2003-02-27 Memo to Christina Aguilera: You are not beautiful. You're a skank. Singing about it won't help.
2003-02-18 Snow is no longer pretty, enchanting, beautiful, fascinating, peaceful, or pristine, and I no longer live in a winter wonderland. Snow sucks and I live in hell.
2003-02-13 It was only a matter of time before the U.S. and Russia became buddies. After the Cold War, we had so many of the same problems: We both had overbuilt military-industrial complexes. We both had thousands of ICBMs with nothing to point them at. And now we're both getting the cold shoulder from dozens of uppity third-world dictators who loved us so much when then U.S. was dishing out hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent the spread of global communism and the Russians were dishing out comparable sums to promote it. Somebody needs a hug.
2003-02-11 So my co-workers have made the transition from the awful Boston radio station for middle-aged people who think they're still teenagers (Mix 98.5) to the awful Boston radio station for middle-aged people who have made peace with their advancing years (WZLX). I'm still unsure how to feel about this.
2003-02-09 I foresee a day when all non-managerial fast food jobs will be staffed by high school students retirees disabled persons, and reformed gang members.
2003-02-03 I have been watching all the news blog sites ever since the Superbowl, and I have to say that I am deeply disappointed. Not even one headline about an arrest, injury or lawsuit resulting from some dumbass office comedian trying to lay a Terry Tate move on somebody. What the hell happened to that four-year-old boy of a country I grew up in where we all used to occasionally tie a blanket around our proverbial necks and jump off of the roof of the proverbial house just because we saw Superman flying on TV?
2003-01-29 I was at the casino last weekend, and while I was pondering the experience today, I realized how much more interesting the casino would be if it was more like that Pop-Up Video program that used to be on VH1. Imagine somebody throwing down a big bet and a little balloon popping up with relevant factoids like, "1/20,000th Of Her Trust Fund," or, "This Money Embezzled From The City Of Bridgeport."
2002-08-21 Ever been standing in your kitchen, cleaning up after dinner or doing some other routine chores, and suddenly you find yourself whistling the melody from Funkytown? Yeah, it creeped me out, too.
2002-07-09 The Mullet-Yearbook Photo Theorem: Any small, grainy, black and white photograph of a teenage guy in a rental tux with a mullet and a cheesy moustache will remind you of somebody you went to high school with.
2002-05-09 Certain aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remind me of scenes from National Lampoon's Animal House. For instance, can't you see Yasser Arafat as Delta President Hoover at the discliplinary hearing? Ariel Sharon as Dean Wormer and George W. Bush as the hapless Omega President Greg Marmalard? Do you think Arafat has a wacky subordinate like Boon, and have they ever had a conversation that went like:
Arafat (in some top-secret meeting): "Will you tell those radical militant assholes to stop blowing things up?"
Mohammed Al-Boon (at a news conference carried by Al-Jazeera): "Hey, stop blowing things up, you radical militant assholes!"
Then again, maybe Arafat reminds me more of Flounder...
2002-05-08 Signs That Your Country May Be A War-Torn, Third-World Hell Hole (An on-going series) Your country's murder rate increases noticably during an election year.
2002-05-03 Signs That Your Country May Be A War-Torn, Third-World Hell Hole (First in a continuing series) Members of the media refer to the official state residence of your country's political leader as a "compound."
2002-04-23 So the Pope has called child abuse by priests "an appalling sin." He has also said that priests have to be "perfect." Which leads me to conclude that the Pope is a "moron." (Major credit to my friend Mike for most of this one.)
2002-04-22 It's spring time in New England, and sports fans here are filled with joy and hope. "Go Celts!" "Go B's!" Fate can be so cruel.
2002-04-18 Memo to Charles Barkley You are much funnier and generally better received when you go off on specific white people.
2002-04-17 Memo to Madison Avenue: Make more commercials that make fun of Canadians! You could sell pokes in the eye with a sharp stick if you found a way to make fun of Canadians in the pitch. This is doubly true within 100 miles of the border.
2002-04-09 What gave VH1 the right to appoint Dee Snyder the spokesperson for the glam metal generation? I'm upset about this and I want some answers.
2002-04-08 The Osbourne Lexicon Theorem:
No member of the mainstream media ever writes an article about former Black Sabbath frontman and middle aged hard rock icon John "Ozzy" Osbourne without using at least one of the following three words: "bat," "dove," "Alamo."
2002-04-02 Good old, self-righteous, puritanical Massachusetts. I think we should change the road signs at the borders to read:
Welcome to Massachusetts!
