Comic for Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Posted: 8:40 am, Thursday, March 1st

My buddies gave me so much crap back in collitch when I first referred to a turn signal as a directional. I couldn't really figure out what the problem was there. I'm not even sure if it's a regionalism, or just something my family calls it, but any defense I used was met with more mockery, so, you know. Anyway.

I played soccer last night for the first time - if memory serves - since the first weekend of my Notre Dame career, ten and a half years ago (God, I'm old). It was not the disaster I expected it to be - my legs are a little sore from the lateral movement, since most of my exercise takes place in a straight line over a long period of time, but that's about it. I actually even scored two goals, although one was so awful that the goalie is probably still being mocked over it, and the other was more the result of the (European) girl taking the corner kick putting the ball in exactly the right place. Overall, kind of fun. A South American dude from accounting even flopped, which was kind of funny. He was down writhing in pain for about ten seconds, noticed the ref wasn't going to card the guy (do you get carded in a corporate indoor soccer league?), and got up like nothing had happened.

Probably my favorite of the new Losts last night. I missed last week's and hated the Desmond episode, though, so what's that really saying? But Hurley, Charlie and a VW? Rocking out to Three Dog Night? Good times!

I tried to add this to my Netflix queue immediately, but they're evidently not carrying it. WTF? (They still don't have the Muppet Christmas Carol, which I suppose I won't actually care about for another nine months or so, but, still.)

Not really NSFW (although some of the sidebar ads are a little risque), but rather inappropriate, I nonetheless loved this fake Cosmo quiz.

I actually haven't watched this trailer yet, but I'm so excited about a This American Life TV show that I thought I'd put it up here, anyway. (By the way, the Google purchase of YouTube has sucked ass so far. *So* much has been pulled. What a crime.)

bullfrog

Mostly for Grafe's benefit, who refers to Ben as "Animal" (from the muppets):

http://www.lamora.org/ben_drum.wmv

He turned 3 last Tuesday. THREE. Mind boggling.

I had that on my calendar and totally dropped the ball (as usual) on it. Damn. Happy birthday to the only one of my acquaintances to be represented in photographic form in site history!

I failed my driving test on my 16th birthday partly because the examiner asked me to turn on the 'dimmers' -- and I had no idea what he was talking about. My family always called them the 'brights'.

Better than my mom, though, who failed her first test in the 1960s by hitting a parked car. 'Does this mean I didn't pass?' She asked the examiner. 'Yes,' he said.

Your examiner was stupid. Why would high beams ever be called "dimmers"? They're clearly brights. I'm very angry on 16-year old ktbb's behalf, just so you know.

By the way, there is a giant effing puffpiece BJ for tOSU in this week's SI. I'm sure someone will send it to you guys, but if you'd like, I can my copy onto CK when I'm done wishing NCAA investigations on Cheatypants McSweatervest.

Ahem, "pass" my copy onto CK.

My Drivers Ed teacher was a guy named Gordon Kirk, total scum bag former cop who actually ended up marrying one of the students a class several before me. She was 30 some odd years his junior. He hated us because we called him Capt Kirk and we hated him because we were shit head teenagers who hated everything. Then i found twenty dollars.

Secondary post. Is it scum bag, scumbag or the very trendy scum-bag?

scum~bag?

For all you New Yorkers who hang out in the Village (warning: pretty gross):

http://www.jasonmulgrew.com/main/2007/02/27/fuzzy-chalupa/

Oh, man, those rats have been on the news *non-stop* around here. The only thing local news loves more than a quintuple homicide is rats in a restaurant.

I watched with the sound off, but could only imagine the thoughts running through the head of Little Miss Reporter girl when told of her assignment.

What I'd like to know is can the rats parallel park?

Per Webster's Collegiate, "scumbag".

Main Entry: scum·bag Pronunciation Guide Pronunciation: skm-bag also -bg Function: noun Date: 1967 slang : a dirty or despicable person

I somehow just dipped the tip of my nose into my coffee. That really hurt.

i wouldn't say "somehow", bullfrog.

I certainly wasn't trying to snort my coffee, Skitters.

oh sure, but i don't think it's *that* unlikely that you would dip your nose into your coffee, or any other beverage you were drinking for that matter - provided of course, that you were actually holding a mug or glass up to your face.

i think somehow would be more fitting if you weren't about to take a sip of something and your mug was sitting on the corner of your desk and you got coffee on the tip of your nose.

I believe you may have played soccer one other time senior year in the practice football dome on our intramural team. We were not very good as it was and I think we needed some fill-in players. Can't recall if you wore the jeans with the holes in them though.

Lost rocked last night. Nice to see Hugo have a good day.

No, I don't think I did. I remember hearing stories about how Jorski or Bizzo or somebody would sub-in from very close to the ball, though, and someone would run off the opposite sideline, but I'm pretty certain I never played soccer in Loftus. I think the only time I was there was for Concepts of Wellness freshman year.

Hey, Wood, have they said if they're going to make you take a swim test to attend business school there?

Unless you read the Comics Curmudgeon (and you should), you all are probably blissfully unaware of the Funky Winkerbean strip from last Friday in which a soldier appeared to get blown up by an IED in Iraq but it turned out to be his video game avatar (I'm not making this up). Not surprisingly, there were some complaints about this. My favorite letter from the editor is this one from Georgia, containing this utterly nonsensical phrase:

"Mr. Batiuk, who I am told is a major supporter of soldiers, wrote a letter of apology directly to this newspaper dated the same day the strip ran."

"A major supporter of soldiers"? What the hell? Does he supply them with armor, arms, and MREs? Or does he have *two* yellow-ribbon magnets on his car? Honestly, what the hell does that mean?

Duh Jeremiah, he probably has a "These colors don't run tattoo."

Re the whole dimmers/brights thing. The instructor was an obfuscatin' doofus. The dimmer would be the light that dims the instrument panel - in my car, it's its own knob, and in some cars it's just another notch on the headlights knob. The brights, of course, would be the high beams. You have headlights and high beams, but you don't have "dim" lights.