Observing Lent

This year I'm going to observe Lent with my stout Catholic friend Mike. I've pledged to give up "fat jokes" for the next 40 days (although Mike said that Catholics get Sundays off, so we'll see what happens then). I'm also going to give up meat and only eat one meal on Fridays. Lent overlaps Passover, so there will be one Friday with no meat and no bread. If the people of Darfur can make a livelihood out of it, I think I can manage for a day. I'm going to attend mass as well. I really want to end with a fat joke of some kind; this whole thing is gonna be hard.

Happy Ash Wednesday to all non-anti-Semitic observers.

Evil Leaders League, Week 5

Week 5 of the ELL:

Chavez vs Lukashenko
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has two things going for him. One is his threat to jail grocery store owners who don't comply with his price controls. He's also threatened to nationalize their businesses. All of that is right up an evil hero's alley. The other thing is that my friend Kristen wrote a paper on him for grad school. Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko reportedly wants to join the European Union. It's hard to be an evil leader when you got people looking over your shoulder. If jailing grocers wasn't enough, Kristen's efforts give Hugo Chavez an easy victory.
winner: Chavez

Kim vs Ahmadinejad
Kim Jong-Il of North "mothafuckin" Korea has decided to ban Japanese cars. Hey asshole, this is the Evil Leaders League, not the Crazy Leaders League. Everyone knows Japan makes better cars than North Korea. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (take your time with prouncing it Tony Snow) puts the fear of G-d in Mor(m)on US presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Ahmadinejad didn't even do shit. In fact, he's losing support at home. Mahmoud's just a hustler baby. Iran also shut down a web site talking shit about Mahmy. Kim got schooled this week.
winner: Ahmadinejad

Mugabe vs Hussein
Zimbabwe's leader Robert Mugabe is in trouble. The opposition party MDF was allowed to hold a protest rally, which was designed to launch their presidential campaign for 2008. Mugabe hopes to postpone elections until 2010. Democracy is not an evil leader's friend. But he wins anyway because his opponent, Saddam Hussein, is dead.
winner: Mugabe

al-Bashir vs Castro
Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, should be a bit farklempt. Violence in Darfur is only increasing. And people are noticing, I hope. It's to the point where aid workers are victims of violence, not just innocent people from Darfur. Rwanda's president Paul Kagame says that the situation in Darfur is reminiscent of the genocide in his own country during 1994. But, al-Bashir does not have an artificial anus like his opponent. Omar is also in power, something that Fidel Castro also can't say. That's not the only thing stroke face can't say.
winner: al-Bashir

standings:
Kim J-I 4-1
Chavez 4-1
Ahmad 4-1
Lukash 3-2
al-Bash 3-2
Mugabe 2-3
Castro 0-5
Hussein 0-5

All Star Game Recap

Led me start by saying that Wayne Newton is terrible. And his fake face is ugly. He's terribugly.

Kobe Bryant won the MVP award and led the West to an easy victory. Bryant ended with 31 points, and at least 5 assists, rebounds, and steals. Marion, Stoudemire, and Carmelo Anthony all played well for the West as well. In fact, everyone on either team played well except for Caron Butler. But the night belonged to Kobe, who is clearly the best player in the league right now- though not the most likeable. He's almost has a Jordanesk aura about him when he's dribbling the ball up court hunched over.

After Shaq dunked one home, he kissed Tracy McGrady, reminiscent of Dick Bavetta kissing Charles Barkley on Saturday. I love the love. But that's what basketball is all about. And that's why it's the best sport in the world.

All Star Saturday Recap

I can't wait for the Raptors to move south so we can cut the number of national anthems at the All Star Game in half. I've always thought playing the national anthem before sporting events was ridiculous.

Dwyane Wade won the skills challenge for the second straight year. After Jason Kapono put on a 3-point show, tying Mark Price's final round record of 24 points, Wade yelled at somebody, "He's gotta eat." He was right; Kapono might need the winner's check to be able to afford to eat. Hey, he's no Nowitzki or Arenas. Charles Barkley out-ran the 67-year old diving Dick Bavetta. Then Tim Hardaway said, "I hate gay people." Oh wait, that last one happened earlier this week.

