The Luck of the Irish?

By now, unless you're living in Osama Bin Laden's cave, you've heard about the sorry way in which Ireland went out of the World Cup qualifying at the hands of the French. Well, at the hand of one Frenchman.

Don't get me wrong. I'm an Arsenal man through and through and Thierry Henry is a legend for to Gooners as well as a fabulous player and competitor. He also apologised to the Irish and suggested a replay was the fairest option to resolve the incident (are you reading this Diego Maradona?*). It's pretty much all you can expect a footballer to do, short of checking into a halfway house and writing a tell-all book about Raymond Domenech.

Naturally, the French Football Federation (FFF) disagrees. They responded to Irish requests for a replay by giving their morning coffee particularly close attention and moving their weekly Riviera vacations up two days to take advantage of the lack of proles on the beaches.

UEFA (The European Federation) was even less helpful, greeting the Irish requests for a replay with reminders that "President Michel Platini is French and do you think he's crazy insane as well?" As of this evening, they aren't returning my phone calls on that specific detail.

So, Ireland took the remarkable step of privately asking the world body, FIFA for permission to join the World Cup as a 33rd team. That's right, they asked to expand the 32 team tournament to 33 teams.

Now, I'm incredibly sympathetic to the Irish cause here, not simply because I'm of at least some small Irish extraction (if Mum's got her story straight), nor because I spent a glorious week with the family in Ireland last June, sipping Guinness and Murphy's stout and driving the hell out of the magnificent Irish countryside. I think they were wronged in the playoff, much in the way Katie Holmes feels wronged each morning when she wakes up and realises she's no longer on Dawson's Creek, if you know what I mean.

However, asking FIFA, the world's second largest collection of officious, self-important, double-dealing bureaucrats after the UN,** for permission to add a 33rd team to their showpiece event is simply barmy.

It's barmy at one level because you couldn't expect normal sensible people to rearrange the structure of the current finals to fit in an extra team, however aggrieved.

But it's barmy on Dr. Crippen levels to privately ask a collection of thick, irresponsible clods like Sepp Blatter and company to change up the tournament and not expect them to turn about and blather about it in front of the world media, grinning like Enterainment Tonight reporters speculating about David Beckham's love life. Of course this is exactly what they did, with all the insouciance of cocktail banter.

Still, FIFA do have to give an official response, which they are now preparing. It just so happens that I've come across an early draft containing the reasons for which Ireland will be denied the mythical 33rd slot at the 2010 South Africa World Cup.***

**********
FIFA - Fédération Internationale de Football Association

Offical Notice to:

Football Association of Ireland,
AKA Cumann Peile na hÉireann
AKA Them blokes wot lost on the chuffin 'andball¹


Dear Irish Chaps,

After careful consideration of your request to be included as the 33rd team in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, including a vigorous discussion over drinks and foie gras, and a Swedish massage, we regret to inform you that there is absolutely no way we can accomodate your request, not even were you to include the customary generous donation to the FIFA executives retirement fund (See enclosed envelope and Swiss bank account number).

We realise that your federation, including the plucky Liam Brady, feel hard done by the results of the playoff with France and we know that the gift basket and Starbucks coupon can hardly make up for that. Still, we do have a tournament to run (it's funny to remember that but yes, we are in charge of the whole thing. Why just the other day, in-between press conferences and mudbaths, I was telling Sepp how strange it is that all these meetings and luxury hotel stays result in those exciting games. Then Maurice came over to give me my rub down... but I digress). Including your team in the tournament would create a dangerous precedent for the hundreds of other national federations who feel they too have been wronged in some way by international football officiating.

Still, we wanted you to be able to see our side of things. So here are the specific
reasons the request has been denied:

• With all Europe's top mathematicians and physicists loitering over at the Large Hadron Collider, we couldn't find anyone who could work out exactly how to divide 33 teams into groups. Isn't 33 some sort of prime number or integer or some math thingy like that? Way above our pay grade.


• Henry's handball was totally unintentional. He clearly lost his mind and thought he was his friend and compatriot Tony Parker. Could happen to anyone. Why, just the other day, General Secretary Valcke insisted he was Groucho Marx. It took an hour to scrub that greasepaint moustache off of him.


