I probably should have posted who I thought was going to win the Super Bowl BEFORE the playoffs started. Or before season started. Of course, I could always go back and edit those posts to make it look like I like was right. But, I’m not going to do that. Of course, I could also wait until the Super Bowl is over and if I’m right then post something and if I’m wrong, not post anything. Instead I’m going to post it here and now. Before the playoffs started, I said that the Pittsburgh Steelers would win the Super Bowl. Now before you say “Wow Mike, I’m impressed, the Steelers stand a good chance of winning the Super Bowl and you would be a genuius.” Yes, that might be true. And we already know I am a genius, even if I can’t spell the word. But I digress. On the other side of my Super Bowl prediction was the New York Giants and as we know, not only are they not playing in the Super Bowl but they also failed to win a single game in the playofffs. So, shows you how much I know. What’s even worse is that there is still a chance the Steelers won’t win at all. Which is that does happen then you can go back to before the season when I said that the Arizona Cardinals would win the Super Bowl. Yes, just look back at my post from…………..uhhhhh………..back on Septem………..no, August, that’s it, August 32 when I accurately predicted a Cardinal Super Bowl victory. Wait a minute, what’s that you say? There is no August 32? Well, fuck me then, you caught me, I didn’t predict the Cardinals to win the Super Bowl. I did however pick the Steelers before the playoffs started.

The thing about the Steelers though is that they have the tastiest team in the NFL. No, I don’t mean the most attractive. I mean, their names. First of all, they play in Heinz Field which is only only named after a ketchup company but also has a rather large Heinz Ketchup bottle  hanging near the scoreboard in the stadium. Its nearly impossible to watch a Steelers game and not get hungry. Just look at these names:

• Hines Ward, wide receiver. Again the aforementioned ketchup.
• Mitch Berger, punter. And what do you put ketchup on, but a burger.
• Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback. Why not make it a double burger?

Ok, right there you have the makings of hamburger. But let’s not forget about desert:

• Ryan Clark, saftey. Anybody for a Clark Bar?
• Heath Miller, tight end. And who doesn’t like a Heath Bar washed down by a Miller Beer.

See, two guys who share names with candy bars and in the case of Miller, a candy bar for a first name and a beer for his last name. And its not only food but also names that sound like food or remind you of food:

• Charlie Batch, QB. Reminds me of a batch of cookies.
• Brett Keisel, defensive end. Is it just me or does his last name sound like a German sausage?
• Byron Leftwich, QB. Kinda like a sandwich, as it “anybody for a Hines and Keisel Leftwich?”
• Deshea Townsend, cornerback. Actually, this should be in the food section, after all aren’t there such a thing as Townsend Crackers?
• Limas Sweed, WR. Sound like bean that would be from Sweeden.
• Troy Polamalu, S. This kinda sounds like a spice of sorts. Just picture yourself saying “You know, that would really taste good if you threw some Polamalu on it.”
• Keyaron Fox, linebacker. Again, I think you can put this in the food catergory, after all don’t people eat fox?
• Chris Hoke, nose tackle. You know, I can really go for some Hoke soup.

And on Sunday, hopefully we will be saying that the Steelers are the tastiest Super Bowl champions ever.

Oh, and if they don’t win, then I’m sure I can come up with some stupid shit about the Cardinals.

Our esteemed and honorable governor Rod Blagojevich………..no, wait, maybe those aren’t the right words. Perhaps the words disgraced and pathetic fit better. Yes. Disgraced and pathetic. Much better. Our disgraced and pathetic governor Rod Blagojevich decided that instead of attending his impeachment trial with the Illinois State Senate he would go on the View and Larry King. You know things have gotten really bad when the better option is spending the day with a bunch of middle aged, menopaused, cat fighting, bickering ladies and a man so old he makes the Cryptkeeper look young. The Gov is proclaiming his innocence though, so much that he is trying to take his fight to the court of public opinion, you know, the very same public that gives him a 7% approval rating in the state of Illinois. Seven fucking percent! Shit, I would bet even a raging case of herpes could get a better then 7%, I  mean at least with herpes you know you got some action. When informed of his 7% approval rating by King, Blago responded with shock, stating that the poll was baloney and certainly the people conducting the polls were biased. Really? Is he really this much out of touch with reality and with the people? Because I’m a citizen of Illinois and every single person I have talked to about this, which is probably over 100 people, all agree with the 93% of people who disapprove of him. Maybe if he tries hard enough he can get that disapproval rating to be as high as the human body temperature. Or, maybe the approval rating can go as low as the temperature outside. Wait, he wishes it were that high, after all as I’m writing this it is currently 16 degrees outside. Which means that the temperature in the middle of January in Chicago is more then double his approval rating. I guess the only positive thing for him is that although the temp can go below zero, his approval rating can not go that low, unless they started polling dead people. Which, being Illinois, is not out of the realm of possibility since dead people have been voting for years in Chicago.

