Your Pyrrhic Victories Quizo Update

It's tournament time, folks, and I'm sort of going back to my old ways. We all remember how I single-handedly caused Kansas to finally win the tournament last year through the judicious application of not doing a bracket and wearing the same t-shirt every time they played, but I figure that won't work twice. This year, then, I'm back with brackets and all that junk. I will bet money on Kansas, I will lose money on Kansas, and all shall once again be right with the world. Unlike last year, when for my money only maybe 3 teams had legitimate shots at winning, this year's tournament field looks a hell of a lot more wide-open. My earliest rough guess would say that any one of 9 or maybe 10 teams have a totally reasonable chance. Kansas unfortunately is not one of them, but as they say in French, c'est la vie.

All is not wine and roses in March Madness land, however.

A friend of mine got tickets to the first two rounds at Wachovia this weekend, and I'm trading him one of my US Open tickets for one of his tournament tickets. So that's, you know, pretty awesome, right? Going to the fucking tournament. March Madness in person! Rock and roll, right?

Wrong.

Because the NCAA are an organization so thoroughly venal and corrupt that they make Italian football look like the George Washington Appreciation Society, Villanova - who while talented are quite possibly the most overrated program in basketball - got a 3 seed and will play their first (and presumably second) tournament game at the Wachovia. So aside from the fact that the selection committee has ridiculously handed Villanova quite literally two HOME GAMES (Nova plays a couple games a year at Wachovia), I now find myself in a situation where I have paid money to watch Villanova play basketball against a team that is not LaSalle.

This is not a tenable position. I mean, it's not as bad as it might have been if, like, it ws St. Joe's playing a tournament game here. I'd probably have to legitimately kill myself in that case (or, more likely, someone else), but the fact that St. Joe's sucks has obviated that this year. Still, going to watch Villanova? On purpose? It's a good thing I normally shower three times a day already.

In other sports news, I caught a good chunk of the CA Championship yesterday where - and even I have a hard time believing this one - Phil Mickelson, Chokey McChokerson himself, couldn't even live up to the cruel nickname that I gave him because I hate him so, so much. Take, for instance, the 12th hole. Phil shanks his drive so far to the right that his ball stops under this hideous spiked little bush that looks like the mutant offspring of a palm tree and a pineapple. Phil, who I learned is right-handed and golf is the only thing he does left-handed, I guess because he's an even more gigantic douchebag than I originally thought, has to hit the ball with his club backwards because the bush-monster is where he would normally stand. Phil manages to whack that ball about 20 yards before it hits a tree and lands in the rough. He hits his third into a greenside bunker.

I saw that and said, "oh, baby, the choke is on."

Baron von Chokenstein remarkably only bogeyed that hole, and then rattled off a string of pars that would, eventually win the tournament. I watched this dumbfounded.

Motherfucker can't even CHOKE right. He choked on his choke. That is so freaking meta that if someone I didn't want to be crushed by a falling space station did it I would actually be impressed.

Also, finally, there will be an important Quizo-based announcement tonight, so be sure to stick around for that.

JLK

Your "Why Is That Watermelon There?" Quizo Update

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine this weekend, and at one point she mentioned that she was fairly upset that over the next couple weeks she has to do a great deal of traveling for work. Something about three states in two weeks. I thought this was a pretty trifling stretch; when I drove cross-country I did 11 states in 8 days. It would have only been 6 but I was trapped in a hotel in Oklahoma City for three days by an ice storm (the tale of said trip being a long story unto itself).

However, in a rare moment of trying to be helpful, I said, "well remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Words to live by, those.

"Yeah," she said. "Hey, what's that from? Is that like Zen or something?"

"No," I said, "it's from Buckaroo Banzai."

"Are you sure? I thought somebody like Buddha said that."

"No," I said, trying to maintain my composure. "It's Buckaroo Banzai."

"I could have sworn I saw that on a TV show once – "

"NO!" I shouted. "It is fucking well Buckaroo Banzai!" I couldn't believe she was arguing about this with me.

Then came the words that really got my blood boiling.

She said, "what the hell is Buckaroo Banzai?"

(gasp)

(sputter)

Once I regained my composure at hearing such a shocking utterance, I started shouting again.

"You've never seen Buckaroo Banzai?"

"Uhm… no?" she said.

"You've NEVER SEEN The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension?

"Uh…"

"Red Lectroids? Planet 10? The Oscillation Overthruster? Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems? NONE OF THIS RINGS A BELL?"

"Okay, please stop yelling."

"How can you be an adult human and not have seen Buckaroo Banzai? What kind of sick childhood did you have?"

"I didn't – "

"Did your parents beat you with a leather strap when you were a kid? Chain you to a radiator in the basement? Did you subsist on rats?"

