March Madness Mania

64 teams, 32 games, another 16 games with 32 teams, 4 brackets, 8 locations, nearly 2000 cheerleaders, one dozen bald coaches, 72,000 frankfurters and at least 30,000 beers snuck in...who can keep track of it all?

I had Slippery Rock to win it all but they appear to have been knocked out at some point in the tournament...did anyone catch that game?

Seriously, with four games going on at the same time, it's a bit hard to keep track of the scores. Sooner or later the following's going to happen:

Announcer: And Smith has the ball and he's dribbling downcourt and time is running out and he's just holding on to the ball...what's he doing? And that's time and the game and State loses by one! What was Smith thinking?

Smith (in the postgame interview): I looked up at the scoreboard and it said we were up by two, and then right after the game as I was jumping up and down and celebrating, my teammate Joe came over and told me that was the Michigan State score and that we were still down by one and that I'm an idiot who should never step on a basketball court again. (Indistiguishable reporter's voice in background) Yes...yes sir, that was when the big fight started.

Still, if they want real action, they should play all the regional games on the same court at the same time. It would be exactly like warm-ups with 4 or 5 balls all floating towards the same rim. I'd like to see someone score twenty under those conditions.

Well, I guess I'll just have to shoot you now...

Apparently the Federal bureaus of United States law enforcement (and not of interior design, as some of you may have mentally noted after seeing the word "bureaus") have decided to no longer use tasers or "stun guns" because they have been responsible for some deaths. Shooting with a large gun will remain the favorite way for agents to subdue suspects.

We at DOUI feel there must be some middle ground for these law enforcement agencies between temporarily frying a suspect like lean bacon, and blowing large, gaping holes in them with high caliber firearms. To help, I humbly offer the following non-lethal inventions:

• The Helenizer: This device is designed to briefly flash a large picture of longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, completely nude, at an assailant. During the resultant blindness and shock, authorites can easily handcuff the suspect. Also comes in the following varieties: Barbara Bush, Barbara Mikulski, and Michael Jackson (although this last variety has been found lethal in laboratory tests with rats.)
• The Flatulator: This is a variation on pepper spray, only instead of capsaicin, the weapon produces the intensified flatulence odor of a 50-something tractor-trailer driver who has recently consumed a half-dozen bean and egg burritos. In testing, this device repeately brought a six-foot seven, 300 pound man to his knees in less than three seconds. The only downside is that agents using the device must wear gas masks to avoid incapacitating themselves.
• The Mousse Gun: This weapon fires a thin, highly compressed stream of chocolate mousse into the mouth of suspects. The device can deliver the equivalent of 45 cups of mousse per second. The suspect instantly becomes full and sleepy, and is easily subdued. One note: This device is absolutely useless against Takeru Kobayashi.
• The Lohan Looper: This device works on a principle similar to the Helenizer. The device will alternatingly flash between a photo of Lindsey Lohan in Freaky Friday and a more recent photo of the actress in a low cut dress. The assailant will immediately be stunned senseless attempting to reconcile the anatomical differences between the photos. Warning: This device should not be used when attempting to subdue physicists or teenage boys, as it may cause their heads to explode.
• The Snot Shooter: This instrument requires some subtle trickery on behalf of the agent wielding it. The device itself simply dipsenses a large quantity of green goo on command, the kind of substance found in bulk in toy stores and Nickelodeon programming. The trick is that the device is attached to the agent's nose. As the suspect approaches, the agent feigns a sneeze, discharging the weapon in the process. In tests, subjects have been known to be psychologically immobilized for up to seven hours after being subdued with this device.

Go on my heart will, young Skywalker.

I found this rather interesting article concerning the latest installment of the Star Wars saga Revenge of the Sith, set to be released in May. It seems Lucas is taking a James Cameron approach to the latest in his series going so far as to say: “I describe it as a 'Titanic' in space. It's a real tearjerker, and it will be received in a way that none of us can expect". I wonder where Lucas is coming from here, does he think due to the below average critical reviews of the first two installments that he needs to make it MORE melodramatic. I believe that Episodes I and II had enough melodrama for a whole series but George must think that it will draw in a few more of the non-lightsaber toting folks out there. With this in mind I give you a scene that one of my Bothian spies at Skywalker Ranch was able to sneak out. “Many Bothians died to bring us this information.”

