This Crosses A Line

I'm a big sports fan. Of the four major sports, I'm an avid fan of everything but hockey. And I'm learning to like hockey, so I'm sure that won't be long down the road. But in the meantime, it's just football, basketball and baseball. They're all great. The only thing that spoils sports for me are the fans that have to be giant douchebags all the time. Let's take some of the Dodger fans who felt the need to beat up on a San Francisco Giants fan after the opening day game in Los Angeles on Thursday.

According to The Huffington Post, "A savage beating by two men outside Dodgers Stadium has left a San Francisco Giants fan in a medically-induced coma". Oh, sure. That sounds reasonable. Beat a man to within an inch of his life because...well...there doesn't seem to be any reason. The Dodgers won and the cowards who did the beating were wearing Dodgers garb, so they weren't pummeling innocent bystanders out of frustration over their loss. Not that it would have made it more justified or anything like that. I was just drawing attention to how pointless it all was.

I did find some of the statements made by the Dodgers and by the Dodgers coach to be a bit annoying. For example, the team released a statement that said "It is extremely unfortunate that this incident took place on what was otherwise a great day at Dodger Stadium for tens of thousands of fans...We're committed to having the most fan and family friendly environment in baseball and will continue to make that a top priority." Yeah, other than the beating that left a 42-year old married father of two in the hospital with brain injuries, it was a great day. See, if you're asking me, the beating really negates the great day. It really negates the great day if you're the one who had the crap beat out of them.

And as far as their "fan and family friendly environment" that they "will continue" to make a top priority? Yeah, when do you think they might get started on that? I'm just asking because in 2009 "...a man stabbed his friend in the stadium parking lot after the home opener." Can you really call them friends if one of them was stabbing the other? I have a lot of friends and we don't usually stab each other. In fact, I'm fairly comfortable saying that I would not want to be friends with anyone who I thought might get a little stabby with me from time to time. Or ever, for that matter. But maybe they're working on the safety for the even numbered years first. I really don't know their plan.

But I do know an asinine statement when I read it. I'm referring to statements such as the one made by coach Don Mattingly who said, "I was disappointed...You don't want to see that. Everyone likes rivalries, but to me, that's crossing the line." Oh, really? To you that was crossing the line? You think that other people have some other kind of a line that involves beating innocent people within an inch of their life? To you? What the what was that supposed to mean, anyway? I'm trying to overlook his merely being "disappointed". I'd prefer a little more outrage for things like this.

Here's to hoping that they catch the scumbags that did this. Here's also to hoping that people stop making idiotic statements when incidents like this one occur. And finally and most importantly, here's to hoping that Bryan Stow, the guy who was injured, will recover from his injures. Get well soon, Bryan.

Charlie Sheen At The Oscars

I know, I know. You're expecting a fashion filled extravaganza which reflects last night's Academy Awards ceremony, aren't you? (Don't get me wrong. I see no reason to not include pictures of the astonishingly lovely Sandra Bullock in this post. Different doesn't have to mean crazy or short-sighted!) Well, you would have gotten it if it hadn't been for my cousin who suggested that I pay attention to a little Twitter fad that took off during the Super Bowl. It seems as if someone had started a hashtag on Twitter called JaneAustenAtTheSuperBowl. And it was just what it sounds like. It was Jane Austen musings as if she were at the Super Bowl. (By the way, just so I'm not too hip for the room, a hashtag is this symbol: #. It designates a specific topic on Twitter. And also, just so I'm clear, Twitter is pretty useless most of the time. My participating in this nonsense should not be interpreted as any sort of indication that I think Twitter is cool. I don't.)

Thus, with that sort of seed planted in my often empty noggin, I thought that the Oscars would need a voice. Maybe not a Jane Austen sort of voice, as a friend of mine was completely appalled that anyone would disgrace the works of Jane Austen (she's really into bonnet movies and bonnet books), but a voice none the less. Then it hit me. Or I fell down because I was drunk. Whichever it was, I had a revelation. What the Oscars needed was more Charlie Sheen. Thus, I created the hashtag #CharlieSheenAtTheOscars and twat periodically throughout the telecast which I occasionally watched. What? Twat is the past tense of tweet, right? I will tweet. I am tweeting. I have twat. Sounds right to me.

And don't think that I ever expected anyone to notice this little method of amusing myself. I didn't. And I think I succeeded by setting my expectations as low as I usually do for things like this. So, since I know you missed it, allow me to take you through the Academy Awards show as seen through the tweets of a very real, yet very fictional Charlie Sheen. Behold!

