What Clint Eastwood should have said
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The Emperor decrees that cereal box bags will, henceforth, open easily and neatly
I have been declared Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time explaining why or how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my next decree:
Emperor’s Decree No. 90006: The Emperor is a regular Joe. Of a fine morning, he likes to munch a nice bowl of cereal. Sadly, though, he has often, of late, had his day start on a note of rage. This is because he has, more than occasionally, encountered an inner cereal bag that either a) a silverback gorilla on performance-enhancing drugs could not open or b) that opens easily… by ripping down the side or fraying into seven thousand jagged strips — cereal flying all about the Royal Kitchen — and dooming the contents to stale squishiness in the space of a few days. The Emperor knows that this is a recent phenomenon: as a child, he opened his own cereal boxes on a regular basis, without one single calamity. Something is awry with quality-control in the cereal packaging field. This will cease: effective, now. And if the Emperor’s Froot Loops ever again sail in multi-colored geysers past the sunrise windows of the Imperial palace, a certain toucan might have to be made an example of.
The Punishment: Responsible parties will be placed in a cage with a trained silverback gorilla (named “Otto”) who will attempt to “open” them by pulling outward, in opposite directions, while gripping their ears.
The Emperor will grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning.
Bad sports, good sports: Lance Armstrong gives up the fight
Every once in a while I run into a story about which I want to write, but I can’t decide if it’s Bad Sports or Good Sports. The current Lance Armstrong saga is one of those stories. There are a lot of different facets to this tale, and they are fairly well distributed on both sides of the ledger. Armstrong is arguably the greatest cyclist of all time, having won the prestigious Tour de France a record seven times. Even more remarkably, all seven came after he was diagnosed with cancer in 1996. For a number of years, though, he has been dogged by allegations of doping, a problem that is absolutely rampant in the sport. This week, he announced that he was giving up the fight against the charges, saying that the process has been unfair and continuing to fight was a waste of time and effort. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency immediately banned him from the sport for life and stripped him of his titles. [Read more →]
An Olympics gone by: What did your kids do all summer?
This year a family beach vacation overlapped with the Olympics, so I was able to get a huge dose of the events from London. I am one of those people who loves the summer games, and I was able to indulge that passion more than any year since probably 1984. [Read more →]
Top ten worst ideas for reality television shows
10. Project Nunway
9. Who Wants to Be a Dental Hygienist?
8. Ferret Whisperer
7. America’s Next Top Ramen
6. Waterboard Confessions
5. So You Think You Can Crochet
4. Real Housewives of Tehran
3. Bagpiping with the Stars
2. Are You Smarter Than A Congressman?
1. Jersey Shore
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
The Emperor decrees that the phrase “my bad” shall not be used as a substitute for “I’m sorry”
I have been declared Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time explaining why or how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my next decree:
Emperor’s Decree No. 84: While the Emperor truly wishes to outlaw the phrase “my bad,” he will not. Not completely. (The Emperor realizes he has a tendency to go overboard with the number of phrases he loathes…) But, the phrase “my bad” is now illegal in situations where it is completely obvious that it is, in fact, the speaker’s…uh, “bad.” An example might be found in the Emperor’s numerous and nightmarish memories of the Philadelphia Eagles’ former quarterback, Randall Cunningham, throwing the ball sixteen miles away from the vicinity of his intended receiver (into the teeth of an elderly nun who was innocently and selflessly — she was more of a tennis fan, really — accompanying her orphanage students on a trip to the game) and then slapping himself on the chest and mouthing “my bad” as if he was doing mankind a noble service by virtue of the very admission. A more reasonable and un-hyperbolic example might be a situation in which a waiter drops a flaming entrée into the lap of a gentleman’s date, thereby igniting her dress and damning her to years of reconstructive surgery (not to mention robbing her of the ability to ever bear children), and proclaiming, penitently, that the accident is his “bad.” There simply will be no more of it in the Empire. If we can see that a mistake is yours and you extraneously proclaim it your “bad,” you will suffer. “My bad” does not, and never will, equate to “I’m sorry.”
The Punishment: Violators will — in homage to the delightfully evil creativity of the dreaded pirate Yellowbeard — be forced to eat their own lips.
Now, go forth and obey.
The Emperor will grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning.
Exhaling…
Two months ago I was told by my doctor that I would never be able to have children.
But let me back up a little. Nine years ago I married the love of my life. When we first got married I thought that in a few short years we would have a house full of kids… rambunctious, adorable, smart-ass little kids just like their parents. I was wrong. After 4 years of fertility drugs, acupuncture, surgery, herbal medicine, praying, begging, and pleading, my doctor called me in June and told me that I had to give up and go on with the rest of my life. It was not going to happen.
