A Real American Hero

11:28 - Started this.  I'm watching SportsCenter.  ESPN is carrying this thing on its top station.  I think they used to run this on ESPN2, and before that it must have been on The Ocho.  I don't know how this gets top tier presentation, I really don't.  Don't get me wrong, I love that this is national news.  As long as North Korea doesn't launch missiles at Hawaii, this is likely to be as heavy as the news gets today.

11:39 - Getting another cup of coffee.

11:48 - First glimpse of Coney Island.  Huge crowd; they say they're expecting 40,000.  Great recap of last year's epic tie-breaking eat-off.  Also, a reminder that 26 years ago today, Dave Righetti threw a no-hitter against the Red Sox.  Good times. 

11:55 - Serena Williams talking about how she beat her sister this morning at Wimbledon.  I bet she can eat some hot dogs.  More coffee.

12:00 - It's time!  Massive crowd, great ESPN presentation.  Oh man, these people have Nathan's Thundersticks.  I need some. 

12:04 - New rule: Dunking may not exceed five seconds.  This changes the whole game.  Heinz Ketchup is a sponsor for this?  You don't put ketchup on a hot dog.  This will not stand.  John Kerry had better not be trying to go for the Democratic nomination again.

12:09 - They're showing the competitors get off the bus.  Everyone gets quiet while Joey Chestnut speaks.  He then gets a NYPD escort backstage. 

12:11 - I love the analysis.  Kobayashi had a jaw injury a couple of years ago and upon reviewing footage of his P'Zone contest a month ago, they pointed out that he was folding the P'Zone in half.  This means that he is again able to take in three inches of food in one bite. 

12:16 - Sonya Thomas is so scary.  She could be a super-villain (Marvel style, not DC).  Patrick Bertoletti is looking sharp today, he should be in a Beastie Boys video or something. 

12:18 - Analysis of eating styles.  This guy's got a Snorricam attached to his hat to provide "Chew View."  Coney Island isn't too far from Darren Aronofsky's home, maybe he leant him an old one from Pi.  Joey and Kobayashi are sitting together, getting in the zone.  No eye contact.  Kobayashi's rocking a curious hairdo, he looks like Gary Oldman in The Fifth Element.

12:23 - First glimpse of Tim "Eater X" Janus.  No Crazy Legs Conti today?  Kobayashi interview... he's "inhaling" the bun now, could that prove to backfire on him?  Kobayashi versus Kobe Bryant graphic.  The judges are being sworn in.  This is serious. 

12:28 - Introductions.  Again with the "She Blinded Me with Science" beat.  Crazy Legs is IN!  He's got a Michael Jackson glove on, I love this guy.  They never manage to get the introduction and the graphics synched up.  Huge intro for Juliet Lee.  Gravy Brown seems to think quite a bit of himself.  Black Widow gets a big pop from the crowd.  Leader of the Four Horsemen of the Esophogus?  Best line of the day.  Badlands Booker looks in excellent form today.  Eater X gets a good pop.  And here comes Kobayashi... This guy has arms like Mickey Mantle.  Joey comes in to chants and "Baba O'Reilly!"  Hold that belt high!  Fran asks "Imagine if you went to high school with him." 

12:42 - Underway!  Kobayashi is balls to the wall already.  Joey's packing them in.  We've got a running "Dogs Per Minute" tally.  Neck and neck between Joey and Kobayashi.  Micah Collins is wearing Chew View, I hope he doesn't throw up.  Three and half in and they're tied at 30.  It's starting to get a little hideous up there.  We need more dogs up here.  Five minutes in and Joey and Kobayashi are already past 40 each.  Joey leads by two with four minutes left.  Eater X is behind them by about ten but still going strong.  "Nothing short of staggering."  Bertoletti into third with two and half to go!  Kobayashi coming right back!  Joey's fighting hard, Kobayashi's unfazed.  Bertoletti's REALLY making a move here.  Joey's gonna surpass the Maris mark here, it's a new record!  Minute and a half to go and he's still got the lead!  One minute to go!  GO JOEY GO YOU CAN DO IT!  He's still in the lead, my heart is pounding!  Joey's jumping to get those dogs down!  IT'S OVER!  JOEY WINS AGAIN!!!  He looks absolutely exhausted.  What a spectacle.  Kobayashi looks upset, but resigned.  68 dogs for Joey.  Holy cow. 