• At Kodak Theater. Walk w/me side by side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Roll out that red carpet if you want, but I'm rolling out magic bro and I must save it for my family. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• No one has acknowledged me yet. I should have been walking in to sandwiches, massages and hand jobs. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• No one has even said hello. I feel like an unwelcome relative given cold coffee every night at nine o’clock.#Charliesheenattheoscars


• Showtime! Find the most comfortable seat in the house, lean back and watch—it’s about to get really gnarly. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Can't believe they didn't ask me to host. These two suck. I've got poetry in my fingertips.
  #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Screw hosting because that’s where you get slaughtered. That’s where you get embarrassed. From the prom queen. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• My tux is uncomfortable. It doesn't fit because my chest and my biceps are too big. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• I have effortlessly and magically converted your tin can into pure gold statuettes. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• First award of the night handed out. Winning! #Charliesheenattheoscars


• The first statuette is free. The next one goes in your mouth. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• No one at my table has won anything. I'm dealing with fools and trolls here. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• To all the losers: I have real fame, you have nothing. You have zero. I probably have syphilis. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• I don't care who wins. I will forget about them as the last image of them exits this beautiful theater. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• There's Natalie Portman. It might be lonely up here but I sure like the view. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• I am special, and I will never be one of you! I will never have an Oscar. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• If they want me in a sequel, it's a smash. If they don't, it's a turd that opens on a tugboat. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• No one looks happy. Is the rule that we have to all sit in here and touch ourselves and frown? #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• #Thekidsareallright I don't subscribe to any part of the model. They brainwashed my friends and my family. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Christian Bale freaking won?? Sorry man. Didn't make the rules. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• Jesse Eisenberg looks confused. Oh wait, can’t process it. Losers. Winning. Buh bye #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• I could get nominated one day. There are parts of me that are Dennis Hopper. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• I'm not Mark Zuckerberg. He was a pussy. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• I will destroy you in the air and deploy my ordinance to the ground. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• Almost three hours of this so far. The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• I liked #TrueGrit. There's a new sheriff in town and he has an army of assassins. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• You have the right to kill me, but you do not have the right to judge me. Boom! That’s the whole movie. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Melissa Leo. Winning! #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Toy Story 3. Winning! #Charliesheenattheoscars

Jessica Simpson: Amateur Sociologist

So, SO much wackiness to choose from today! I had a hard time choosing. First I thought about the abhorrent Mackenzie Phillips and her "new" face which seems to have cost her around $50,000. Huh. (That might explain the inexplicable book that she "wrote" in which she revealed that she willingly slept with her father. Then again, I don't know that you could get me to have a similar revelation for only 50 grand, so I'm back to thinking that she's just a nutjob.) There was Todd Bridges and his uncovering of the thankfully long time, but not long enough, secret that he, at the lowest of his drug abusing days, was wearing a diaper. (Why you wouldn't continue to keep something like that a secret, I can't even begin to imagine, but I'm guessing it would be money? Perhaps? There was even the guy who sold his wife for sex on craiglist. (craigslist. Is there anything that it can't do?) But none of those could really hold a candle to the new Jessica Simpson VH1 series The Price of Beauty which debuted a couple of days ago. (I know! I hadn't heard a thing about it and I missed it too!)

Here's the gist of this train wreck (not that I needed the gist to know that it was going to be a train wreck; call it a hunch) according to the huffy folks over at The Huffington Post: Simpson "...travels the globe with two friends, hair stylist Ken Paves and former assistant Cacee Cobb, to examine people's efforts to measure up to their society's standard of beauty. The goal is to empower women to accept themselves and ultimately understand that no one, not even celebrities, are perfect." OK...show of hands here of folks who already knew that celebrities were not perfect. Oh, look at that! Everyone reading this knew that already! I'm shocked. No, really.

WHO thought this would be a good idea? I can't imagine, but I must share this screen shot of the search results that I received when searching for more about this shot. Behold!

I'm sure that's pretty close to accurate. "Monday's premiere attracted just 1." And the 1 was probably her dog. (Do animals count when they do those things? I think they do for shows like that, otherwise they'd lose half their ratings.)

Now then, have you heard some of her words of wisdom from this show? Good Lord. You're in for a treat. It's like they're portraying her as some sort of Margaret Mead-Dian Fossey type. It's odd, odd, odd. Not to mention hil-arious. (Most of these quotes are compliments of the folks over there at Movieline, borrowed with neither permission, nor malice.)

Apparently, Jessica Simpson went to Thailand as she embarked on her quest for...information? (Something? Something like that? I'm still not sure.) While she was there, she had to eat, right? Right. And what did she think about some of the food that was eaten in Thailand? "It’s kind of a ritual for them to eat these bugs because it does speed up their metabolism… I can’t even eat salmon!” Wait. What?

