Dude, they're PIRATES!!!

Alright, I can't take it anymore. I saw this story when it broke and since then, Paul has been doing a good job of keeping me updated semi-weekly. For those of you who have not seen this ridiculous situation, let me break it down. A couple weeks ago, a group of "Somali Pirates" seized a Russian vessel carrying high powered weaponry. To start, they demanded a $20 million ransom to spare the on board sailors' lives and avoid blowing the ship up.

The pirates then dropped their ransom from 20 to $10 million, laid off the threats to kill the crew, put the kibosh on the explosion, and later dropped the ransom to $8 million. Now, just today, they decided, "the crew would probably die tomorrow." Now let's put this in perspective: The crew will "probably die tomorrow" not because they especially want to kill them, but because they have just recently ran out of food and water.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that, during this entire escapade, the United States Navy has had the seized ship surrounded. The United States Navy. Ya know, the most powerful maritime force (aside from Niagara Falls) in the history of the world.

It's at this point I have to ask myself the question....ARE YOU SERIOUS - YOU'RE LETTING PIRATES HOLD A SHIP HOSTAGE??? They are PIRATES!!!!!!!

When was the last time a band of ye ole Pirates did anything even remotely effective? It's like these guys were sitting around watching Pirates of the Caribbean and were like, "Yea, let's go plunder some stuff."

They must be keeping George Bush in the dark about this whole thing. If you haven't heard, things haven't been going real well for him the past eight years lately, and I'd figure he would be chomping at the bit to beat the hell out of some pirates on his way out of office.

On a couple side notes, the South Park guys proved their genius once again tonight, suddenly realizing how much they hated 'Cloverfield'. Also, just saw a preview for Saw V and I gotta believe that everyone is completely over it. Didn't the guy die a few movies ago? I'd be really surprised if there was a bunch of gore and cleverly heinous situations capped off by a crazy twist ending.

Hoop Life

The majority of the group bounded up the stairs with the typical Friday night excitement. A slim minority trailed behind them, contemplating each stair and how many times they'd climbed them. The eternity of those stairs was outdone by the narrow hallway, miles long and lit now only by a glowing red exit sign and fluorescent white seeping in under the door.

They shifted their sweats, those shorts underneath always seemed to ride up. The door swung open and a cadre of neophytes blasted through. The group, regimented, lined each wall, to these kids coming through it must have felt the walls were closing in. They were pushed, hazed and scolded until the final one passed. A voice raised above the laughter. It was the beatbox we'd all become so familiar with in the past months. Another voice chimed in, for those ten seconds, Biggie Smalls was resurrected. On cue, the rest of the group joined and they brought it together, one last time.

In an instant they were at another doorway. The swarm of people inside anticipated their arrival. Whether it was the casual conversations of adults or the immature shouts of the teens, it all subsided. For a moment, it was silent...


Some say that at death, your life flashes before your eyes. Granted, no one knows (well, almost no one) if this is true or not. The semantics of the whole thing are largely meaningless. But, if I were to see my life flash before my eyes, a small number of things would appear: My family, my wonderful girl, my friends, and basketball.

You see, for as long as I can remember, basketball has been the rock of my being. No matter what situation I've found myself in, the game has been there to see me through. Be it the death of a family member, a fight with my parents, the break up of a relationship or the disappointment of missing out on a job opportunity - I've been shooting jump shots.

Whenever Gordon Bombay reached a crossroads, he'd lace up a pair of skates and hit the ice. I grab a Wilson and shoot until I smile. Sometimes those smiles take minutes, other times hours.

Basketball and I have always shared a love-hate relationship. Breaking an arm in second grade and learning to play left-handed turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Dad locking me in the garage (granted I could've just opened the door to the outside, but it was winter!) and making me dribble for an hour every day left me in tears. Aside from an intramural league here or there, I basically shunned any previous connection to the game I loved. For some reason, sour grapes took the place of affection.

Perhaps I was bitter because my days of competitive action were through. My physical ability just wasn't enough to get me to the next level. Sure, I probably could have played at a small college, but if it wasn't the big time, who really cared?

The beauty of the game wasn't the jump shot or the perfectly executed offense. To me, it was my body parallel to the ground, five feet in the air as I dove head-first into the crowd for a loose ball. It was the echo of Coach Faulx's "Niiice Paaass" after forcing a ball through a lane no one else could even see. Above all, it was always being the "1" in the Box and 1.

The past few springs and falls I've joined a league at the local Y. I'm winded three minutes into every game. The past few sessions, I found myself in arguments and near fisticuffs with the opposing team. For what? Why should I crap on the brilliance of this game? There's no reason I should hold anything against basketball, it never has to me. My strength is helping our team, not bitching about someone calling a foul. The team is what made me a player. It showed me who I was.