So, what can Blago do to be even more unpopular? I mean, at this point he would have to really do something so bad that its almost unmentionable to sink even lower. I dunno, maybe withhold money to a children’s hospital. Oh wait……..he already did that. Maybe attempt to sell a senate seat. Shit, I forgot, been there done that. Maybe compare himself to people so revered that they are celebrated with holidays, monuments or other things in their honor. Nah, even Blago wouldn’t sink that low.

Then again…………..holy shit, Rod Blagojevich compared himself to Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela! Shhhhhhh………..here that smattering of 3 people applauding, those are the last 3 people left in Illinois who approve of this fuckbag.

Honestly, fucking Gandhi? You think your plight of which you brought on yourself is comparable to Gandhi? And MLK? And fucking Mandela? Nelson fucking Mandela? Wait, I should watch it with the f-bombs, I’m starting to sound like Rod fucking Blagojevich. You wanna compare yourself to three people Rod, how’s about Pete Rose, Ted Haggard and Richard Nixon. In fact, as I watched Larry King interview him, the one person who kept coming into my mind was Pete Rose. For those of you who forgot, Rose is the baseball legend who in 1989 signed an agreement banning him for life for betting on baseball. He spent the better part of the next 15 years strenuously denying his betting on baseball, much like Blago has strongly denied any wrong doing. When it came time for him to promote his book, Rose finally admitted to betting on baseball. The whole time, even to this day, Rose tries to play himself off as the victim, much like Blago is trying to do. In both cases, the whole thing is disgusting and revolting.

Larry King asked him about the stuff he said on the recordings. I’m sure you all know at this point what he said so I won’t repeat them. Then again, you all know what he said, its too bad Blago himself doesn’t know what he said, saying on more then one occasion that he didn’t know what he said, he would have to hear the tapes first. Wow, this guy really is a pathetic piece of shit, isn’t he? I’m the first one to admit that even I don’t remember everything I say, especially stuff I said two or three months ago. But, I do know this much, if I say something over and over in an adamant way that involves severe overuse of the word fuck, I would at least remember a little bit of what I said. I would think that if Blago is so self centered and so full of himself  that he compares himself to Gandhi, Mandela and MLK, three of the greatest people who have ever lived that he would remember some of these very same conversations that have led to his demise.

Get this trial over with already and give us a new fucking governor!

Yesterday I helped Jt’s girlfriend move in with him. The move started at her apartment at the early hour (early for a Saturday) of 9am. My group of friends never seem to have moves that are easy or go good. This one was fine though, she didn’t have a lot of stuff to move, just a bunch of big stuff. I’m not the best person to have helping move big shit since I’m not very big or strong; yet I always seem to get called upon to help. Also I’m quite the klutz. Weak and clumsy is never a good combination.

There were these 15 pound weights that were at the apartment. Being the dumbass that I am, I decided to balance them on my shoulders. One of the fell off my shoulder resulting in a rather loud thud on the floor below. Must have sucked for the people living down there.

Later I was carrying several glass window type things to the truck. I only had them a couple of inches from the sidewalk when one of them slipped out of my hand. It instantly shattered as soon as it hit the concrete. Honestly, I did not think it would break so easily but I think because it was only about 10 degrees out it made it shatter easier.