Star Wars “Revenge of the Sith”

75 INT. ANAKIN’S QUARTERS NIGHT

Anakin and Yoda enter the room and search it to guarantee nobody is lying in wait to ambush them. Anakin goes to his desk and pulls out a sketchpad, pencils, and charcoal and puts them next to a chair.

Anakin: Thank you for understanding Jedi Master. I have always wanted to gain a deeper knowledge of the force. I find my sketches and paintings attune me to its fullest power.

Yoda: Help you I can. Yes. mmmmm.

Anakin: Thank you. You can disrobe behind that curtain Master Yoda.

Yoda goes behind the curtain and his robe is seen being thrown over the top. He can be heard humming as we see various other articles of clothing come over the top of the curtain.

Yoda: Hard to see, the dark side is.

Anakin: Here, let me turn on a light for you.

Yoda returns from behind the curtain in the buff and walks across the room toward Anakin. Anakin appears embarrassed and gives a slight chuckle.

Yoda: Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm?

Anakin: I’m sorry Master Yoda, I was not looking down at you. Please, take a seat on the couch and we can begin.

They both take there places, Yoda settles on the couch and Anakin sits in a chair in front of him.

Yoda: You must unlearn what you have learned.

Anakin: Yes, Master Yoda. Now, just bend your left leg a little and… lower your head. Eyes to me. That’s it.

Anakin begins sketching a picture of Yoda reclining on the sofa. We see a montage of slow pans of Yoda’s body inter-cut with scenes of Anakin sketching. The final cut shows the completed sketch of Yoda wearing nothing but a lightsaber placed very strategically. He turns the sketch to show Yoda.

Anakin: Master Yoda, what do you think?

Yoda: Much to learn you still have.

Anakin: Is it that bad? I thought the lightsaber was a nice touch. I don’t know what my problem is, I think I had the right light but I sometimes have problems with pointy ears.

Yoda: That is why you fail.

Anakin throws the sketch to the floor and runs out of the room sobbing. Yoda tries to force grab him but he is already around the corner.

Yoda: Strong I am with the force, but not that strong. You must not go. Feelings for you I have.

Cue Celine Dion singing “My Heart Will Go On” as we see Anakin leave Coruscant and meet with Darth Sidious cementing the relationship that will turn him to the Dark Side of the Force.

Someone hand me a tissue. I think I threw something up.

La' bos Naomh Padraig - Glas Guinness do sibh!

It's St. Patrick's Day me boyos and lassies. What will it be then, that ye can do on this fine day? Well, many is the folk that can think of ideas of things to do on this lovely day, so I'm going to bless with a list of don'ts so you can enjoy the day without embarrassing yourself, particularly the purely Anglo-Saxon among ye.

Do - Sample the fine green beer offered on this day in tribute to St. Patrick and Ireland.
Don't - Swill Guinness until you turn green.

Do - Wear green to show you Irish heritage, or in support and respect of the Irish.
Don't - Wear a green thong and nothing else. Not only is this not respectful, it is extremely cold.

Do - Join in the many lovely songs that will be offered up in pubs and parades.
Don't - Drunkenly break into a rendition of "Rule Britannia" unless your idea of celebrating the holiday consists of having your head split open with a shillelagh.

Do - Wear the shamrock
Don't - Walk around spraying herbicide on shamrocks and complaining about how clover is "such an annoying weed."

Do - Watch and even take part in the many fine Irish jigs and dances.
Don't - Proclaim yourself the "Lord of the Dance" and clumsily "Riverdance" all over the place.

Do - Quote Yeats, Heaney, Joyce, Swift, and other fine Irish writers.
Don't - Dress up as a leprechaun and repeatedly exclaim, "They're magically delicious!"
(Alternative Don't - Walk around with a bottle of Guiness shouting, "Brilliant!" - Although I do this in the privacy of my home all the time.)

Do - Wear "Kiss Me I'm Irish" buttons and t-shirts.
Don't - Wear "Fancy a shag? I'm Irish!" buttons and t-shirts.

