Courage Wolf suggests you listen to EDSBS Live tonight and join us as we make chicken salad from the chicken shit that is week 12. 9:00 p.m. is when we put on what some people call a basketball hoop, and we call a cockring. Throw away the gum, chew the tin foil, listen here, chat there, and quit being such a pussy. Some call it cancer: we call it week 12, and it’s just something you haven’t ripped through yet.

The five “sideline student safety zones” outside the stadium are places where fans can get help — any kind of help. “Maybe their phone has died or they’ve lost their group or they need directions or they need to take a nap. We have a bevy of services available,” Langston said.

If the the safety zones are truly “safety zones,” then the organizers of the Coke Orgy have done the worst thing they could have possibly done: turned the rest of the event into one huge DANGER ZONE. There’s only one acceptable way to get to said DANGERZONE, and that is running one step ahead of the DANGER ZONE’S most initimidating resident, GALACTOHOCKEYBEAR.

Be sure to stay in front of him if you do make it, because falling behind him was the Moon’s first mistake.

*We bet three people have died at the Kroger closest to our house in the past decade. Most likely in the dog food aisle, because there’s no cell reception in that part of the store and it would be easy to get lost and stranded.

We now think, in retrospect, that David Hasselhoff handled that moment quite well. We woke up with an olive stuck in our chest hair on Sunday after destroying a tuna nicoise sandwich in a sleep-deprived moment the previous evening. This is why you eat with a shirt on, kids, even when you’re drunk. A manpelt is NOT a takeout container.

Subway follows the exploits of those living in the Paris Metro, a subculture of misfits, artists, social outcasts who do outrageously French things like walk around filthy sewers wearing avante-garde fashion and holding flourescent light bulbs for hours at a time. You’re not really supposed to be down in les egouts, but that’s the point, just like you’re not supposed to be in alleys in Athens, Georgia. Okay, rephrase: just like you’re not supposed to every come out of an alley in Athens once you go into said alley. There, that’s better.

Georgia junior cornerback Vance Cuff was arrested Tuesday by university police on misdemeanor charges of having a suspended license and emerging from an alley.

We have no idea what Vance Cuff was doing going into an alley in the first place, but we can only assume it was to find his lost love, trapped by the cruel vagaries of poorly written civil code with the lovable, filthy outlanders who live in the alleys, forming terrible rock bands, making filthy love in the dumpster suites they’ve constructed from what “society” can’t use, and smelling artfully horrible. If that is what he was doing, then fight on, Vance. You remain a lonely but brave voice for those afraid of paying the fifty, possibly seventy-five dollar fine to emerge from those alleys, in addition to the suspended license charge.

That charge doesn’t matter either, though, right Vance? The courageous need no license for anything, something those people who see the sweet freedom of the sun every day won’t understand like the alley people do. Keep up the fight, brother. One day the big men in City Hall will pay for what they’ve done, and they’ll pass a law cutting through the bonds of alley-based prejudice as swift as a Jonathan Crompton pass through your secondary. Until that day, though: don’t let the bastards grind you down, warrior.

Segway! Segue! Thing transitioning you from one topic to another!

LAST MINUTE FULMER CUPDATES

Gary Pinkel will send you to hell, child. “Future Chase Daniel” Blaine Dalton now becomes “future D-11 quarterback” with his dismissal from Missouri for an on-campus DWI. The incident is the second incident for Dalton, who was charged with driving with an open container earlier this summer. He also had a third incident where no charges were filed when pills belonging to a friend were found in his car, so three made a trend for Pinkel, who gave his qb of the future the boot from campus. (Soft boot or hard boot remains to be seen; he may be able to get back on the team with good behavior and time, but DWI with no style points (i.e. hitting a donkey, ridiculously high BAC, etc.) gets you two points in the Fulmer Cup.

Stealing Georgia’s thunder already. Oklahoma State is already attempting to pre-empt Georgia scoring, and is doing it by biting their style, too: senior DB Perrish Cox pulled a page from the Bulldog playbook by picking up a measly one-point suspended license charge in Stillwater. Let us congratulate the Dawgs, btw, on an offseason free of license-related foolishness or other driving charges. Either they hired the driving paperwork coordinator we’d always said they needed, or more likely than not someone performed an exorcism to rid the roads of the spirit of Mudcat Elmore’s car. For the 20 Georgia fans who got that reference: you’re welcome.