Then we were at his house moving shit in. We had a team of people who would bring stuff just inside the door and then a team of people who would take the stuff from there. I was on the inside of the house and had to carry a rather large and heavy dresser (there is a French word that starts with the letter A that these things are usually called, but I can’t even begin to know how to spell it, so instead we will call it a dresser. At least, I’m pretty sure its a French word, by all means correct me if I’m wrong) into the bedroom. I swear I took no more than 2 steps before the damn heavy fuckin thing slipped out of my hands and slammed to the floor. Fortunately, it was strong enough that it did not break. After that, I only moved light stuff that was not fragile or was unbreakable.

For years I have always wondered Goodfellas or the Sopranos. I’ve never had to make such a difficult decision as I have never seen them both on at the same time. Well, this morning I was forced with that impossible decision. They were both on at the same time, although it was basic cable and a lot of the good shit gets cut. Still, both are still well worth watching and I love them both. A lot. Both were almost over by the time I found out that either was on. So, I went with Goodfellas.

Damn this is what I’ve become, writing about me dropping shit and tv?

Its time now for the final post on “How the States Got Their Shapes“. After reading this, and the posts from December 8th (Alabama to Georgia), December 16th (Hawaii to Maryland), January 7th (Massachusetts to New Jersey) and January 14th (New Mexico to South Carolina) you will know everything you have ever needed or wanted to know about the state shaping of these very United States. Ohhhhh, the info you will receive. My thinking is that this will make you the envy of your friends. You will be the smartest person at work, that is assuming you work by yourself. And now, we conclude starting with the great state of…………..

• South Dakota- When South Dakota became a state back in whichever year that was, there was a big debate about how we could make the country even more Dakotay then it already was, as one big Dakota just wasn’t boring enough. So Congress split the most boring territory in half.
• Tennessee- Many people wonder just how Tennessee became such a state whore. At the time, Tennessee was home to more hookers than any other state. So Congress decided to make it touch as many states as possible by giving it a long, impressive shaft like shape.
• Texas- You know the saying “everything is always bigger in Texas?” Yeah, well that’s not entirely true. See, Texas is so big because many of the male citizens have tiny cocks. So to compensate, they made the state very very big and gave everybody guns. None of the surrounding states bothered to do anything because hey, would you want to piss off a small cocked asshole with a gun?
• Utah- At the time, the whole country thought of Utah as a freak state, what with its funny fucking name and all those damn Mormons. So they decided to give it a freaky shape.
• Vermont- Always a little “different” Vermont had a sick obsession with New Hampshire, so much that it wanted to mirror New Hampshire in every way. When it was pointed out that people in Canada weren’t smart enough to tell the difference between Vermont and New Hampshire if they were identical, Vermont was more then happy to jump at New Hampshire’s suggestion that they 69.
• Virginia- See, Virginia’s shape is all in the name. Its a chick name, so they decided to shape it like a tit. Unfortunately, the only sex most of the residents had was with their own families, resulting in disfigured tits, hence a funny lookin tit state.
• West Virginia- In a desperate struggle to distinguish itself from Virginia, they decided to shape themselves like a giant ball sack. Unfortunately, its the shape of an elderly ball sack.
• Wisconsin- The shape of Wisconsin represents its people more than any other state. See, Wisconsin is a bitch state; it used to be much bigger until Congress started stealing its land to give to all of the surrounding states. In the case of Illinois it was understandable because the governor of Illinois had spent a lot of money bribing people to get more land. But, the raping of Wisconsin continued on and on until it became the state it is today, just like how America takes all Wisconsin’s cheese. The residents of Wisconsin don’t care because they are all too preoccupied with the fuckin Packers.
• Wyoming- Congress had to find a place to hide shit that they didn’t want anybody to find. So they made Wyoming the shape of Colorado to confuse people. Unfortunately, both the people who live in Wyoming are confused too as they think its Colorado, otherwise they would have left years ago.

First order of business, the horsewhipping of George W Bush. I kept the voting open an extra day to give everybody a chance to vote. The I’s have it, 3-0 which includes my vote. The motion will be carried and we will commence with the horse whipping of George W Bush.