Do - Drink a toast to St. Patrick and Ireland
Don't - Repeatedly toast to your liver.

Do - Sample delicious Irish corned beef, cabbage, champ, colcannon, sausages, and other cuisine
Don't - Loudly announce that you're really in the mood for some "Chinese or French food, because this bland Irish crap sucks!"

Top O' the Day to ye!

The mostest favorite receipe of JCV

Did you ever recently watch the television network called Food Network? It is where these people get up on the kitchen and making different kind of cuisine foods that you never heard of and didn't want to eat. Many times they do the Italian style foods like Piedino Cotto del Cavallo con la Salsa di Formaggio, which is a popular dish in the southern regions of some city or something from Italy, I don't know. Sometimes they also make the Japanese food on the show where the chefs are made from iron and most of the food have eyeballs and fish ovaries in them or clam brains in monkey sauce, so not very appetizing. While waiting for my court date over Danny Devito incident and swimming pool, I begin to formulate the idea for Jorge Carlito Viejo cooking show where I make the delicious fine cuisine style food from my beautiful homeland. I will call the show "Cooking of the Cuisine Style Foods with Carlito Viejo, Jorge." Here are some of the favorite dishes of my homeland that I will introduce:

Picos de Cuero con Brazo de Mono -- This is a favorite dish of the old uncle of Jorge Carlito. He will go out into the forest to get the fresh "carne de mono" with his hatchet and make the "picos" out of fresh "cuero" that he cured himself in the sun all weekend long. The childrens love to eat this dish with strawberry compote.

Galleta de Ensalada con Salsa Limpia -- This is a very good dish to eat between course for what they are calling the cleansing of palate. It is the so fresh bowl of Ensalada with a special solution sauce made from something we like to call Jabón del Plato which is a secret ingredient to make the tongue extra clean and fresh for the next plate of tasty style foods.

Habas Anaranjadas con Goma Húmeda del Codo -- qwdygeqrts This plate of food so good I just passed out and hit forehead on keyboard which is why random letter sequence appear before this sentence. It have a special style sauce that is thick with taste and sort of a brown and yellow color with piece of little meats in it floating around with some kind of odor like how you say cooked skin.

So these are some of the style of dish that I will make this show of mine. And I will wear a nice apron every day with a top hat and cigar in mouth. My catchphrase like the Emeril says "BAM" for no reason all the time, I will say "TOMA LOS CALCETINES!" everytime I throw salt in a pot of boiling water. People from miles around will love how I turn food into happiness and happiness into food, back and forth like.

I get in the trouble with law

Some of you saying to yourself, "Where that Jorge Carlito Viejo person disappear to? Maybe did he go to the Siberian gulag? Maybe did he meet the supermodel, go to the secret island where is the volcano that spew pure gold nuggets? Maybe did he got shot by disgruntled former child star from Waste of Time Production days, like that I. Robertson person who was child star in such gems as Lost Brother where he dance and look like the ghetto superstar?" No, he didn't do none of these things. Actually, he...that is to say "I"...was in the county jail for a few weeks and they didn't allow me to having the, how you say, access to a computer on the internet. Instead they make me read really old Dean Koontz novels and play lots of Spades while in small cell block with lots of smelly beardy people. Also, the food not the sort of good latin cuisine like Mojas Verde con Leche. No, the food was lots of corn and that sort of meat made from the pig toes call the bologna. Why I went to this plae, you wonder? Because I crash car into Danny Devito's pool. Maybe you heard about it on E! Entertainment Television. They mention it once. Why I crashing in there? I became determined to see if Danny Devito really is just an animatronic ostrich egg with little shoes glued on the bottom. I try to get Dan Rather to investigate, but he said something about he retired and going to France. Also, I try to get Peter Jennings, but he being the Canadian didn't understand my accent of how I speak. So I go to investigate myself. What I didn't know is that Danny EggVito have a swimming pool hiding behind the fence of his backyard, so if you drive through the fence too fast, you go in water. Oh, well. I learn too late. Now I have court date. I will tell you more about that when I stop crying.

Life on Mars?