Where Immoral Things are Still Immoral
And then have a little revolving sign at the bottom like the Dunkin' Donuts sign on the Jumbotron at the Fleet Center that reads, on its several faces:
Except for priests committing illegal acts of perversion with little boys. Unless it appears that neighboring states are making money off of us. Unless the perpetrator of said Immoral Things is on the payroll of the FBI. Unless it's St. Patrick's Day in Southie.
And, of course, somewhere on the sign it would say, "Jane Swift, Governor."
2002-03-27 Boston radio stations suck. Period. They all just play the same damn four or five songs over and over and over. MIX 98.5 seriously plays "Get the Party Started" five or six times over the course of an 8 hour work day. Occasionally, they interrupt the non-stop shit music marathon to remind you that you're listening to "Boston's best variety!"
2002-03-25 The numbskulls at the College Alcohol Study group at the Harvard School of Public Health are at it again. They're all atwitter because their latest survey found that binge drinking rates at U.S. colleges haven't fallen since their 1997 survey. Let's see, since 1997 colleges have continued to cram more and more material into four-year curricula that were already bursting at the seams, tuition increases have trounced the rate of inflation, and the job market has done a swan dive into the proverbial latrine. I think I'd be drinking quite a bit, myself. What kind of reality-distortion field do Harvard researchers inhabit?
2002-03-22 One of the most bothersome things to come out of the shooting of Jayson Williams' limo driver, other than that tragic loss of human life, was finding out that Benoit Benjamin is now a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. I grew up watching Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal defeat the hapless Washington Nationals, so imagining Benoit Benjamin wearing the red, white and blue is a bit like imagining Kip Winger as the new lead singer for Van Halen.
2002-03-18 I bet that something like 10% of the annual gross domestic product of the Greater Boston Area is created on St. Patrick's Day. For one day each year, people cast aside their fiscal common sense and pay ridiculous cover charges to pack themselves into bars like sardines and drink over-priced beer until they're ready to throw up on second-rate musicians mangling traditional Irish folk songs. It's also Super Gravy Day for guys who play the bagpipes.
2002-03-16 Always remember that you only get one chance in life to go postal. Don't waste it on something stupid.
2002-03-14 This guy was wandering around MIT for most of the four years that I went to school there. I always respected him, begrudgingly, at some level. If you're going to be one of the dork people, you might as well be their king.
2002-03-12 I miss the good old days, when all sales guys in electronics stores wore neckties and were on commission. Remember when you would be checking out a four-pack of AA batteries at Circuit City and some guy would ease up behind you and say, "Those are nice, aren't they." Takes you back, doesn't it?
2002-02-17 When I see a high-performance sports car puttering along the highway at or below the speed limit, I think to myself, "Man, what a waste. You could have saved yourself a whole lot of money if you were just going to drive like a wus."
2002-02-15 Old Maid: A classic children's card game that combines strategy with psychology. Old Maiden: Heavy metal music from the early eighties that combines the commercial appeal of seventies hard rock and the musical accomplishment of mid-eighties glam metal.
2002-02-11 Wouldn't it be great to combine the Enron congressional hearings with that show "The Chamber" that Fox canceled after one or two episodes? Strap the Enron and Anderson executives in and spin them around while congress people fire questions at them. Every time you plead the Fifth? A jet of cold water hits you in the crotch. Say "I do not recall"? A flame-thrower to the seat of your pants. Am I the only one who feels this way? Who do we call to make this happen?
2002-02-10 At least one person in four that I encounter while driving to and from work is obviously far too stupid to operate a piece of machinery as powerful and dangerous as an automobile.
2002-02-01 Can anyone think of better evidence that there are too many sports channels on cable TV than The Best Damn Sports Show Period on Fox Sports? The show combines a second-rate comic with a couple of speech-challenged "tough guy" pro athletes, throws in a sports writer who can't even get the Sports Reporters gig, and tops it all off with Chris Rose, who could charitably be called the poor man's Jim Rome. Brilliant.
2002-01-28 You know you've been living in Metropolitan Boston for a long time when: You've been approached by panhandlers so often that, in your own mind, you now evaluate the overall effectiveness of the person asking you for change based on no less than five performance criteria.
2002-01-21 I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the failure of the so-called "civilized" nations of the world to come together and carry out the orderly execution of the man known as Carrot Top.
2001-11-01 There is absolutely nothing wrong with this world that couldn't be fixed by a speedy return to the days when the dinosaurs ruled.