Bad week for celebrities

It has been a tough week for celebrities. The anecdote that deaths happen in threes appears to have kick us in the butt once again. As I am writing this I am eating a spare egg roll, keep that in mind,

The losses of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson have once again showed how poorly the media handles stuff like this. Their deaths, while tragic, have been the focus of the 24 hour cable news networks for the entire week. The coverage generally follows this format:

Anchor: Ok were now joined by people who kinda sorta knew the deceased, welcome.

Guests1 and 2: Thank you Tom, great to be here.

Anchor: Ok so why dont you tell us all what you remember most about the deceased?

Guest 1 and 2: Blather on for 5 or 6 minutes about how awesome the deceased was while also reminding everyone how hard their struggle to be famous was at the outset.

Anchor: Lovely, thank you once again for being here. Ok we now go live to a breaking news story with Lynn Jacobs, Lynn?

Lynn: Thanks Tom, Im standing here live where I can now report that Megan Fox is bi-sexual. Sending it back to you Tom.

Anchor: Fascinating stuff. Next up, do bees think? A new study concludes that, no, they do not.


I actually had such a good time writing that up that I considered adding considerably more to it. Luckily for you, I had finished eating my egg roll and grew tired of typing. I hope the tune of that Sarah Mclaughlin song "I will remember you" was in the back of your head while you read this post. If not, well, it should have been. I suppose Green Days "Time of you Life" might have been sufficient as well. That is all.

Morbo wishes these storward nomads peace among the Dutch tulips.
-Morbo

The big time

Well, it has finally happened. I apparently, have made it to the big time. If you recall, earlier this week I wrote an article about how aliens will be pretty upset about not being able to see Game 5 of the NBA Finals due to the DTV transition. It now looks like my post was intriguing enough to be expanded upon by other, larger websites. Need proof? I direct your attention to the following Space.com post: Aliens Lose in Switch to Digital TV.

Now I know what it feels like to break a hard hitting news story like this to the masses. I suppose now I just have to sit back and wait for the journalism job offers to come rolling in. It's champagne and caviar from here on out folks!

Pissing off aliens

Well I guess it should have been obvious, but it appears that David Stern does indeed read my blog and had to go out of his way to ensure that my prediction would not come to be. So, like most of you last night, I watched game 5 of the NBA finals and realized pretty early on that it was going to be the Lakers walking away with the title. And if I believed that the NBA wasnt rigged, I would also have to applaud the Rockets for giving the Lakers the most amount of trouble in the playoffs this year.

There is a group, however, who will most likely never be able to watch game 5. Im talking, of course, about aliens. Let me go ahead and drop some science on you real quick. On Saturday, June 13th, all television stations in the US were mandated to switch over to an all digital format which effectively terminating the constant stream of analog broadcasting that had been emanating from Earth the past 70 or so years. Those 70 years of information will continue outward in the universe forever, available for any alien species to eavesdrop on.

Being overly conservative and assuming that we are the only intelligent species in our galaxy and also assuming that every galaxy has at least 1 species of our level of intelligence, I think it is safe to say that in no more than 3 million years there are going to be some pretty pissed off aliens. Think how pissed you would be if had to suffer through 2 months of basketball playoffs without ever knowing how they ended. In the aliens version of Wikipedia, Saturday, June 13th would be the day that human civilization bit the bullet.

In order to prepare for the eventuality of aliens coming to Earth in the future and demanding to watch the remainder of the 2009 NBA Finals, we can look to Futurama for advice. In the episode "When Aliens Attack", space aliens from Omicron Persei 8 are outraged when Earths broadcast of Single Female Lawyer is abruptly cut off due to a power failure. They proceed to fly to Earth and demand to know how the episode ends. However, since the episode aired on Earth over 1000 years ago, there is no copy available and the crew is forced to reshoot the final scenes at Planet Express. No doubt we will have to do something similar. And, somewhat ironically, we will have to stage a basketball game in very much the same way it is staged now.

I cant imagine how much ad money I would have if this blog were still being read 3 million years in the future.....

