Fear the clown! Football! Como se dice, WTF in Espanol?

Would you date this man?

This is my good friend, Sparkles the Evil Clown.
Are you scared? Intimidated? Worried?

Sparkles is my alter ego (well, one of them).
I am constantly amazed at people's irrational fear of clowns. Sparkles here has people frightened. So, too, did IT.

There are many famous clowns. Bozo. Coco. Obama. McCain.

I wanted an evil clown for my facebook page, so I did a search for evil clowns. I found this guy. I have no idea who he really is, but to me, he will always be Sparkles.

I love Sparkles. I love bringing him out to scare and intimidate.

I think Sparkles is horribly misunderstood. He's cute. Cuddly. But at the same time, fearsome. He represents the duality of mankind. Or clownkind.

The only clown I ever found scary was the clown in Poltergeist. That clown, along with the evil old man in Poltergeist II, might have been the scariest things ever on film. (See my good friends at the top of the page)

So we did a greatest fears bit for the Saturday show. Gina the horse babe was the hands-down winner with a strange fear of inflatable floats from parades. (By the way, Gina has a future in radio. She's hilarious!)

Excluding exes and former employers, my top five scary things list:

1) Feet
2) Tornadoes
3) Politicians
4) The Rock in drag (find the old SNL skit and you will see what I mean)
5) The IRS

My feet hatred is well known (there is a post below if you dig far enough).

What are your greatest fears? Are you scared of clowns? Do you hate Sparkles?

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It's football season! Saturday I will be at Robertson Stadium with a full beer, watching UH beat up on Southern. The best part of the year is here! The sports wasteland (i.e., baseball season) is over!

We had our fantasy football draft on Saturday. It was a blast. Got a chance to see my old pals Black Cloud Charlie and Miracle Mag. Charlie was a blast to work with back at the hell hole. Mag is the coolest breeze you will ever meet.

Fantasy football is an addiction. I wonder; do the Aussies have fantasy rubgy? The Canadians have fantasy hockey? The English have fantasy...cricket? Soccer?

A few points for my fantasy football comrades:

1) You are not a coach. You are not a GM. You are a fantasy geek, just like me*.

(*-C-squared is a fantasy professional. He is excused from the conversation).

2) Just because you know fantasy does not mean you know football. (Memo to fantasy "coaches:" in real football, you have to do little things like block and tackle.

3) If you are in more than three leagues, you have a problem.

4) If you know that Andre Hall is the Broncos backup running back, you have a problem.

5) I have a problem.

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You will never read about the LPGA on this blog.

Except now.

The LPGA is the Ladies Professional Golf Tour.

The only reason they are in this blog is because the LPGA has decided that all players have to learn to speak English within two years or face suspension.

The main reason is 11 of the top 30 players are South Korean. Some do not speak English.

This is hypocrisy at its worst. An organization that markets heavily to Mexico and promotes star Lorena Ochoa; an organization that holds a major tournament overseas that encourages European players; an organization that marketed South Korean golf pioneer Se Ri Pak because she was attractive and Asian.

Yes, it would be nice if everybody could talk to sponsors and be interviewed after they win. But sports is supposed to be a universal language. It is supposed to bring us together.

So to the insignificant LPGA Tour, you've made the big time with this announcement. You are officially hypocritical jerks and I hope you all drown in your own blood.

Como se dice, "bad management" in Ingles?

1) LPGA
2) The Chronicle
3) The Astros
4) All of the above

Speaking of clowns...

0 Canada no more; Are you kidding, J Lo?

First, again, my apologies on the delay on the latest post. We had quite a few shows last week, and frankly, I haven't felt very creative.

Quick update on the medals: How about those Canadians? You guys are no longer Togo's bee-yatch!

Canada has 13 medals now! After I made fun of our furry little friends to the north, they put up a 7-spot last weekend. Of course, most of those were for ROWING, but hey...

And England...wow! Fourth now with 37! The English have passed our friends the Aussies (36). My adopted countries are kicking butt!

And while Russia has just 45, if you added together all the old Soviet Republics....well, let's just say the medal lead would be back in the USSR.