The Fulmer Cup ends at noon on Wednesday. If anyone’s going to rob a bank or pistol-whip an elephant, now’s the time to do these things.

Today’s patron saint is Hugh Millais, who died earlier this month at the age of 79.

For why you should care, we refer to his Telegraph obituary:

The great-grandson of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir John Everett Millais, Bt, Hugh Geoffroy Millais was born on December 23 1929. Bereft of artistic talent, as a small boy he was taken ferreting by his father, and was going to shoots throughout the country with his .410 shotgun at the age of eight.
[...]
His Irish-Canadian mother next sent him off to gain some discipline as a Mountie. Instead he obtained a job covering the city’s mortuaries for the Montreal Star and took in a lodger, the singer Josh White, who offered no rent but taught him to play the calypso guitar. When they parted company Millais, like many an Englishman in wintry Montreal before and since, longed for warmth; so he hitchhiked to South America. In Mexico he contracted a brief first marriage and enrolled in a philosophy course conducted in Latin while earning extra money driving two bullfighters around in their Hispano-Suiza.

Back in New York after inheriting $100,000 from his mother, Millais paid $15,000 for a dilapidated 60ft yacht, and competed in races while touring the Caribbean islands with musicians such as Lord Melody, Mighty Sparrow and Cowboy Jack; they regarded him as a “token whitey” and called him “Lord Bamboo” because of his great height. On entering Havana harbour, he was shot in the arm by some troops, but met Ernest Hemingway, a friend of his grandfather, who took him to a doctor and invited him to stay.
[...]
On moving to Spain, he recalled building a house for Salvador Dali, who changed the floor arrangement half a dozen times but did not once pay for the work. Millais then took in Orson Welles as a lodger, who also failed to settle his bill, and persuaded the architect Philip Jebb to build homes near Algeciras.
[...]
Hugh Millais summed up his recipe for life: “75 years, 0 hours of labour, 40,000 bottles of wine, a pinch of Song, Women (to taste). Sizzle gently over a low lifestyle, leave to marinade slowly, bring to fruition. Garnish the whole thing wildly in the telling.”

Raise your glasses. This gentleman’s passing requires no lesser tribute.

Drink.

Holly: My hillbilly heritage asks: Is it close enough to fall yet to suggest moonshine and get away with it?

Moonshine properly made is not a sippin’ drink, and anyone who tells you otherwise is doing it wrong. Shoot it fast and try and keep your feet. Or, for Saturdays, try stuffing a jar full of cut-up fruit or berries and filling it to the top with ’shine and letting it sit for a couple days. Skim out the big pieces to snack on at the tailgate without fear of reprisal from dry-campus cops, and save the infused liquid for a knockout nightcap during the WAC game.

Doug: Far be it from me to take credit for things beyond my meager abilities, but I invented the vodka float over Christmas last year. Take a couple shots of Stoli Blakberi, add a dash of Chambord, dump in a scoop of premium vanilla ice cream, stir until nice and smooth, and garnish with a couple fresh blackberries on top.

OK, it’s really more like a shake than a float, but after a couple sips you won’t be concerned with such semantics.

Orson:  Pina Colada. You must do this correctly, and I am not talking about the recipe. A pina colada may have been invented by the bartender at the Caribe Hilton Beachcomber in Puerto Rico in 1954, but you, Michael McDonald, and God know you don’t associate it with gentle breezes on a Caribbean beach that will, at any second, be rent to pieces by a parade of flag-toting Puerto Ricans celebrating their heritage by blowing loud whistles and wearing sleeveless sports jerseys.

The Pina Colada is for hanging out in a contemporary house with octagonal windows, driving drunk in your Audi wearing a Lacoste golf shirt, and playing backgammon all night while wearing a hole in Steely Dan’s Aja on the turntables. It’s for cooling off after this new thing called “jogging.” It is the beverage for quaffing after a hard day skiing on the slopes in Aspen, and just before rolling through an eight ball and an all-nighter with Hunter and Jack. It is the drink you get drink when you want to get wasted with James Ingram and make smooth music.

The Caribe’s Recipe for the Pina Colada is as follows:

• 8 oz. light rum
• 5 oz. coconut cream
• 2 oz. dark rum
• 2 oz. heavy cream
• 10 oz. pineapple juice
Pineapple spears

Mix all ingredients with crushed ice in a blender for 10 seconds. Serve in chilled Hurricane glasses. Garnish with pineapple spears.