The dunk contest had a lot of solid dunks, but none for the ages. Hands down the best dunk of the night was when Paul Pierce threw the ball off of the side of the backboard and Gerald Green catapulted up, caught it, and dunked it home two-handed. Nate Robinson's first dunk was awesome too, gliding through the air with his legs flailing. I also liked his twirling dunk grabbing the ball out of David Lee's out-stretched hand. Lee is over a foot taller than his teammate Robinson. Nate's last dunk was really nice, but I do think he should have lost points for missing it 10 times, even though he's my man.

Gerald Green's dunk over Nate was cool, but Nate's over Spud last year was better. His contest winning dunk over the table got him a 50, but I thought it was kinda weak, at least compared to everyone's (over) reaction. Dwight Howard's sticker dunk was probably the third best dunk of the night. To be able to have the mind-power to catch and dunk the ball with one hand and slap a sticker to the top of the backboard was mind-boggling. But being a 7-footer rightfully hurt his scores. In the end Gerald Green got the win giving me an 0-4 night.

NBA All Star Predictions

First I want to congratulate the Knicks David Lee for winning the MVP award in last night's Rookie-Sophomore game. He scored 30 points on 14-14 shooting. Go Knicks!

My predictions in bold.

Race:
Dick Bavetta
Charles Barkley

Skills Challenge:
Dwyane Wade
LeBron James
Kobe Bryant
Chris Paul

3-point contest:
Dirk Nowitzki
Gilbert Arenas
Damon Jones
Jason Kapono
Mike Miller
Jason Terry

Slam Dunk contest:
Nate Robinson
Gerald Green
Dwight Howard
Tyrus Thomas

High Five For Gays

John Amaechi, an awful basketball player, recently announced that he is gay. His declaration made me want to learn more about "The Gay Athlete" DUN DUN DUN!

I learned that the high five was popularized by baseball player Glenn Burke, who was gay. YEAH! High five for Glenn Burke! High five for gay baseball players! High five for gay expressions of camaraderie! High five for John Amaechi and his terrible basketball skills. No, nobody? YOU'RE ALL HOMOPHOBES!

I learned that Canadian track and field athlete Brian Marshall won the decathlon in the 1990 Gay Games and then came out publicly in 1993, which shows the over-whelming popularity of the Gay Games. Brian Marshall, an Olympian and 2-time NCAA All-American, beat the likes of Kenny from marketing and Bruce the lawyer to capture the Gay Games gold.

The rest of the list of gay athletes is just about the saddest thing this side of Matthew Sheppard. Shame, suicides, diseases, death, and- strangely- female handball players. C'mon people, let's have some inspiring gay athletes. Not John Amaechi though, he was horrible at basketball. I mean, go to his basketball camp; he's still the best British player ever. But the call for inspirational gay athletes stands. The NBA seems to be the right path, even if Tim Hardaway and Karl Malone are huge bigots. And I'm sure Alonzo Mourning is too, he's a horrible person.

Gay Ball Players

Apparently, former NBA player John Amaechi is gay. I just thought he was British. After Amaechi's announcement, the NBA patted itself on the back for being so tolerant. It's true that the NBA is more progressive/liberal/enlightened than the MLB or NFL. Black coaches have been around since the 1960s, black people are in upper management, and people from all over the world are welcomed in the NBA.

The reactions to Amaechi's announcement fit that perception to a startling degree. They ranged from Charles Barkley's- I have plenty of gay friends, who the hell cares who he sleeps with- to David Stern's- This is a league of diversity where the only question is do you have game?- to LeBron James'- The locker room is a place of trust and I would want to know while we played because a team is a family. This is a far cry from former NFL player Garrison Hearst's- I don't want to play with no faggots. Stern's comment concerns me a bit, because I hope he would realize the importance of a gay professional athlete and act on the player's behalf when needed. LeBron would be offended if he wasn't told by a teammate, because it would be a breech of trust- it seems so extreme (in the right direction); I love it.

So the NBA is ahead of its time, right? Well, not exactly. It's just not as behind as the other two major leagues. In a league where 2/3rds of the players are black, league management doesn't reflect that number. The NBA has one black majority owner, and it's the former owner of BET- feh. And Amaechi is the first person ever to have played in the NBA to come out. So, while I was pleasantly surprised by the NBA's reaction to John Amaechi's news, it might be too early for too much self-congratulation. Oh and if you're wondering if John Amaechi was good enough at basketball to be remembered, let's just say he's lucky he's gay.