Bugs speed up the metabolism. She doesn't eat salmon. Salmon is not a bug. So....therefore...umm....four quarts in a gallon? Seriously, what the hell?!

Then there was all of the fortune telling. That's right. All of the fortune telling. Apparently, in her quest to find out what other country's standards of beauty are, she had to visit a fortune teller. (Look, I'm doing the best I can here. Speculating about the completely inexplicable isn't as easy as you might think!) Here's another gem from amateur sociologist Jessica Simpson: “I got chill bumps from head to toe when the fortune teller said you’re really going to fall in love. And of course, right now I’m single, so… fingers crossed.”

Ahh, yes. The extremely vague "you're really going to fall in love.....some....day" fortune. That a fortune right out of the cookie if I've ever heard one. Is she going to "meet someone" also? Will she "get caught in a sudden downpour" one day? Will she "lose a sock in the dryer"? Jessica, if you're reading this (or having it read to you) and you need a full time fortune teller, I am at your service for an extremely nominal fee.

While Jessica may be some sort of beauty ambassador, she's not exactly an ambassador of words. Or the blatantly obvious. "In Thailand, our beauty ambassador is Sonia Couling. She is a model and she also hosts Thailand’s version of America’s Next Top Model.” Soooo....umm....wait. Wait! If I could only think of it! It's the show...in Thailand...that's just like the show in America called America's Next Top Model. It's just like that. It'll come to me. Hold on!
Um...Thailand's Next Top Model? Perhaps?! For God's sakes woman.....

I guess while she was there, she had a massage of some sort. Her thoughts? "I thought that Thai massages had happy endings. I was just wondering where mine was.” What kind of happy ending are we talking about here? And why did she think that? I've been racking my brain (OK, I thought about it for 3 seconds) trying to think if I have ever heard anything about Thai massages. Other than if you've had a "Thai massage" you've likely just visited a hooker, I was drawing a blank. What in the world is she talking about?

And there you have her, ladies and gentlemen! Jessica Simpson! Defining the category of "It's a good thing she's pretty." Back to you.

Quotes That Make You Go "Huh?"

So....many...morons! Head...might....explode! You know, it's really easy to narrow things down to just one year. But when you expand that to ten years (because you're falling into the hype of the end of a decade as if it's the end of the world or something) and your list is the worst of something within those ten years? Yeah, if you make a list like that, you must have really done something idiotic. And while some things might be entirely idiotic, sometimes there's just too narrow of a category to warrant making a list (ie, probably should have found those WMDs first and then invaded). That's when what you're going to want to do is to take the contents of your list (ie, "Attack!") and expand the category (ie, Really Moronic Things People Have Said in the Past 10 Years). And while that might seem like a vast and wide topic to try and really come up with an accurate list, trust me. In this case, it can be done. Hoo-boy, can it be done.

I suppose I could start with the Governor of this fine state of California. The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, gave an interview with right-right-right-right-right-wing radio host Sean Hannity in 2003 when Schwarzenegger was campaigning to be Governor of "Cali-FOR-nia" (as he says). When the topic of gay marriage came up (as it inevitably always will in any discussion about Cali-FOR-nia), the soon-to-be Governator said, "I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman." I see. Um, perhaps someone could clue him in on what exactly a gay marriage entails? That would be helpful.

Joe Biden is always good for a really moronic quote and he did not disappoint on September 10, 2008 when he was campaigning in Columbia, Missouri and wanted Senator Chuck Graham to stand up so that he could be recognized for the hard work that he had been doing for the Obama Biden campaign. Biden calls out, "Chuck, stand up, let the people see you." That's easier said than done if you're Senator Graham as the man is in a wheelchair. Now granted, Joe Biden immediately realized all of that standing up that he had requested wasn't going to be happening and he did a pretty good job of backtracking or fast talking or whatever it was that he did to get away from that comment, but still. Always make sure that your constituents have the ability to walk before asking them to stand before a very large group of people. Always.

There's no way I could be compiling a list of most moronic things folks have said over the past ten years without having at least one from former President George W. Bush. The problem was choosing only one. But I think I've done it. I think I can safely say that this is my favorite GW quote ever. The context of the speech he was giving at the time is unclear to me (though it does says "Pledge Across America" all over the board behind him, if that helps anyone out), but the content was very clear. Er, not clear. Er, well, I think we all know what he was trying to say, but no one can quite figure out how he messed it up. He said: "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." Um, yeah. What now?

And while that's relatively amusing on it's own accord in print like that, you really can't fully appreciate the beauty of it without seeing/hearing it for yourself. Behold!

