Bits and baubles

I found myself in the awkward position of getting annoyed at other drivers on the freeway yesterday while I was having a conversation using my Douchetooth headset. That's always been one of my rules: if you're driving while talking on the cellphone, you absolutely forfeit all your rights of indignation with other drivers. I don't care if someone crosses the center line and swerves back and forth across all the lanes of oncoming traffic waving a bottle of Jack Daniels out the window while doing rails of cocaine off a hooker's breasts. If you're on the phone, you can't complain.

The thing about the Douchetooth is that it's actually more dangerous to use while driving than just having the cell phone up to your ear. Studies have shown (and I've read them; I actually did a presentation in a class a few years back about how it should be illegal to talk on the phone while driving) that the dangerous thing about it isn't that your hand is engaged and blocking the view; it's that your mind is engaged and you don't do things like moving your eyes or turning your head. They call it the tunnel-vision effect. And the Douchetooth doesn't alleviate that effect; it just gives you a false sense of security. It's like driving an SUV; you think you're safer when you're really not, so you end up driving even less safely than you would have otherwise.

So yeah, that was me. Having a conversation on the phone and getting angry at the guy who cut to the front of the line for the exit lane that was backed up. Big day for Jerod.

The face is almost completely healed. The government did foreclose on the lease to my moustache farm, but it's all for the best. A word to the wise; don't ever try to do anything ironic using your face as the medium. If you really believe in the moustache (or decide to give yourself a mullet for Halloween like my buddy Billy a few years back), you gotta just own it. It can't be this snarky, post-modern statement or something. To paraphrase Raising Arizona, they gotta name for people like that: asshat. Not a pretty name, is it, Hi?

In any case. I didn't own the 'stache, I didn't really believe in it, so I was that asshat. And when I strapped on the headset I was the douchebag asshat. Not a comfortable hat, lemme tell ya.

Here's a haiku I wrote while jogging around the park today.

I'm done trying to
Run while sucking in my gut
It's just not much fun

More Pope Culture

I had totally forgotten how good a movie The Bourne Supremacy is. I watched it again the other night and was totally blown away. The scene where Marie (aka Lola) dies, and he is giving her mouth to mouth underwater, and then has to let her float away, and she slowly fades into the water... and then when he kicks that guy's ass with a rolled up magazine??? Seriously, wtf? That was awesome! And getting Brian Cox to replace Chris Cooper's insane CIA guy? Brilliant. Solid and entertaining all the way through.
A brief word on the NBA finals: bleh. Lakers-Celtics? Really? I'm having nightmares from my youth. They all involve too-tight shorts and bad haircuts. Of course, with the influx of European players in today's NBA, I predict the resurrection of the famous blonde afro-mullet. It's inevitable.










I wasn't sure who I was going to root for before I started watching the first game, but once I gave it even a little thought it became obvious. To break it down:
Ex-Sonic factor: Ray Allen, one of my top-5 all time Supes... or Vlad Radmonovich, the asshat who is such a prima donna he got kicked off the Serbian Olympic basketball team even though he's by far their best player, because he couldn't get along with anybody.
Superstar factor: Generally likeable team player Kevin Garnett... or brooding rapist Kobe Bryant. Also: Kobe is so unliked that he doesn't even have a nickname and had to make one up for himself. He calls himself "Black Mamba."* No really.
I also just realized that "Paul Pierce" totally sounds like a porn star name. Add in Sam Cassell's "I have giant testicles" dance** and it's really no contest. I think the Lakers will win in six, but I'll be rooting for the Celts.
By the way, what world did I wake up in when suddenly the Celtics have zero white players on their roster??? This was always the big joke, right? They regularly threw up a complete and totally competitive whitewash*** in the '80s. Boston is infamous for being one of the most racist sports cities in the country. And now not only do they not have any white players, but the coach is black, too? I'm not complaining, mind you. It just kind of blows my mind.
Face update: now that the swelling has gone almost completely down on my upper lip, I'm realizing how totally skeevy the chipped incisor looks. I smile and it's hellllo Bubba. Open this beer bottle with your teeth, would ya? So I'm gonna have to get that fixed.
*Chalk one more up in the "professional athlete's nicknames that are actually what they call their own penises" column. Your top five, in reverse order: 5. The Splendid Splinter. 4. Big Smooth. 3. The Big Unit. 2. The Chicoutimi Cucumber. 1. Magic Johnson.
**

















***A "whitewash" is when a team plays white guys at all five positions. The '88 NBA champion Celtics regularly had a lineup of Bird, McHale, Walton, Ainge, and the guy who always died on the alien planet in Star Trek.