a giant grab bag of crazy.......

- Pretty much no one really wants to do karaoke. Yeah, sometimes people get liquored up and belt out Endless Love or some other terrible ‘80s tune, or maybe you lost a bet or do it on a dare, but other than that, getting up in front of a room full of strangers to do a bad rendition of some inane song isn't an activity you want to participate in, right? That being said, the proper response when a friend tries to drag you onstage to do karaoke is not to find the nearest golf club and attack your friend with said golf club. I say this because of the story of John Arne Riise and Craig Bellamy, two soccer players from the Liverpool soccer club who were in Portugal for their team’s training camp. Bellamy became enraged when Riise tried to get him up on stage for karaoke, and so he attacked his teammate with a golf club. How there was a golf club conveniently sitting by in a bar, I don’t know, but some words of wisdom for Bellamy: Look, Craig, you may not want to belt out a Lionel Richie or B-52’s song onstage, but attacking and wounding your friend who tries to talk you into it is not an acceptable alternative. Walk out of the club, tell your buddy to f*** off, but bodily harm is going several steps too far. However, if your friend tries forcing you to watch or try out for American Karaoke and go anywhere near Simon, Paula or that rotund black dude they sit next to, I’ll have to reconsider that ban on bodily harm………..

- Rushing the court or field is a time-honored tradition in college sports. A team wins a big game or defeats an archrival and the fans pour out of the stands and onto the field of play as time runs out. If it’s football, they try to tear down the goal posts and parade them across campus. If it’s basketball, the fans converge on their team’s players at center court, mug for the cameras and jump around. The point is simple: rushing the court is a staple of college athletics, a fun tradition and usually harmless. Sometimes a student will get run over, trampled, etc., and exercising a little bit of consideration is necessary when storming the field so that doesn’t happen. But I really, really don’t get the arcane, spoilsport stance of the Southeastern Conference, which has a policy of fining its member institutions when their fans rush the court. Vanderbilt University is in danger of incurring such a fine because its students came onto the court en masse when the Commodores upset Florida, the top-ranked basketball team in the nation, on Saturday. This is the second time in recent memory that Vandy fans have done this, and as a second offense, the SEC can levy a $25,000 fine against the school. For who, for what? Because the fans are having fun and celebrating a huge win? Because they’re marking a memorable occasion in harmless fashion? This is a retarded policy, plain and simple. As long as the fans just celebrate and don’t do anything like fighting with the opposing team, then there’s no problem. Quit fining these fans for well, being fans. Let them have their fun and enough with the over-policing, bureaucratic crap.

- Anyone who knows me knows how big I am on cockfighting. I was incredibly appalled by news in recent weeks that the state of New Mexico is considering banning the sport entirely, just as I’m offended any time and any place that cockfighting comes under attack by people who simply don’t understand its beauty and competitive fire. If you can’t get with the idea of two roosters strapped with razor blades pecking and slashing one another until one is dead, then I just feel like there’s no hope for you to understand any of the truly beautiful, meaningful aspects of life. That’s why I am wounded by news that the Medina (Ohio) County Sheriff’s Department made a raid this past Sunday on a cockfighting outfit based at a York Township farm. Undercover officers infiltrated the event, which was attended by 22 people in total, including a 16-year-old boy and a 7-year-old boy. The teen and his mom even sold beer (see, a family bonding experience) and everyone paid $5 to attend (the American entrepreneurial spirit at work), but the cops couldn’t resist breaking up the fun. There was even wagering on the fights (the spirit of competition), which saw roosters battle it out in a 10-foot-square ring. All of the adults at the fights face misdemeanor charges, including animal fighting, animal cruelty and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Additionally, farmer Earl Kanzeg, the organizer of the cockfights, faces charges of operating a gambling house and possession of criminal tools. Again, I have to ask, why can people not understand the greatness of cockfighting? Good Americans like Kanzeg clearly understand it, but their right to host such a glorious sport is slowly being eroded by the overreaching, oppressive arm of John Q. Law. It is truly a sad day in America when a citizen cannot stage a simple cockfight at his farm with beer, gambling and bloodshed.

- Thank you to the state of New Jersey for proving that 1) it is possible to beat a steroids test, and 2) these tests are far from foolproof. New Jersey became the nation’s first state to test its high school athletes for ‘roids amid concerns that athletes might be using performance enhancers to gain a competitive edge. I refuse to believe that there isn't a single kid in Jersey that uses steroids, yet the first wave of testing produced exactly zero positive results. Forgive me for not believing that student athletes in N.J. are so morally and ethically superior to kids in every other state and that they simple refuse to take ‘roids. The only possible conclusions to draw are that the tests weren't universal and that too small a number were tested, that kids knew the tests were coming and cycled off the drugs or that the tests themselves are somehow flawed. I’m sure officials in the state are patting themselves on the back, congratulating themselves for having such a clean group of student athletes competing in their state, but they (and anyone who believes the same lie they do) are sorely mistaken in believing, even for a second, that no kids there are taking any kind of performance-enhancing drugs.

- Just admit it. That’s my advice to James Pacenza, who is suing IBM for firing him because he visited an adult (i.e. sex addict) chat room at work. Pacenza isn't denying visiting the chat room, mind you. He’s simply contesting IBM firing him because of it. Why, you ask? Isn't engaging in cyber-sexual activity at work grounds for dismissal? Ordinarily, the answer is yes. But Pacenza’s contention is that he visits chat rooms to treat a traumatic stress disorder he incurred in 1969 when he saw his best friend killed in combat in Vietnam. Ah, the old “My buddy was killed in ‘Nam so I need to get my sexual freak on in internet chat rooms” defense, it’s a classic. Pacenza goes on to say that the stress made him a sex addict, and as such, he’s protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. So many possible jokes, so many things wrong, can’t decide where to go first…………..OK, here….HOW THE HELL DO YOU EVEN MAKE THAT ARGUMENT? HOW CAN YOU KEEP A STRAIGHT FACE WHILE DOING IT? ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS!?!? You can't claim you have a disability because you’re addicted to porn, sorry. If that was possible, then 80 percent of males between the ages of 14-100 would be disabled. Just because you can't keep it in your pants at work doesn’t make you disabled, it makes you a stupid, perverted freak. News flash, Jimmy, but I’m willing to say that a lot of guys who work at IBM look at porn regularly. They’re just smart enough not to do it at work. You may need counseling, you may need a reality check, but you are most certainly not entitled to the same protection that actual disabled people receive under the A.W.D. Act. This is a Hall-of-Fame-level bad excuse, and honestly, Pacenza should be subject to counter suit for using it in the first place.