NBA finals prediction and more

Right, well we havent had any kind of sports talk in a while so I figured I would take a few minutes of your time to explain what has been on my mind. Enjoy.

Ok, so the NBA finals. Did anyone else even know there was a game on last night? I sure as hell didnt. From what I can remember, the first game was last Thursday night, then mysteriously, there was not a game until Sunday. In fact, the only reason I discovered it was on was by being at a bar that actually had the game on. Now, fair enough, it is no secret that I am no NBA fan, mostly due to the rigging of games, etc. However, did anyone think that there was a chance in hell that Orlando was not going to win the game last night? Of course not, and if you look even closer you will notice that they conveniently covered the spread of four points only by having a foul call in the closing seconds of the game when it was clearly already over. How very convenient indeed.

I know, I know, I am crazy. My prediction is this for the rest of the series:

Game 4: Orlando ties the series up 2-2 in a blowout.

Game 5: Los Angles narrowly avoids losing at home in 4th quarter nail biter.

Game 6: Back in Orlando with the Lakers up 3-2, the Magic win handily.

Game 7: Game 7 in Los Angles, because you cant have a Finals Playoff Extravaganza without it being in Los Angeles. This is the only wild card that is left. I actually have no idea who the NBA wants to win this game. But whoever it is, will. Guaranteed.

Either way, Im glad Hockey and Basketball are finally nearing their conclusion. Unfortunately, as I predicted earlier this year, the Astros stink out loud and pretty much have nothing to look forward to the rest of the year. Luckily, football (both NCAA and NFL) is just around the corner. Could this be the year that the Texans make the playoffs? Possibly. This city would go absolutely nuts if they did.

Only one thing for sure is certain, Houston sports need to step back up to the plate. We had a great run from 1995 until 2005 and from there it all went back to the craptastic 80s and early 90s. Can someone please make me the GM of one of these franchises already so I can get the ball rolling? Id surely appreciate it, thanks.

"Horse racing is animated roulette."
-Roger Kahn

Weekend at the beach

Well it was another exhausting weekend. Still pretty sleep deprived from the trip to New Orleans, I very reluctantly decided to go out for happy hour in midtown on Friday with promises from everyone involved that it would not turn into "one of those nights". And since "those nights" are pretty much the norm when hanging out with the folks that I do, I was skeptical to say the least. My fears were realized early on when the shots of patron started flowing only 15 minutes in. I made my friend, who shall remain nameless, promise me that we would leave no later than 10:00 since we had a big day at the beach planned for Saturday. Needless to say, that didnt happen and I finally got home around midnight.

I got up around 10 and started getting ready to go to the beach for the 23rd Annual AIA Sandcastle Competition. Learning my lesson from last year, I purchased some uber powerful SPF50 sun tan lotion to protect me from once again getting the worst sunburn of my life. This stuff was so powerful that Im pretty sure it gave the sun a mike burn. Anyway, after arriving in Galveston, I had to wait in line for nearly an hour to park. The crew that was working the lot were a bunch of yahoos, who wouldnt know a parking lot from a popsicle.

So I finally get out there with the sun blazing in all its glory. In case you are interested, here is how this thing works: each team has to build a sandcastle concoction of some type and then they are judged in several categories. One of the categories, apparently, is getting lots of people to come sign your sheet in a rudimentary election type thing. We used this to our advantage by soliciting bribes from the teams in exchange for our votes. In all, we probably got a few beers and several jello shots each for our efforts. I really got a sense of how awesome it must really be to be a politician.

Our teams theme was something to the effect of The Economy is in the Crapper. The idea was to have a conveyor belt of money bags being dropped into a toilet. The idea was brilliant, but the execution left a bit to be desired and we won no awards. Most of us were only there for the free beer and food anyway so we didnt particularly care. Some of the teams out there really did a spectacular job with their designs and I was genuinely amazed at some of them. If I can find a link to some of the pictures I will post them up here.