• The hotels in South Africa are all booked. Seriously, we'd have to put you up in tents or at homes of the members of the South African delegation. They're not going to put up with us and that at the same time.


• Given that the nation of France supplies 100% of the champagne used at FIFA functions, we're not about to piss those chaps off. There's a reason we all speak French instead of Irish over here at FIFA, and quite frankly, Guinness is just a bit heavy for our kind of parties.


• We are seriously concerned that if we allow you in, Zinedine Zindane may come out of retirement to head butt us. The FFF has officially warned us of this possibility.


• FIFA has recently developed a reputation for being distant and unresponsive to the needs of footballers around the world and dammit, we've worked hard for that rep. We're sure you understand.


• Roy Keane asked us not to.
  

Sincerely,

Your Chums at FIFA

1. Special English translation provided by University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne and Rinkworks.

**********
*Of course not. Hardly anyone is these days. I must add though that this answer assumes Mr. Maradona can read at all.
** And just ahead of the International Olympic Committee on numbers alone.
*** Lucky me!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all our regular readers (both of you) and anyone else who happens to stumble upon this site via Next Blog, Google, Twitter, or sheer grace (for us, your call from your end). God bless you! We're thankful for all of you.

So thankful that I'm going to share my Thanksgiving to do list with you:

• Wake up (no guarantee, most days)
• Brush teeth, comb hair (do not mix these up*)
• Run five miles (seriously - already done)
• Dress (this and the previous item not necessarily in the order listed)
• Eat a light, healthful breakfast (skip bacon, save room for turkey, etc.)
• Shower (use soap, shampoo, industrial strength deodorant)
• Shave (face only, today)
• Watch minimal amounts of parades and mock presenters accordingly
• Fix Mac 'n' Cheese for family Thanksgiving lunch (full dairy products included)
• Make Italian Salad for lunch (skip Chico Marx accent this year)
• Eat massive amounts of turkey, dressing, cheese grits, green bean casserole (with extra fried onions), rolls, butter, mash, gravy, mac 'n' cheese, deviled eggs, sauerbraten, cannoli, toad in the hole, escargot, Beef Wellington, pork ribs, salmon, chocolate pie, bratwurst, sukiyaki, pickled herring, corn on the cob, steamed corn, cornbread, corn muffin, Mexicorn, Corn O'Brien**, Shrimp Etouffe, Carne Asada, Li Hing Mui, Pad Thai, Kung Pao Chicken, Kung Pow Chicken (a spicier variety), bangers, bacon, back bacon, side bacon, streaky bacon, Bacon Salt, pastrami, Camembert, Brie, Stilton, (see Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch for subsection of this menu), Haggis, bacon and cabbage, Irish Stew, Mulligan Stew, Panda Stew, Mulligatawny, gnocchi, matzo ball soup, paella, boiled peanuts, flan, Lobster Thermidor, Marmite, Vegimite, Nutella, ramen, Coq au Vin, Crab Rangoon, Chicken Vindaloo, Chicken Korma, Chicken in a Biscuit, Kim Chee, biscuits, crisps, chips, dips, and Wonder bread.
• Drink only one glass of sweet tea (to keep the calorie count down)
• Watch gridiron (go Cowboys!)
• Eat leftovers (see above)
• Sleep 'til Christmas

* Yes, this is one of the oldest jokes in existence. Holiday tradition demands we dredge it up though!
** No relation to Conan O'Brien

AMA = American Mental Awareness

Ok, its really supposed to be American Music Awards but if anyone saw the broadcast they know what I'm talking about. Alright, as a matter of full disclosure I only saw a wrap-up of the most freakish highlights but that couple of minutes was like living a thousand years of it. It was like going to the store to pick up milk and eggs only to find out you're having to feed the entire road crew for the U2 360 Tour. I had to scrub my eyeball's down for an hour after watching the video clip. I was hoping with all my heart that Lady Gaga would show up and bust a bottle on my eyes. You get the point.

Beyond the much publicized events of the evening there were also many that missed the well trained eye of the media. Here is a full list of the events, won't you re-live the banality with me.