Basketball took me as a child and spit me out a man. But the ability to continue those head-first dives and blind-luck passes have kept me ageless.


...the crowd erupted as the pep band fired up a rousing rendition of "You ain't seen nothin yet". The seniors came out last, Buzz the caboose as usual, and fired our Sharpie-personalized head bands into the student section, which housed our greatest fans. Our parents, our teachers, our friends all cheered while we celebrated our final game as Knoch Knights. Nothing would stop us that night. At one point I hit a shot and turned around to look at the crowd. As usual, I had found my smile.

Some say that at death, your life flashes before your eyes. Whether it does or doesn't, I don't care. Mine already has.

What a great time to be an American!

I should have figured I was on to something back in the spring of 2004. Prof. Hettler popped us a quiz in Macro, and me, being completely unprepared did nothing but write "Laissez-faire" in giant capital letters across the five question exam. He gave me a 2 out of 5, which wasn't bad. At least I showed some effort.

Turns out my foresight was top notch. Here we are in the most dire financial situation in generations and Laissez-faire is a main point of contention. The infamous label of American greed finally hit its peak. Normal Americans stretched their limits to live in the nicest neighborhoods. Corporate executives welcomed this hubris with open arms. Henry Paulson's face is beginning to have the look of one of those rotted jack-o-laterns you see sitting on a porch two weeks after all the candy has been passed out.

My peers and I are educated. We are intelligent, fairly successful for our age, nice looking and most of all, really fucking pissed. Too bad if we wanted to enjoy our twenties, and don't even talk about buying a house. Like that's going to happen.

Right now I'm watching last night's Daily Show and there's Bill Clinton doing his Bill Clinton thing and making me fully confident he could rescue us from this abyss in like ten minutes. But seriously, what is going to happen? George W says $700 billion of tax payer money will do the trick. Yea, that'll be good.

My education on the crisis is rather broad, I understand the premise and what happened to cause this shit show, but where do we go from here? Hell, this thing is so messed up I actually just enjoyed watching Jon Stewart. I even laughed a few times.

The shameful thing about it, is that I have absolutely zero faith in anybody charged to fix this. Who is going to help? George Bush. Henry Paulson. Ben Bernancke. President Bush is about to speak in a few minutes. Just what this douchebag needs three months before the end of his tenure. A massive financial crisis. I'm just wondering who Bush will wage war on this evening, some country somewhere has to be at fault for this, right?

I have no idea. This is about the time where Americans unite. After an emotionally charged primary season followed by an even more emotionally charged election campaign, the two sides have agreed to come together and try to solve the equation. Unfortunately, Americans uniting generally has one main ally. Someone to lead them. Who will lead us now? A Wall Street executive who spent billions getting us into this mess? I hope not.

My gut hates when I'm cynical. Cynical citizens are some of my least favorite. There's no benefit to cynicism and some always leads to more. The past few years have flown by. My support for our troops is endless, I even gave a benefit of doubt to the war in Iraq, however misguided it might be (maybe it isn't, who knows...that's not my point).

A fear of mine is that America has finally reached the precipice that's been predicted for years. There's never been a doubt in my mind that we wouldn't be saved. But it could be different this time.

In the meantime, I'm gonna try to get that quiz re-graded.

The Ghosts of Tomorrow

Tonight marked the first time in awhile a few of us assembled at the always formidable Star Grille on the West Side of Winfield. As you would expect, as the baskets of wings and pitchers of beer were rendered nothing more than empty plastic molds, conversation turned to days gone by.

In days long since past by, during our respective sabbaticals from college, a crowd convened each Monday night (yes, I know it's a Tuesday) at the house of 50 cent wings and five dollar pitchers. Despite the infamous chicken wing shortage of '04, our laughs were plentiful and the discussions were priceless.

But here we sat this evening, mere years removed from ten minutes ago, barely able to rustle up five young men when in the past 15 to 20 were the norm. Tonight, the group sat a sole table where the group of old would merge and splice tables and jockey for the center-stage seat as to not miss a moment of any far-fetched tale or current-day saga.

Tonight we discussed the past - in all its glory: The blindness of the day-long tailgates for Pitt football games, the insanity of a Tuesday night pickup baseball game and, most of all, the trials and tribulations of every waning moment as a kid growing up in the rural confines our hometown.

Talk shifted to the impending weekend. A possible 'last hurrah' at the Klugh Cabin. To number the times we've spent eating a hot dog in one bite, squeezing a tap, throwing a ping-pong ball or jumped back as the wind blew flames from the bonfire a bit too close for comfort at this hypothetical house of memories would be like trying to list the combined marriages of Pam Anderson and Elizabeth Taylor.

There were the fall nights after football games with my body mind-numbingly achy, or the post-dance free-for-all that left the ground singed with liberty. What about the rainy morning exoduses with headaches the size of wrecking balls?