Oh, but the calories! Fuck you, this is the ’70s. Taking your shirt off without shame required little more than step one: remove shirt, and step two: shine like the sexy diamond you are. Afterwards, retreat to a pool, begin a smooth-ish activity, don a captain’s cap, or run immediately to the nearest waiting sailboat. Otherwise, it’s just candy with booze in it, and you should just be drinking the delicious, suntan-scented Malibu straight from the shotglass like Fake James Ingram (aka Wyatt Cenac) is doing in the scene above.

Comestibles.

Doug: Notice how everyone’s doing sliders these days? Where’d that come from? I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t Krystal. Krystal’d been doing their thing for decades before sliders went from novelty to Thing That Every Restaurant On Earth Is Doing. No, the thing that took the slider big-time was Ruby Minis.

Four little burgers, each with cheese, a dollop of ketchup, a pickle, and its own little fried onion straw. And each one is like its own little ray of comfort-food sunshine, perfect for consumption either while you’re watching your team engage on the field of battle or for consoling yourself after they’ve lost said engagement. (And yes, I just about ate my weight in these last season.) Like Chili’s Southwestern Egg Rolls, Ruby Minis are a reminder that, every once in a while, even the most ubiquitous of chain restaurants can take a perfectly ridiculous idea and make it sublime.

Orson: The KFC Double Down Sandwich. If you like sandwiches, but tire of that bothersome bread, but aren’t really going for a “low-carb” slim look but instead aim to be covered by the fine panic oil seeping from the pores of the soon-to-be deceased due to cardiac arrest:

I’m not even sure this is even really a recommendation, and is instead more of a dare/warning. Eat two, run a mile as hard as you can, and then see what happens! It’s called science, and if none of you tries it, we will never know for certain, and then the Dark Ages win.

Holly: Perky Jerky. The lion lies down with the lamb. Glass houses sink ships. A skinned cat gathers no moss. This all makes perfect sense to me, because I’ve just discovered Perky Jerky. (This is also the reason it took me three tries to type the word “sense”.) I’ve never personally sampled this creation, but the mere fact of its existence, which does not appear to be a joke is enough. Truly, brothers, we live in an age of wonder

You mean “BUY YESTERDAY.”

Combustibles.

Holly: Here is Criss Angel being set on fire, posted not because Criss Angel is in any way entertaining, but because I like watching this and imagining he’s in excruciating pain:

Aww, and it’s his mom’s birthday! Doesn’t she look like she’s having a good time! Good night, Criss Angel is a twat.

Orson: Cool guys don’t look at explosions, no matter how cool the explosions may be.

Doug: The Boeing 737 is the most successful family of commercial airliners in history, having sold more than 6,000 copies since its maiden flight in 1967; they have carried more than 12 billion passengers in that time. In certain circumstances, it is also great for making s’mores.

¡Ay díos mio! Before anyone accuses me of being needlessly callous, note that everyone got off the plane safely. (Guess the captain must’ve turned off the No Smoking sign, am I right, people? UP TOP!)

Transit.

Orson: Go-kart. Not just any go-kart, either. We want the fast one, and don’t be coy with us, pimple-faced teen running this shitty beachstrip go-kart track. Give us the one that plays the Kill Bill theme when it hits your eyes. Give us the one capable of sliding around corners like a well-buttered crumpet sliding off Satan’s very giant hell-griddle. Give us the one that goes DAH-DAH-DAAAHHHHHHHH, you little punk, or we will punch you in the cock when you escort us off the track for bumping.

The judge will understand. He or she is a gentleperson of means, and will understand the essential joys of kicking someone’s ass in at go-karting, or as we like to call it, “competitive gentlemen’s contact micro-motoring.” It is taught in all of the finest academies, sanctioned by all but the most disreputable houses of worship, and admired by beautiful children, noble dogs, and women with thighs tasting of dark chocolate and success. Fuck a bitch who doesn’t respect the kart.

Few feelings exceed the sensation of passing a rival in a slower go-cart. It’s like your superior moral character, better looks, and sharper intellect have led you this logical confluence of the universe’s reward of AN ASS-TEARING GO-CART. Passing them is like farting in your nemesis’ grandmother’s face. When she’s dying of cancer. On the moon. On Christmas.

