Moronic Sports Comment #3,789,427,965

Mexico coach Ricardo Lavolpe, after his team lost to the U.S. National team 2-0 in World Cup Soccer qualifying (the U.S. offcially qualified for Germany with the win by the way...Woohoo!!!!):

"The U.S. is a small team,'' he said. "They play like my sister, my aunt and my grandmother.''

In a related story, Ricardo Lavolpe's sister, aunt, and grandmother beat the Mexican National team 2-0, in a match played right after the U.S. match. Lavolpe was summarily fired and pelted with taquitos pollos as he left the stadium.

So, I suppose he was right in a way. (Hails of derisive laughter - ala the Python Bruces)

A New Way to Make Money in the Housing Market!

Whilst checking my e-mail yesterday, I came across this gem of a message:

"Dear HomeOwner,
After completing the review we are pleased to offer
you the following,
Your current mortgage qualifies you for more than a 3%
lower rate!
----------------------------
----------------------------
!! U.S MORTGAGE RATES HAVE NEVER BEEN LOWER! !!
----------------------------
----------------------------"

Wow! This is exciting news, because I was also listening to the radio recently and heard an ad promising only a 1% mortgage loan rate. I immediately send the following message back to the e-mail lender:

"Dear E-mail Mortgage Spammer,

I am THRILLED to have recieved your message!!!!!!! I recently arranged for a 1% mortgage and now find out that I can get a mortgage from you that is 3% lower!!!!!!! This means that my mortgage from you would be -2%!!!!!!!!!!!!(ad infinitum on the exclamation points) I can actually make money on the deal!!!

Can I immediately take out a loan of $1,000,000,000. At these rates, within 30 years I will be worth the gross domestic product of the European Union (not counting Ireland, who's economy is growing like the shamrocks in my back yard!!!!)

I can't wait to get my negative 2% mortgage started and buy a house the size of Greenland. Thanks for making it happen, you wonderful, gullible, math-challenged loonies!!!!!!!!

Sincerely,

Earl Fando
Humorist soon to be worth billions"

It just &%^$# frees you to be more &*^%$! honest

Hollywood is rejoicing at the success of "R-rated" comedies. No more must comedic actors in Hollywood rely on cheap innuendo and suggestive humour. Now they can drop F-bombs in scripts with the regularity of articles (not a "willy" joke), nouns, and periods (Not a reference to menustration).

"It just frees you to be more honest," said Judd Apatow, director of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (Subtitle: "Porky's Midlife Crisis").

Yes, now instead of implying sex or bawdyness as repressed amateurs like the Marx Brothers and Jack Benny did, Hollywood's finest can openly refer to the male anatomy without resorting to words like "Johnson", "dong", "bratwurst", "Satchmo", "pickle", or "Farfenugen". They can openly speak and joke (although I use the word loosely) about the act of coitus without have to use code words like "the nasty", "shag", "rutting", "gettin' funky", and "Yahtzee!"

"These are films that capitalize on the notion of being able to push (Not a reference to childbirth) the envelope," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor (Not a reference to Exhibitionism) Relations.

Yes, how grateful we are that we can now push the envelope into the nether regions of our society, and joke about things like getting ones gonads trapped in the merciless teeth of a pants zipper (There's Something About Mary), or someone having "relations" with a hot dessert (American Pie).

Just what the hell was a filmmaker like Orson Welles doing making pretentious crap like Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil when he could be riveting Americans to the silver screen with playful mise-en-scene depictions of pastry love backed by a popular soundtrack of current hits and classic oldies? Why was Hitchcock wasting his time with explorations of the human psyche's capacity for fear and voyerism by having Janet Leigh slaughtered in a motel shower, when he could have easily turned it into a hilarious classic by instead having her stroll out into the courtyard, slip on a banana peel, lose her towel, and expose her jollies to a passing high-school football team armed to the teeth with Kodaks. Think of the montage!

Thank the stars we have the R-rated comedy of today to show us the way. If only Buster Keaton had such freedom! If he had, instead of a history obsessed war thingy like the General we might have had Porky's III: The Railroad! Maybe even Old School with dangerous stunts! Chaplin's The Gold Rush? How about The Gold Tush!