At some point during the day, people convinced me to go out into the ocean. Yes, the real ocean with all the sharks, jellyfish, undertow currents and vicious bacteria. I had to be gently coaxed out there but eventually just accepted the fact that I would probably be eaten alive.

At the end of the day, it was time to clean up our site. We had this kind of canopy that someone brought that needed to be taken down. Now there were 5 or 6 of us involved in this undertaking. All of us educated, relatively smart people and 2 of whom were engineers. I kid you not that it took the better part of half an hour to figure out how to fold the damn thing up. Defeated, I left for home before the task was completed. I later learned that it took a bit longer to discover a couple of latches that were holding the whole thing together. I am just going to chalk that one up to being in the sun too long.

All in all it was a blast and would really recommend everyone coming out next year. The SPF50 sunscreen was a life saver and I appear to only have been sunburned around my eyes where I didnt put lotion on because I assumed the hat I was wearing would be sufficient. Looking forward to next weekend where I have exactly nothing planned. Sitting on my ass will be a welcome change of pace.

Quote of the day on Saturday: "You'd be able to eat that watermelon a lot quicker if you took your shirt off." - One of my friends

More fun in New Orleans

Back to work after a long 4 day weekend in New Orleans. My body is still pretty mad at me for the long hours and questionable eating schedule. And while the other trips to New Orleans in the past all had their memorable moments, this one might just have been the most jam packed.

We actually got around to leaving on schedule this time around 12:30 on Friday and, due to the lack of any kind of traffic, had a quick 5 hour drive to New Orleans from Houston. We checked into the hotel and immediately hit the casino. Now, since we have all been super degenerate at the casino in the past, they rewarded us with several free buffets along with some free monies with which to play with.

After eating entirely too much at the buffet, I proceeded to have the worst luck I have ever encountered at a casino. I was hitting nothing. Nothing at all. Playing high roller Pai Gow was probably my biggest downfall. I lost a quick four hundy and decided to just take it easy for a while. Everyone at this point was losing pretty badly so we headed down to Bourbon Street to drown our sorrows.

It was here on Bourbon Street that I learned yet another life lesson. That lesson being: always have a girl in your group when you are on Bourbon Street. Apparently, not following this simple rule results in random prostitutes coming up to you and giving you the "hey baby, you wanna party?" line. First of all, hookers, its time to come up with a new pick up line. Second, you are super fat and ugly. This was my first run in with hookers and I have to admit that I was not very impressed. I guess in my head they all looked like Julia Roberts in that god awful movie with Richard Gere. Oh well, live and learn, I guess.

Anyway, on Saturday I did a bunch of touristy stuff in the hopes of not wasting any more monies at the casino. The plan worked well and I finally got around to seeing this Jackson Square that everyone has been harping on me to see since my first trip to New Orleans. The artists were pretty impressive and I then realized that had I only brought my Country Legends guitar I could have unloaded it here for sure for a fat profit. When in Rome, I guess. I also got out to see the Mississippi River and some street performers doing break dances and hitting up people with the hard sell to buy their $20 dvd.

Finally, back in the casino, I got off to a good start with a gratis Champagne Brunch. Looking to play just a little more, I broke my one and only casino rule by hitting up the ATM for an extra hundred dollars. And while I did break my set limit, it would prove to be instrumental in me playing the hottest round of craps I have ever played in my life. I was hitting the sucker bets left and right. Hit snake eyes back-to-back at 30-1 each on a 5 dollar bet for a quick 300 bucks. I was keeping an active hard eight working and had to have hit it at least 7 or 8 times. Dont Pass was killing it for me while everyone else at the table was losing their ass on the Pass Line. In fact, the only bet that seemed to not be working for me was the field, which I usually can feel out pretty well.

All in all I won $555 in my quick hour at the craps table. Being back above water was invigorating. We had a quick 5 hour trip back to Houston on Monday and got back to the grind today. Certainly a fun trip, cant wait to go back!

Best quote of the trip: "I need the 'trouble with gambling?' phone number as my ATM pin number." One of us.