He Actually Did It

One of the oldest jokes out there is the one where a comedian notices that athletes always want to thank God after a big win, but no one ever goes the other way and blames God after they lose. No one ever looks in the camera and says things like, "We would have won the game... if only Jesus hadn't made me fumble." Well, this week an athlete actually did that. After dropping what would have been a sure touchdown to give the Buffalo Bills a huge upset win in overtime against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Bills wide receiver Steve Johnson took to Twitter and appeared to blame God, Tweeting:

I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO...

First off, someone needs to explain to Steve that if God were to read Twitter he would probably be like everyone else and make fun of Johnson for the over-use of all caps and exclamation points. As it is, the editor in me really wants to ask if all those exclamation points were worth sacrificing good grammar. (After all, it does make the sentiment behind the 'thx' at the end ring a little hollow when you aren't willing to take out a couple question makes and exclamation points for the sake of fully spelling out an important word like 'Thanks.') And, if Steve were to think about it, at least the Bills covered the 11 point spread, so God probably made a killing if he backed the Bills.

-Besides, after reading another story this morning, I'm sure God is far too busy hating this next person to worry about Steve Johnson and his inability to catch easy passes: a couple week ago, long-time NHL coach Pat Burns died following a lengthy bout with cancer. Then, as his ashes were being interred into a mini-Stanley Cup for his wife, someone broke into her car and stole some of her dead husband's belongings. The thieves made off with watches, jewelry and 30 autographed jerseys, some of which were going to be auctioned off for cancer charities, and which police say prove that the thieves knew who's car they were robbing. They even took a family photo. See, now that guy just sucks at life.

Surely, You Can't Be Serious.

Comedian Leslie Nielsen died yesterday, which is a real bummer. Nielsen was an interesting actor, because he had a true two-act career. For the first 40 years he only played serious parts; it was only after Nielsen appeared in Airplane that people saw he could be very funny, and now no one under the age of 35 remembers him for anything but comedy. (As a tribute to that seemingly-forgotten serious side, this morning Roger Ebert posted Nielsen's screen test for Ben Hur on his blog).) Personally, I think his previous work was what made his performances in movie like Airplane and The Naked Gun series all that more funny. Serious people saying hilarious things with a serious tone is always going to be funny. Anyway, here is a montage of some of his funnier moments (the clip at the 5:55 mark might be my favorite).

A 2001 Musical Interlude

Last night, Notre Dame travelled to Los Angeles and beat USC, which hadn't happened in a very long time. In fact, Notre Dame hadn't beaten USC since 2001 (October 20th, 2001 to be specific), a streak of 8 straight losses. In honor of the win I did some Googling and found out that this was the #1 song for that week. It seems appropriate because it has been a while. Plus, Staind is a Massachusetts band and that's good enough for me.

More Fast Ones

-This story is a perfect reminder as to why I would never make it as a criminal: the four creators of the website The Pirate Bay recently lost an appeal in Swedish court and face fines of $4 million and a jail sentence of up to a year following a conviction of copyright infringement. For those of you who aren't tech-savvy, The Pirate Bay is a site where you can get copies of movies, usually before they are out on DVD and some before they even leave the theatres. The thing I can't get over is that the site is still up and running, when you have to assume that they could have avoided the jail time by agreeing to shut it down. Considering the site is free and these guys can't be making that much money off of it, if it was me that site would have been offline as soon as the offer was made. I'm not about to spend a year in jail so some guy in Iowa can save $3 by not having to leave his house to rent a copy of Iron Man 2.

-It was reported yesterday that President Obama had to get 12 stitches to close a cut on his lip after catching an elbow playing basketball. I feel like Obama missed a real opportunity here. Americans love photos of sports stars playing through the blood and the pain, just ask Brett Favre. He could have snapped a quick photo to look bad-ass and then used the opportunity to talk about how easy the insurance forms were to fill out thanks to his health care reform. This is why I should work in the Office of Public Relations.

-Willie Nelson was recently arrested for possession of marijuana. Why do I get the feeling that this could happen just about any time during the year, but the cops wait until they have a slow week or some sort of quota to meet before serving the warrant? I imagine it is almost like initiation to the local police force. "Hey, has the new guy gotten to arrest Willie Nelson yet?"