I watched my brother spin out in the middle of a track in a particularly zippy kart once. He sat in classic broadside position, motionless, his engine off and waiting for the worst. My sister, who had been forced to drive a burly, slow two-seater, roared over the bump and beheld my brother’s drifting wreck of a machine sitting in the middle of the track like a lion regards a fat child in a wheelchair left in the middle of the Serengeti. Her eyes lit up with the kerosene fire of battle. She flexed in her seat, obviously leaning as hard on the gas pedal as she could. My brother stared her down, powerless to do anything, but stunned at how the improbable was becoming the real.

The impact knocked my brother’s tightly fitted baseball cap clean off his head, and whipped his head around like a tennis ball speared on a cb whip. Fuck off if you don’t like style, Destin go-kart track in 1993. It’s not my fault my sister recognized a once in a lifetime opportunity when she saw one. Teenaged security guards come and go, but glory and go-karting live forever, Philistines.

Holly: The Airstream trailer, and make one of the old relics left over from the Atomic Years. (If you must have your transport shiny and spanking-new, they’re still making vaguely vintage-looking models today.

Trailer it may be, but trashy it most certainly is not.

Doug: I’m sure most of y’all have the impression of French automobiles, like the French people who make them, as small, weird-looking, and wimpy. But just as France was once a world power, a tiny corner of their auto industry briefly dabbled in chromed-up, big-block-V8-powered behemoths that looked like Al Capone’s personal town car, and for a brief period in the late ’50s and early ’60s produced the Facel Vega Excellence.

With its tailfins, billboard-sized chrome grille, and Chrysler-sourced Hemi V8, the Excellence was a force to be reckoned with on French autoroutes and American superhighways alike, and is gangsta to a degree that you petit-bourgeois wankers in your Hummer H2s and Fast-and-Furious’d Civics can only pretend at.

Canon.

Holly: Preacher. From 1995 to the summer of 2000, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon set the world on fire with their tale of a Texas preacher possessed by a half-angel, half-demon celestial hellspawn. With his trusty assassin girlfriend and Irish vampire bestie by his side, Jesse Custer sets out to pick a gunfight with God. This goes about as swimmingly as you’d expect it would, and the whole bloody saga is available in nine shiny graphic novel installments.

Never mind having a favorite comic book, Preacher stands on its own as a work of literature, in any medium. There’s been a hot-potato game with the film rights going on for about ten years now, and like any comics contrarian I’ve got every available body part crossed praying it never gets made. (When HBO passes on material for being “too dark”, it’ll never get the treatment it deserves.)

Doug: As long as I’ve paid props to an unexpectedly badass French car, why not pay tribute to an unexpectedly badass French movie: “La Haine” (Hate), a 1995 film about three friends — a black guy, an Arab guy, and a wannabe-gangsta Jew — navigating the riot-ridden housing projects of exurban Paris.

The first revelation from this film is that Paris even has projects; the second is the superb acting performances from each of the three leads; the third is the remix of a French-language recording of “Fuck Tha Police” played about halfway through the film, which is more awesome than your mind can possibly comprehend. (The fourth is that Vincent Cassel, who portrays the aforementioned wannabe-gangsta white guy — is now married to Monica Bellucci. I don’t know why I even mentioned that except to make myself feel bad, but as long as a few of you feel bad also, my work is done.)

Orson: The Critic. Say the words “Family Guy” and I will rip your your eyeballs with a bullwhip: The Critic took two of the writers from The Simpsons, set up a simple framework to digress and return their actual, real, and not detestable sham-characters, and let the madness rip. Jon Lovitz’s and Park Overall’s voicework was superb, the writing rolled along at the speed of Aderall in a good way, and peppered the series with ancillary characters like the immortal mad drunken WASP Franklin Sherman. Take that, Guernica!

As with all good things, time’s tide smothered it after two seasons, but no matter. The Easter Island Kid will forever live in our hearts as the one running gag capable of reducing us to tittering hysteria every time. If you’ll excuse us, we have a bottle of Blotto Bros. Wine to attend to, as it’s reasonably priced at a dollar a jug.

This marks the return of our four questions format for callers. This week’s menu focuses on ACTUAL FOOTBALL BY DAMN, and on the games of our first week of college football.

1. Who will get the Flamenco Upset of week one? You know, the exotic rhythms of an upset a la Boise State/Oregon 2008, who rematch on the Smurf Turf in week one?