Evil Leaders League, Week 4

For week 4, The ELL gets a little help from Parade magazine's list of "The World's 10 Worst Dictators," because everyone knows that the worst dictators make the best evil leaders.

Kim vs Castro
Parade magazine ranked Kim Jong-Il #2. They called him a wily politician. He's shown this throughout recent negotiations with South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, and the US. Kim makes outrageous energy demands so that his less-outrageous demands seem more reasonable. He acquired this skill at the Bill O'Reilly School of Being a Dick or BOSBD. The six partners have reached a tentative agreement where North Korea kinda shuts down their nuclear program in exchange for energy and humanitarian aid. It's the same deal I have with my mother.

Castro was unrated because he's not in power. But even if Fidel Castro was in power and didn't have an artificial anus, he would lose this matchup, because of the active- though small- Jewish community in Cuba. Jews have been practicing more and more since the ban on religious freedom was lifted in 1992. What kind of evil leader allows Jews to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives? Not a very good one.
winner: Kim

Ahmadinejad vs Hussein
Parade did not rank Ahmadinejad, opting instead to list Ayatollah Khamenei, the true authority in Iran, at #3. Ahmadinejad gave his much anticipated speech Sunday, marking the 28th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, and, well... it was pretty weak. "The Iranian nation on February 11, 2007 passed the arduous passes and stabilised its definite (nuclear) right." Now we're supposed to wait until April 9th for the good stuff and hopefully a better translated sentence ("passed the arduous passes "- what the fuck?). A poor showing for the Iranian president. Could he actually lose to a Sunni Arab this week? No, because that Sunni Arab Saddam Hussein was also unrated. Cuz he's dead.
winner: Ahmadinejad

al-Bashir vs Chavez
Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was #1 in Parade magazine. Besides his striking appearance to Michael Wilbon's father, he garnered the top spot for sitting on a genocide. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez didn't make the list because technically he could be removed from power by legal means. The country did buy Verizon's stake in the television station CANTV, hoping to put it back under state control. Also, Venezuelan officials can now take control of food distribution if they so desire. Chavez is turning into an evil leader mastermind with all of these government controls and increased executive power. But the democratic loophole combined with al-Bashir's lofty rank in the world of worst dictators, makes the outcome of this contest clear.
winner: al-Bashir

Lukashenko vs Mugabe
Alexander Lukashenko was ranked 14th. He continues to try to forge ties between Belarus and Iran. Robert Mugabe was rated 7th by Parade magazine because "under his rule the health and well-being of his people have dropped dramatically, which is as much an abuse of human rights as arbitrary arrest and torture." That's not evilness; that's incompetence! And for some reason he dropped from 4th last year, even though the condition in Zimbabwe has deteriorated to a tremendous degree within the year. Inflation in the country may have reached 1600% but Mugabe's win total goes up infinity percent after this one. Mugabe was 7 places better at being evil than Lukashenko, who didn't even get a mini bio or a picture in the magazine.
winner: Mugabe

standings:
Kim J-I 4-0
Chavez 3-1
Ahmad. 3-1
Lukash. 3-1
al-Bash. 2-2
Mugabe 1-3
Castro 0-4
Hussein 0-4

The Hot Dog Bun Fiasco

We had extra hot dogs at the house, so I went to Giant (the grocery store) to buy some hot dog buns. I went to the self-check out with my cart of groceries and began scanning. There was a problem when I tried to scan the hot dog buns. The woman bagging the groceries tried also, but failed.

Then a bombardment of women who worked there came over to me asking questions. One asked about the check-out screen, "What is this? What did you do?" I answered wide-eyed, "She did it. I didn't do anything." The other said that she worked in the bakery and knew of every kind of bread and Giant didn't carry this kind. She asked, "Was this the only one of its kind on the shelf?" It had been. They told me that those buns weren't in the system.

I'm standing there wondering if someone sneaked the hot dog buns into Giant and then put them in the right place in the store? What kind of fucked up individual are we dealing with here? Who sneaks hot dog buns into a Giant?

So I went back and got another brand of hot dog buns.

Undateable Women

I wonder how many women in America I couldn't date solely due to the fact that I'm a Jew. It's a hard question to try and figure but I'm guessing it's about 50%, though I'm a bit of an optimist. The number could be much higher. Any guesses?