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THE RUNNING JOKE: January - March, 2003
03.19.03
Okay, kids. It's March and it's time for another round of March Murder! The tournament begins tomorrow afternoon, so we haven't the time for "jibber-jabber". Jab lightly and walk quickly. Right?
What March Murder entails is this: Captain F. fills out his bracket and tracks it meticulously against the brackets as they would be filled out according to the NCAA Committee, RPI ratings, and Associated Press polls. The idea is that Captain F. will one day demonstrate his college basketball picking prowess against the powers that be.
Results from previous years:
2001
2002
This year ought to be very different, as I have taken the trouble of fixing a few key games with the enormous bankroll I earned last January in Vegas. Eat that, NCAA Tournament Selection Committee!
View the 2003 picks here:
03.16.03
03.04.03
MOLTO IMPORTANTE!!!!
Your Cocksocketonian duty is upon you
There is a song called "Sunlight Going Down", featured on StoneRoad's portion of mp3.com. Download the song here. You may be required to register. Do it.
While this song is high quality entertainment, it is also part of something larger, something mysterious that I cannot get into right now.
NO TIME FOR JIBBER-JABBER
Click, register, download, listen
Thank you,
02.24.03
So, as I believe I mentioned to the J-Taggers among you, I went to see Old School this past weekend. Now you must do this: go see it immediately!
I tell you it as a horrible crime, a catastrophic reflection on our nation that a film as certainly idiotic and devoid of real entertainment value as Daredevil is sitting pretty at the top of the box office charts, while a movie as flat-out funny as Old School must sit idly by, waiting for its turn at the top.
Note: according to IMDB, Old School has a rating of 7.1, almost 15% higher than Daredevil's paltry 6.3. Convinced yet?
02.19.03
Why is it that car commercials always have a disclaimer? "Professional driver; closed course". Now I have always assumed that the purpose of a commercial was to persuade me to purchase an item (a service perhaps) and that the basic idea of the commercial was either 1) to reassure me that what I wanted to do was actually appropriate for me to do or else 2) to demonstrate to me that my resistance to purchase was unfounded, and more, unnatural.
These "professional driver; closed course" advertisements, however, must be operating according to some other principle. On the whole, they are a veritable flurry of disastrous messages, which is why the actions taken within the confines of these commercials are carried out by a professional driver.
Consider for a moment what would actually happen if you were driving 35 MPH in reverse against interstate traffic and then cut a Rockford Files 180 as you jerked the wheel violently to the left. Do you think that you would end up headlights on, hood ornament posing for the camera, revving your engine as a devilish grin developed upon your dark visage? Hell no! You would wind up rolling the car, landing upside-down, crawling limply and embarrassingly from the passenger side window, coughing up a lung, with a terrible bruise on your eye. "Oh shit!", you would say, "I wish I could have fought off the irrepressible urge to drive like a maniac"
If you were in a world of shampoo advertising, you might say something similar, but with a different result: "Oh shit!" you would say, "I wish I could fight off this irresistible desire to maintain my dirty ass, crusty ass hair all week long". At this point, a traditional commercial might step in and help you overcome your dark craving. The commercial might show you a pretty girl, or a clean pasture, or a soap bubble. You might see clean-haired children dancing playfully in a circle. You might even see a beautiful lawyer making a closing statement while being hoisted on to the shoulders of 3 beefy men in black t-shirts. Whatever the stimulus, your resistance to purchase would be proven unworthy of merit.
Alternatively, in the world of beer advertisements, you may find a more encouraging statement: "Oh shit!" you may say, "I would just love to blow off the laundry (or work, or possibly church), and get a whole gullet full of light American pilsner". Next, you might grow conflicted: "but I am just not sure that the laundry (or the boss, or god) can be put on hold while I give license to my banal, adolescent whims. At this point, the beer advertisement becomes your friend, your ally. Yes, at this moment you will see hard working ranch-hands grabbing a nice cold Busch; you will see twins dancing ever so closely, all four breasts touching, exhorting you to acquiesce to your natural thirst; you will see fun-loving twentysomethings retelling the stories of their lives in a dark, but lively, bar. "What you want is not wrong" says the commercial. You just want a beer.
02.14.03
Happy Valentines Day, y'all.
I was listening to NPR yesterday, and I heard a piece about a little bit of kissing research that had been recently completed. You can listen to the report here, and I encourage you to do so before reading further so that you may form your own opinions, attitudes, and whatnot.
In short:
On the surface, mildly interesting, no? Further evidence of a natural human favoritism of the right, and a good listen on the ride home. But what I didn't know going in was that our Professor Gunturkun was not quite right in the head, even by the lax standards that we must apply to professors.
First, the original objective of the study was to determine whether humans have a natural prediliction for the right. So why watch people kissing each other? If you are perveted, or sexually frustrated, or both then maybe. But wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to observe, for example, people engaging in handshakes or hugs?
Second, after he adopted the "kissing research methodology", Prof G. was forced to consider the setting for his study. Because local high-school "orgy parties" may be locally biased, he instead chose to study kissing at airports. International airports. So the research was conducted at airports in Germany, America, and Turkey. In my view it would be far less interesting to visit airports than local high-school "orgy parties" in 3 different countries. Opting for the orgies would control for regional biases, allow the complete satisfaction of the underlying perverse tendencies, and (most importantly) beef up the sample size
Third, speaking of sample size, the results of the study, namely that people tend go in for the kiss by tilting their heads to the right side, are based on observations of 124 kisses. 124 kisses. 40 kisses per airport. I mean COME ON! What kind of statistical rigor is that? This freak probably spent no more than his typical wait time at the gate on a roundabout trip home; he is from Turkey, afterall. Probably had a ticket booked from Germany, to New York, spend a couple of nights hittin' the town / boozin' it up, then off to Turkey to visit gramma Gunturkun.
I don't mean to seem unromantic, but this is really just the sad tale of a lonely, horny, Turkish "professor", sidelined in Berlin, just waiting to get home to see granny. Made me angry...
02.12.03
Download death rally, death rally divX
In what fictional park to Yogi and Boo-Boo reside?
02.11.03
Well, it is a new year, and even though I have had much time away, I do not yet feel relaxed, refreshed, or really very attuned to what's going on. Many items contribute to this, including the sleeplessness, the pregnancy, the job, the drinking, and the incessant neighborhood streaking.
After many troubles with the [former] site host, we moved our enterprise to someone else's servers. Everything happened quite quickly and unexpectedly, but we are now on the mend. The J-Tag has been temporarily removed until such a time as I am able to refashion it to speak correctly with the new machines (machines, meet J-Tag. J-Tag, meet machines).
Matt's Sports Beat built slowly but madly to a deafening crescendo over the course of the football season. But then, just as it was about to blow it's MSB wad, everything went dark. Picks for the final week of the regular season were made, and then never tallied. The post season was altogether neglected. This must all be retroactively rectified in order for such an entity as this to persist.
Speaking of football, Mrs. Captain and I were distracted in Las Vegas last month for the big game. It was quite an adventure with the free beer, casinos, etc. Nickle slots, Quarter craps, and ten-dollar bills riding on inconsequential College basketball games. We came out ahead, until our return flight was delayed and Delta forced upon us the horrors of travel purgatory.
In any case, even without the sporadic updates that this place has been accustomed to, readership continues to grow at a steady clip. However, not many among you are actually listening to the music. Given the spirit of this update, I strongly recommend Delicious Screed. The other songs are here.
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