Yokels

And, of course, the new Professor Brothers is up, if you haven't seen it. You don't know it, but you are full of stars.

Ninja: It's a tranformable Optimus Prime iPod docking station.

Mine. Sort of.

Life imitates parody.

My brother said a true thing:

I was invited to take part in a dinner party at my dear brother's abode this evening. As you know, invitations to Linquist Manor are hard to come by, so I was pleased to accept the invitation, and even went so far as to gift a shiny farthing to the young man who helped me up from the sidewalk.

Whilst strolling to Linquist Manor, I received an urgent missive from my host and brother, Wellingford Linquist. Wellingford said that his wife, Polly Linquist (née Papadopoulos) was in the mood for some wine. Would she like red or white? "Surprise us," they said.

At the spirit shoppe, I chose what I believed to be the perfect compliment to the candied pork and Spanish rice dish that the servants had been ordered to make.

As one would expect, the dining was delightful. After the third course, whilst the nannies were tucking the young Linquist progenies into bed, Wellingford broke out his Armellini pipe and began to smoke. "Alan", he queried, "How much did you pay for this Chardonnay?"

"I dunno, like three Finns or something", I replied as I scooped some rice into the pocket of my threadbare jacket for later consumption. I employed my streetsmart subterfuge: "Hey, that tobacco smells like old furniture and cherries. Neat! Are those girders oak or hickory? Look up at the ceiling of your beautiful house, Wellingford!" Free rice.

"My dear boy", Wellingford stated, "Everyone knows that all wines that cost between ten and twenty American dollars taste exactly the same. Precisely the same, even. The only reason lower-middle class people like yourself choose one winery above another is because you are enamored of the funny pictures on the label. Also, the girders are made of maplewood, and you have a hole in your pocket."

I'll never bring Monkey Bay wine to his house again. Next time I'll go with Smoking Loon. That's probably good, right?

While watching the NHL youngstars game this past week, I was thinking about Phil Kessel, and how he'll probably be nominated for the Bill Masterton Trophy this year. The Bill Masterton Trophy, as you know, is bestowed upon the player who is the embodiment of dedication, sportsmanship, and perseverance.

This year, Phil Kessel got lucky enough to get himself some testicular cancer and come back to play a month later, so he's pretty much a shoo-in for a nomination. A nomination, at the very least.

In 1994, Cam Neely battles knee and joint calcification problems and comes back to score 50 goals in 45 games or something:
Masterton Trophy.

In 2002, Saku Koivu finesses his way past an ovarian cyst:
Masterton Trophy.

In 2004, Bryan Berard somehow squints his way back into respectability after almost losing an eye:
Masterton Trophy.

The weird part about this whole award is that Bill Masterton is the only guy to have ever died on the ice on an NHL rink. Bill Masterton was a minor-leaguer, and only got a shot at the NHL because of expansion. As a new team, the North Stars drafted Masterton in 1967. Bill was working at a K-Mart or something at the time. His dedication, sportmanship, and perserverance soon earned him his lucky break, when he was checked to the ice and broke his skull - and died before you could say "perserverance". That's a lucky break, right?

Bill Masterton is a guy you should name an arena after, or maybe a street. There's a Bill Masterton scholarship, and that seems fitting. But to give the Bill Masterton Award to people who overcome their medical issues - as Bill wasn't able to do - smells backwards to me. It's almost like a celebration of things Bill Masterton couldn't do.

As such, I give this year's Alan Linquist award to Zdeno Chara.

NHL Rink Diagram.

Remember the dude who did illustrated "Washington, Washington"? His name is Brad Neely and he usually makes comics. Check out the archives for more. Can't say I understand them all, but there are a few gems in there.

He posts new videos at SuperDeluxe, and promises that more are on the way. "I am Babycakes - Diary" and "Professor Brothers" are worth a look.

Okay, so Rory Fitzpatrick didn't make it to the All-Star game. He did, however, score the winning goal against the Sens last night.

This is exactly how the story should end.

Science: Back to satisfying their personal fetishes and creeping us out.

Science: Actually doing some cool shit this time.

P-Diddy and Jessica Biel at the "Golden Globes" awards.

What is that? Well, that is where Michael Vick puts his weed when boarding a plane.

I spent some portion of the day making up bios for the senior executive portion of our website. Here is one.

Bill Billson: Vice President, Claims

Bill was born in 1952. On his third day of life, Bill's mother left him in a carriage on the side of a street. It turned out to be a steep street and a young Bill found himself being raised in the local zoo's Reptile and Insect House. There he lived until the age of fourteen when he would abandon his adopted home in order to pursue a track and field career, first at high school, and later at Delta State (home of the Fighting Okra, no matter what anyone tells you).

