Archive for January 4th, 2010

Garfield Hates Mondays.

4th January
2010
written by jed

And I hate Garfield, which would imply that I like Mondays (the enemy of my enemy is my friend, etc.). And yet… despite my lack of an office to go to, I hate Mondays, too. They mark the end of my weekend (aka the days where I see my wife for more than a few hours), plus they seem to piss off most of the general public — and that’s who I ride public transportation with.

Teresa had a heavy bag to take in with her this morning, so I chaperoned (and dromedaried)*. That meant that at just before 8:45 a.m., I was simultaneously saying goodbye to Teresa and starting to get the I-need-coffee shakes (mmm… coffee shakes…). I hopped on the bus to go back the way I came (fun fact: if you take a bus to, say, drop something off and then get on the same line [in either direction] within the next 20 minutes, your “unlimited” card won’t work. They’re war criminals, I tell you.).

Anyhoodles, I decided to stay on the warm bus instead of getting off at the 79th Street B/C stop (the angry homeless man yelling at passers-by helped me make that decision) and took the 1 to 14th Street for an extra-large Dunkin Donuts coffee (black). I made it to the train and managed to read my paper and sip my coffee without getting in anyone’s way or spilling a single drop… until Bergen Street. Enter Angry Old Asian Lady. She chose the seat next to me (one of at least 7 open seats) and literally pushed me as she sat down (there was enough room that she didn’t have to). Coffee spilled on my arm, jacket pocket and pants. She smiled and mumbled something in Asian.

“Thank you,” I said sarcastically as I wiped the spill up with Kleenex (fun fact: they shred as you rub them against your puffy coat!). She just stared forward, still smirking, still mumbling.

What do you do in this situation? I’m not going to yell at her (what’s the point?) or spill coffee on her (that’s assault, brah), so what options remained? Thankfully, last night’s quiche dinner answered my question for me at Smith and 9th Street.

It left me without a sound and even I had no idea how potent it would be. But potent it was. In fact, it was so foul that I had to get up and stand by the door for the last two stops. I watched the expression on her face in the door’s reflection and felt vindicated.

Sadly, I may have to throw out these jeans.

*I either want to invent a delicious beverage made from camel’s milk and open a “dromedairy” or I want to sell a reality show about the highs and lows of working in a milk-bottling plant called Drama Dairy. Where my investors at?

Here’s what the front page tells me today: The Jets made the playoffs (yawn), the “facts” in the NBA gun scandal that the Post has “exclusively” been reporting for the last few days are not “facts” in the literal sense, and there’s a 2010 Tiger Woods’ babes calendar inside (I bet Mandrea is fuming, but I guess it beats making them all sex advice columnists).

Here are the “new and improved facts” in the NBA story:

* It was a $60,000 debt that Gilbert Arenas owed.

* Javaris Crittenton paid the $60,000 to a third player (JaVale McGee) on Arenas’ behalf, with the understanding that Arenas would pay him back.

* Arenas laid out three guns on a chair along with a handwritten note that read “Pick one.”

* Crittenton picked up “at least” one of the guns and threw it across the room.

* Stupid people continue to enjoy sharing their stupidity via Twitter. Here are Arenas’ latest two tweets regarding the scandal: 1) “why would i owe sumbody money and pull a pistol out sounds a little backwards rt… yea rt.” 2) “if i wasnt playin ball ill might be workin at Mc donalds… becuz i like there frys.”

Good to see he’s sticking with the Chewbacca defense (and illiteracy).

According to SEXY G-SPOT A MYTH, a group of scientists (what’s their collective noun? A hypothesis of scientists? A theory? A laboratory? A depressing ponytail?) at King’s College London studied 1,804 female twins and have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a “G-spot.” Their proof is that over half of the women claimed to have a G-spot, but when one twin would say she had one, her identical twin wouldn’t be any more likely to have one. Which is fairly conclusive, no?

Co-author of the study, Tim Spector, said, “This is by far the biggest study ever carried out, and it shows fairly conclusively that the idea of a G-spot is subjective.” It’s all in your heads, ladies. The G-spot is an anatomical placebo created by Ernst Gräfenberg to mess with you.