Honestly, that's all that's left to these Olympics; watching the U.S. basketball team spank everybody and counting the medals. Michael Phelps stole the whole show. Everything that happens now is anticlimactic.

Except for Jennifer Lopez.

J-Lo.

My favorite Olympic story isn't the Olympics at all.

It's J-Lo, who in an interview couldn't understand why "That Swimmer" was getting all the attention. She, after all, was training for a triathlon, just six months after having a child. SHE should be the story. Why is everyone so interested in "that swimmer?"

This is the same woman who insured her butt.

I'd really love to rip this self-absorbed windbag. But sadly, she is just a symptom of something I see every day; ridiculously self-absorbed people who think they are the center of the universe and no one else matters.

It's everywhere. I guess I have always been a little naive. I always think people care about people. I got jaded a little at the old place; I worked with a lot of J-Los. I knew it at the time, but it was reinforced when I left. People are your friends as long as you can help them, or as long as you can do something for them, or they PERCEIVE you can do something for them. They really don't care about people unless they can benefit from them. Sadly, that's everywhere I go these days.

There are still good folks out there; in fact, if you are reading this, there is a 98 percent chance you ain't a J-Lo. I know some wonderful people who really do think about others first. I guess I thought everybody was like that.

I was...uh...what's that word? Er...incorrect?

No worries. I'd rather spend my life dealing with Teddy KGBs. Ruthless, but honest.

"He beat me. Fair and square. Pay that man his money."

(I love Teddy KGB. In my next life, that's who I want to be).

What bothers me is that the J-Lo's are the ones who seem to be successful in life. They are the ones who are the card magnets; they get pocket aces against our kings. Or if we have aces against their kings, they flop a set and take our chips. No wonder it is always about them. No wonder we don't matter to them. No wonder we are all "the swimmer."

Wow, that sure seems like a serious point, doesn't it? I promised no more serious. So here is an old joke, one of my favorites...

How do you get a witch pregnant?

You f**k her.

I didn't say it was a good joke...

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Three quick takes:

1 -- Watched Scotty Nguyen win the H.O.R.S.E on TV last night. I love Scotty, but he was way out of line, and acted like a complete jerk. I know I do that at the table sometimes, and I think I learned a valuable lesson. Don't expect to see me do that again. (C-squared, up to you to make sure I live up to that!)

2 -- Bet the over on the Texans winning more than 7 1/2. Been to two practices this week...this team will surprise people. If Chris Brown stays healthy at RB...they will be sick!

3 -- Chance favors the prepared mind.

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We are the world; gargoyle freaks; trivia time

OK, I've been working too hard. Not whining, of course, because I went months without doing a damned thing. So working is fun.

But it's limited my freak encounters and thus my blog material.

I am on record as saying I have a freak magnet somewhere. It makes people talk to me about sick dogs on elevators, show their breasts on elevators or force wheelchair prostitutes into my path.

Then there is the elephant woman, my best-ever freak show story. We will save that one for a slow day.

The practical upshot is I haven't had a lot of freak encounters to blog about recently.

So thank God for the Olympics.

Ah yes, the Olympics. The eyes of the world turn to smoggy, smelly Beijing as we all come together in the spirit of competition, brotherhood and peace.

Meanwhile, Russia and Georgia are at war (I think this could hurt the Bulldogs' chances to win the SEC. They are No. 1 in most polls, but the Russians have the guns AND the numbers).

The U.S. has that little Iraqi conflict going. And Afghanistan. And God knows how many other conflicts around the world we have going that we don't know about yet. (Whoops, that sounded political. Never mind).

Ah yes, back to the beauty and pageantry of the Olympics. Amateurs who make millions. And use 'roids, HGH and whatever else they can get away with. It's the purity of sport at its worst.

Yes, there are still magic moments -- the U.S. swim team's relay win the other night was unforgettable. There will be more excitement, drama, and national pride.

However, I have two problems with the Olympics: 1) TV's fake drama stories. 2) I miss the Soviets and East Germans.

I don't know how it is in the rest of the world, but here, NBC TV goes out of its way to create fake drama about every athlete. Meet Kenobi Malakov from Kazakhstan, who overcame the loss of both arms and legs in an accident to become a world class sailor. He finished ninth.

