Better than David Blaines?

So last Friday  I went to my high school's (St. Joseph's Prep) championship American Football game vs. our rival school, LaSalle, which is just the worst. This was my first Prep football game in a few years because they dominate everyone they play and they win the championship pretty much every year. It just stopped being fun for me mainly because I'm not used to anything I'm associated with winning regularly so I only payed attention from afar. For some reason though I really wanted to go this year and even though the Prep lost (thanks to their QB costing them 5 TDs) I had the best time I can remember having at a HS football game since we won the championship my Junior year. Here's a video to help me explain why:



Recently Father William J. Byron, SJ, was named the new President at the Prep. I didn't know this until after I saw him in that very clip on Da Ali G Show, just one week before the championship game. President-Father Byron's appearance on Ali G was a big topic at my cousins house on Thanksgiving where we watched the clip a couple times. On the way to the game last Friday, myself, my brother, father and two uncles talked about it even more, and my one uncle, Uncle Paul (who was elsewhere the day before and didn't see the clip) kept hilariously referring to Ali G as "Borass" (foreshadowing? maybe...) and we all got a good laugh and thought nothing more of it.

Little did I know then that we'd wind up sitting one row behind Father Byron during the game. So, like most immature/giggle-happy twenty-five year-olds, I decided to shout, "Jesus...Christ," just like Father Byron did (which I think is the funniest part of the interview) every time the Prep did something bad, or something didn't go their way. As you could imagine, my brother and I got a lot of mileage out of this joke (and other random quotes from the interview) thanks to it getting funnier every time we said it just within his earshot. As you could also imagine, my father (lowercase "f") did not appreciate the fact that we kept doing it and he probably thought that laughing at a priest (which he did pretty much every time) would delay his entry into Heaven. Thankfully for us, the Prep sucked that night so there were many opportunities and he couldn't really get mad. It would've been wrong for us NOT to do it.

In case you're wondering, I think Father Byron heard us a few times, and I felt kind of bad about it, but not for too long because funny is funny (and yes, I realize this is probably only funny to five year-olds). What I didn't find out until the next day was that my Uncle Paul walked up to Father Byron and said this instant classic Jesuit priest ice-breaker:

"So I understand you're in a movie with that Borass guy"

Now that's funny to everyone. Respek.



COMING FRIDAY: Meet John Duffy's evil side.

Sports Boos and Yays

Let me just recap the last 26 hours for the Philadelphia sports fan. More specifically, this Philadelphia sports fan.

Sunday approx. 2pm: Donovan McNabb tears his ACL thus ending the Eagles season and my fantasy football season. Awesome!



Sunday 3:00pm: FOXsports.com reports that the Cubs have all but signed Alfonso Soriano to a 30 year, 900 billion dollar contract, which means that the Phillies lost out on having him bat after and protect Ryan Howard in their lineup. This is just as bad if not worse (to me at least) than McNabb's injury. Now instead of trying to trade for Manny Ramirez, or sign Carlos Lee, Phillies GM Pat Gillick will look to sign one-year-semi-wonder Gary Matthews, Jr., or another 12 Wes Helmseseses. Yay!

Sunday 4:30pm: The Eagles wind up losing 31-13 at home to a rookie QB and I have to deal with the fact that I now have to watch Jeff Garcia (and his 9-step-drops followed by his happy feet scrambling and eventually rolling right to throw a pass out of bounds, or for one yard to Brian Westbrook) play football for the NEXT SIX WEEKS. Sports!



Sunday 4:35pm: I also learn that Brett Favre injured a nerve in his right elbow in his game which means that this will be all ESPN focuses on for the next week. Supa-cool!



Sunday 7:15pm: The Cowboys become the first team to beat the Colts this season. Even better news, the now high school equivalent Philadelphia Eagles play the Colts in Indianapolis on national television next Sunday night. Woohoo!

Monday 2:00am: Right before I go to bed I check my iPod after charging it because it ran out of batteries on my trip to New York this weekend I learn that when iPods run out of batteries you lose your shuffle, thus ending my great experiment at 1401 (Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?). Goodnight!

Monday 11:15pm: I learn that the NL MVP award will be announced today at 3:00, and I just know that Albert Pujols (of the worst team ever to win a championship in any sport on any level in the history of life) will win it instead of Ryan Howard. The Cardinal way!

Monday 3:07pm: I'm too scared to check to see if Howard won or not, and just when I'm about to I get a phone call and learn that RYAN HOWARD WON THE NATIONAL LEAGUE MVP!!! Forget yesterday! Forget everything! This makes up for it all! RYAN HOWARD!!! I love you, sports!



Monday 3:44pm: While writing this post (after dancing gleefully for up to 12 minutes), I realize that this is the happiest that Philadelphia sports will ever make me because I'm never going see a championship in my lifetime. I become immediately depressed, and have the sudden urge to listen to Cat Power (which I do). High five!

Monday 3:49pm: I remember hearing a commercial on the radio yesterday while listening to the Eagles game on the way home that told me to go to this site, and I do and I realize that there's nothing I can do but keep on doing what I'm doing. Please sign the petition. Life is good. I guess!