Now that's something! I'm not sure exactly what, but it's definitely something!

But enough of politicians already. Let's move onto pop tarts, shall we? First up, we have a one Britney Spears. Now, Miss Spears has never really been known for her intellect. No, she's been known more for her fantastic voice, marrying Fresno's favorite son, Kevin Federline, and also shaving her head bald and attacking some sort of motor vehicle with an umbrella. (To this day, it's still really unclear just what, exactly, the vehicle did to her to warrant such a beating.) Really, it should come as no surprise that she's not all that well versed in the concept of geography, should it? No, it shouldn't. That's how we can explain her statement back in 2004 of "I get to go to lots of overseas places, like Canada." Now, now! Before we all rush to judgment, perhaps she was on a boat when she said that. Or perhaps she was in Europe! What's that? No? Neither of those? Smack dab in the middle of the mainland, eh? Huh. Unfortunate.

Well, at least that quotation kind of explains this next quote of Britney's. I don't know what all she was up to in between 2004 and 2007, but it didn't seem to involve any sort of an atlas because she was also heard to say, "I've never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don't like eating fish. And I know that's very popular out there in Africa." That's perplexing on so many levels. Japan, a country where the sole activity (pun kind of intended) is eating fish. A fact of which you must be aware of if you're ever traveling...to...Africa? Right. Um...yeah, I don't rightly know what to say about all of that.

But what is it with these pop singers and their lack of geographical awareness? Take Christina Aguilera. Perhaps she was just trying to avoid showing up in the wrong place when she inquired "So, where's the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?" Tell you what, Christina. How about you just give it a moment of thought (we'll wait!) and see what you come up with. Take your time! Sometimes, the most obvious answer is the one that's often overlooked!

I'm kind of going to guess that some of these blonde pop tart singer chicks all know each other? They seem to have a few things in common in the smarts department. Take Jessica Simpson, for example. No, not one of Bart's younger sisters (those are Lisa and Maggie). Jessica Simpson is the hottie who was married to Nick Lachey for a while. (After they split and he realized his meal ticket split with her, he ended up hosting or being on Dancing With the Stars, which isn't bad work if you can get it, from what I hear.) And even though they've been divorced for a while now, and even though it was back in October of 2003 when she became confused over the contents of a can of tuna fish, it is so unbelievable that it's almost like it happened yesterday. Come on! Are you telling me that you thought it was almost seven years ago that she asked Nick, "Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it says 'Chicken by the Sea.' " That wasn't seven years ago, was it? It was?! It's amazing how some things just stick in your head. Obviously not things like what is chicken and what is fish for some people, but other things.

All I have to say is that it's a good thing those chicks are pretty.

And speaking of pretty chicks, this list wouldn't be complete (actually, it will never be complete; do you know how many morons were out there over the past ten years who couldn't keep their mouths shut?) without my favorite "regular person" quote probably ever. That person was Caitlin Upton. If you're scratching your head (please, just let it be your head) right now and wondering "Who?", I'll bet it would jog your memory if I told you that Ms. Upton was Miss Teen South Carolina in 2007. Ring a bell? Just in case, here's a recap:

During the question-y part (I believe that's the official name) of the Miss Teen USA Pageant, the following question was presented to Ms. Upton:

"Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?"

Now, mind you, if that had been me up there, my response would have been something along the lines of "WTF? Are you kidding me? Who told you that? Where do you get that statistic?!" (Of course, that would have been my response AFTER asking, "WTF am I doing up here in some sort of beauty pageant in the first place?!" But not Miss Teen South Carolina. Oh, no. This is the moment she has been practicing for. This is the moment that she has been going over and over and over in her head for...for...well, I'm guessing for a long time. She should be ready! She should be prepared! She should have thought about it longer because this was her response:

"I personally believe, that US Americans are unable to do so, because, uh, some...people out there, in our nation, don't have maps, and...uh I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa, and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here, in the US, should help the US, or should help South Africa, and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future... for our children."

Good Lord, miss. It's because some people "out there" don't have maps?! Well, clearly Britney doesn't, but what about everyone else? Is that really the reason? And did she really say "the Iraq"? Yep. Yep, she did! And you know, that was only two years ago, but it's still funny! Still. Very. Funny. I'm not sure if I should hope for an equal amount of amusement from quotable morons over the next ten years or not. (You know how I feel about the morons.) I suppose as long as it's only an equal number of mind boggling quotes and not a greater number, then we'll be OK. After all, I've long given up hoping that folks start wising up. It's better just to keep them at a distance and mock them from afar. It's very entertaining and much safer this way.