A Falling Out With Pudding Pants

I have a co-worker that I’ve heard more about than seen this past month, so I was surprised to spot him skulking about the office this morning. This bloke – let’s call him Tubbs – is pretty decent away from the work front but in it, his only accomplishment seems to be his standing as reigning Madden 06 and 07 office champion. Well.. he has more going for him than that but I wouldn’t call those things accomplishments of note.

So it happens that I returned from lunch today to find my office door ajar. Burglars? Terrorists? Ninjas? It was anyone’s guess but it was certainly someone who had masterminded our swipe card security system. I peered in… Tubbs. Blah. That is, until I spotted a serious problem — my toys, all originals from my youth, were strewn across my desk and all over the floor. And there was Tubbs, sitting joyfully amidst Spider-Man, Superman, Flash, Batman, Optimus Prime, Lion-O, Cheetara, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, She-Ra, He-Man, and even my GI Joe Jeep that carried Sgt. Slaughter, Jinx, Storm Shadow, and Destro (I know, he needs his own mode of transportation). He’d also messed with my dart board and left my skateboard in the middle of the floor.

Now, I’m not one to prevent a person from enjoying great figurines. All one has to do is ask. But to sneak in my office when I’m not around? God only knows how long he waited for me to leave so he could steal some playtime with Raphael and Michaelangelo… he’d probably been doing it for months, maybe longer! Who could know? I keep my toys (for display purposes) on a book case behind my desk. Every once in a while, I’ll come in to find things out of place but I’ve always blamed the maintenance staff.. they come in to vacuum, hit the case, things fall.. no big deal, right?… So much for that.

"So…can I help you?"
"Oh hey, love these figurines. These are totally the cartoons I watched in junior high and high school, ya know?" As he said it, Superman took flight. Had I not been standing there, I’m sure the sounds of the crisp wind ripping through the cape would have escaped Tubs’ lips. All the same, I stood there for a moment in hopes that he’d feel my impending wrath and call it a day. He either failed to notice or failed to care. I’m still not sure.

"Can I have these?"
"Uh…" I swiped Flash and Green Lantern off the desk. "These are my toys." I sounded like a petulant 8-year-old but I didn’t care. Who does this type of thing? I know your sorry ass got shit-canned but that doesn’t mean you can disrespect my personal space and play with my stuff.

"It’s not like you can’t buy more."
"First of all, I actually can’t buy some of those anymore but that’s not the point! Did I ever go in your office and mess with your things?"
"No but you ate the last brownie before Thanksgiving even though you knew I wanted one."

Well ya fuckin got me there! How do you react to that? It was like being yelled at by a sixth grader. What I wanted to do, at that point, was head butt him in the nose but that’s not good for the workplace. Luckily, he shifted focus.

"What do you want for that comic on your wall?"
"That’s not for sale."
"Why not?"
"That’s Amazing Fantasy #15"
"So?"
"This isn’t a goddamn garage sale, Tubs!"

And that’s when he went off, ragging on me for everything from my gender to my job to the fact that I can’t go without sunglasses when outside. He even threw in something about Title IX before adding that I didn’t know anything about his job (which made no sense nor any bit of difference). And when I said "that makes two of us," things got even worse.

When he made another comment about my appearance, I fired back. I had to. And after busting on his job performance, I stooped to his level and cracked on his waste line. I brought up how he’s the last person to arrive at morning meetings because he’s too busy stuffing his face with biscuits and gravy in the kitchen. And that his face begins to glisten after we’ve been there for ten minutes or so. To the untrained eye, it might look like sweating.. it certainly gets warm in the conference room. But I know the truth – that’s fat seeping out of his pores like melted Crisco. Then I brought up his two daily lunches and the fact that he eats enough secretary-made pastries each day to feed a starving family of four. How dare he have the nerve to talk to me about brownies? Or anything, for that matter?! Fucking clown. Eventually, however, I called him "pudding pants" and that was all she wrote. It was low and unnecessary and I knew it but Christ, he started it! Problem was, he also ended it by scrunching up his face and trudging away. 

I’m not quite sure what happened but I feel like the biggest bitch… I want to think that I wasn’t out of line.. that all I really did was match his level of immaturity but I feel like I’ve done something dreadfully wrong that needs to be corrected… feelings like this are totally unfamiliar to me and I don’t like it! Hopefully, it will be cured by some stiff drinks later this evening.