And Prakish Prakheel from India, whose parents were tragically killed by a raging bull. But Prakheel overcame that horrible accident to become a world class table tennis player. But then an uncle twice removed died of cancer, and a distant cousin was lost in a shopping mall and never found. Depression set in, and Prakheel barely made the Indian team. Then came the serious hangnail injury -- near fatal for a table tennis star. But Prakheel persevered and won bronze!

Memo to NBC: ALL OF THESE STORIES HAVE BEEN DONE. It's called "Inside the Music" on VH1. Whatever tragedy people have overcome at the Olympics, throw in drug addiction and the drummer losing his arm in the car accident, and you have Inside the Music.

Real drama happens on the field. In the pool. On the track. Let it happen on its own and stop creating false drama. We're smart enough to figure it out for ourselves.

Plus, let's face it; I miss the Soviets. Back in the day, the Olympics were great. It was our amateurs against their drugged up professionals. Our All-American kids vs. Ivan Drago.

Then there were the East Germans. Musclebound, steroid monsters. And that was just the women.

There were guys named Alexie and Miroslav and Viktor. And they seemed unbeatable.

It was good vs. evil at its best.

Now, the Russians are our friends. The only Communists left are China and Cuba. Hard to work up a hatred for China; Yao Ming plays for the Rockets and I love his restaurant. Cuba? Hasn't been a factor since Teofilo Stevenson quit boxing. And I love their cigars.

So who does that leave?

The French talk a lot of smack, but they don't back it up. Saddam is dead. Iran and North Korea are too busy building nukes to field competitive teams.

So who is left to hate?

Frankly, we ARE the Soviets now. We are the big bad dudes everybody around the world wants to beat. It's no fun being the Soviets. It's a lot like being the Patriots or Red Sox. Everybody hates us but us. (That's you, Red Sox fan. Patriots Fan. Live with it).

I am an underdog guy, so I am rooting for my friends from around the world. I want Australia to beat out Russia, South Korea and the other countries for third in the medal race. (Aussie Aussie Aussie!).

The Aussies are doing fine. My other friends? Not so much. Yes, it's early, but...

Great Britain is off to a slow start, with as many medals as Azerbaijan. Come on England; you are better than that.

And Canada...(memo to Val, Hu, Sandy, Danny, Norm and the gang: Do you people do anything but curl and play hockey?)

The countries with more medals than Canada include Indonesia, Togo, Kazakhstan (veerryyy nicccee!!!), Zimbabwe, Armenia, Belarus, and two countries I have never heard of: Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan? Are you kidding me?

Vietnam has a medal. Uzbekistan has a medal.

Canada has as many medals as Iraq. IRAQ.

(Zero as of today).

I blame Val. Get your country together, young lady. You guys are better than this.

We're rooting for you, Canada. You can take Armenia! And you damned well better beat Tajikistan!

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After hundreds of people told me how "moving" and "beautiful" the opening ceremonies were, I decided to go back and watch them.

"Best ever," people told me.

Gargoyle freaks in tights with a bunch of pretty colors. Hoo boy. Maybe next time I will drop acid and watch it. I'm proud of you, China. Nice job. Really.

Can't wait for the closing ceremony now. Wow. Good stuff. Look at all the pretty colors and spinning lights.

Nice tights, freaks.


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No one got the trivia answer from a couple weeks ago...To remind you, the question was what city gets nuked in Independence Day?

The answer? Houston, of course. The alien ship, however, was unharmed.

The next trivia question....what movie is this quote from:

"Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking "wow, you're ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career."

Hint: It's damned funny...

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What's in a name? Weather you like it or not, you suck...

If you've never lived on the Gulf Coast, you probably haven't had to worry too much about hurricanes. They are a fact of life here, and every coastal city has been impacted at one time or another by a storm.

Oddly enough, we name them.

Way back in the day, the storms used to be named after women. Then somebody complained, and they added men's names.

I'm guessing it was the idiots who name the storms who complained. They had to be running out of monikers. Storms are named from A-Z, and it has to at least be a tropical storm to get a name. Each new storm gets the next letter in the alphabet, which means our most recent storm -- Eddy (I REFUSE to call it Edouard) is the fifth storm so far this year.