This Reuters article states that scientists are now speculating about the possibility of life on the red planet, based on images transmitted back from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). Your intrepid reporter has managed to obtain some of the notes from the scientists, to give you a more detailed pook at the thinking behind these bold, new speculations:

May 3, 2004 - Image 7200.891 reveals a small cluster of brittle layers of what appear to be carbon-based molecules in a non-naturalistic rectangular shape. London lab speculates that Martians may have developed the Crunchie bar, 10 million years before Cadbury.

July 18, 2004 - Images 9876.001, 9876.002, and 9876.007 all contain the same pattern. After careful examination, the Memphis spectrometry labs confirm that the image is in fact that of Elvis, from the Christmas album. We agree to leak the information to the Weekly World News in August.

November 29, 2004 - Images 9876.543.210 and 9876.543.210A are some of the most astounding yet. The highly reflective orb present in these images is clearly a disco ball. Unfortunately, while this has given us our strongest hope of proving there was life on Mars, we have given up all hope of proving there was intelligent life on Mars.

Fando's Quotes

Strangely enough, I came across Stew's quote post just as I was finshing up another laborious round of gathering some not-so-famous quotes for my own collection: Earl Fando's Not Entirely Validated Collection of Quotes. The tome will include quotes attributed to the world's celebrities, cognescenti, and people you vaguely remember from old episodes of Hollywood Squares. The difference between these quotes and the ones in Barlett's is not only are they unfamiliar to the general public, but they may, in fact, have been made up and ascribed to these people to give them a certain authority, or as a cheap joke at their expense (this latter category makes up at least 99.9% of the quotes in the book and is explained in detail in the disclamer, pages 3 to 47.)

Anyway, for what it's worth, here is a sample. I'm still looking for a publisher of course, probably shall be until the day I shuffle off this mortal coil...

• "I have never met a squid I didn't like" - Earl Holliman, costar Police Woman, at an international rally for shellfish at Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco
• "Give me some skin, my soul brother!" - Jesse Helms, Funkedelic Concert, 1981
• "I eat punks like you for lunch, you miserable crapweasels!" - Princess Grace, just before a barfight, Monaco, 1974
• "Who the hell put this porcupine in my rumble seat?" - Plato, The Republic, Volume II - The Klumps
• "I gets ta, gets ta, gets ta goin' b-b-b-b-b-baby!" - Davy Crockett, U.S. House of Representatives, 1830, during a debate on peanut tariffs
• "All your base belong to us!" - Immanuel Kant - A Critique of Pure Reason, Chapter 7, The Epistemological Roots of Idealism or How I became Extremely Boring to the Opposite Sex
• "Syphillis, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Herpes" - Ovid, A Letter to My Sisters
• "Has anyone seen my mascara and push-up bra?" - Adolf Hitler, Nuremburg, 1936
• "Liberty it is like the air we breathe, like the very waters that give us sustenance, we crave it as the babe craves its mother's milk, like the bird craves the open winds!" - Lou Costello, "Who's on First", radio broadcast, 1954
• "I get so pumped up doing these leg squats!" - Barbara Streisand, Funny Girl, outtake
• "Mother, will you lay off the beans, the place smells like a pasture!" - Prince Charles, Opening of Parliament, 1985
• "Hey baby, wanna see what makes my nose turn red?" - Bill Clinton, My Life, pages 7, 27, 439, 562, 900, 7,645, 10,789, 12,586, 42,791, and 124,922

Bartlett's Quotes...the whole story

I was looking up a quote on the internet earlier today and wondered what the context was in which the quote was given. Certainly the person quoted had not simply said or wrote the related dictum by itself. This thought drove me to delve into a sampling of Bartlett's Quotes, The Expanded Edition for Inquisitive Blighters. The expanded quotes are bracketed for your protection.

George Washington – “Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire,—conscience. [Put me down for three-pence on Lucky Lucy in the third race.]”

Abraham Lincoln – “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. [Now, last one to Ford’s Theatre is a rotten egg.]”

Gen. George S. Patton - “Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well... I shoveled shit in Louisiana. [I want to thank our honored guests here today Mr. Johnson of American Motors and Mr. Bruce of Louisiana Shit-Shoveler’s Inc.]"