She finally got me to stop shouting when she said, "okay, see, this is why we never dated."

"Yeah," I said. "It's also why we never will." Though I'm not sure we were talking about the same thing by that point.

Never seen Buckaroo Banzai. What kind of hideous, twisted society allows that to happen?

Okay, so check this shit out: last week I was driving home from the Sev one afternoon and as I went past the front lawn at Lincoln I saw there were a bunch of kids out there playing CRICKET. I swear I am not making this up. They had the white sweaters going and everything. I mentioned it to someone I know in England who is a cricket enthusiast and noted that the closest equivalent would be for her to drive past a grade school over there one day and see a bunch of kids playing a pickup game of Your Garish American Football in full pads. Cricket. At Lincoln High School. I can't live in this world.

In other news, the Oxford English Dictionary reports that they will be adding a new word to their next edition:

Met (verb): to have a lead and subsequently lose it, to play poorly under pressure, to perform below expectations. See also "choke (verb)" and "Mickelson (douchebag)."

And I just found out that tonight's Flyers-Devils game isn't on television, so after the Buckaroo fiasco and Chelsea failing to beat United yesterday, that's just one more thing to be pissy about (as though I needed more). Oh well.

I suppose it's not all bad news. After all, the US won the Ryder Cup (yeah, stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Europe!) on a golf course that appeared to be a scale replica of the Appalachian foothills, there's a pennant race that the Phillies are actually winning, and last night I was able to do my favorite dance: the safety dance!

Yeah, okay, I'm sorry about that, it won't happen again...

JLK

Your "Always In Motion, Is The Force" Quizo Update

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane, shall we, to the events of last week, but not until after I throw some generalized questions out there at the teeming trivia masses.

Question the first: is anyone a botanist? Or do they know a botanist? I’m serious. I have a question about trees.

Question the second: I got Soul Calibur IV this weekend for 360. It is awesome. It might be the most beautiful video game in the history of Western civilization. I absolutely fucking suck at it. Can someone teach me how to not be awful at Soul Calibur? If you say “Use Yoda/The Apprentice” I will sell your intestines on eBay. Actually, not even eBay, on craigslist. That way you’ll know that some really skeevy, creepy dude from West Philly is going to have your intestines.

Question the third: continuing that theme, me and some pals are starting an online Dynasty in NCAA Football 09 (and, likely, Madden 09 when it comes out). Our style of play is best described as “casual sim.” We’re in it to have fun but we don’t screw around; if you’re one of those guys who puts a cornerback in at receiver and never punts and sprints your QB all the way out of the pocket no matter what play you run – in the parlance of the land, a “cheeser” – this is not the group for you. However, if you are the kind of person who, like me, would love to switch your team from a 4-3 to a 3-4 but doesn’t because “that’s not [insert school name here]’s defense” but you still laugh at yourself when you give up a 98-yard bomb TD, then come on down. I’m leaning toward a non-superpower conference – something like the Big East, the ACC, or C-USA – but if we actually get 12 people I would seriously consider the Big XII (obviously Kansas is taken). Let me know if you’re interested.

Now then, on with the show.

When last we left our intrepid band of Quizo adventurers we were… er… at Quizo. Yes. Well, we were at Quizo with the disastrous sports records speed round, which I honestly thought would have gone over better than it did. Fun was had, laughs were laughed, songs were sung, and so on and so forth.

Then came Tuesday, when I finally bought a shiny new car. Well, a shiny used car, but a newer car than I had possessed the day before (i.e. no car). By my automotive standards it practically is a new car anyway inasmuch as it is the first car I’ve ever had that, were it a human being, is not old enough to be a freshman in high school. At a scant two years young it is a more than an able replacement for my old car, which you will recall died in a rather spectacular manner after replacing my old old car, which died in a rather slow, agonizing, young-mother-of-three-with-inoperable-brain-cancer Lifetime movie manner.

On Wednesday morning, then, I had this conversation with my boss when he stopped by my desk:

Boss: Hey, I’m really sorry.

Me: Sorry about what?

Boss: (confused) Didn’t anyone talk to you?

Me: Nobody ever talks to me. (This is true; my desk is off in a corner literally surrounded by people from an entirely different department.)

Boss: Oh my god, I can’t believe [our super-boss] didn’t say anything to you.

Me: About…?

Boss: One of the finance people woke up yesterday and found out the program is out of budget. Completely broke. We have to let all the contractors go at the end of next week.