It's time to try something else, because when you have to resort to Edouard, you have problems. Edouard? What genius came up with this? WTF? Euclid's already been used? Electra? Ernie? Euphestus? Effie? Ebbie?

So now we misspell common names?

Here's an idea, storm freaks: how about animal names? Hurricane Fido is nice. He packs a bite. How about Hurricane Fluffy? ("I lost my home in the great Fluffy of '09"). Or Tropical Storm Snoopy?

How about last names? Hurricane Favre would work. After all, he's been in the news a lot.

Maybe Hurricane Bush? Naw.... that name has done enough damage.

And why do we name these things anyway? We don't name great snowstorms. Or tornadoes. ("Bob, do you remember when Tornado Tom blew through and destroyed our trailer home?")

Side note: What did the god of trailer homes do to the god of tornadoes to piss him/her off so much? Just wondering...

Regardless, back to Eddy. Whoever named him Edouard...well, you should be taken out and forced to run naked through the streets when the next big storm hits.

Go get him, Fido.

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Eddy wasn't the only one who sucked.

The "storm" was just another little Houston shower. But you would have never believed that if you lived here and watched TV, listened to news radio or read the Fear Rag. If you did, you were scared to death.

We learned we could get more than 10 inches of rain. Wind gusts of "hurricane force." There would be power loss, flooding, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!

Classes were canceled, and work days were abbreviated.

All because it had a name.

We were reminded that Allison was "just a tropical storm" too. That Katrina destroyed New Orleans. That this storm was similar in it how it formed to Alicia in 1983, which knocked out power for thousands of people.

The Fear Rag's Web site posted a story that Eddy was "lashing" the coast and "pounding" several areas.

But in the end, we were "lucky" to avoid the worst.

There are several reasons for the paranoia. The media outlets benefit from a serious storm. More people watch TV, listen to the radio, go to the Web sites if they think something bad can happen. Weather men will invoke Katrina; there are still many former New Orleans residents in Houston, and the name itself inspires fear.

(Side note: The Katrina fear spawned an incredible panic in Rita, where nearly a million people tried to get out of the city. There were deaths on the road when people who had no business leaving were whipped into a panic. Most of that was the media's fault. Another story for another time).

Storms like this are the Super Bowl for the local "experts." They WANT disaster. They WANT damage. You will be mesmerized by it, and you will keep watching.

When they get a dud like Eddy, they keep trying to make it worse than it was. One weather freak kept saying that even though there had been little rain, "we weren't out of danger. There were more showers off the coast, and they could hit us in the afternoon. So stayed tuned to Ch. 11 for the latest updates."

Hoo boy. Showers. Wow.

The best was the local NBC affiliate's newscast. Much to their dismay, nobody died. But since they had reporters stationed everywhere, they did their best to create news.

A branch was down in a neighborhood. Someone's trash can was blown over by a breeze.

My favorite was the three swimmers who got caught in the current at Galveston. Keep in mind drunks get caught in the current on a daily basis in Galveston, and Beach Patrol has to save them all the time.

But since there was a reporter down there, and these guys had to be rescued from a pier...it suddenly became storm-related.

The best part is the graphic on TV described one of the men as a "Near Drowning Victim."

Hmm. I must be a Near Success. Or a Near Male Model. Or a Near Millionaire. Or a Near Storm Victim.

Oh, wait. It only counts on the day of a storm. Never mind.

The truth is, the media WANTS these storms to be bad. The Fear Rag would gladly trade your lives for a Pulitzer. The TV folks know how Dan Rather made it to the big time (covering a hurricane). They see an Eddy coming, and they get aroused. They know the only way they get attention is for something tragic to happen. Don't be fooled; they WANTED Rita to be Houston's Katrina. They WANTED Eddy to be anything.

It's sad, really.

But I am more sad for poor Eddy. He let down all those media folks. He never made it to hurricane status. He had to live with a stupid name. His short, storm life was a miserable failure.

Poor Eddy. Best of luck in the next life.
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Who has the best accents? I've always been partial to South African, but after Nikki called the poker show Tuesday night, I'm coming around on Aussies. I'm going to release my accent power rankings next blog but I am curious.... What are your favorite accents?