• J-Lo makes first mistake of the night by deciding to wear Heelys to perform her infamous jump from Mount Beefcake. (did I just write that, I feel faint)
• Rihanna performs a number that turns out to be a cheap LED fueled take-off on Bono's Ultraviolet gear from U2's current tour. Maybe it was her way of warding off Chris Brown by blinding him.
• Jay-Z turned out to be the only person NOT blinded by Rihanna's laser light show due to his trademark arc welder's sunglasses.

Not to scale, those worn by Jay-Z are much larger.

• Kanye West interrupts the proceedings no less than ten times to explain that he is still sorry about that whole Taylor Swift thing but that Beyonce's video was the best of all time and Imma let Seth Green finish in minute.
• Eminem and 50 cent (pronounced fiddy sent) stole the show with a rousing rap spectacular that thrilled old and young alike. The most poignent moment of the song was when Eminem rapped, "It's bleepy bleeping bleep to bleep the bleeping bleeper.", to which came Fiddy's riposte, "Bleeping bleep the bleeping bleeper bleeped." There was not a dry eye in the house.
• Michael Jackson did not show up at the event to accept the Lifetime Achievement award surprising nobody of course but Amy Winehouse.
• Lady Gaga thrilled the crowd by burning down the stage after dousing it with vodka and breaking a bottle over Seth Green's cranium.

What can be done to top this year's proceedings? I like the idea of setting off a small thermonuclear device but I fear Jay-Z's glasses would render it ineffective. Maybe close down the bar earlier.

Thanksgiving Faux Pas

The big Thanksgiving holiday is coming up here in the States. Many of us will be preparing big meals, family gatherings and other events. Here's some advice to help those of us prone to screwing things up. Avoid the following like carrot stuffing.*

• When printing a menu, avoid abbreviating Turducken.


• The Pilgrims were the English immigrants who befriended Native Americans at Thanksgiving. They were not just John Wayne's pals.


• When slicing turkey, use a knife designed for simple meatcutting. A machete is overkill.


• Serving ham at Thanksgiving is unusual. Serving ham sandwiches is just lazy.


• Catfood is not an acceptable stuffing for turkey.


• Grace for the meal should never be preceded or followed by slapfights.


• When seating guests, never seat #BillCorbettDoppelgangers ahead of the real one. (It's a Twitter in-joke. Just avoid doing this. Especially if you're @Virginia Corbett.)


• Traffic cones are inappropriate substitutes for cornucopia decorations.


• When removing leftovers, never feed dogs carrots. Dogs are voracious omnivores, but they won't eat just any old crap.


• Regardless of what Paula Deen says, there is a limit to how much butter one can use in meals. Let cardiac arrests at the table be your guide.


• Gravy should never be eaten with the fingers. In an emergency though, one may sip directly from the bowl.


• Use your finest china for Thanksgiving dinner. Paper plates are considered poor form. Flinging food and shouting "catch" should be reserved for leftovers.


• After Thanksgiving meal - Burp: acceptable. Fart: not. Loudly announcing "I gotta take a dump": severely frowned upon.


• Under no circumstances should anyone be allowed to wear the turkey.


• The giblet gravy bowl should never be referred to as a barf bag, no matter how pink the gravy is.


• Where helpings are concerned, seconds are recommended. Twelths are considered slightly excessive.


• Electric carving knives are for turkeys, not for shaving toenails at the table.
  
• Anyone making a turkey breast joke may be beaten about the head with the gravy ladel.


• Real drinks should be offered as beverages, rather than just offering that there is "significant water on the moon."
  
• While turkey does contain tryptophan and this can cause mild sleepiness, dozing in the mashed potatoes is frowned upon.


• Although they are sometimes called drumsticks, turkey legs should never be used with actual drums.
  
• Green beans should never be worn in the nostrils.


• Never mix sweet potatoes and regular potatoes in one bowl. This could collapse the space-time continuum.
  
• When helping oneself to a dish, always be sure to avoid knocking down elderly guests who may be between you and the food.


• Whatever variation of succatash you serve, never, ever include bananas.
  
• Avoid excessive chatter at the table about how big the Macy's Day parade balloons were, as this is boring nonsense.


• Alcoholic beverages should never be served before the Thanksgiving meal, unless it truly sucks.
  
• The "eating corn on the cob as though you were a typewriter" gag is at least 40 years out of date. Making the little bell sound at the end of each row of corn will only mark you as a social outcast.