2. What is the Game of Most Importance? The answer may be for sheer spectacle the VT/Alabama game, but given the low-wattage offensive potential, the UGA/OSU game may end up being far more watchable. Neither has long-term conference implications, however, so think along those lines: which games will end up meaning more down the road?

3. Will you, brave East Coaster, stay up for the entirety of the Oregon/Boise State game? And if so, STIMULANT CHECK! Our zoinkfuel of choice will be a quadruple latte consumed sometime around 5:30 p.m. The only downside is when your wife has to get out the flashlight and pull you out of your crawlspace at 7 a.m. when you’re holed up with 80 gallons of freshwater and MREs and waiting for “the vengeance of the God who comes.”

4. Essential viewing item for in-game viewing. Blue Diamond Smokehouse Almonds. We could pour liquid smoke and salt directly into our mouths, but then we’d miss the possibility of consuming eight hundred calories in three minutes. Only the small can, or otherwise you’ll hit the big can like an addict hits a tub of percocet, and then shit like a woodchipper at full roar for two days. Come near them, and we will gut you.

We’ll post the link to the chat forum and broadcast at the EOB here.

South Carolina, What! South Carolina Gamecocks defensive end Clifton Geathers went to Club Ice early Sunday Morning. Why? Because Club Ice is on Lady Street, and that’s where ladies are. (That is a real photo from Club Ice, btw, and a reminder that though you may look drunk in a photo, you will look eight hundred times more drunk with redeye.)

Then Clifton Geathers got hero-drunk and did what heroes do when they’re drunk: he looked for a dragon to slay, or failing that, a security detail to scuffle with as a 6′8″, 281 pound man. EPIC MUGSHOT WIN after the jump:

Geathers got into a fight with a security guard at Club Ice, or tried to make love to a windmill. The defense will use the latter, but the former is what got the cops there and got Geathers charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness, all misdemeanors worth one point each. Tag on the requisite mugshot goodness bonus point, and South Carolina is awarded four points in the Fulmer Cup, thus making the only big move of significance on the Big Board this week. Teammate Jarvis Giles was involved in some kind of domestic disturbance on campus with a woman, but with no charges filed yet, we refrain, and simply state that the beginning of football season means couples sparring over time and attention, and sometimes that literally means “sparring couples.”

It should be mentioned that Geathers checked into jail at 5:45 a.m., and was checked out in the ten o’clock hour, and that little could feel worse than checking out of jail drunk, tired, and utterly pummeled at 10:30 on Sunday morning.

Sparring Couples, One: Alabama linebacker Courtney Upshaw was arrested for domestic violence/harassment, but so was his girlfriend, Kendall Gryzb, who was enraged at Upshaw for hoarding all those vowels in his first name while she needed them so desperately. The police report describes Gryzb getting slappy after seeing Upshaw talking to another woman, and Upshaw showing linebacker pursuit skills by following and then grabbing Gryzb by the neck from behind before pushing her down.

Dad’s not concerned, though.

After speaking with his daughter upon her release, Kendall’s father Dave Grzyb told the Press-Register that it was a “simple lovers’ quarrel altercation,” and that “I honestly think it was probably initiated by my daughter. I don’t think he laid a hand on her. He just tried to restraint her to keep from getting hit again.”

We can’t decide whether this is negligent parenting on public parade, or a tacit public acknowledgment of a daughter’s insanity when it comes to dating. Cue Auburn conspiracy theories about him being bought off, and award one point to Alabama for the misdemeanor charge.

Sparring Couples, Two. Kansas State has a remarkably similar situation with Joseph Kassavanoid and his girlfriend, who were both charged in a domestic incident. One point for K-State and their backup quarterback whose last name sounds like a pharmaceutical compound.

I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY VOICE. Auburn running back Eric Smith has an appointment with the police today on a third-degree assault charge, which he’s cooperating with fully, since he seems like he’s owning up to beating a drunken student up with his hands AND HIS MIGHTY VOCAL CORDS.

The victim did not know his attacker, according to a victim report obtained by The Opelika-Auburn News.

According to the report, the victim was assaulted in the third degree by “hands, fists, voice, etc.”