Hurricane Katrina...

We try to stay focused on being as ridiculous as possible here, but occasionally there are events in the world that make that impossible.

The devastation wrought in the United States, in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama is catastrophic and terrible to see. New Orleans, the favorite southern U.S. town of many a person, has been reduced to a flooded nightmare. Gangs of roving looters, some armed, are roaming the city (the selfish, stupid bastards), while others in New Orleans and elsewhere are trying to find the basics to survive: food, water, shelter.

The National Guard and the feds are moving in as fast as they can but for some it'll never be soon enough. The rest of us, as is so often with disasters like this, feel powerless to do anything.

We're not though. In addition to prayer, which is always of use, the following links are places where you can donate money to good organizations that are working to provide relief to the victims of Katrina:

• The Salvation Army
• The Red Cross
• Operation Blessing
• United Way Katrina Response Fund

We'll be back tomorrow with more silliness...because we can always use a laugh, especially during weeks like these.

No word from the FONZ...

...or "Friends of the National Zoo" yet. They must be busy trying to count up all the votes between "China Washington magnificent" (Hua Sheng) and "Washington China magnificent" (Sheng Hua).

In the meantime, to occupy the hours whiled away while waiting for some zoologists' dry appeal to my sense of reason and propriety (stops to snort Fat Tire Ale through his nostrils in laughter), here are the top 10 Star Wars names that would also make good names for the new baby panda. Translations are included of course.

The top 10 Star Wars Names that Would Also Make Good Names for The New Baby Panda (who would otherwise be named in the manner of a sailboat). (Translations from the Star Wars-ese included)

by George Lucas (as told to Earl Fando and millions of other movie goers)

10. Qui-Gon Jinn (Moo Goo Gai Pan, magnificent)

9. Han Solo (Indiana Jones, Box-Office, magnificent)

8. Yoda (China, Washington, magnificent... Hey, what a coincidence!)

7. Darth Sidious (Obvious, Palpatine, magnificent)

6. Chaka (Editor's note: Apologies, as this is actually from TV's Land of the Lost, albeit it is rumoured to have been Lucas' first choice for the name of Chewbacca, followed by "Mork" and "Alf".)

5. Boba Fett (Round, monochromatic, magnificent)

4. Jabba the Hut (Pizza Hut, magnificent...Who knew there was a commercial tie-in there?)

3. C3PO (fussy, effeminate, magnificent)

2. Greedo (Copycat, Zoo Contest, Big Bucks, magnificent)

1. Jar Jar Binks (embarassing, disgraceful, magnificent)

The Wilder Columbian Expo!

I learnt something about myself the other day. I learnt that I am "an educated person who values culture and heritage." I had no idea, only a few suspicions, such as my fondness for li hing mui, carne asada, chocolate ganache, and Beef Wellington, and also the fact that I know what a "peerage" is. Also, I occasionally wear a tie.

I received this encouraging news in an e-mail from www.ColumbianExpo.com extolling the values of their new DVD about the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The title of this magnum opus of expos? EXPO - Magic of the White City, Narrated by Gene Wilder.

At first I thought this was some wacky nineteenth-century tribute to cocaine production, until I realized that the Columbia of the exposition was in fact a reference to that other name of America, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. Relieved to hear that it wasn't some coked-up producer's excuse to score some massive blow, I checked into this intriguing feature.

Some excerpts from the script follow:

**********

Narrator: ...here in the back corner of the exposition, stood some of the oldest and most precious painted clay sculptures of the ancient Indian races that roamed this land. Proud, dramatic, and colorful, they shone in the morning light as it crept through the high, arched exposition windows. Three stood out to me. They were of a warrior in three separate poses. In the first one, he was pierced through the shoulder with an arrow. In the second one, he was standing in a puddle, shielding his eyes against the rain. The last one found him dancing a war dance with a mad, passionate fever. As I gazed at them, they spoke to me. They cried, "I'm in pain, and wet, and hysterical!!"