Its well documented that I’m a big Barack Obama supporter. That being said, at this point I’m pretty much all Baracked out. Its not to say that I don’t like him or support him, I do, I’m just sick of him at this point. I watched a lot of the preinaugural events over the weekend and on Monday. And then yesterday, although I had to work, thanks to the magic of the dvr, I was able to catch 6 hours of coverage of the ceremony and much of the painstakingly slow drive back to the White House. Thanks to the magic of the dvr, I was able to fast forward through much of it. Then there were the balls, I caught coverage of them on many of the stations last night too, watching him awkwardly attempt to slow dance to “At Last” 10 times (although I didn’t watch each ball). And tonight CNN was showing highlights of his first full day in office.  And it wasn’t only tv. On the radio, they were talking about it on many stations over the course of the past 2 days. In the Chicago Tribune, every page but the last 4 of their main section (which is probably about 30 pages) was dedicated to the inauguration. And they had an additional entire special section devoted to pictures from the inauguration. At work, it was all we talked about.

Getting back to the media for a minute, they really are in love with him. Watching CNN’s coverage they seemed to be in a constant state of praising him and kissing his ass. It got to a point when he was signing some nomination papers, they were remarking about how great his penmanship is. They just could not go a minute without basking in his greatness or showing him. Honestly, I’m not exaggerating. When he was within view of a camera, they never went a minute without showing him. Its like they needed their own Obama cam. I kept waiting for him to start walking on water and healing the sick. By the end of it I was thinking “shit, this is really enough already” yet I could not turn it off. That’s the thing with him, when you hear him speak he captivates you and almost puts a spell on you.

I think the attention they put on him is due to a perfect storm of sorts. Sure, their is the obvious, him being the first black president. And he certainly does appear to be great. But all that is magnified by how bad Bush was. We haven’t seen a real president in 8 years. As good of a president as Clinton was, he was still not as professional and presidential as Obama has been. So, going back, its probably been 16 years since we had a president this dignified. Bush clusterfucked up so much that we were all gasping for Obama. Its to the point that I read recently that 58% of the people who voted for John McCain think that the country will improve over the course of the next 4 years. That’s 58% of the people who DID NOT support him. If that is any indication, then the  Republicans are in serious trouble for 2012. Its also a representation of just how horrible Bush was.

Of course part of the problem with all of this is the hype and expectation that Obama will have on him, as it is so great that how could he possibly live up to it? He is the equivalent to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace or the last episode of Seinfeld. Or Lebron James when he first entered the NBA. He is as big as each of those, hell even bigger. And while James has more then lived up to the hype, I think he is the exception to the rule as most things or people can’t possibly live up to the hype. Here’s hoping Obama is more James than Phantom Menace.

There were quite a few Bush jokes and a whole section I was going to write about him, but as of now I can’t remember any of it. Serves me right for not writing it down. Of course, I thought of it while I was driving, which makes me think that maybe I need to pay more attention on driving then on thinking of ways to make fun of Bush.

Nevertheless, congrats to everybody for surviving the Bush Abomination.

Now if you’ll excuse me, CNN has exclusive coverage of Obama coming out of the bathroom after taking a shit.

As I write this, we are down to just 15 hours and 38 minutes left of the Reign of Error. The Bush Abomination will be no more by this time tomorrow. Its hard to believe all of the damage that he has done in the 8 years he has been in office. I remember when he first came into office I imagined the episode of the Simpsons in which Homer becomes sanitation commissioner. He wins election by making a bunch of crazy promises that nobody could ever keep. He starts off in office doing very good but soon things turn so horrible and he fucked up so much that at the end of the episode they not only are removing Homer from office but they are also voting on if he should be horse whipped. This how I felt about Bush years ago. I felt that people would like him at first and then he would fuck shit up so bad that we would want him gone. Unfortunately, enough people did not want him gone after his first term. But, early into his second term, the tide changed.  And judging by his dismal approval ratings for the past 3 1/2 years, most of the country has felt about him the same way I did. Of course, I never voted for him and knew he would be shit when he was running for office the first time.

I know he likes to say that history will ultimately judge him and he will be vindicated. And while that might be true, I find it hard to believe. He has left us in a clusterfuck that is spiraling downward so fast that nobody knows what the fuck to do. Its going to take years, shit, maybe even decades to undo the damage he has caused. There is nothing he can do to change any of that at this point.

