Happiness is a Warm Hot Dog Gun

I have to admit that one of my favorite sports entertainment trends over the last few years has been the Hot Dog Gun. For those who don't know, the Hot Dug Gun is a large instrument in which you can load up hot dogs and then a mascot comes out and shoots the gun into the crowd in between innings at a baseball game or during time out of a basketball game. The very first time I saw this gun was at a Phillies game at the Vet a few years ago when the Phanatic came out to entertain like he normally does. Right then and there I knew that this gun would change the face of mascot entertainment for decades to come. Since that first encounter I have seen the hot dog gun at pretty much every major sporting event I attended, including one hilarious time in Pittsburgh at a Pirates game where they would send members of the entertainment crew into the crowd to scream out thing like "who wants a hot dog," while dancing in the aisles (pictured below).


I've never seen anyone (the bald guy) get so excited for hot dogs.

Last year the hot dog gun reached a new level when I saw it at a St. Joseph's basketball game in their tiny gym on campus where this seemingly harmless gun was almost transformed into a weapon if it had worked properly. Luckily for myself and those in attendance, the gun wasn't working right that night and they couldn't get any distance on the shots so the pig mascot had to resort to throwing the hot dogs into the crowd. Well, I attended the St. Joe's vs. Fordham two nights ago, and the hot dog gun was back and it was working better than I had ever seen it before. This is just an educated guess, but by my estimation, the gun was able to shoot the hot dogs out at least 80 mph, which is fine if you're at a baseball game and want to feed fans in the upper deck. The Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse seats just over 3,000 people, and I would be shocked to learn if everyone there made it out alive after this Hot Dog Gun Fiasco.

What you are about to see is graphic footage taken by my new digital camera from the night in question. While it may not seem like it, the hot dog that you see flying over the camera was actually just a few feet over my head. I feared for my life the other night (which should never happen at a basketball game unless it's in Detroit), and I was lucky to get out alive, unlike the poor unfortunate soul directly a few rows behind me who was put in the hospital and later died. The autopsy will only prove what we all know to be true: it was Death by Hot Dog.

WARNING: If there are small children in the room, please turn them away from the computer screen. This isn't pretty (much like the look of sheer terror on that poor girl's face).



JUST SO YOU KNOW: No one was killed (though the pig WAS brought in for questioning), I just wanted to see if I could successfully link a video I filmed up on this site.

It tastes like urination

Every once in a while a random article falls randomly out of the sky onto my lap that I never could've dreamed of though, in reality, it's probably just funny to me and a few others. Well, today such an article was brought to my attention by my friend, Mike (who has now been promoted to the Failure's Art Reporting Team, or FART - but only because NAMBLA was taken) who suggested that it could be the subject of a post.

The article is Delonte West's idea of a perfect romantic evening, as told to Louise K. Cornetta on ESPN.com's Page 2. For those who don't know, Delonte West is in his second NBA season and plays for the Boston Celtics, after playing at St. Joseph's University for three years (most notably his Junior year on the team that made it all the way to the Elite Eight after a perfect regular season). West has been playing well as of late and it looks like he has a promising career ahead (I always thought that he'd be a better NBA player than Jameer Nelson), and now that he's having a healthy season it looks like I might not be too far off on my prediction. Certainly, a romantic article like this one out today will help Delonte get more recognition, and even though we're all laughing at him, it's still better than the time in college where he attacked his athletic trainer, and, of course, the whole Herpes thing (which he should preface every romantic date with, but maybe all those NBA groupies are turned on by the fact that they get a souvenir, or maybe all their other STDs cancel each other out).

Herpes?:



Before I leave, here are my three favorite quotes from the article:

1.) On setting the mood: "...from there, wind blowing through the hair, boom, we get straight to the point -- we eat afterwards because I don't want to kiss no onions. I don't want to kiss you tasting like onions and steak and mushrooms and everything."

2.) Dinner Time: "When we're on the yacht eating, we're going to have some Popeyes chicken. That's for dinner. It's to let her know, put a mental image on her mind, first and foremost, if you ain't from the hood, you don't like Popeyes chicken."

3.) Wetting the Whistle: "Pop some bottles, some Moet Rose. The red Moet, we ain't popping no Kristal, it tastes like urination. We ain't popping no Kris, that's $500 a bottle. It ain't that serious. It ain't going to get you drunk."

That's all for now. Look for a Winter Olympics post either tomorrow or Thursday, and root for the pointer in tonight's thrilling conclusion of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.




Happy Valentine's Day:



ONE MORE THING: Why, in God's name, does a 78 year old man need to go hunting?

I Can't Stop This Feeling

I'm not quite sure how I missed this, but thanks to this week's episode of The Soup (on E!) I saw the greatest video to hit the internet since Lazy Sunday (which I had up the Sunday after it aired, thankyouverymuch). Ladies and gentltmen, I present to you David Hasselhoff's Hooked on a Feeling. Even if you've already seen it, please watch it again because it really doesn't get any better.