As a side note, I found this picture on CNNSi to be absolutely delightful:

ESPN To Blame for Troy S. Myth

So while talking to a few co-workers about Troy S. Myth getting dismantled like a man kissed by death, I realized something — all of my annoyance, anger, and (what developed into) hatred for him had been completely misguided. For the better part of a year, the mere mention of his name has left me seething. I always understood that he was a talented quarterback but he was being treated as if he was the Second Coming. To make matters worse, he’d been touted as this saintly, courageous soul, who fought through adversity to lead his team to the promised land when the reality is that he created his own by snatching booster money and engaging in random acts of jackassery. 

But like all objects of my frustration, I now see that the blame can be traced to one source: the Worldwide Leader of Hype & Bunk.

ESPN/ABC and no one else is to blame for the unending fellatio of Troy S. Myth. That boil on the arse of sports pours fanatical devotion on selected teams and players, sanitizing the corrupt and deifying the unworthy.

We can’t blame Myth for the angle taken by the press any more than we can blame Ohio State for being heralded as a 20-point favorite, Notre Dame for starting the season ranked #2, or Boise State for suddenly becoming the greatest team of the modern age. Troy S. Myth didn’t ask to replace Jesus as the Messiah – ESPN handled that for him while carefully crafting his Hypeman campaign. Their machine fooled the masses into thinking that a guy who was a talented college quarterback, no more and no less, was a god among men. And now that he has fallen, they have abandoned him for a new savior with a more genuine tale of lament – Chris Leak.

ESPN actively deceives the public for their own gain and then feigns ignorance when it backfires. They have created the culture that fuels the greed and frivolity of the bowl season and no one will hold them accountable. Who’s going to do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? ESPN/ABC will continue on their path, destroying college football with their biased "reporting" and boosterism and we’ll all sit idly by without saying a word.

Bah.

In other news, Kim Etheredge, the useless clown that fumbled spin control for Terrell Owens was unceremoniously fired yesterday. Just four months ago, I nearly found myself lending a feeling of sorrow in TO’s direction but she stepped in and reminded us that there are 25 million reasons why that was unnecessary. After laughing at her plight, my buddy Coz advised that at least she has her hair care business as a plan B and that got me a’thinkin…

Etheredge is the CEO of Mixed Chicks Hair Products, which are, as one can easily infer, made for biracial women. But how did she get to become the CEO.. what was her business background? Did she simply get a business license and latch on to a product? Like Ms. Etheredge, I am already qualified to become a publicist, so what’s stopping me from following her into the world of hair care products?

"But Warner, YOU aren’t a mixed chick!" Ah-ha! I am a fine half and half mixture of American Indian and random European white people. I’m not Ms. Etheredge’s type of mixed chick but I’ve got my own little minority working out here. Trouble is, there aren’t too many of us running around. Even worse, is that traveling to various powwows and functions to sell my wares to the general Indian populace would be a bust… as a general rule, we have fantastic hair. Whether wavy, curly, or straight, it’s always soft, silky, and packs a lustrous shine.

But what about the albinos? Constantly overlooked by the mainstream, the albinic market is, to date, completely untouched! We’ve gone over my issues with my hair and eyes in the past. You know about my problems. I need this! When I go to the salon, I’m entitled to have products made for people like me.. products that don’t leave me looking like a tiger or zebra when I attempt to get my hair darkened. Frankly, I think I’ve got a winner on my hands.

I’m going to call my line of products "White Heat" – it’s gonna be a whole collection of shampoos, conditioners, hair dyes, mousse, and colored contacts. And after I round up the 10,000 albinic souls running around this country, I’m gonna hawk my goods and make that paper… if things go well enough, I may be able to make enough profit to buy new tires for my Wrangler.

Huzzah!

Looks Like a Good Old Fashioned Buckeye Butt-kickin’!

In new business, I had an update at Sports by Brooks today (Monday), so click over and ogle or peruse or whatever adjective you fancy.

In complaining business, I’m supposed to be in J-Bay (Jeffrey’s Bay), South Africa right now surfing, strutting, and showing the beached masses what I’ve got. But due to a painfully unfortunate event last week, my boss has put a delay on my 5-week vacation, leaving me trapped in this hole for at least three more days. Though this move has nothing to do with me (I’m not the one that sucks), it’s become necessary that I be around for various meetings and functions, so I’m now boarding to work in a painful mixture of sleet and rain when I should be on a wave taunting sharks with my stems… it’s just not fair.

In an effort to make things fun for myself, I decided to go beach in my office this afternoon. After coming back from lunch, I snuck to the restroom and slipped on my swimsuit. Then I went to my office and shut the door. Though my skateboard wasn’t the same as a surfboard, I stood on it anyway… trouble is, my carpet doesn’t allow much in the way of rolling, so I sat at my desk for the better part of two hours before admitting to myself that I am a truly pathetic creature.