Pity the girlfriends and wives of these scientists.

Frank Catalano, 57, of Huntington, Long Island, is suing Zicam. He says that using it (in January of 2009) robbed him of his senses of smell and taste. He has since lost over 60 pounds.

Increasing his odds for a win: Zicam was pulled from shelves in June 2009, after a study found links between Zicam and anosmia (loss of smell).

In a related story, if you have any bottles of Zicam in your cupboard, send them on over. My current diet is taking far too long for my taste.

(sorry)

More story-changing factoids!

The crazy man who attacked (and tried to kill) the Danish cartoonist (who drew Mohammed) is alive and standing trial. Cops shot him in the hand and knee (super-painful, not fatal). The assailant didn’t trip an alarm; the cartoonist activated “an alarm button” in his home and then dashed into a fortified bathroom (panic room with toilet = brilliant).

But what of his 5-year-old granddaughter? He left her behind.

“I feared for my grandchild. But she did great. I knew he wouldn’t do anything to her.”

“Even as he swung an axe at me and screamed for my death, I knew he wouldn’t do anything bad to a 5-year-old… He just had one of those faces.”

I might not fly for a while. I wouldn’t be able to handle what happened at Newark Airport yesterday very well.

At around 5:30 p.m., a man “who had not been screened entered an area for screened passengers through an exit.” Everyone in the area (the Continental terminal) was forced to leave and go through security again. “At least 20 flights were affected. The first flight after passengers were rescreened left at 11:27 p.m.”

But this is the thing that kills me: “The man had not been found by late last night, but by 10 p.m., the TSA said agents had swept the area and everything was secure.”

“Attention, everyone! Sorry for delaying you and forcing you to take off your shoes for a second time and waiting in twice as many lines and all that. I know it’s a hassle, but we had to do it for your safety. When we saw a man enter an exit and somehow make his way into a secure area without any clearance, we knew we had to act fast. So we had agents sweep the area. And now everything’s secure.”

“So you found the guy?”

“Nope.”

“Wait. Nope? You put this terminal in lockdown for hours, looked through your surveillance tapes, spoke to eyewitnesses and despite misplacing the target of your investigation, you’ve concluded that everything is secure?”

“A-yup.”

“Are you excited for Conveyor Belt of Love?”

“A-yup.”

Charles “Shouldbe” Hurt is like the quintessential armchair quarterback, except his chair smells of bum piss, he can’t really see his television (which has the sound off and is showing cartoons) and he keeps reprimanding LeBron James and Derek Jeter for not blitzing enough.

“First it was delusion. Now it is denial. Let’s just hope the Obama administration works through this vexing 12-step program they’re in before al Qaeda decides to launch another attack.”

Oh, you’re concerned about al Qaeda attacks? Did you know that in August of 2001, then-POTUS George W. Bush was told that al Qaeda was planning on using jetliners as bombs? Did you know that on August 6, 2001, the CIA sent Bush a daily intelligence briefing which claimed they had “detected patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings,” and that no one in the Bush administration thought it was important enough to follow up on? Did you know what that briefing was titled? “Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.”

But please, Churlie, continue.

“‘There is no smoking gun,’ [John] Brennan whined on Fox News Sunday. There was no single piece of intelligence that said, ‘This guy is going to get on a plane.” Really? Osama bin Laden didn’t send us a postcard before 9/11 with a picture of a smoking gun and four planes turned into missiles filled with precious Americans.”

See above, Churlie.

“Of course there was ‘no single piece of intelligence’ that spelled it out. You have to put the pieces together, genius. Anyway, we’re not talking about a 5,000-piece puzzle here. This was more like one of those children’s puzzles with four giant pieces that have to be laid out on the floor, and each piece gives you a pretty good idea of what you’re looking at.”

See above, Churlie. Then go back to sexually (and racially) harassing your underlings.