Also, in case you were wondering, I will be rooting for the Seahawks to win tonight, which is hard for me because I really really like the city of Pittsburgh, as well as many of the players (they were my fantasy defense this year). The main reason though that I want Seattle to win is because I hate a certain "journalist" and "ESPN personality," Skip Bayless, who has been bashing Seattle all week. Going into this week I didn't care much for the Seahawks at all, which is a lie because in reality, I never even think about the Seahawks (unless of course Shaun Alexander is racking up cheap touchdowns vs. me in my fantasy league). To go along with that, I kind of like the Steelers (though not nearly as much as I like their city or the Pirates) and wouldn't really mind seeing Bill Cowher and their 600lb running back win the Super Bowl.



However, when you take in consideration that the Steelers already have a bunch of Super Bowl wins, and the fact that the city of Seattle has never won a championship in any major sport, my loyalties shift to the Seahawks because I want one less city that crying about the fact that they've never won anything just so it makes it that much better when some Philadelphia team (please not the Flyers - well at least not the Flyers first) actually wins something. So basically I want Philadelphia to be the best at losing, and even if the Seahwaks lose, they have no right to cry because they only have three pro teams (and the Sonics right now are real close to not counting), not FOUR. So, go Seahawks! Win it for Martin Crane!



Plus, I just HATE Skip Bayless that much.


ONE MORE THING: Yes, I realize that I've now referenced the E! channel in some way in my last three posts. If we get to four straight then I might have to shut down this site.

ONE MORE THING ABOUT WILLIAM HURT: After watching Crash last night for the first time, there is ZERO doubt in my mind that Ludacris should not only have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but also win this award. Seriously, laugh if you want, but he was amazing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to leave for Astoria.

Method Acting

Well, I know this was reported on many other websites yesterday, but for those of you who didn't happen to see it, Stephanie Tanner finally admitted that she had a meth problem. Now I'm sure this news hit my cousins' house real hard, but if you ask me, it really explains a lot. If you study her behavior over the years then you will see that there were many signs that she was using. Here are some great examples after her mug shot:



1.) She was the middle child. If televison has taught me anything it's that the middle child (whether it's of 3, 5, or 7) is always a huge loser. Stephanie knew this and while she tried hard to fight past this cold hard fact, she eventually gave in and turned to drugs.



2.) Her only firends were Uncle Joey and that Teddy Bear with the trenchcoat. She must've known she was in trouble when she realized that her two best friends in the world were a live-in uncle with a mullet who was constantly making "wood" jokes and thought he was 8 years old, and a lifeless Teddy Bear with a great eye for fashion. I don't see how anyone could not turn to meth in this case.





3.) She didn't know how to perform simple household tasks. I think we all remember the time she borrowed DJ's purple sweater with the buttons accross the top (the one thing she owned without shoulderpads, no less), stained it with mustard, and then tried to get the stain out in the wash but shrunk it instead. As a result, DJ was once again disappointed in her little sister, while Michelle won out in the end because the sweater was now her size. Nothing could go right for Stephanie, except of course, all those drug purchases.

4.) She wanted to change her name. Who could forget the time where Stephanie wanted to change her name to Dawn? While she gave other reasons for wanting the change, we all could tell that it was because she wanted to distance herself as far away from her old persona as possible because she was upset with the drug addict she had become, while at the same time knew she didn't want to stop anytime soon. This is yet another classic sign, plus Danny refused to let her go through with this which was another example of Middle Child Abuse, which no doubt led to even more usage.



5.) She had to share a room with her baby sister. After years of suffering through getting no respect as DJ's roommate things were starting to look good for her when DJ moved out of the room. Unfortunately, Michelle came in as fast as DJ left, and now Stephanie had to deal with her little sister who was clearly more talented and much cuter than she was right while she was going through her awkard years. It's almost as if she was demoted. Where would you turn if this happened to you? I'll tell you where - methamphetamine. I'd be right there with her with Michelle constanly playing the Echo Game and that Raffi tape.



6.) She didn't know how to drive a car. I know you all remember how Stephanie was so far gone that she crashed Uncle Joey's brand new red car through the kitchen. It was bad enough that she caused thousands of dollars of damage to her own house, but if you're gonna drive through your house at least do it head first, not in reverse. So, how did she deal with this? She ran away from home and lived on the street for a few days before resurfacing at Rebecca's house before attempting to flee to Mexico. If this isn't a cry for help than I don't know what is.

7.) She joined a dance posse. If I know one thing, it's that meth addicts love to dance. Once Stephanie found out that she was good at dancing, she danced all day and rose to the ranks as the leader of her local posse. Before she could take her people to the streets and shout, "it's on," her mood swings hit her hard once she wore out her Motown Philly tape and she went on the downward spiral. The same thing heppened to Jesse Spano when she took up dancing, and I think we all remember what happened there. Poor Stephanie had no friend like Zack Morris to set her back on the right path and help her get clean.

8.) Steph kind of rhymes with meth. I'm not going into detail on this one, though I probably should've been calling her "Stephamphetamine" this whole post. Oh well.

Those were just a few examples (and believe me when I say that there are many more) of how such a normal child could go off the deep end. If you are a parent (or someday hope to become a parent) take notice of these eight warning signs for your children. Hopefully Stephanie's tragic childhood can help prevent thousands of other talentless middle children to stay away from drugs and end on a positive note, just like every single episode of Full House. Don't wait until it's too late!