Theodore Roosevelt – “I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. [Where’s my rubber duckie? Find it Jeeves, you know how I love little Phineas Yellowbottom!!]”

Bill Clinton – “The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth. [Put me down for par.}”

Albert Einstein – “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute—and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity. [It’s also one of the worst dates I’ve ever been on]”

More to come as I get the time…

Celebrity Mugshots

Over at CBSNews.com, also known as the Kenneth Broadcasting Service, they've got a lovely assortment of celebrity mugshots here.

Before you look them over, allow me to offer a quick description of each shot, just to whet your appetite.

1. Leo DiCaprio if he were a stoner.
2. Martha Stewart, if she'd done really hard time.
3. Soon he'll get all Crispin Glover's old roles....kind of a young Unibomber look.
4. Every other FBI Most Wanted photo I've ever seen.
5. Make up your own Buckwheat joke here.
6. He looks like he accidentally sat on one of his rhinestone spurs.
7. The Rainbow Wig guy has really let himself go.
8. Nuryev, Valentino, Downey!
9. Tommy Lee. Not really much of a change at all.
10. Bobby Brady, what have you been up to?!?
11. OK, now turn to the right and knock off that chicken-walking crap!
12. Proof that the Roswell conspiracy people were absolutely right.
13. The Doug Henning disguise didn't work.
14. Right after his failed "West Side Story" audition.
15. Remembering his roommate is Cato...
16. Somewhere, Mr. Blackwell is having a coronary.
17. I'm just very glad we don't have the naked, bongo-playing photo here.
18. If only he photographed this well normally...
19. She's hacked that in the second photo they made her keep her hand down.

I wanted to be the cop, but Joschka Fischer beat me to it.

A side of Colin Powell I've never seen. Words fail me.

All right, you people know better than that. Words never fail me and haven't since I was a small child and had that notorius incident with the frozen flag pole. (Wait, that was Peter Billingsley's friend in A Christmas Story, which was directed by Bob Clark, who directed the insipid Porky's, which was not about Warner Brothers loveable stammering swine...anyway, back to Colin's freaky dance show.)

The most amazing thing about this is that he did it Jakarta, Indonesia, a place not exactly known for its warm receptiveness to tributes to gay, disco bands. I wonder if he was caned afterwards for it?

I did do a little research and discovered that there was a whole show, similarly themed, during the Asia Security meeting of 2004. Below is a program, obtained from the top secret vaults of the Sultan of Brunei's cigarsmith at great personal risk from second-hand smoke.

Juking in Jakarta - A Musical Revue

Act I

YMCAsia! A medely of hits! - with Colin Powell, Joschka Fischer, and Dominique de Villepin as the Village People

Act II

From Crooner to Catwoman - with Vladmir Putin as Eartha Kitt

Act III

Saturday Night Falafel - with the Saudi Royal Family as the Bee Gees (+764)

Act IV

Get Your Funky Groove Thing On - With Bill Clinton as George Clinton and Madeleine Albright as Bootsy Collins

Act V

Denpasar Rock City - with the Indonesian Cabinet as KISS and their groupies

Dude, where's my scarf!!!!

News came yesterday of the new Edun clothing line that Bono and his wife Ali Hewson will be foisting on the world in the “name of love” at $168 for a pair of jeans. Now, I am far from being the fashion diva of say a Tom Arnold; but $168 FOR A PAIR OF JEANS!?!?! Why, I can go to Sears and get 7 or 8 pairs for that price and still have enough left for an Orange Julius. For those of us that don’t travel in the rarified air of the jet set I have found an alternative to the pricey garb of Paul and his “Sweetest Thing”. Here is a little article I found in the Hoboken Register and Thrifty Nickel today.

Kid Rock to Create Fashion Line

“Yo, buy my stuff, or I might have to crack a few heads,” says young rocker Kid Rock with a wry smile on his face. Mr. Rock and fashion designer Rogaine are hitting the fickle fashion world today with a new line of modestly priced clothing. Coming right on the heels of the announcement yesterday of U2 front-man Bono’s new clothes line Rock stated, “Hey, if a middle-aged fogy like Bono can do it, why not me, and I ain’t gonna charge $100 for a pair of jeans.”