Avatar grossed $68,300,000 this weekend, giving it a total of $1,018,811,000 in worldwide box office. Only four other movies have ever hit the 10-digit mark: The Dark Knight ($1,001,921,825), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($1,066,179,725), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1,119,110,941) and Titanic ($1,842,879,955).

The Post has Sherlock Holmes in second place with $34,400,000 and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel in third with $36,600,000. Wait… what? Boxofficemojo.com says Sherlock did finish second — but with $38,385,000 — and Alvin was indeed third with $36,600,000.

What a country.

When her friends asked her what her husband got her for Christmas, Elin Nordegren said, “Three-hundred million dollars, thank you very much.” And then they all laughed.

I hope Tiger reads that (and the tasteful calendar!) and is able to overcome the severe depression you used to blather on about, horrible newspaper.

“Andrea Peyser… is on vacation.”

Yay!

The main concourse of Grand Central Terminal at rush hour? 73 decibels (dB).

Union Square (across from Whole Foods)? 74 dB.

Times Square (near the military recruitment station)? 76 dB.

Herald Square? 78 dB.

West Side Highway? 83 dB.

The corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue? 87 dB.

The noisiest public place in all of NYC? The F, V. B, D platform underneath Bryant Park (93 dB), which I frequent.

What else can the MTA steal from me besides my hearing and bus routes and money?

Election Systems & Software looks like it will win the multimillion-dollar contract to replace all of the city’s lever-operated voting machines. One of the lobbyists they hired to give them the edge in this lucrative endeavor is Anthony Mangone.

You may remember Anthony from the trial he testified at in 2002 (against Dennis Wedra Sr., accused of masterminding a ballot-fixing scheme for then-state Senator Nicholas Spano [R-Westchester]). Mangone said that he (personally) altered 30 Green Party ballots to help Spano win third-party primaries (under Wedra’s guidance). Wedra was acquitted, Mangone was never charged.

Thank God we’re finally getting rid of those pesky paper trails!

Chris Cornell and his wife (Vicky) had a lovely wedding in 2004 and made a lovely wedding video to commemorate the occasion. It was stolen. Then it would up on Craigslist billed as “lost footage of Brittany Murphy” (she was a bridesmaid).

He’s demanding that Criagslist tell him the identity of the seller so that he can press many, many charges.

Kevin Connolly (Entourage) and Chloë Sevigny (Big Love)… an item?

Their kids will have absolutely no acting ability whatsoever!

Fun fact: Paris Hilton and her boyfriend (Doug something) share their bed with Paris’ pet pig (Princess Piglette).

Who will be the first to catch a disease from who?

Cindy Adams came back (alive-ish) from Chile. She went there with her two closest friends: Judge Judy and her husband, Judge Jerry. So (*sigh*), how was the trip, Cindy?

“Here, you can camp, range, sail, trek with guides, horseback ride with gauchos — that is you can. I didn’t. I can barely walk Madison Avenue. The Explora Lounge features full-day in-depth excursions. Judge Judy and I played gin.”

Get. In. The box.

(and welcome back!)

(but, seriously, stop fighting it)

A guy stabbed a 10-year-old to death while playing video games with him a couple of days ago.

Less than two weeks earlier — on Christmas Eve, no less — Alejandro Morales (a schizophrenic prone to uncontrollable fits of violent rage, despite medication and therapy) was at a movie theater in Times Square with his mother seeing Sherlock Holmes. During the movie, he started to pace in the theater, repeatedly muttering “I feel like killing someone.”

His mother took him to a treatment facility, but Morales was released (they didn’t have enough beds).

“Well, I guess that’s that. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Morales. Oh… just one more thing, ma’am… you say you were seeing Sherlock Holmes? On Christmas Eve, right? December 24th? Huh. Because, and correct me if I’m wrong, but that movie opened on Christmas Day, no? December 25th?”

“Curse you, Lt. Columbo. I almost got away with it!”

Edwina, the oldest duck in England, is dead at the age of 22.

Godspeed, duck.

Texas and Kraft are trying to out-durdle each other.

Kraft has a new Cheddar Explosion ad campaign (guess the Smiles campaign didn’t work, huh?) and Irving, Texas (the only Irving in Texas, I’d wager) has the Dallas Cowboys’ old stadium.