12:56 - Official tally, Joey gets 68, Kobayashi 64 and a half, Bertoletti with 55.  Post-contest interview, Joey's out of breath still and kind of fighting off the hiccups.  Kobayashi's still perched over the table.  Joey holds the flag and trophy high.  USA!  USA!  USA!  Star Spangled Banner and everything.  I may have to attend one of these.  And now they're replaying it. 

God Bless America.  Happy 4th, everybody!

The Force will be with them.  Always.

There goes my hope of doing a Billy Mays parody video.  I should have done it last winter when I had the chance (and the beard).  Oh well.  I didn't grow up in the 70's so I don't care about Farrah, to be honest.  Ed was great, there's no disputing that.  David Carradine was the man.  He was Grasshopper and he was the villain in Kill Bill, which was the Quentin Tarantino movie that I would have already made, only with Wiffle bats instead of samurai swords, had I been given the opportunity.  As for Michael, I was never really a big fan of his music.  MTV's been playing retrospectives all weekend and I've come to the decision that he only made two videos that I really really liked, and only one of the songs was good enough on its own in the first place.  They're "Thriller" and "Billie Jean," respectively.  But I can't help but still like Michael for some reason, as insanely bizarre as I found him.  He was essentially a modern day Charles Foster Kane, trying to get back his childhood by building a massive home and surrounding himself with all sorts of toys and amusement park rides.  And really cool outfits.

Well, I think I'll sign off with this video, which I feel is how Billy Mays might want you to remember him.

Berry is menacingly funny as the pompous actor Rivers, who plays "Sanch" as a hot-shot doctor with a firearm strapped to his ankle in case of run ins with ghosts and other mysterious beings.  And well, let's just say that I try to be more like him every day.  I'm trying to get my hands on another show he did, Snuff Box, in which he plays a hangman in the employ of the Queen.  It's essentially a string of sketches held together by this concept, but what I've seen is just as funny as Darkplace. 

So there you go.  Nobody wins.  Well, actually, everybody wins, because here's the first part of the first episode of Darkplace for you.  Follow the links on YouTube if you wanna watch the rest.  You probably will.

 
There goes my Hippocratic oath.

Maybe you've noticed the picture of the rather dashing chap over there on the Zonkboard that I've chosen as my avatar for the time being.  I've been having a 'contest' to see who can 'guess' who it 'is.'  The resolution's a little low, so here you are...

Guess who and you might 'win'

Dean thought it was the guy from Dexter, I guess.  I don't have Showtime.  If I did, I'd be watching that new show with Edie Falco along with Dexter.  But that's what Netflix is for, isn't it?  Regardless, I'll reveal who that is in the next post, unless one of my five regular readers suddenly figures it out. 

Speaking of Dean, he's on a road trip up here as I type.  This is exciting news.

 
Sneaky peek.

They sell these at Modell's for $150

So what if we haven't won yet?  We've gotten progressively better in our three games.  In the first, we were mercied after three, lost a complete game in the second week, and lost a heartbreaker last night.  The team is a lot different this year, which I think is also a part of the adjustment.  Our old captain, Jamie, took a new job with Homeland Security a couple of months ago, and it just seemed like a bunch more fell off after that.  Still, the core remains in tact (Jim, George, Joe, Todd, and Howie are the most prominent) and everybody else seems enthusiastic enough.  No need for ringers yet, which is good. 

Mookie Wilson: Always relevant

I picked "27" because it used to be my sister's when she played basketball and softball in school.  I played first base through the first two games, and pretty well, too, considering I haven't actually played the position before.  I have been in on a couple of nifty plays there already.  I played right field last night.  I don't really want to talk about it.  I only had one hit to me the whole game and missed it by a step.  My bat is getting something done, though.  My OBP is probably at .500 to .600, but I'm not entirely sure how you calculate that.  I got robbed last night by some guy pulling out a Web Gem for SportsCenter.  Still, I had my first RBI on a sac fly and scored on one of my boy Conor's two homers.  I feel like I've gotten my swing to a very good place through hitting the batting cage as well as my Hit-A-Way, and I don't feel like going golfing for fear that it will mess up my mechanics.

Pictures are coming soon.  Hopefully we've got a win coming, too. 