I think the only people who will legitimately lose by him not being in office anymore are the comedians, both professional and amateur. I mean, the guy is a fucking goldmine. Just look at all the shit he has done that made him an embarrassment. Its more then just his struggling to speak. It was his nearly choking to death on a pretzel. His getting stuck in a room in China. His wiping his glasses to an unsuspecting producer on the Late Show with David Letterman. His dropping of a dog. The list goes on and on. It was going to be tough for him to top Clinton with regards to comedic material, but this is the one area that he has blow by Clinton by a long country mile. All one needs to have done is just tune into David Letterman just once over the course of the past eight years to see this. Hell, he made Letterman and his writers jobs much, much easier. I’m really going to miss making fun of him, but I would much rather have a nerdy, unflappable, non comedic, competent president. The comedians of the world will get their material from other places.

All those in favor of horse whipping George W Bush, say “I”.

Once again another Martin Luther King Day is upon us, but this one different from any other we have known, for obvious reasons. With Barack Obama’s inauguration the day after, history will be made. Of course this is a day many of us thought we would never see.  MLK often spoke about reaching that mountain top and I have to wonder if we have indeed finally reached it. I think he was referring to and end to racism as a whole but honestly, I don’t know that we will ever get to that point, as there will always be somebody out there who is racist. But I’m wondering if this is the peek, if this is the best it could be. I mean, a half black man will be the most powerful man in the world. That speaks volumes here in America. Honestly, I don’t know what else can be done that would be anymore important or mean more to race relations then this. My guess is that if King were alive today, he would be very old. Also, he would feel almost fulfilled at this historic event.

Still, there is something that troubles me. Its blacks views on gays. Everybody knows about Prop 8 in California passing in November. And a big reason why it passed was the huge black support for it. I can not and will not accept that blacks, after all the progress we have made, want to turn around and hold down another group of people; they want to prevent another class of people from having the same rights they have. The irony is almost to much to handle. The bigger irony here is that from everything I have read and seen, MLK was a supporter of gays and yet his very followers who rightfully heap praise and support upon him want to fight against equality for gays. I do understand why; its all about religion. Blacks are very religious and an overwhelming majority of blacks are Christians. And being such, they interpret their God’s words as being against homosexuality. Again, more irony, religion, which is supposed to be about bringing people together, is once again dividing people.

On the week that an amazing, historic event is to take place, an event that has brought much of the country together, we remain sadly divided when it comes to gays. I’m sure some day there will be equal rights, as the wheels of justice turn slow but once they get going they are impossible to stop. Maybe one day an open homosexual will be taking the oath of office. Maybe one day we will look back at the ills, fights and debates that have taken place this decade and realize how wrong it all was. Maybe one day we will look at each other as humans and not as races, genders, sexualities or ages. Maybe one day.

Long live the dream.

Its time once again to discuss how the motherfuckin’ states got their cocksuckin’ shapes. You might remember last week’s post (January 7) in which I explained how states from Massachusetts to New Jersey got their shapes. Or perhaps you were a fan of the December 16th post in which Hawaii to Maryland was covered. Or maybe you have spent every moment since the December 8th post trying to block out the crap that I wrote for Alabama to Georgia. Either way it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve still got 20 states to go continuing with the great states of………….