Bad sports, good sports: Woman sues Cowboys for burned buttocks
There’s nothing that gets me riled up quite like a frivolous lawsuit. People who sue other people, businesses, and organizations for minor injuries nauseate me, especially when those injuries were really their own fault. The lawyers that take these cases are just as much at fault, and should be held accountable as well. That is not to say that there is never a valid reason to sue someone for injuries or negligence. I am sure there are plenty of those. When someone sues for something idiotic, however, I really believe that person should be subject to fines, jail time, or at least a requirement that he pay all court costs for the defendant. This week, a woman in Texas sued the Dallas Cowboys because she allegedly burned her backside on a bench outside of the team’s stadium back in 2010. Really. [Read more →]
Top ten signs you are too old to be playing Major League Baseball
10. During the Seventh Inning Stretch, you pull a hamstring
9. You try running around the bases on your Rascal Scooter
8. You originally played for the Cincinnati Red Stockings
7. You have an 8×10 of Betty White hanging in your locker
6. When you buy steroids, you pull out your AARP card and ask for a discount
5. During a press conference, when asked if you wear boxers or briefs, you reply, “Depends.”
4. While you’re running from second to third, you stop for directions
3. When you slide into home, you dislocate your hip
2. You were ultimately exonerated in the Black Sox scandal
1. Your cry of “I slid into second, and I can’t get up!”
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Hope and Chains
U.S. News — Joan Walsh, editor-at-large of Salon.com, says Vice President Joe Biden had a point when he told an audience including black voters in Danville, Va., Tuesday that Mitt Romney would “put y’all back in chains.”
“I don’t think he was referring just to slavery,” she said. “Most people came to this country as indentured servants. We have all been in shackles at some point—except maybe the wealthy.”
Okay, let me get this straight – Joe Biden had a point (which means he had a fairly accurate and enlightening assessment) that the banking industry and the Republican presidential ticket would indeed put us all in chains if given the Whitehouse? And he was referring to all of us – not just his predominantly black audience – because most people came to this country as indentured servants? [Read more →]
Safer for one sociopath at a time, so long as they’re a Republican
Although I’ve been struggling to respond to the latest moment of cluelessness and oblivious response from Mitt Romney, I’ve got to say that the Republicans are in for a hard time on the satire front this year. Actually, it will be easy – all you have to do is repeat their talking points, and then ask yourself, “what the hell was that…” out loud. So many more articulate voices than mine have raised the Paul Ryan thing as a bad idea, from Denis Leary comparing him to Eddie Munster to Maureen Dowd nailing him as well scrubbed altar boy-slasher, that I feel almost like piling on. So, here goes…
Talking about Ryan as a serious policy advocate or a serious anything strikes me as insane. He’s a right wing twit with whom the Evangelicals and the Social Conservatives can be as comfortable as the Ron Paul and Dick Armey types. Gingrich will look wistfully at him, thinking that if he had those abs and those eyes instead of weasel eyes and honey badger approach, he would have been able to find a pretty woman to marry before wife number 3. Or four…I forget. So, he’s in favor of personhood which makes abortion illegal as well as birth control outside of sponges, condoms, vasectomies, tube-tying, rhythm and pulling out; he doesn’t want to fund planned parent hood; he doesn’t specify anyway he’s going to save money except cut programs for the poor and eliminate fraud and waste while opposing the waste reduction transfer from Medicare to pay for additional Medicaid done by the Affordable Care Act. He doesn’t care for Medicare, saying it’s unsustainable. He doesn’t want women to have access to the benefits of no co-pays for birth control, mammograms, pap smears and so on. He wants to cut taxes for the rich, raise them on the middle class, defund education, and on and on and on.
Maureen Dowd has a very good piece on this guy. She figured he’d be the nominee – seems like a nice guy, really a weasel. Perfect match for the Seems lIke a Weasel/Is a Weasel Romneybot 2012. Rachel Maddow has made fun of him from the beginning, tearing his policy credentials to shreds while wondering why the Beltway Media has taken him seriously. (I think it’s the weaselly altar boy look – nothing can get closeted queens more excited than the weaselly altar boy meme. ) Seriously, think Greg Marmalarde sucking up to the Dean in Animal House or better yet, Kevin Bacon smugly saying “ All will be well” and getting trampled also in Animal House. Marmalarde probably made his Omega pledges read Ayn Rand out loud to him. [Read more →]
The Emperor decrees an end to “chocolate porn” in advertising
I have been declared Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time explaining why or how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my next decree:
Emperor’s Decree No. 9932: Purveyors of fine chocolate treats will no longer be allowed to market their products with television advertisements that include women eating, moaning, throwing their heads back and seductively licking the chocolate drippings off of the tips of their fingers. While the Emperor understands the love that his female subjects generally share for chocolate (and while he enjoys similar goodies, himself, from time to time) he certainly would not permit the airing of commercials that include images of gentlemen dry-humping their Audis, or seductively nibbling at the radio antennae. While sexuality can be effective in advertising, the Emperor declares chocolate porn to be frigging stupid, and things that are frigging stupid are not allowed in The Empire.