• All Pilgrim outfits must include pants.
  
• Christmas decorations do not have to be put up right after the meal, no matter what your grandmother says.


• Everything does not automatically go better with gravy at Thanksgiving. Iced tea, for example.
  
• Watching the football games after a Thanksgiving meal is a time-honored tradition. Tackling grandmother and spiking her crocheting bag is not.


• During Thanksgiving the terms "sweet potato" "wishbone" and "corn on the cob" are not to be used as euphemisms.
  
• Do not slurp cranberry sauce from the plate. Only jello may be consumed in this way at the table.


• In disfunctional family fights, avoid stabbing relatives with the same knife used to carve the turkey.
  

* Some of these originally appeared on Earl's Twitter account. (Some may yet appear there, depending on how lazy Earl is.) Follow him @earlfando! Follow Stew @stewmiller42! (Yes, Stew's still alive.) Follow Cakey the Jacked-Up Clown @cakeyclown!

The Worst of the Worst of the Worst, Sir! With Honors!

Back in September, or as I refer to it around the house, that last mostly warm month, Rotten Tomatoes came out with their list of the worst films of the last decade. Being a fan of bad film riffing (MST3K, Rifftrax, Cinematic Titanic, etc.) and bad films in general (I'm very fond of the Medved Brothers's work in this field from way back - Without these guys, Edward D. Wood might still be the private pet whipping boy of National Society of Film Critics), I was deeply intrigued.

I'm not sure "fan" is the right word. Help me out here. Does being a fan of something involve showering the object of your attention with unrelenting mocking laughter and a numerous volleys of disrespectfully satirical verbiage? If so, then yes, I am a fan. A massive, massive fan.

Anyway, the list contains Rotten Tomatoes' choice for the 100 worst films. Naturally, the list is loaded with crapulent stinkers about which Leonard Maltin on his most diplomatic day would gleefully pen obscenities that would make Michael Caine blush. How bad are the films on this list? Gigli is number 73. Number 73! There were 72 films worse than Gigli this past decade. If you'd have told me three years ago that would happen, I would have assumed Hollywood was to be in rubble, overrun by giant, mutant voles who somehow managed to produce four or five dozen films before the end of the decade.

One interesting thing about the list is the ratings system used to pick the films. Rotten Tomatoes used their standard system of the percentage of approval by the critics. The best-rated films in the list had a full 7% approval rating. Essentially, this means that those films only got positive or mediocre reviews from critics who were so incredibly desperate to see their names in film adverts that they settled for these films. In other words, they got fair to positive reviews from unknown critics who knew they would soon be unemployed or deceased. That's my best guess anyway.

The lowest films on the list did not even get these critics. They got big stinking naughts. Nil. Zeroes. These are films so completely reviled they didn't even get mercy reviews.

Astonishingly, Battlefield Earth was not in this category, having mustered the two to three percent of critics who are. apparently, Scientologists. B.E. amazingly finished in a respectable (all things considered) 27th place.

Most of the worst ranked films are comedies. This is very sobering to the co-editor of a humour blog. And very familiar. Nothing rankles people so much as the promise of an evening of jovial festivities unexpectedly replaced by the dour, strained embarrassments of underachieving would-be entertainers. (Editor's note: Please save any blog analogies for your e-mails to the staff.)

I must confess, I have not seen a single film in the top ten of this list and have only heard of a few. Admittedly, I don't get out as much as I used to. I've a blog to run, dammit. Nonetheless, I felt I should give a cursory report on these films, so the next time a friend drunkenly suggests catching one of these on Encore or Flix you can excuse yourself to do more productive activities, such as washing the cat, scraping off scar tissue, or both.

• Witless Protection - This is a Larry the Cable Guy film. If the the pun in the title isn't an instant clue as to the quality of this offering, the poster with Larry clumsily holding a gun and a brunette should quickly convince. The brunette is looking moodily off frame, a look that says, "If Larry's gun wasn't full of blanks, I'd use it to kill my agent."* Gives "Git 'er done" a whole new ambience, doesn't it?
  
• Redline - From the poster, I assume this is a film about a car so hot it's tires are constantly being set ablaze. Eddie Griffin is the only actor I recognize in the credits. I assume his lines are worse than the ones he was given in both Deuce Bigalow films.
  