Etc is so tempting to the imagination: “Smith then beat up his victim with a taxidermed kangaroo, the abstract concept of sorrow, and the fender from a 1989 Fiero.” The misdemeanor charge gets Auburn one point in the Fulmer Cup, and breaks the streak noted in the article of Auburn players staying out of trouble, since Auburn’s last arrest was in 2007 for a minor traffic foible.

Belated charges: Vandy gets four points for the Cabbagestalk Burglaries, which sounds like the title of a discarded Jeffrey Eugenides short story, and reminds you that giants, while huge and powerful, can be caught by police if properly chased. (Justin Cabbagestalk is totally a giant’s name, and in a children’s book would have been breaking into the house to get something shiny and pretty for his tiny but devoted human-sized girlfriend.)

Throw in a lifelong habit of being constantly high, fathering a veritable Afro-orchestra sized passel of children, renaming himself Anikulapo (”he who carries death in his pouch,”) and the occasional time spent running from the law before a premature death (falling dick-first into HIV,) and Fela Kuti was Ol’ Dirty Bastard before ODB was so much as a ranting glint in his father’s eye, but with a much bigger backup band, a saxophone, and a convenient and extremely nasty villain to rant against in the Nigerian government. Not many are spicy enough to go into battle clad only in a pair of bikini briefs and carrying only a microphone and a joint the size of a baseball bat, but Fela was peppery enough for several lifetimes. Cheers, Fela.

Drink.

Holly: I’m making a triumphant return to civilization in a couple weeks, and as soon as I cross the Tennessee line all I’ll be able to focus on is getting to the Flying Saucer in Nashville and getting some Hummingbird Water in my parched bloodstream.

I’m completely serious. Just let me open a vein at the bar, stick a funnel in my arm, and pour in some pear cider laced with framboise. I’ll be fine.

Orson: Champagne. Remember that hip-hop is actually the whitest, stiffest, and least imaginative music in the world in one respect and one respect only: while early rock and roll came from white kids trying to act as black as they possibly could, rappers through the 90s seemed to rapidly accrue every fixin’ of the English upper classes as possible: Burberry, Bentleys, and ultimately the swilling of cognac and champagne as the role model for hip-hop fashion slowly degenerated from a Kangol’d Rakim to a melaninized version of Bertie Wooster. Who knew that the preferred watching in black households in the late eighties was Jeeves and Wooster, and that Fry and Laurie would help define a generation of top-shelf luxury brand whoring rappers? Tip of the hat, gents. You were more influential than you realized.

Digression concluded, and bringing the camera back over here to delicious, intoxicating Champagne. Like Tequila, Champagne is one of the few alcoholic beverages possessing genuine and impressive powers. A fizzy white wine with a mineral edge, Champagne can be consumed throughout the year, and occasionally throughout the day as US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan did, often drinking a bottle he kept on ice in his desk starting around noon or so, and progressing throughout the day. It doesn’t have the tannic afterburn effect red wine has, doesn’t get you as sloshed as hard liquor will, and skirts the often crippling bloat beer brings to the party. In short: the choice of sneaky and efficient drunks for years, champagne is the child you choose for the “bring your booze to work day” prize recipient, and it sits quietly in your office admiring your collection of business cards without trashing the place like vodka or whiskey will.

It does have its costs, mind you, but the Hagman diet can work for decades before you have to actually pull the other “Hagman” and get a new liver. Hell, even then Hagman didn’t seem that disappointed over his insane champagne consumption, as it helped him get ridiculously famous, and only cost him $50K a year for four bottles a day:

He was such a happy drunk that if the booze hadn’t rotted his first liver he would still be on the stuff today.

“If there hadn’t been any side-effects on my health, I would have been happy to go on,” he admits. “I never was drunk. It just gave me that little click. My wife never minded. We were making so much money at the time that $50,000 a year on champagne really didn’t matter.”

Winston Churchill, though a whiskey and soda man, kept champagne as his mistress, and was so fond of Pol Roger the vineyard made it in pint bottles for him. The cheap stuff, particularly your Oregon labels like Domaine St. Michele, are beyond passable, and even sneak into the good if you can get them cold enough. At somewhere around 13 bucks, they won’t destroy the budget either, and will take a good 30 years to rot the liver. That’s plenty of time to become JR Ewing or the Prime Minister of England in the meantime. Now pop the Santana DVX.

Comestibles.