It's with all this we prepare for a Labor Day weekend full of drinks, friends and a baseball diamond. Granted, the baseball diamond has shrunk a bit as we're now playing softball, but the feeling remains. Oh how far we've come since those early days of debauchery. While some stalwarts of the past won't be able to attend - Mitch, Rozic, Scott, Brown, Shaffer: you're in our thoughts - we're fully ready to embrace what could certainly be defined as the end of an era.

With that, I say goodbye to the clutch of those days. You were the definition of my youth, just please remember me when I get old.

Here's to You, Disgusting White Crust on the Milk Jug

Here's to you, disgusting white crust on the milk jug. You're always there to flake off and gross me out on the rare occasion I open your container. Sure, I don't drink as much milk as a growing boy probably should. Is that enough reason to hate on me?

Take last night, for instance. Right after my mother prepared a deliciously chewy batch of brownies, I decided to wash them down with a nice cold glass of milk. After my first swig, there you were, floating around my mouth like a loose fingernail. I'm trying to drink milk, not eat soup in a Mexican restaurant.

This is hydration, not a Head and Shoulders commercial. So quit layering the top of my chocolate milk like curd at a dairy farm.

Arrogant Baconator Guarantees Heart Attack this Sunday

PHILADELPHIA -- Wendy's rookie hamburger Baconator shook up Brent Kaslin's Sunday lunch plans by offering what some are calling "Bulletin board Material."

The burger, known for its large patties laced with pepperjack cheese, which are in-turn covered with strips of bacon, jalapeno peppers and smothered in melted cheddar, talked to the media today after Kaslin ate a Burger King Double Whopper.

"He can eat what he wants, when he wants. I respect that. But just so he knows, when you come to my house, it's gonna be different. I'm going to give him a heart attack. I guarantee it. He better have 911 on speed dial, if you know what I mean."

This is not the first time Baconator has guaranteed bodily harm. During its debut last winter, the popular Wendy's sandwich informed an unsuspecting Rebecca Cartwright of her future in the bathroom. "Man, she had that coming. She stood in line and asked her friend Chrissy if 'she dared her to try a Baconator.' I straight up told her the afternoon was gonna be miserable, but she didn't listen."

Kaslin, a junior at Temple University, seemed weary when told of Baconator's guarantee. "I've heard it all before, ya know?. Last year after the Alpha Sig party I went to McDonald's and had a Big Mac, two Double Cheeseburgers, a large fry and a Shamrock Shake. Guess who woke up the next morning just fine...And I didn't even have a hangover," Kaslin quipped. "Regardless, he can play his game and I'll play mine - I never put too much emphasis on what the latest young hotshot burger is claiming. I've been around the block a time or two."

My parents quit drinking

I arrived home today at the typical time, half past five-ish, to an odd aroma. Scaling the stairs, I immediately knew something was afoot. Generally, each morning upon waking up, the whiff of Folger's in my cup gets me off and running to the shower, the sink, the breakfast nook and out the door.

But why on this sun-soaked late summer afternoon was a pot of coffee brewing? At first the thought was discounted as there were still donuts lying around from Saturday morning. After all, what's better than a coffee with a couple days old donut? As the usual post-work chit chat with mom and dad transpired, my curiosity was peaked. There was Cathy Boyd, the queen of Chardonnay, lounging in the rickety old rocking chair watching her soap with a glass of iced cranberry juice.

"We quit drinking wine," she said. Funny enough, I hadn't even asked. While laughter crept from my lips, the Chianti Cowboy Ed Boyd added "We only spend 300 dollars a month on wine."

Before I go any further, 300 dollars a month for wine isn't much, especially when considering the high end options one has when drinking these grapes of wrath. But, when you spend 300 dollars a month on Franzia, the tables have turned a bit.

Judging by Paul's calculation, that's roughly 25 boxes a month. For two of them. So here are my parents, one 70 and the other nearing 57, drinking 12-1/2 boxes of wine each every 30 days. My liver hurts just thinking about it.

It's this fact that makes me question my future. For the past two years or so I've lived a relatively subtle life in my parents' home. They stay out of my business and I stay out of theirs. If this new found sobriety of theirs changes that...I'm not sure how I'll continue.

No more walking downstairs on a Friday night at 8pm to go out and seeing them passed out on the porch. Gone are the days of the dog being the only sober person at 7am on Saturdays. And out the window is the idea of drinking myself to oblivion during family gatherings just to get through it. Well, I guess I'll still do it but I won't have my mom there to commiserate.

You'd think I'd be happy at my parents' decision to quit drinking. But there are constants in life. Death, taxes, and my parents hazed. So goodbye, drunk mom and dad, you'll be missed.

I'm gonna get some Franzia.