• New Mexico- Originally they wanted it to be shaped like Old Mexico, but when congress realized that there was no state called Old Mexcio, they just said fuck it and decided to make it a near perfect square.
• New York- At the time, the king of England was very insecure about his giant nose ever since he blinded his son by poking him in the eye with his nose. So he wanted to have a state that kinda looked like a rather large nose so that big noses would be hip. Nobody bothered to tell him that New York looks like its sniffing Canada’s ass.
• North Carolina- In addition to a big eye gouging nose, the king of England also was abducted by aliens and probed with a metal rod up his ass and nose. Oh, and down his dick hole too. He was so traumatized that he shaped North Carolina like the space ship that took him.
• North Dakota- The people of North Dakota were rather insistent on a shape that reflected just how fucking boring the state is. So they went with a damn near perfect rectangle. The only problem is that they aren’t the smartest people around which is why its a mis-shappen rectangle.
• Ohio- At the time, one of Ohio’s senators, Billy Clevelandorcincinnatidoesntmatterbothsuck, was obsessed with orgasms. He wanted to Ohio to be in the shape of an orgasm. So he jerked off and the messy result was Ohio. They used the same method to come up with a winner for the 2004 presidential election.
• Oklahoma- This might have been the toughest of all the states to shape and come up with boarders what with tornados constantly bombarding the state. So they decided to just have the boarder follow the path of a few tornados that hit the state.
• Oregon- At the time, congress was getting sick and fucking tired of shaping states. Every time they turned around, they had to come up with boarders and shapes for another fucking state. So they took a piece of paper, drew a line and it was the boarder of Oregon and Washington. So that’s essentially what Oregon is, the forgotten child.
• Pennsylvania- The thing about Pennsylvania is that it really didn’t fit in anywhere, but they needed to make it big so that the long ass name could fit on a map. So they just picked a large ass piece of land and called it Pennsylvania.
• Rhode Island- The citizens of Rhode Island were really pissing off the king of England at the time. So he decided to make them a tiny ass state. A state so small that it just looks like the pinky toe’s nail, the nail everybody hates. That is also how Rhode Island came to be known as the Pinky Toenail State. 
• South Carolina- Legend has it the governor of South Carolina at the time thought it was an island. Nobody in South Carolina has ever been smart enough to find out if it is an island, therefore it has remained the shape of an island.

I’m about to post on something I know very little about, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’ve never fully understood the whole conflict, except to say that as is my understanding, and please correct me if I’m wrong, way back in the day (and by back in the day, I mean thousands of years), the Jews had the area that is now Gaza. After WWII, the Jews had nowhere to go so we (either the United States or the UN) gave them land in the middle east that was then occupied by Palestine and in the process infuriating many people in the mid east, in particular Muslims. Of course the tough part is determining who should have that land, I mean if the Jews had it first aren’t they entitled to it, but on the other hand you move it you lose it and therefore it becomes squatter’s rights meaning the Palestinians should have it. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that the Jews are there and they aren’t going away. So both sides need to compromise and learn to live with each other. Doesn’t matter who’s right or who’s wrong, all that matters are two things, the land will remain Israel’s and the war needs to stop.

Now, I’ve always been under the belief that we (and by we, I mean America) seem to offer blanket no questions asked support of Israel, to question Israel is sacrilegious and should never be done. I’ve never quite understood that. Jon Stewart pointed it out last week on the Daily Show about how the press, American politicians and the American people never say anything close to even being considered critical of Israel. We will rip Palestine and talk about how wrong or evil they are,  but nary a bad word about Israel. Bush 41 wanted to cut funding to Israel during the recession back when he was president and the Israelis not only in America but also in Israel flipped out. When Barack Obama was running for president, not only were the Israelis worried that he might not be completely 100% no questions asked behind Israel, but he had to also really lay it on very thick his support of Israel or else run the risk of losing support. My question is, why do they have so much power over us? They are not nearly the superpower we are and I’m under the impression (and again correct me if I’m wrong) that we are a richer country then them. So why are we pussy whipped when it comes to Israel? Why is Israel the perfect little child who does no wrong and if they do we just bury our heads in the sand and pretend like it was other people’s (the Palestinians in specific) fault. Of course by merely typing this, I’m sure there are people out there who if they were to ever read it (and honestly, I’m safe since nobody reads this, or at least very few people, all of which are reasonable sensible people) would say that I’m a supporter of terrorism and am anti Semetic because I might suggest that maybe we shouldn’t give Israel unconditional support.

What has really made me think twice is the fact, that as what I was told, Israel intentionally blew up a Palestinian school complete with children inside. Of course, Palestine and Hamas are only giving us information that they want us to know. Some Israelis would say that Palestine had it coming because of the way Hamas has killed people in Israel. Now I’m not going to defend Hamas, after all I think its well documented that they are evil and have no excuses for doing some of the stuff they do. But, killing innocent children in retaliation of strikes against your own people is still not right. Some might say that those schoolchildren would only grow up to hate Israel and join Hamas or Hezbollah and while that might be true, it doesn’t make killing these kids right. There is nothing anybody can say to me that is going to make me think that killing a school full of children is the right thing to do or is justified.