• 3 Strikes - Strike one: Not a bowling film. Strike two: Not a bowling film. Strike three: What was David Alan Grier thinking? Not about bowling, that much I can tell you.
  
• Strange Wilderness - This is a movie about people searching for Bigfoot that was bad enough to get no critical support whatsoever. (I'm not sure I can think of a more critical comment than that.) Appalling? Yes, but even more appalling is that this thing runs three hours and seven minutes. That's the length of more than two 3 Strikes, or 187 Jack Links TV adverts.
  
• Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 - I saw the adverts for this. Any filmmaker that can make you hate babies deserves more verbal abuse than I can muster here.
  
• National Lampoon's Gold Diggers - Remember when the words "National Lampoon's" in front of a film signified a reasonably funny time in the cinema? Me neither, it's been so long.**
  
• King's Ransom - It'd take a king's ransom to get me to sit through this disaster. I'm assuming the film is even worse than my joke about it.
  
• Pinocchio - Roberto Benigni as the beloved wooden son of Gepetto! What could go wrong? The cinematic equivalent of termites, apparently. Maybe people just aren't ready to accept a fifty-year old as a wooden boy. I mean, besides Ralph Macchio.
  
• One Missed Call - Apparently, the title is much scarier in Japanese. The mask, too. To me, it resembles one of Cakey the Clown's more sensible accquaintances.
  
• Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever - Without a doubt the worst title for a film since Highlander 2: The Quickening. However, what shocks here is the sheer, incredulously incompetent marketing prowess of the filmmakers. You have a cast consisting of the gorgeous Lucy "I'm a Charlie's Angel" Liu and Antonio "Too Sexy, but I Must***" Banderas. Obviously, a romantic, sensual drama or adventure would be simply too easy. No, this lot decided a film comprised almost entirely of senseless shooting and violence would best suit this pairing. Well, who said Hollywood is all about making money? Perhaps we can just admire the producers and director for sticking to their vision, as cretinously, wastefully self-destructive as it was. That's art for you.

* Good readers, you can decide for yourselves whether that line was a double entendre or not.
** Yes, I know, Animal House. A one-off apparently.
*** The SNL sketch of course. Not a personal observation, though if I had to look like another guy I wouldn't complain if the surgeons chose that bloke.

My Friends, We Are All Interested in the Future...

...but some scientists have taken it beyond the usual, "What's for lunch?" phase.*

According to Time Magazine, two highly respected scientists have claimed that the recent power disruption to the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC**)near Geneva, Switzerland may have been caused by a bird sent from the future.

Go ahead, check your calendar. It's not April 1st.

Perhaps the big picture will offer a little insight into this otherwise daft sounding proclaimation.

On the third of November, the collider's energy supply was scuppered by a piece of baguette, apparently dropped by a passing bird. To begin with, this is an extremely silly thing to have happened. I realise French bread is substantial, but I have a whole new respect for the piece that can knock out an entire electric substation and the muscular pigeon that can hoist it.

Nonetheless, the operators of the LHC fished out the baguette (and had a substantial warm snack, I suspect) and set back to work. Meanwhile, upon hearing the news, the two respected scientists - or as Time calls them "eminent physicists" - Bech Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya, began to develop their peculiar and highly entertaining theory about time traveling birds.

The theory goes something like this: The researchers at the LHC are trying to find the Higgs Boson. While this sounds like a moderately dry brand of Danish beer, it is in fact the subatomic particle theorized to provide mass to all matter in existence. However, some people think that creating a large group of Higgs Bosons could lead to all sorts of troublesome results: black holes, space-time ruffles***, and giant man-eating velociraptor shaped poodles.

All right, I made those last two up. Still, "black holes!" Not exactly as trivial as the local town council asking to put a rubbish bin on your block. We're talking about the mother of all celestial sinkholes.

Anyway, the esteemed physicists' theory holds that this Higgs Boson generating outcome is so troubling and problematic that God Himself or the universe, depending on your religious outlook, is intervening to do something about it. (Count me in the former camp, as if it's important enough, I know God is not going to sit around waiting for the universe to get off its lazy bum. Matter is a bit of a slacker, in my humble view. I think Newton would back me up on this, and maybe Einstein, if I could drag him away from the violin for a second.)