The Punishment: Violators will be forced to watch a naked Sumo wrestler, recumbent, Rubens-like, upon a velvet a chaise lounge, eat foot-long chili dogs for an entire month.
Now, go forth and obey.
The Emperor will grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning.
London 2012: final thoughts
The Olympics are finally finished. Last time we dissected the first week of action from a point of view highly more sophisticated than NBC, or anybody else for that matter. Now it is time to break down the second week of action, and ponder some final thoughts for London 2012.
The dominant story of week one was Michael Phelps. The dominant story of week two was Michael’s conceited evil twin brother Usain Bolt. Bolt won the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m for the second Olympics in a row. But he was such a prick in doing so, I could hardly watch. After winning the 200m, he did pushups on the track in front of the other runners. Just a few minutes later, with his slobbering NBC groupies, he self-proclaimed himself a legend and one of the greatest athletes of all time. [Read more →]
Bad sports, good sports: NASCAR, that is how it’s done
Hey NASCAR, I hope you were paying attention today. There is so much that was right with today’s race at Watkins Glen in New York, that it makes me wonder why more of the races can’t be like this. NASCAR makes a huge deal every year out of its worst races, and I am ever at a loss to figure out why. I need to make myself the emperor like Chris Matarazzo so that I can make some sort of decree that promotes road course races over restrictor-plate races. [Read more →]
Lisa reads Arctic Rising by Tobias S. Buckell
Someone needs to option this for a movie!
Arctic Rising
More jet packs please- memories of Olympic glory
Ever since I was a wee zygote, I have had zero interest in sports. Soccer? Swimming? Table-tennis? Nah. It’s only during the Olympics, when the coverage is so overwhelming that I become aware of what’s going on in the world of running and jumping. And indeed, when I look back, I see that in spite of my indifference I actually have numerous memories of Games past.
Take the Moscow Olympics of 1980 for instance. I was five years old and a girl from my small Scottish town was doing something over there. Our teachers told us all about it. Anyway, she didn’t win a medal, but they did name a street in a rubbish suburb in her honor fifteen years later, so her glory is undiminished, although I can’t actually remember her name. [Read more →]
The Emperor decrees that ye shall no longer respond to questions with “So…”
I have been declared Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time explaining why or how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my next decree:
Emperor’s Decree No. 23Q: Citizens of the Empire are no longer allowed to answer someone’s questions by leading off with the word “so.” For example:
Interviewer: Is your novel about “coming of age,” Mr. Writerly?
Mr. Writerly: So…in the book, I try to examine youth as, etc, etc.
Although this type of response is as trendy and “NPR-ish” as inserting the phrase “sort of” (pronounced: “srtiv”) after every five words of a statement, leading off an answer with “so” makes it sound as if you are relieved that the interviewer finally shut up for six seconds and allowed you to continue to talk about yourself. It’s arrogant and it is a sure way to kill the flow of any discussion. And it will stop as of today. The Emperor has his eye on all of you pseudo-educated, neo-snobs…
The Punishment: Violators will be locked in a cell with a small desk, a quill and ink, and no food. They will be forced to write five-hundred word requests and to make arguments as to why they should be fed, each day, for a span of two weeks. Eight hours after each request, they will receive a note in response from the Emperor. The note will be engraved and gilded. It will read, simply, “So?” (In his divine munificence, the Emperor will provide a protein drink per day.)
Now, go forth and obey.
The Emperor will grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning.
Bad sports, good sports: Olympics, Olympics, everywhere
As I sit here on Sunday night looking over my list of stories from the week, it is hard to miss that most of them involve the Olympics. I have never been a big fan of the Olympics, and I will admit that I have not watched a great deal of it this time around either. I have enjoyed what I have watched, though, and some of it has been really exciting. Perhaps I should watch more of it the next time around. I especially liked watching the running, which is likely due to my own interest in the sport, which I did not have during the last Summer Games. Rather than write a long piece on one of these stories, I am going to try to give some time to a bunch of the great performances, along with the usual list of some unfortunate ones.
Good sports, continued:
1) Michael Phelps proved that he is simply the greatest Olympian of all time. [Read more →]
Top ten signs you’re having a bad summer
10. You mentally divide your summer into two parts: pre and post weed wacker incident
9. You’re Tom Cruise
8. The B&B you’re staying at evidently stands for ‘bed’ and ‘bugs’
7. What everyone else thinks is a sunburn is actually a rash
6. The cruise director shows you to your bench and oar
5. That giant mouse you saw wasn’t at Disneyland
4. You have to crawl under barbed wire to get to the beach
3. All the resort staff members are wearing yellow biohazard suits
2. The only summer job you could find was as Chris Christie’s lotion boy
1. Your eyebrows haven’t grown back since the Fourth of July
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