No, I’m not anti Semetic. No, I don’t have a problem with Jews. I’m just an unbiased concerned observer from afar who believes that its ok to question the tactics of both parties in a war. The American government might be blindly on Israel’s side, but that doesn’t mean I have to be. For me and people like me, and I know there are people out there who think like me, I’m not on a side. Maybe I don’t fully understand the situation. Correct that, I know I don’t fully understand the situation. But I do fully understand this, war is hell and has no winners. Honestly, who wins when one country fires missiles or sends suicide bombers into the other country or when the other country retaliates by  firing missiles at another country’s schools. In the end, all you have is death and destruction and the promise of revenge and more death and destruction and does anybody really want or need that?

I swear, this weekend was an unintentional old school throwback weekend. Last night I played cards and after the first game we played Mike Tyson’s Punchout on the Wii. Ok, technically its now just called Punchout, but you can download any of the old school games that they used to have for the original Nintendo. I just might have to buy a Wii, as those games are very nostalgic to Generation Xers such as myself. My office at work has moved into a new building and today I went into work for an hour to unpack my desk. The way there is along the same route of a job I had 10 years ago. And when I got to the new building, it kinda reminded me a little bit of when I was working at AAA and we moved into our new building. In fact, it reminds me of the AAA building a little bit. Also, the Cartoon Network and a Tom and Jerry marathon on this afternoon. It was just what I needed, mindless tv that makes me chuckle. I haven’t seen Tom and Jerry in a long time and it as great to watch a few hours of it. Tonight on the newly formed MLB Network, they were playing a Cubs-Pirates game from 1991, complete with the call of the game by Harry Carey and Steve Stone. I wish I could say it was great to see a game with old Cubs such as Mike Harkey, Shawon Dunston, Ryne Sandberg, Mark Grace, Jerome Walton, Gary Scott and my favorite Andre Dawson, but the reality is that much like many other seasons, 1991 wasn’t exactly a stellar season for the Cubs. With any luck, though, the old school streak will continue tomorrow and Dawson will be elected to the baseball Hall of Fame. I’m not holding my breath though. My guess is that Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice are the only two that get in. And maybe Burt Byleven.

I was also watching a thing on the History Channel over the weekend about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. No, the Dust Bowl wasn’t a college football bowl game (like a few of the guys I was playing cards with thought) but instead an area in the mid section of the country comprising of parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. It got its name because there was a drought that lasted 10 years back in the 1930s. As a result of this drought, this region would experience these devastatingly horrible dust storms. These storms were also known as black blizzards, which fittingly was the title of the documentary. I’m sure some of you already know about the Dust Bowl, and I did before I saw this program, but after the guys from the game last night not knowing what the fuck the Dust Bowl was, I figured I best clarify. Outside of the main facts of the drought, dust storms and location, I did not know much about the Dust Bowl. Watching this though was incredibly depressing, yet I could not turn away, I found it very interesting. These people went through hell. It seemed like if things weren’t bad enough, there was always something else they had to deal with that made it go from bad to worse to overwhelmingly awful. It got so bad that it was almost comical. If it were a movie (and honestly, it really should be someday) you would say it was over the top and ridiculous and too much. Yet, it happened.

It makes me wonder what if something like this happened today, say on Bush’s watch. I’m thinkin’ the only way it could have been worse would have been if Bush were president at the time, as he always has a way of turning one car crash into a 100 car pile up which involves planes, trains and automobiles. The way the Dust Bowl was ended was that a very smart guy in Washington D.C. realized that we had helped create the problem ourselves by the way we were treating the land. Of course, the Bushes of the world (this would include She-Bush Sarah Palin) believe that America never does anything wrong so he would have refused to acknowledge the fact that it was us doing it. And we know his environmental record, my guess is that he would have ignored the problem and pretended it wasn’t happening until eventually everybody moved out of Oklahoma and it blew away. I come to this conclusion because of his years of steadfast denial of global warming and his pulling out of the Kyoto Agreement. Fortunately though with a scant nine days left until he leaves office, this is one problem that he can not turn into mega disaster.

Still the whole thing is a reminder of how we must take care of the Earth so that it takes care of us. To paraphrase my late Uncle Bob, if you take care of your car your car will take care of you. I think we should live by that rule when thinking of the Earth.