This is how I found out I am getting laid off. 16 hours after buying a car. And, because I am a contractor, without severance. Like you do. For a little while there I was fairly upset about this turn of events, and I still occasionally get moments of distress about it because, in a distinct change of pace, I actually really like this job. However, I am fairly sanguine about the whole process for two reasons. One, later that very day I got a call from a headhunter – who as a group I have been chasing away with sticks for the last 6 months, a behavior likely to change – asking me to interview for a job next week for the same salary I’m making now. And two, after some thought and calculation I realized that thanks to the largesse of our President I will be getting 9 months (possibly a full year) of unemployment benefits and that in those 9 months I can take the same number of day classes at Drexel that would take TWO YEARS to finish at night, so I am also strongly considering the possibility of going back to school full-time for a couple terms. So I have options, at least.

But then, in the wake of all this heartache and strife, came Sunday afternoon, and a Phil-tastic performance by Phil Mickelson on the final 9 at Firestone. Let me tell you if you didn’t see it, folks, it was CHOKE-FUCKING-TACULAR. When I’m feeling down – and, let’s face it, I’m a little down after all this – that damnable song is right, my favorite things DO cheer me up, and if there is a better or more favorite way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon than watching Chokey McChokerson give away a World Golf Championship on the last four holes of the tournament, oh Sweet Zombie Jesus I can’t think of it.

The kittens and their whiskers, though, they can go screw. I am not a cat person.

JLK

Your Keeping Priorities Straight Quizo Update

Once again this weekend Tiger Woods failed to win the Masters, and I'm not sure I can live in a world where, over the last 4 years, an average - AVERAGE! - Masters finish of second - SECOND! - is actually considered a failure. When was the last time YOU finished first-third-second-second four years running in the most prestigious golf tournament in the world? That's what I thought.

However, the important thing coming out of Augusta this weekend - well, the two important things - is that the two golfers I hate more than any others, Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson, missed the cut and choked it up respectively. It's okay if Tiger doesn't win as long as those two douchebags lose. Have you seen that commercial for Exxon Mobil - shilling for oil companies, nice work, Phil - that runs during the tournament. In it, Mickelson says - I am not making this up - "math and science are everywhere." Really, Phil? Math and science are everywhere? Thanks for the tip, you fucking dope. Next up on Phil Mickelson's Blindingly Obvious Life Tips: look both ways before crossing the street, and try not to eat rat poison.

God, I hate Phil Mickelson.

I have mentioned privately to some people that my new favorite show is Supernatural. Have you watched it? You probably haven't, since it's late of the WB and we aren't exactly their target demo. At the urging of a friend of mine I downloaded the first episode and let me tell you, folks: this show is MADE OF AWESOME. After watching the first episode I picked up the entire first season on DVD and I'm going through it now. I can't really recommend it enough. It's sort of the bastard child of the Dukes of Hazzard and the X-Files with a totally-apropos-of-nothing-yet-cool classic rock soundtrack. Plus I watched an episode last night that was totally inspired by Byberry, and I give mad props - MAD, I tell you - to any show that bases entire episodes on Philadelphia urban legends. It's no Battlestar Galactica (what is, after all?) but there are far worse ways to spend an hour watching television (c.f. the View).

Speaking of BSG (spoilers) - Baltar having his own HeadBaltar? GENIUS!

Oh, also, before I forget - KANSAS WINS! KANSAS WINS! NATIONAL CHAMPIONS MOTHERFUCKERS! KANSAS WINS!

See you tonight.

JLK

Your Comfortable Shoes Quizo Update

This past weekend saw Wizard World Philadelphia - aka a comic book convention, aka "Nerdi Gras" (as one friend of mine calls such things) - and to I'm quite sure no one's surprise I attended.

Now for considerable percentages of those who go these events are an exercise in counter-social behavior ranging from quiet-yet-dignified protest against the oppressive regime of the Cool Kids (wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt) to out-and-out incitement of open rebellious warfare against our evil mainstream overlords (wearing a homemade Spider-Man costume). The latter, especially, can get very unfortunate as the vast majority of people wearing such outfits are, shall we say, shaped a lot more like yours truly than Spider-Man necessarily. Note that I would make an official exception for the folks dressed like stormtroopers, Darth Vader and the like, as since attending my first convention years ago I have learned that those folks are members of a group called the 501st Legion who a) make all that shit by hand - handmade movie-quality stormtrooper armor deserves no small amount of credit in the first place - and b) do tons of charity appearances for children's hospitals, museums, and the like. You want to snicker at the guy in the Thor outfit that's one thing, but never laugh at the stormtroopers.

The defining feature of events like this, however, is the fact that it means I essentially spend an entire weekend standing and walking around, which was a serious consideration even before I turned my lower spine and left leg into useless mush. As I said after my first convention years ago: the most important thing is to WEAR THE RIGHT SHOES.

Due to various ridiculous circumstances, this year of course I did not do that, and spent the rest of the weekend (and well into this morning) paying the price. A word of advice: when given a choice between doing something you KNOW is both stupid and will cause you considerable pain in the long run or getting to a three-day event ten minutes later than you planned on getting there, take the extra ten minutes and find your fucking sneakers.