Being brought up by centipedes and spiny-tailed iguanas has had it's advantages for Bill. It provided him with great foot speed and relatively inexpensive diet. His agility gave him a means to an education, which later led him towards a career in insurance. It was at college, you see, that Bill first became familiar with the law and lawsuits. In late 1973, during a rough November storm on the outskirts of Cleveland, Mississippi, Bill found himself coming to the defense of an eastern coachwhip whom he considered a close friend, if not family member. The defenseless coachwhip was nearing his demise when Bill intervened with a Dutch border spade and a handful of top soil. Heaving the dirt into the face of the attacker and following it with a circular swipe of the spade Bill succeeded in his defense, but found himself on the wrong end of litigation. Litigation that would, of course, provide him with a wonderful excuse to enter the world of Insurance Claims.

As fate and mild misfortune would have it, Bill now serves as our Vice President in charge of our Claims Department. He's a graduate of Delta State, left-handed, an ophthalmophobic, and chairs the Board of Directors for the University of Wyoming Insect Museum. Bill is married with children, grandchildren and literally billions of extended family members. He still harbors a love of running, gardening and revenge.

My brother and his chica were listening to this when we visited over the holidays. Walter Gavitt Ferguson is a Costa Rican calypso artist. He recorded his first album at 83 years old. It's fun, chill sit-around music. You can listen to both of his albums online - Dr. Bombodee here and Babylon here.

He turned a small Osaka company, into a $3-billion multinational corporation and along the way he saved millions of college kids, the unemployed and the unemployable from starvation. Rest in peace, Momofuku Ando.

New superstitions for 2007:

1) Whenever you see a midget in real life, you get to make a wish. You can't wish for more midgets.

2) If you break a mirror, you should probably lay off the booze for a few days.

3) Two-headed kittens are the new four-leaf clovers. Keep 'em in your wallet for good luck.

4) If you spill salt at the table: Whatever, man. Salt costs a dollar for two pounds or something. Just wait until no one is looking and sweep it onto the floor with your hand. Swiffer in the morning.

5) When you drive past a cemetary, hold your breath. Keep holding it until you reach your destination or you pass out.

6) Walking under a ladder means you're kind of a dick. It's like three steps out of your way to go around the thing. No need to make everyone nervous.

7) Opening an umbrella indoors will cause a black cat to walk across your path. That's bad luck. If the black cat has two heads, that's good luck (see number 3 above). 50/50, maybe? Opening an umbrella indoors is a gamble.

8) "See a penny, pick it up, and all day long, you'll be a Jew."

9) Knock on wood whenever you see anything wooden. Tables, table legs, wooden legs, acting performances, etc.

10) If you say "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary" while looking in the mirror at midnight, your dead grandfather will appear behind you and shake his head slowly side to side, because you are a complete embarassment to this family.

I was only watching the Leafs/Bruins game on and off last night... What a drubbing! Sorry, Alan.

Anyway, my favorite part of the game was when they showed Tim Thomas collecting a puck behind his net and the on-ice audio caught him hollering instructions to one of the B's defensemen. He yelled, "Come and get it, Jerk!". Obediently enough the defensemen went behind the net, closely followed by a Leaf forechecker, and collected the puck.

It took me a while to figure out why Thomas was calling him teammate a jerk, but once I did, everything made a lot more sense.

I love hockey nicknames. I think they should be published on each team's website.

Thoughts I Have Had Today

Did anyone buy the 2007 High Times calendar? It's available (for a bargain) at the local Barnes & Noble.

Do you think the guitarist from Guns 'N Roses signs his emails with "/" or "\"? You know he uses one of them.

There is a store near my office called, "99 Cent Dreams". I can't decide if that is too cheap for dreams or too expensive. Tough call.

The Anti-Communist who rides the same train home as me was drinking an
oil can of Molson XXX yesterday. I call him "The Anti Communist"
because he doesn't hide the fact that he hates communists. Rather,
he's pretty vocal about it. And (unless he's been drinking in the
morning too) it isn't just the beer talking. No, he really hates
communists. And that's a fact.

Now, I've talked about the evening-commute-drinkers before, even going
so far as to mention that there are two kinds of drinkers during the
afternoon rush hour. One is the beer drinker, having a relaxing
beverage on the trip home. And the other is the hard liquor guy,
pouring off mini-bottles into a coke cup hastily purchased in Penn
Station. And it isn't hard to figure out which of these people are
normal and which of them have deep-rooted alcohol issues that they no
longer mind sharing with the general public at 6:00 pm on a Wednesday.

But The Anti-Communist represents a third kind of rush hour lush, one
I had not encountered before.

Here is a man, a man with an aversion to Marx yes, but a man who works
like any other. And save for the fact that he didn't give up his
Commi-hating ways back in '89 with the rest, there isn't anything
particularly unique about him. At least that is what I thought until I
saw his choice of beer.