**********

Narrator: ...and there it stood, an ferris wheel of staggering size and complexity. In France, where it was built, it would have stood in the shadow of the Eiffle Tower, but it was brought here to honor the ingenuity and ambition of the American people. As I moved closer, I saw words enscribed into the base of the great wheel. My guide, Dr. Quackenpiffle, who happened to speak French, saw me staring curiously at the Gallic script. "Do you want to know what it means?" he asked. I nooded, slowly but firmly. He moved beside me and whispered sagely into my ear, "There is no place I know to compare with pure imagination..."

**********

Narrator: The large camels lurched forward with its wary passengers, I, clutching my straw hat, and Dr. Bernhard, both of us holding on for dear life on its humped back. We moseyed down the Midway, as passerby - men in gaudy suits, women in rumpled and bustled frocks - stared at us as though we were creatures from the planet Mars. Schoolchildren marveled at our progress, taking great care to stay out of reach of the desert beast's famous spitting. We rode like Arabian kings from one end of the White City to the other. I even chanced to knock Henry Ford's own top hat from his head as we passed.

At the end of the ride, as we clambered off the back of the dromedary, I asked the handler, Moustapha, what the name of the noble creature was. "Theez one...his name is from a story. He eez called Frank-en-stein."

We were shocked as the camel suddenly turned and remarkably spoke in clear, perfect English, "That's Franken-steen!"

**********

Yes, this is truly a magical effort. I should know of course, because I am "an educated person who values culture and heritage." It says so, right on the blooming mail, don't it?

DOUI versus the FONZ!

For those of you wondering about the lack of activity on the site this weekend, please allow me to assure you that we have not gone soft. Rather, I myself was busy composing a scathing response to the Friends of the National Zoo (lest you thought the title of this post was an obscure Happy Days reference), after hearing Stew's news that they have decided to run their own little panda-naming contest, and completely ignore Stew's (and our loyal readers') labours of August 2 through the 4th, in which he found the perfect name(s) for the little zebra bear currently residing in the District of Columbia.

So, having set all this up, below you will find the fruit of my efforts, the letter dispatched today via e-mail, to the Zoo folk. I will, of course, keep you all up to date on any future correspondence (and with any luck, publicity.)

**********

Dear Friends of the National Zoo and Henry Winkler,

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment in discovering that you have resorted to crass, commercial exploitation of the newest little panda to join the big happy, if partly carnivorous, family of your zoo. Also, to complain, because we, or rather specifically my colleague, Stew Miller, promoted the idea first. (See http://unfortunateideas.blogspot.com/2005/08/its-boy-thats-umbilical-cord-mr.html for details.)

Given that *unfortunate* (note the clever website tie-in) fact, it would seem that some sharing of the credit for the idea (web site!) of a contest for the naming of this bamboo-snarfing little penguin-bear is in order. Therefore, I suggest one of the following compromises, and strongly encourage you to modify your contest to reflect one of these, lest this dynamite story reach the ravenous hyenas of the major mainstream media, and the ensuing humilation of knowing that you were beaten to an idea by freelance comedy writers hits the zoological circuit. (We all know the barbs and taunts that will follow from the Jack Hannas and Steve Irwins of the world.):

Immediately add one or both of our contest winners' selected names to the list of possibilities. The additions would then be:

• "Bon Bon - Mmmmmm creamy panda filling." by Elizabeth K.

and

• "Harold Abramovitz - enough with the "ing-ing" crap already!!!!" by Dortmund H.

OR

Add the name of my colleague, Stew Miller, to each of the existing names in your contest, in honor of his ingenuity in beating you sloths to the idea. So, the resulting names would be:

• Hua Stew Sheng (hwah-SHUNG), means China Washington, Stew, magnificent
• Sheng Stew Hua (SHUNG-hwah), means Washington China, Stew, magnificent
• Tai Stew Shan (tie-SHON), means peaceful mountain of Stew
• Long Stew Shan (lone-SHON), means dragon mountain of Stew
• Stew Qiang Qiang (chee-ONG chee-ONG), means Stew is strong, powerful

If any of these altered names proves unsatisfactory to you or the Chinese Commies, allow me to suggest one final possibility: "Panda Stew"

I eagerly await your response! (Thus the exclamation point)

Quixotically,

Earl Fando

Co-Editor, Contributor, The Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas (http://unfortunateideas.blogspot.com)