Therefore, Kraft is co-sponsoring the essay contest that will decide who gets to push the button that sets off the explosives that will blow up Texas Stadium.

“Good news, Texans! One of you will get to blow up a big building! Bad news, Texans! To qualify, you have to write an essay!”

It’s like rain on your wedding day or 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife (and are too dim to use a spoon as a knife).

Today’s full-page complaintvertisement (patent pending) is from Jim Samples (President, HGTV) and Brooke Johnson (President, Food Network) (if they got married and she hyphenated her last name, she’d be Brooke Samples-Johnson! Or Brooke Johnson-Samples! Win-win!).

You know, if these channels stopped taking out gigantic ads about how they can’t afford Cablevision’s demands, they’d probably be able to afford Cablevision’s demands.

Vomit Johnson-Samples (sorry, Ralph Peters) begins Terrorism’s Triumphant Techniques with “Our terrorist enemies are out-thinking us. It’s not only embarrassing, but deadly.”

He continues his love letter to the crafty wit of cave-dwelling terrorists (he calls suicide bombers “the poor man’s precision arsenal” and that “we still can’t beat” Improvised Explosive Devices), leading up to, “I want to see every one of those enemies dead. But I have to acknowledge their commitment, their maddened courage and their genius at waging war for peanuts.”

Didn’t Bill Maher get fired for merely saying that the 9/11 hijackers weren’t cowards? And Ralph Peters gets to call our terrorist enemies “committed and courageous geniuses” and keep his job?

“They ask themselves, ‘What works?’ We ask ourselves what the lawyers will say. The crucial difference? Our enemies believe in victory, even if we don’t.”

Here’s why I think Ralphie-boy is giving these testicle-immolating nimrods way too much credit: Hollywood. Filmmakers (not the brightest stars in the sky, mind you) make great films on shoestring budgets when they’re forced to come up with ways to do the most with what little they have.

One of the things people love about Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the use of someone clapping coconut halves together to create the sound of a horse, rather than an actual horse. And they credit the troupe (and the directing Terries) for such a brilliant idea. Except it wasn’t an idea that they chose, it was there by necessity. They couldn’t afford horses and, at the last minute, they had to come up with a Plan B. If their budget was bigger, everyone would have been on a horse. No coconuts.

al Qaeda is to be feared. All terrorists should be hunted down and killed. Sure. But to say that suicide bombers and IEDs are these brilliant strategies that we should revere is laughable. If you give a terrorist one grenade and tell him to inflict the most damage/fear, he’ll walk into a marketplace and blow himself up (you know, for Allah!). Or he’ll set it up so that a passing truckload of American soldiers will trigger it. This doesn’t make him a brainiac, it means he can do simple math in his head. Bravo.

Likewise, whatever budget you give our military, they’ll figure out a way to fight a war with that amount (and then they’ll complain that they need a few trillion more).

So please, sweet Ralph, stop man-crushing on our enemies. It’s unbecoming.

Jason Bay just passed his physical.

Welcome (back) to the Mets, Jason.

Fun fact: According to the sports section, there is a human being with the name D’Brickashaw Ferguson.

‘Real’ stupid is an in-depth look at tonight’s impending car wreck, Conveyor Belt of Love.

Hey, executive producer Tom Shelly! Explain this complicated show to me!

“They’re on a conveyor belt, and it’s bringing out guys like those sushi bars that roll along, where you’ve got to pick up the sushi yourself.”

Wait… the women have to physically remove the men from the conveyor belt? Is that supposed to be a fun way to put speed dating on TV?

“It’s supposed to be a fun way to put speed dating on TV, with an interesting twist.”

That twist, I’m assuming, is the presence of a conveyor belt.

Tom assures viewers that they’ll “be surprised by who ends up getting picked at the end and who doesn’t.”

I’d be surprised if anybody’s surprised by anything remotely connected to this terrible idea… but then I said the same thing about Point at More Briefcases or Stop Pointing at Briefcases.

G’night, kids!

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