So, in short: LHC, massive collisions of atoms, Higgs Boson (not a Danish beer), potential black holes, God or universe steps in from the future to put a stop to this nonsense.

I should add that the Time piece assures us that this theory is backed up by complex maths. Well, of course it is! You don't think esteemed physicists just whip up this sort of thing between treatises on pan-dimensional probabilities, do you?

Where the theory breaks down for me is the whole bird/baguette bit. Poetically, I suppose it is a bit like the dove and the olive branch, but only in the same way that The Di Vinci Code is a bit like Great Expectations in that they are both works of fiction that were written in English and use punctuation.

Surely, if the supreme being of the entire universe is going to prevent a cosmic catastrophe, one would expect something a bit more direct than a wayward time-traveling budgie lobbing a crust of baked dough at the problem. Yes, God is obviously more than clever enough to use economy of means to resove the problem, but would that include the flourish of sending the bird back from the future?

As to the notion that impersonal universal forces delivered the bird and bread, that seems about as likely as them showing up in the flying Delorean with Christopher Lloyd at the wheel, or for that matter a flying Gran Torino with Hutch at the wheel. The imagination reels, doesn't it?

Still, the idea of fowl from the future attacking pernicious potential predicaments for the universe does have some charm for me. Call me egocentric, but the theory and my own experience give me a bit more optimism regarding the potential grandiosity of my future contributions to existence.

Or maybe that bird just mistook me for someone else?

* Yes, that was an extremely vague Douglas Adams reference.
** This actually stands for "Large Hadron Collider," but only because I couldn't think of a funnier definition.
*** These ruffles don't have ridges. Terrifying, isn't it?

Sweet Empty Calories

I should have known there were just shy of a thousand Hey There Delilah/Aunt Jemima parodies out there when I first mulled the idea over. Nonetheless, I went ahead and finished my own offering to the rapidly growing sub-sub-genre. I've not read any of the others besides a line or two of one I glanced at, so this is as original as I can make it.

Hey There Aunt Jemima

(based on Hey There, Delilah by Plain White Ts' )

Hey there Aunt Jemima, who knew syrup could perturb me?
Well, your taste is quite delicious, but your packaging disturbs me
Yes you do, stereotypes can’t come plainer than you
We know it’s true.

Hey there Aunt Jemima, you make pancakes such a sweet feast,
But I can’t forget the look you had when you were first released
So degradin’. Like the poor lady who won the Oscar in
Gone with the Wind. But…

CHORUS

Oh it’s what you do to me, all these empty calories,
Oh it’s what you do to me, Oh, sweet, empty calories
Sweet, empty calories

Hey there Aunt Jemima, now you’re quite contemporary
While I’m glad your smile is up to date your history’s rather scary,
You don’t agree? Ask Uncle Ben, but it’s no mystery
He’ll side with me.

Hey there Aunt Jemima, I feel so guilty at the fridge,
Could it be I’d feel much better if you looked like Dorothy Dandridge?
I don’t know. Your tasty syrup would pour just as slow,
Pancakes still would glow.

CHORUS

Oh it’s what you do to me, all these empty calories,
Oh it’s what you do to me, Oh, sweet, empty calories

BRIDGE

Now there are other brands to try, I’ve heard Log Cabin’s pretty fly
But Mrs. Butterworth’s is kind of strange
You open up that woman’s head, and syrup pours out like she’d bled,
I’m glad that Hungry Jack’s not that deranged.
Aunt Jemima could it be, my conscience will run over me,
And breakfast will just never be the same, and you’re to blame.

Hey there Aunt Jemima, loved from Rome to Oklahoma
I can’t help myself, I’ll wind up in a diabetic coma
Drinking you, straight out of the bottle, yes it’s true,
I don’t even like pancakes, do you?
Hey there Aunt Jemima here's to you, One more shot of you.

CHORUS

Oh it’s what you do to me, all these empty calories,
Oh it’s what you do to me, I'm getting weak at the knees
Sweet, empty calories.

Mmmmmm...

I'm also working on a Yellow Submarine parody at the moment. I expect I may even record a few of these at some point (heaven help you all).