Orson: Burger King onion rings. These have apparently disappeared from the BK, and great moaning and wailing should result from this travesty, if only for the appearance of the single, ring of batter with a single, dessicated ribbon of onion somewhere in the middle of all that salt and crusty flour.

Holly: Trader Joe’s Thai Lime & Chili Cashews. I don’t even like nuts, leaving me to conclude that these are laced with PCP. This should not deter you from eating them by the double handful.

(Boiled peanuts are for pantywaists.)

Combustibles.

Holly: The first British hydrogen bomb.

“There may have been a problem if the aircraft crashed on takeoff and burst into flames.” You’re not kidding, sir.

Orson: Krakatoa. Yeah, there’s no video. BOOM WOODBLOCK’d

Just as well: if there had been cameras, Krakatoa would have bitch-slapped them out of the hands of anyone holding them before blasting them eight leagues to hell beneath a pyroclastic flow Satan himself called “excessive.” In 1883 it erupted in the biggest display of the earth–I’m sorry, I’m sorry. This just doesn’t look right.

IN 1883 KRAKATOA WENT FUCKING APESHIT AND DECIDED TO PUT SOME BITCHES IN PLACE. IT BLEW THE FUCK UP. PEOPLE WERE LIKE, “NAW, KRAKATOA, YOU COULDN’T BLOW UP AGAIN.” THEN IT BLEW UP AGAIN. AND AGAIN. THEN KRAKATOA WAS LIKE, “YEAH YOU THINK I’M DONE BLAAAOOOOOOWW FUCK YOU.” THEN KRAKATOA TOOK HIMSELF OUT BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT REAL GANGSTERS DO. BITCHES. YOU’RE IN THE ZONE AND I’M OUT–KRAKAMOTHERFUCKIN’TOAH.

The only volcanic explosion in the history of the world that should by law be described in all caps, Krakatoa destroyed the island around it, lowered global temperatures by a full degree, could be felt as far away as Perth, and established itself as the most badass volcano of all time. It caused a tsunami some crazy Dutch bastard in a passenger ship actually rode out in the waters surrounding it, and its shockwave circled the globe seven times before becoming the song “Angel of Death” by Slayer. Krakatoa. Respek.

Transit.

Holly: As Jack Donaghy says, the Italians have never won a war or mass-produced a decent car, but they have produced the Piaggio P.180 Avanti, a turboprop business aircraft that looks like an escape pod on the Starship Enterprise and can cruise at more than 400 miles an hour. Plus it makes a really cool noise when it flies overhead because of the way the propellers are mounted backward.

If it’s good enough for the Ferrari family, who dumped a bunch of money into the company 11 years ago and allowed their prancing-horse logo to be slapped onto new airframes, trust me, it’s good enough for you.

Orson: The Segway. I mean, they’re perfectly safe….

Canon.

Orson: The Forever War, Dexter Filkins. Perhaps you’d like to read about whether the Iraq war was a good idea or a bad idea, or better still, maybe you’d like to read a book confirming your beliefs about it. Good for you. I prefer Filkins’ read, a fully nonjudgmental account of not only his 3.5 years living like a lunatic in Baghdad covering the war for the NYT, but also his time in Afghanistant pre-9/11 and after, getting as close to the danger as he possibly could and taking ludicrous chances with his life (and in the end, unknowingly, others.) Filkins’ book is all adrenaline and observation, with little time to ruminate or contemplate the stream of absurd, bloody, and oddly human images flashing before your reading eyes: Marines blasting “Hell’s Bells” going into Fallujah, a spinal cord laying in the street next to the perfectly preserved human head, the oddly cordial dinner with the insurgent discussing the goodness of killing Americans who showed Filkins a jihadi death porn tape afterwards…it’s all too fast and intense to digest, and that’s the intended effect. He’s just there, and you’re with him, even when he leaves at the end and can’t quite fit back into the mask of being a normal human not waiting for the next bomb to drop. I mean this in the best possible way: you don’t quite feel right for a day or two after reading it.

Holly: So not only is Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus not a hoax trailer for MTV, it’s an actual movie that somehow made its way into an actual movie theater last night, and guess who got Lorenzo Lamas (yes, THAT Lorenzo Lamas, who was wearing a wallet chain to his own screening, in 2009) to sign her DVD afterwards?

You want my life. You know you want my life.

In the first ten minutes, a commercial airliner gets brought down by a leaping megalodon. Trust me, you’re in excellent hands here.