My inability to walk led to the unlikely event of me watching the movie Rising Sun on television on Saturday night - primarily because going out would have meant that someone would have not only had to drive me wherever we were going but would have had to assist me, linebacker-with-a-sprained-ankle-style, from my front door to their car and no one seemed to be up for that. Rising Sun, aside from managing to be at once both quietly understated and hilariously overwrought, also has the distinction of being one of only two movies I can think of in which Sean Connery says the word "fuck," which is just really, really weird (the other being The Rock). For that alone it deserves commemoration.

Finally, my dad and I celebrated Father's Day by watching Oakmont Country Club win the US Open. As a golfer you don't really "win" the US Open so much as you just lose better than everyone else and pray the course does not literally swallow you whole and slowly digest you for a thousand years ( c.f. Boba Fett and the Sarlacc, Phil Mickelson and Winged Foot).

JLK

Your "Laugh and the World Laughs With You" Quizo Update

You may have noticed that last week at the bar I promised that there would be a recap up on the website sometime in the middle of last week. If you noticed that, you may have further noticed this did not happen.

If you did notice these things, please stop being so observant. You're making me look bad.

The reason the aforepromised recap did not happen was that while shoveling snow on Sunday I did something to my already-bad back that is most closely approximated as hiring a frustrated German to walk up behind you and repeatedly club you in the lower spine with the business end of a 20-pound sledgehammer. This laid me up for several days and, frankly, the stuff I needed to write the recap was in my bag downstairs. That's the kind of week I had. No recap because the Quizo material was downstairs.

Now, aside from the metaphysical lumbar clubbing, here's something else interesting from last week. Before my world became a haze of lower back pain and prescription painkillers, I had asked my father if he liked the little bit about our attempt to watch Battlestar Galactica in last week's e-mail. He assured me - this was Tuesday, I think - that he had. He said he found it quite funny. In fact, he thought that he deserved more credit for the fact that he had managed to become less annoying while other people were trying to watch television.

Then, later in the week, when I was barely living on this planet, he said to me, "hey, how come I'm the butt of all the jokes in the Quizo e-mail? That's not fair."

At this point, let me tell you a little story:

Many years ago, back in the ancient mists of forgotten time when I used to do standup comedy (i.e. 2003), I was performing one Saturday at Standup New York. A friend of mine had come up for the show. We'll call her... let's say... Chrissy. Now, I had a whole bit in my act about how her and another friend of mine hooked up at a party and how I thought this was a disaster and how they were both retards for doing such a thing. Once I found out she was actually coming to the show I briefly thought about doing another joke in its place but decided against it because a) it was a good bit, and b) screw her anyway if she didn't like it.

Standup New York is, as comedy clubs go, pretty crap, but by some trick of the light the only table in the club that I have a decent view of from the stage is the one where Chrissy is sitting with her friend Sean, and as I go into the joke and get to the end I can see clearly - CLEARLY - that she is laughing. After that I look elsewhere and continue with my act.

Unbeknownst to me, however, during this joke this conversation is happening at the table:

Chrissy: [laughing]

Sean: Hey, I think he's talking about you.

Chrissy: No he's not.

Me: [makes joke on stage that clearly identifies Chrissy as the person I'm talking about]

Sean: Uh, I'm pretty sure he is.

Chrissy: [stops laughing for the rest of the show]

After my act I was standing out on 82nd Street smoking and Chrissy came screaming out the front door.

"I can't believe you told that story about me!" she is screaming.

"Why can't you believe that?" I said. I had been stealing my friends' life stories for various things for years at that point. Surely it should not be a surprise.

"You made me look like a total bitch!" she shouts.

"No, that was the joke AFTER the one about you. You, I just make look a little silly."

"I can't blah blah blah yackity schmackity yell scream (shrieking harpy noises) joke about me!" I have, honestly, long since tuned out this part in my memory. This goes on for a solid 30 seconds before I, exasperated, finally shout:

"YOU LAUGHED!"

"No I didn't," she protests.

"Yes, you did. I could see you laughing. You laughed."

And then I uttered the phrase that would protect me from the abuse of friends (and now family) ever since:

"If you laugh at the joke, you don't get to complain about being the punchline."

By the way, Dad, you've been mentioned in precisely three e-mails over the last six months, and you didn't even have lines in one of them. So, you know, nyah.

For what it's worth, while I was laid up, the only thing more fun than watching Chelsea's 4-0 FA Cup win this Saturday was watching Phil Mickelson (who we all know I despise) return to the Phil of old and absolutely choke his guts out yesterday at the Nissan Open. We missed you, Phil. Keep up the good work.

JLK