But moving on.. I know I have no hand when bringing up this subject but I can’t say there’s anything more satisfying right now than watching Cheaty McSweatervest, Troy S-myth, and ESPN shit the bed on national television. My hatred for Urban Meyer is pretty strong, so if I had my way, a bomb would have dropped on the stadium around the time the Ohio State Marching Band was ironically playing the theme song from Titanic during the halftime show. But since that wasn’t a strong possibility, I didn’t know what to do or for whom to cheer…

I knew I wanted Urban Meyer to die in a fire, I knew I wanted Columbus to tear itself apart in a frenzy of fear, misery, and madness, and I knew that I wanted the media’s polishing of Troy Smyth’s knob for finally becoming a leader after years of being a corrupt, money-taking asshole to end… But I suppose two out of three ain’t bad. Besides, there’s still plenty of time for number 1 to go down, right?

All the same, congratulations to Chris Leak and the Florida Gators, as well as Darren McFadden, who should be receiving his Heisman Trophy from Troy Smyth any day now.

The Autumn Wind’s Stench Hurts My Braincase

This post is dedicated to John, an ace chap from the great state of Washington who spends his days eating apples and creating acoustic magic. Here’s to your fix, mate.

So it’s been about a month since I posted with any regularity and then I went and lied to you by promising to be back two days ago. Well kids, I’m finally here to deliver. After four weeks of being completely up against it and having it end in humiliating futility, I’m on vacation and ready to yak at you.

I’ve missed far too much to comment on it now but I’ll touch on a couple of the more irritating things that happened to me over the break..

I went down to Indianapolis a few weeks ago to watch the Colts and Bengals duke it out on Monday Night Football. I’m not a fan of either team but I’m not one to pass up tickets to what was supposed to be a solid contest. So we’re in our seats for about a minute when this drunken reprobate shows up in the preceding row with a $12 beer. It took him about a minute to turn around and shout "WHO DEYYYYY!" in my face with breath so strong that it singed my noise hair and made my eyes water. He was rank. Absolutely foul. He was an abomination. And he danced to that goddamn Who Dey chant for the better part of a half hour. When the game finally started, he sat down and took off his coat. That’s when I noticed this – the epitome of all jersey offenses:

Lemme tell you something, Bengal fan. It is the complete assclown, and he alone, that sports the number 69 after graduating from high school. But it is another person entirely who does so on an authentic NFL jersey that also has HMFIC on the back. After taking a picture of it, I gave him a tap and asked for a definition. "Acronyms aren’t really my strong suit," I said. "Baby baby baby, I am the H.M.F.I.C. I am the HEEEEEAD Motherfucker in CHAHHH-GE!… WHO DEY!! WHO DEY!! WHO DEY THINK GON-" You get the rest. Up until that point, I had remained fairly calm with this twat’s antics but that really was the last straw. What bothered me even more is that if anyone in this situation was supposed to be the head motherfucker in charge, I assure you, it was definitely me – who was acting as the sober, sane one for once in my life.. I spent the better part of the night eating nachos and fantasizing about kicking him in the teeth. But on the plus side, I made a brief "appearance" on Sports Center, as a highlight was shown of a Bengal fumble recovery that occurred directly in front of my seat. While chumpy engaged in song and dance, I stared at him with hateful disgust. Huzzah (kinda).

Beyond that, I can’t recall anything of note that occurred – well nothing that I need to weigh in on 15 days after the fact, at least.

Let’s see… I have an update at SportsbyBrooks, so check that out. Aside from obvious snippets about Art Shell and Bill Cowher, you can also check out the Daniela Cicarelli (Ronaldo’s ex-wife) sex video, a Utah boy that found hardcore porn in a case of Madden 07, and from the "Like Clay Aiken, Some Schmo is Getting Hotter Ass Than You" Files, Jim Lampley got drunk, zooted, and then administered a beatdown on his girlfriend – Miss California 2003. I like to assume that the poor girl said something that reminded Lamps of Larry Merchant and he lost his head.

The most important news of the day is that the Art Shell experiment has come to an unceremonious end. It seems he had a meeting with Al Davis and the two came to the mutual agreement that Shell move into the front office rather than continue to pilot the Raiders on a way ship to hell. When Davis hired Shell, I posted that this is how the process made me feel:

And after a season of the Hall of Fame tackle, it’s as if the goalpost came to life and smacked me around as well. But I’m not mad at Art Shell for this disaster. Hell, I’m not even mad at Al Davis. I am angry with the Angel of Death who continues to spurn my pleas for aid where Davis’ lifespan is concerned… filthy git.. He’s probably a Chargers fan.