"Molson XXX" is an embarrassing thing to type into a search engine,
but in doing so I found that Molson XXX is brewed in Canada and only
in the past few years has it even become available in the US.
Reportedly this was "due to popular demand." Molson XXX is sold in
bottles or in a 25 ounce, all-black, oil drum-looking can. It's 7.3%
alcohol by volume and according to reviews I read at beeradvocate.com,
mates undrinkability with getmefuckedupness quite nicely. Or as the
reviewers on that site put it,

"It is nothing more than malt turned into alcohol."

"It got me pretty drunk quick... and I didn't like how present the
alcohol taste was."

"In all fairness, comparing this beer to the other common Malt Liquors
around here, this one is less vile and even stomachable compared to
the rest."

"Like if Corn Nuts had an aluminum flavor instead of the usual ranch
or original."

Essentially, we're talking about twenty-five ounces of golden, corn
nut-flavored, fire-water wrapped in a mean-looking can and labeled
with a symbol that's synonymous with danger and sex at the same time.
Molson XXX.

And The Anti-Communist. So there he is, standing in front of the
sliding refrigerator doors at the bodega across 32nd street from Penn
Station. His train departs in 7 minutes and with his drinker's
physique and 44 year-old legs he knows it's a solid 6 minute, winded,
half-jog to the NJ Transit tracks. He has virtually no time to make
this choice. But he needs something to drink and he needs it now. He
knows the smell of vodka or whiskey would stick on his breath straight
through dinner and his wife wouldn't let him hear the end of that,
especially since the kids are at home all day during the holidays this
time of year. Plus, that's the hard stuff, and he'll be damned if he's
turning that corner. No, he doesn't need the hard stuff. Just a
come-down after a long day.

On the other end are the dirty-water beers. Coors Light. Bud Light.
Miller Lite. Yeah, they come in 16 ounce cans and he could always
swing for two of them, but he doesn't have pockets deep enough and
carrying on extra beers never seemed right. The other riders would
wonder about a man with two beers. Plus, they taste like dirty water
and barely lull his evening stress to levels low enough with which to
handle those damn kids of his. No, the dirty water won't do.

But then he sees it. It's big. It's black. It's mean. And he just felt
his peter move a little when he looked at the can. And his peter
hasn't moved in months! Molson XXX.

That one will pack the punch. That one will taste like something. That
one will fit just right in my hand. And yet, he'll still be drinking
beer. Just beer. And he can tell that his wife he just had beer on the
train. Only beer. And only one single, lousy beer, to boot. And all of
the other people on the train won't think anything of a man drinking a
beer on the train. That'll be just about right. Molson XXX.

That's how it happens, I sure. That's how The Anti-Communist first
found Molson XXX and that's why he still drinks it to this day. Sure,
it turns his face the same color of red that a sting-ray barb to the
cheekbone might, but it's just a beer. Just one single, lousy beer.
And it's the kind of beer John Wayne might have been drinking had he
rode the train home. Or Teddy Roosevelt. Or Reagan!

And they may say that Canada is a socialist country, but the
Anti-Communist doesn't mind. No, he doesn't mind drinking a beer
brewed in the great white north because he knows better. He knows
Canada is a constitutional monarchy. And he knows that all hell will
freeze into a hockey rink before Queen Elizabeth, God bless her,
shakes hands with one of them communists. Down with Communists. And up
with Molson XXX.

Oh, and Happy Boxing Day.

Why do you watch sports?

I watch sports for that incredible play where Joe Namath readies himself in the pocket, fakes left, fakes right, thinks about kissing Suzy Kolber but doesn't, throws a Hail Mary to Jaromir Jagr who picks up the puck at Notre Dame's blueline and sends a sweet saucer pass to Muggsy Bougues, who dipsy-doodles around Shaq and Tom Brady, pauses (... ) and does a late 360 boneless off the lip of the half-pipe, and while he's being checked by Mia Hamm, whips his racket around in a reckless and desperate effort to put the puckball at the net, where Carl Yastremski is just hanging there in slow-motion, waiting in mid-air to slam home the alley-oop. When the game is over, Suzy Kolber makes out with Ronaldinho.

Joe Namath, while disappointed, goes home to his wife and family and pledges $1,000.000 to the Mike Tyson Foundation to save the last pandas remaining in their dwindling habitat.

That sort of action can be expected at the AwesomeBowl, and if we all wish really hard, it might be realized. The Olympics are fun and all, but the AwesomeBowl is where it really happens.

AwesomeBowl: Once every fifty (50) years. Let's do this thing.

(Epilogue: The panda program is a success, and in the year 2350, the last humans question why they helped the pandas in the first place, and why they have to pay a bamboo tax.)