-There was a new wrinkle in the story of Spygate, which we all thought was over. Apparently, a Denver Broncos employee was accused to taping the San Francisco 49ers practice when the two teams were in London. The reason this is news around is here is that the video coordinator is a former Patriot employee, as is Broncos coach Josh McDaniels, and a lot of people are saying that they learned this behavior while working for the Patriots. Personally, I'm more of the school of thought that this simply means this behavior happens all over the NFL. McDaniels, by the way, maintains the employee acted on his own and he never watched the tape. And if you believe that I have a very nice bridge to sell you.

So Cheesy

I feel like if you opt out of Black Friday, then the day after Thanksgiving might just be the most relaxing day of the year. It's full of sports, movie marathons and excellent leftovers. For me today was all about the movie marathons on TV. I pretty much wasted the day watching cheesy action movies, so I feel like this video of cheesy and cliched action movie lines is a perfect way to cap off the day. (Though, probably not a good idea to watch this at work.) Otherwise, enjoy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just want to take a moment to wish everyone out

there a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Hope you have a wonderful day full of laughs,

family and too much food.

Also, don't forget to squeeze a nap into your day.
Tryptophan is a hell of a drug.

So... Do You Like Your Work?

Last night, after a lovely day with my favorite Dubliner, I decided to have a healthy dinner of McDonald's. For those of you who haven't gone through a McDonald's drive-thru in a while, it has become a three-step process: order at the first location, pay at the second and eventually get your food at the third. After giving my order to a woman who was probably in Denver, I pulled up to the first window to pay. Now, it for for just these kind of moments that I keep the cupholders in my truck full of change. I want to be able to just give the person working the window exact amount that is due, pull forward to the next window and keep the line moving. (Personally, I think everyone behind me should thank me for this.) This time was no exception as I was paid in full within twenty seconds. The problem was two cars ahead of me at the second window, where a car was stopped. I don't know if there was an issue with the order or the person had some kind of complaint, but they had their parking brake on and weren't in a hurry to move. They sat and they sat, which left me sitting next to the pay window, also not moving. This left me in the awkward position of having nothing to do and no where to go while being watched by the 16 year-old girl working the window.

While it was annoying at first, it got downright uncomfortable after a minute or so. I would assume working at McDonald's doesn't usually lend itself to long customer interactions, so it appeared that the girl wasn't prepared for anyone to be at her window for this long. She wasn't sure if she should try to talk to me or take this chance to tidy up her workspace, so she went with option C, which was to simply stare at me. Not that I was any better. At first I tried to act nonchalant and check the radio stations, but going through the pre-set stations doesn't take nearly as long as you think. After that it was just sitting up in my chair to try to see what the problem was and shrugging my shoulders every time we made eye contact. Mercifully this only lasted another minute or so before the car causing the hold-up was satisfied enough to leave. I will say this in defense of McDonald's: the next two cars barely had to slow down before their food was out the pick-up window. This is why, if you have a difficult order, you should always go into the fast food restaurant.

-Fortunately, the car causing the hold-up did not have a business logo on the side, because that company would have heard about it. I don't think small businesses realise that any worker who drives a company car home for the day is basically a walking billboard for that company, which can be good or bad. For example, yesterday I was at a stoplight behind a truck with a landscaping logo on the back. The light turned green and the truck didn't move. I gave the guy the customary '5 Mississippi' count, but he still hadn't moved. Since I hate using my horn I then flashed my highbeams to let him know the light had changed. Still nothing. I was preparing to honk (again, I do it do rarely that I have to locate where my horn is located on my steering wheel before I actually honk) when the guy finally noticed the light had changed, at this point to yellow (it was a quick light). To me, this lack of attention says a lot about the company and the kind of people they hire. Luckily for him I'm not the type of person who thinks yellow means red and I still made it through the intersection, otherwise I would tell you their name. I'm just saying, a smart business owner finds out what kind of drivers his workers are before he lets them put a company logo on their car.