IN OTHER NEWS: After the Thanksgiving weekend, I plan to start posting regularly on Tuesdays/Wednesdays (either/or) and Fridays. Just so you know.

I Tied with Bart Simpson and School Sucks

So I voted in someone's garage today. There were bagels and coffee and everything, plus the polling people were all under 80 years old. I'm hating the suburbs and white people more and more each day. You don't even have to put raked leaves into trashbags out here. All you have to do is sweep them to the curb and some magical leaf truck comes and takes care of them for you. I miss the days of not having to rake leaves and voting for people named Chakah in the basement of a rec center.

Anyway, please enjoy this sketch from Flying Circus, which is maybe my most favorite sketch of all time:



I wish I had a nickname like that.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: Karen O. and Demetri Martin?

This Is Not An Exit

Since the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode has not yet aired, it's still technically ok for me to give you my Halloween recap from this year. I figured that since every television show in history has had some sort of Halloween episode then it would be fine if I had one too no matter how late. This was the first year (since the 9 year run in the 1990s of me being a werewolf) in many that I actually wanted to dress up for Halloween and go all out. Over the last couple years I either put on an Irish hat and went as "an Irish guy," or put on a yellow STAFF jacket and went as "an Event Staff guy." This year I wanted to do something different for a change - I wanted to wear a suit.

In case you didn't know, I like to wear suits. I love the structure and the feel, and I just feel really comfortable in jackets and ties. In high school for example, I never took off my jacket or tie while I was on school grounds unless I was playing ping pong or some other physical game during lunch. If it was socially acceptable, I'd seriously conisder wearing a suit everyday for no reason at all. Yes, I realize that I could wear a suit everyday if a got a normal job like a business man or a lawyer and that there's nothing socially unacceptable about that, but I don't want to have a job where I need to wear a suit everyday. I'm in a really tough position as you can see. Plus, if you consider the fact that I only have one suit (soon to be two) and that it isn't even mine, then you can see just how rough my life is. I'll give you a moment to feel my pain. Ok, ready?

There was another important factor for my Halloween costume this year. I wanted to be a character that I liked from a television show, movie, or book, that isn't overly popular or well known or instantly recognizable except to the people who are also fans of that specific character. The advantage of this is that it weeds out a whole bunch of people that I don't care about while at the same time forms an instant connection with someone who gets the reference. I also wanted to throw in little details about the character that the fans would appreciate, because I like specific and subtle details. Just so you know, I was also willing to spend no more than twenty dollars on this costume.

The way I saw it, this left me two options for my Halloween costume suit spectacular. The first was that I could buy a skunk tail and wear it and go as a Skunk Person like the guys from Stella (who share my love of suits) seen in video right here:



In keeping with the character, I would've just talked a bunch of know-it-all, goofy nonsense in conversations at the bar (drinking beer) randomly shouting "YAY!," or "Who iiiisss it?," while dancing like an idiot. This I thought was a good idea because I could just basically play my fun and weird side out in public that few rarely get to see. So Saturday afternoon, I went to a local Halloween store where I had the following conversation with a lady who worked there:

Me (while nodding with my hands together in a begging manor): Excuse me, do you have a skunk tail by any chance?
Her (with the stare of death on her face): Um, no.

So that idea was dead.

My second option was to go as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. Since I don't look much like Christian Bale, but I am white and in my twenties, I decided to go as the book version and not the film version. I pretty much knew all along that this was who I would be because this was the easier of the two options that I came up with on such short notice. All I had to do to be Bateman was slick my hair back, buy a fake knife, make up business cards, drink J&B on the rocks, confuse white guys with other white guys while dispensing valuable information about pocket squares, and act like I'm better than everyone else but this time with psychotic undertones. So, while I was at the Halloween store, I picked up a bloody fake knife where the blood moves inside the blade like those pens where the lady undresses if you hold it a certain way, or those freezable ice cups you put upside down in the freezer. After that I went to Staples and bought business cards to take home and print Bateman's information. The total cost of my costume (if you don't include the suit) was about eleven dollars. Perfect.

So, as you can imagine, the night was a total success costume-wise. I went over to meet FART member Mike at his house (who went as Flavor Flav) and we met up with a bunch of people down at Finnegan's Wake, even though I wanted to go to Dorsia. I had a good time bing Bateman even though they didn't have any J&B there for me to drink. The whole night I got to stand around and act like I was better than everyone else (which I do normally anyway) except every now and then I would hand out my business card and randomly stab people repeatedly. The ironic twist of the night was that Patrick Bateman would never hang out with Flavor Flav, and would probably kill him instantly (or not, depending on what you think happens towards the end of the book/film). If I truly wanted to be in character I would've wound up having a threesome while flexing in the mirror to the music of Genesis, and carving up their bodies afterwards. Since I'm such a nice guy though, I only killed a homeless guy and a cab driver and did some coke in the bathroom.

Here are some pictures:

"Because I want to fit in":




Mike's awesome makshift Flav costume:




Me killing Bateman's biggest fan:


BONUS STELLA CLIP: My favorite moment from the series:



The Great iPod Shuffle Experiment: (Oceanic Flight) #815 - Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone. Funny how it works out.