Louis has been gaining in popularity over the last couple of years with a couple of big HBO specials, a short run sitcom (also on HBO), and numerous appearances on Conan O'Brien.  You might have even noticed that he played the cop near the beginning of Role Models.  Anyway.  Long story short, I found out only a couple of weeks ago (from Mom, because she's going to be angry that I didn't give her cred) that he'd be playing the newly renovated Hanover Theatre in downtown Worcester.  After cleaning up pieces of my exploded head, I immediately purchased two tickets.  Not yet sold out, and very nice seats.  Called Pat and we were in business.

First of all, the Hanover is gorgeous.  This was my first visit, and it is absolutely splendid.  I think they can have some actual legitimate stuff come through there (and they already have).  It makes me feel great to know that things like this are coming to town and maybe the downtown area can really start to re-emerge.  I know that it sounds hard to turn around an eternally crummy area during a recession, but it's nice to think about.  I mean, I do it all the time in SimCity.

So 8 o'clock rolls around and after Louis comes on the PA system with a fake voice, he introduces his opening act... Todd Barry.  If you watch Comedy Central, you've seen him.  Seems kind of spaced out, but he's actually quite sharp.  He gave us a great ten or so minutes, most of which was spent making fun of Worcester, and nobody really seemed to have a problem with it.  Actually, we loved it, and when he mentioned the airport was when he got the biggest laughs.  After Todd's set, Louis came out immediately. 

Note: not taken on Saturday, knicked it from Google

Since some of my readers (i.e., Jimmy and Karen) are going to see him next month, I won't give away anything from his set, but I will say that Pat and I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.  Louis can be pretty crude, but he's always great.  He's an observational comedian with a very conversational delivery.  I'm not really sure about how long it was, but it seemed like he could have done about half of the material and everyone would have left happy.  I anticipated the end of the set about five times, but he just kept coming back with more.  And 95% of it was stuff I hadn't heard him do before.  My face hurt from this big stupid grin I had all night, and I probably burned 1000 calories just by laughing. 

When the set was finally over, we shuffled into the lobby, where I spotted he CD table.  Todd was already hanging out there, so I told Pat that I was going to "purchase some swag."  As he went out to smoke a butt, I grabbed a copy of Louis' CD Chewed Up and Todd's new one, From Heaven.  I asked Todd if it was OK to "touch the comedian" and we shook hands.  I told him that I was a big fan and his being there was an unexpected treat.  He was pretty cool, and signed my CD.  Then, out of the corner of my eye, Louis emerged.  I was surprised... I thought he wouldn't be out for a while.  He walked past me and stood at the other end of the table.  I caught his eye and gave him my trademarked "How ya doin?" nod.  He saw I had his CD in my hand and gave me the international hand signal for "gimme here." 

"What's up?  Thanks for coming," Louis says.  He asks my name and signs the CD and the cover.  I told him that the set was fantastic and that I'd been a fan for over ten years.  He thanked me and we shook hands.  His hands are weird and small.  But he's a real nice guy, which is funny because he seems like he'd be a psychopath or something if you were unfamiliar with him.  Only thing I was kicking myself over was the fact that I didn't tell him "Sa da tay," a line from his directorial debut, Pootie Tang.  Yeah, son, I love that movie.

 
How long until NBC eradicates this clip from the Internet?  Only time will tell.

So if you like really good comedy (I'm not talking Larry the Cable guy or Dane Cook here, people), you have to check out Louis CK.  You'll probably be glad you did.

It's a major award!

And now for our feature presentation.  A week or two ago I got an intriguing piece of mail.  It was a postcard stating that I was eligible to get in on a class action settlement with Apple.  Apparently, since I didn't get a 'slip case' with my original Nano, I can get about twenty-five bucks.  I know the card says $37.50, but that's the max I could get if there aren't many people who get in on this.  Of course, in today's economic climate, this sort of thing is like hitting the lotto.  (This marks the first time I've used the phrase "in today's economic climate" on here.  This makes me eligible to be used as a source for MSNBC.)  I guess that since I didn't get my slip case, I was left open to the possibility of scratches that could "decrease the level of enjoyment" of my iPod.  Whatever.  I stopped using my Nano a year ago and replaced it with an 80 gig Classic.  Maybe in that case, seeing as how the Nano was 4 gigs, and my Classic (which didn't come with any sort of prophylactic device), is eligible for up to $750 if there's another lawsuit concerning my current model.

You sure got told.