The new clothing line will consist of t-shirts, jeans, and an assortment of colorful bandanas. “Our line is also made of organic sh!*”, said Rock. “We are growing some real fine crops of hemp near our overseas facilities. And nobody better stick their nose where it don’t belong because that’s what it’s for, the clothes, nuthin’ else.” The clothing line will be called Knaks, which is skank spelled backwards. “We thought it should have a refined name, something that will endear women to it,” said Rogaine, who has been designing fashions for such celebrities as Courtney Love and Britney Spears for years.

When asked about the potential of sweatshops being used to make the clothing Rock was adamant that there was no cause for concern. “What’s wrong with sweat, I sweat on stage all the time. Listen, we pay these people good money and all the Chivas they can drink”. The line will have dirty limericks sewn into the pockets and will retail for $10 for a pair of jeans and $5 for the t-shirts. Many critics have cited that the clothes are shabby and can fall apart by coming loose at the seams. “Sure they come apart, that’s what clothes are like these days, kids like that kind of stuff.” In regard to the faint smell of diesel, Rock refused to continue the interview and said to contact his publicist. The clothes go on sale Monday at Fred Meyer and Dollar General stores throughout the country.

Zimpter is watching...

I understand that Zimpter Fiforg is watching tonight. Zimpter, please join us when you can. Until then, I'm holding your Charlie Chaplin memoribilia cane hostage. It's near the fireplace. I've been stoking the flames with. Either it's burned down, or Chaplin was an even shorter bloke than I'd heard...shorter than Roger Daltrey even.

I realize none of this makes any sense to the rest of you. Surf through the archives. We'll get back up to speed tomorrow.

I am 40...Wake me when it's over.

Not much to post about today as I'm still in the throes of birthday celebrations. If you see someone riding around in a hearse with balloons, that would be me.

Still kicking though...not far but kicking.

All is Darkness and Despair!!!

...Not really, it's just that I'm turning 40 tomorrow and that's the kind of birthday card I'm expecting to get. You know the type of person who sends these things, the black balloons, the electronic greeting cards that play a tinny rendition of Chopin's Funeral March, the skull and crossbones, the parrots, the peg legs and rotgut... sorry, my mind wandered off to pirates there for some reason.

Anyway, I intend to beat them at their game. I plan to live to be 157 years old!!! (No idea why I picked that number, it just seemed sufficiently decrepit...I fully realize that, with the amount of bacon, salt, and salted bacon that I consume, anything beyond 50 is a revival-inducing miracle...but I digress.)

Actually, I intend to beat them at their game by getting into the morbid birthday card business. If you can't beat them, join them, right? (All right, I know that I just said that I was going to beat them, but I'm nearly 40! My mind is going! How much consistency can you expect?)

Let me run a few of my card ideas past you:

1. Cover: (A picture of an hourglass with the last few grains of sand dropping down) So You're Turning 80?
Inside: (Picture of the grim reaper holding the hourglass and chopping off the head of a faceless cartoon person with his scythe ) Time's Up! You're as good as dead mate!

2. Cover: (A picture of a big bowl of Gazpacho soup) You'd like a bit of extra spice in that at age 70?
Inside: (Picture of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld pointing directly at the reader) No life for you!!!

All right, they're horrible, even pathetic, I know, but I'm bitter. At 40, I expected to have already published a book, or directed my first feature film, or recorded an album of clever, yet unpretentious alternative rock ditties, to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony all in 5 years (no wait, that was Phillp Michael Thomas's E.G.O.T. plan).

Instead I'm administrating a comedy blog that can't even get all its authors to turn up, even once in some cases. As a running gag it's weak, but as reality it depresses me. It really, really, really, really depresses me.

Still, I got They Might Be Giants "Mink Car" as a birthday gift, so it's not a total loss.

(This totally unsolicited impression of a self-indulgent, middle-aged blogger is brought to you by the Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas. We make you feel better by comparison, you lousy twenty-something, healthy, easy-going, miserable, punks.)