991: BILLS SIGN SCOTT NORWOOD TO LIFETIME PLACE-KICKING CONTRACT

1998: TYSON CHOSEN AS NY TIMES FOOD CRITIC

2004: BARTMAN GETS FREE CUBS SEASON TICKETS, FIRST ROW THIRD BASE LINE

YEAH, THAT'S ABOUT RIGHT

SEX MIS-ED

Rep. Henry Waxman has reported that the federal government will spend $170 million this year on abstinence-only sex education programs which contain numerous factual errors. Hmmm...opportunity knocks again!

To: The Department of Health and Human Services
From: The Crossbow Project

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION - AN ABSTINENCE-ONLY SEX EDUCATION PROGRAM

1. Introduction - Sex before marriage - how bad is it?
   
   
   
   1. Really bad, or really really bad?
      
   2. Or really really really bad?
      
      
      
      1. Several more "reallys"?
         
      
      
   
   
2. What happens if you have sex before marriage
   
   
   
   1. Acne
      
   2. Rashes
      
   3. Festering sores
      
   4. Leprosy
      
   5. Under certain circumstances, triggering nuclear annihilation
      
   
   
3. Condoms - how safe are they?
   
   
   
   1. You're joking, right?
      
   2. Can cause acne, rashes, festering sores, and leprosy by themselves
      
   3. Nuclear annihilation-triggering still being studied
      
   4. Always let the sperm of sinners through - somehow, they know
      
   
   
4. Birth control pills
   
   
   
   1. Satan's candy
      
   2. Why are we still having this discussion?
      
   
   
5. Benefits of abstinence
   
   
   
   1. Well, clear skin at least
      
   2. Absence of guilt over sexual misconduct, ability to really concentrate on all other guilt
      
   3. A.C. Green's autograph!
      
   4. Eternal happiness (only when combined with tithing, of course)
      
   
   
6. Review
   
   
   
   1. Sex before marriage will kill you
      
   2. Or at least cause you to burn in Hell
      
   3. Get your filthy hands off your genitals, you freak! (See our pamphlet "Masturbating Causes Cancer")
      
   
   

Yours today for only a small $1 million grant. We take PayPal.

Sincerely,
The Crossbow Project

YOU SAY YOU DON'T LIKE IT, BUT GIRL I KNOW YOU'RE A LIAR

UPN will be airing a reality show where the band TLC attempts to replace their late former member, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez.

I probably won't be watching much of this show, but you know I'll be TiVo'ing the episode where they do the "Setting Fire To Your Boyfriend's House In A Jealous Rage" competition. I'm a sucker for pyromaniacal romance.

SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER

I don't know whether this is also the gayest thing I've ever seen, or simply the most inappropriate.

CAN I GIVE BACK BOTH PATRIOTS SUPER BOWL WINS?

Well, let me say congratulations to the meek, the frightened, the dim-witted, the sanctimonious, the self-righteous, the weak-willed, the hypocritical, the corrupt, the greedy, the bigoted, the intolerant, the ignorant, the asinine, the reptilian, the oblivious, the moronic, the stupid, the arrogant, the uninformed, the dogmatic, the amoral, and the tens of millions of Americans who didn't even bother to show up:

Your guy won!

AS IF I COULDN'T HEAR THE SHOUTING FROM HERE

So, who won the game last night?

NASAL DRIP

This is one of the few things in the world I can think of that is worse than cancer (scroll down to "Wake Up Call", and please, do not read anything else ever in the NY Post).