So I sent the card out in the mail with the iPod serial number and I expect to receive a check sometime in the future.  Likely so far in the future that I will have forgotten that I was involved in this in the first place.  And by then, the likelihood that inflation will have taken hold, I should be able to use it for a cup of Dunkin coffee.

So imagine my excitement when Vince returned with his next product, the Slap Chop.  Although I could swear I've seen about seven products like the Slap Chop in the past, Vince makes it seem like the greatest kitchen tool ever made, worthy of use by any Michelin Star kitchen.  Don't get me wrong, I love Billy Mays, but Vince puts all the rest to shame.  In Vince's words, "look-a-dis."

AWWW YEAH you didn't think I was gonna pull that one on you, did you?  That's right, Vince strikes back with a somewhat bizarre but somehow even better version of this ad in Spanish.  Sure, the one-minute mark has a lot to do with it, but you get the idea. 

Of course, there's been the news that Vince recently had a bit of a tussle with a Miami prostitute.  The guys over at The Smoking Gun provided the story, which essentially is a joke that writes itself.  I can only assume that if Vince were to go with self-defense, he'd win the case hands-down.  "C'mon, you know it, I know it, a hooker starts chewing on your face, you gotta punch 'er.  We're not dealing with the dry cleaners here, folks."  I rule in favor of Vince. 

It's easy.  The Wii, which has the ability to hibernate when not in use, uses something called "Connect24" to keep all sorts of stuff up to date, including news headlines, weather, and update messages.  Connect24 works thanks to my wireless connection and it's pretty cool if you ask me.  But soon after getting Mario Kart for my birthday, I noticed that the disc slot glows blue from time to time, pulsating in an ominous manner.  I figured that this is simply a cue to go and check your Wii messages, usually for a notification about a Mario Kart tournament that's getting underway.  Other people in the house, though, believe that it's much more sinister.  Mom and Dad say that the Wii reads your thoughts and steals your dreams in the middle of the night.  At first, I thought this was a silly idea, but then I realized it's quite possible.  Maybe this information, along with your high scores and gaming tendencies, get sent directly to Shigeru Miyamoto's computer, allowing him to keep his company on top.

The madman at work

I think it makes perfect sense.  I have not once, but twice, had nightmares in which I was taking part in the events of Dead Space, a survival horror game that came out for PS3 and XBox 360 last fall and was essentially named the best game of the year by the gaming community.  I've never played it, myself, though, which makes it doubly strange.  Today I found out that there's a Dead Space prequel coming to the Wii this fall.  There you go, that's all I need to be convinced. 

I kid, of course.  But if, by chance, I had the ability to tell Mr. Miyamoto what I'd like from my Wii experience, I'd say this:

• Convince "The Miz" to put Rez HD on WiiWare the way he did on XBox Arcade.  Rez would be sick with the WiiMote and I'd buy it again in a second.

• Hurry up with the "new play control" games, I'm getting antsy to finally play the Metroid Prime series.

• Design more new games for the Classic Controller.  Just because you have the ability to do motion controls doesn't mean you have to make every game for the WiiMote and Nunchuk.

• Keep on smiling dude, that big goofy grin of yours makes me happy.

• Send me your Mario Kart friend code.

Heck yes.  I'm no Nintendo fanboy, but I love that they're the force to be reckoned with once again.  And that thing about friend codes... if you've got one, send it my way, I need more people to play with!

The Webmaster, feeling refreshed

So, how do I plan on spending my spring?  Well, that brings me to my return to the stage.  I haven't done a play in years, and I'm pretty excited about it.  The Theater Guilde of North Brookfield is putting on a little show called "Acting Can Be Murder" and I'll be rejoining with my old director pal Jay Valencourt.  But not only am I excited about doing rehearsals and learning lines and such all over again, but it's given me an idea for a new... project.  I'll fill you on in what that is when the time is right.  But I'm not gonna let it become like every other thing I start getting pumped over and then just lose interest.  Once upon a time (I'm guessing about fourth grade) I decided that I would write about how my day went, adding events as they happened.  I took out a sheet of looseleaf paper and titled it "HOW THE DAY WENT" and made the first entry, which read "8:04 a.m. - Started this."  The rest of the paper was blank.  This remains one of the biggest in-jokes my family has.

Otherwise... I'm just doing things as they come.  Glad to be out of the cave.  I could sure go for a salmon right about now.