A few Fulmer Cupdates from the hot August home stretch on the Fulmer Cup beat. A reminder: the final day of the competition will be September 1st, with all points becoming null and void at noon. The traditional Fulmer Cup Amnesty Day of September 2nd will be observed in concert with Football’s Eve, so if you know someone looking for a day when their offenses will neither be tallied in points or reported as in-season shame, this is the day to do it. The current standings are here, but a full EDSBS Scoreboard will be up on Friday.

To the awarding of the points:

–Penn State has two boozy outstanding cases pending. Senior lineman Ako Poti decided to go-cart drunk, and substituted the go-cart portion with a car, which is illegal in all states everywhere. (Except for Arkansas, where it’s termed “breezy ridin’,” and punishable by a stern talkin’ to by the local sheriff.) Poti blew somewhere between a .10 and a .16, a formidable sum for a huge man and worthy of two points for standard and unexceptional DUI.

Penn State gets no points for recruit Glenn Carson’s drunk and disorderly, as he was not an early enrollee or on the team at the time of his arrest. He does get an appreciative nod from Joaquin Phoenix, who only hopes Carson belted out a response of “MONEY!!!” when asked any questions by the police.

–Occasional Fulmer Cup contributor Ohio University gives us nothing as grandiose as Frank Solich’s mickey-fueled DUI arrest or the punching of a police horse, but the theft of two laptops will give you four points in the Fulmer Cup: one for the misdemeanor plea deal Travis Carrie took, and three for the felony charges on the books for Corey Moncrief. Moncrief is also planning to major in criminal justice, and seems to be failing the fieldwork portion. Ironic juxtaposition, bitches! (HT: DevilGrad.)

targeting enemy headquarters to secure documentation and items of equipment with an intelligence value that the ordinary Allied soldier, or even commando, might ignore or even destroy. They trained in lock picking, safe cracking, unarmed combat, and general techniques and skills for collecting intelligence. The unit contained some of the most “gung-ho” operatives in the commandos. . . . [B]ecause of their successes in Sicily and Italy, 30AU (based at the The Marine Hotel Littlehampton, West Sussex, now a public house and venue for the annual reunion of the 30AU veterans) became greatly trusted by naval intelligence. Having seen the scope of its achievements and its potential, with the right support and the right direction, to deliver even more, the unit was much enlarged and it was given direct tasks: specific items and documents to acquire. Fleming was the man who would give these specific directives.

After the war, Fleming spun his experiences with 30AU and naval intelligence into the Bond series, which him earned enough money to retire to his Jamaican estate in the late 1950s. At “Goldeneye,” named after one of the operations he’d planned with the Royal Navy, Fleming engaged in pretty much the same behavior you would if you’d written an incredibly famous series of spy novels and had carved out a little slice of Jamaica all for yourself:

“I have always smoked and drunk and loved too much. In fact I have lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab will get me. Then I shall have died of living too much.”

The “Iron Crab,” whatever the hell that is, did get him at the age of 54, but not before he’d married the widow of a baron, achieved the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy, and written 14 Bond novels and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” One hundred cocktails at Boodle’s to you, sir, wherever you are.

Onward:

Drink.

Holly: I spent some time on the central California coast recently, the parts where everything looks like a 1950s ski resort, all the time, even in the summer, and it’s got me all nostalgic for a lifestyle that died out twenty years before I was born. To that end, may I recommend the Alpine martini.

Now, the construction of this involves throwing bits of actual trees into an ice-cream maker, and the finished product is “garnished with fronds”, but please don’t let that deter you. Twigs are totes butcher than lemon twists anyway, right?

Doug: Whilst enjoying a post-Dreamland beer binge with Orson and a rowdy devil’s brigade of SEC-Media-Days-going bloggers a couple weeks ago, I was blessed to make the acquaintance of Kasteel Rouge, a Belgian beer brewed with sour cherries that smells like the happiest moments from your childhood but packs plenty of punch underneath.

Remember Miho, the little Japanese assassin from “Sin City” who looked all cute and unassuming right up until she busted out her shuriken and mutilated Benicio del Toro’s character eight ways from Sunday? Kasteel Rouge is kind of like Miho’s malt-beverage equivalent: smells like cherries, tastes a little bit like the late, lamented Snapple cherry soda, but has an 8.5-percent alcohol content you don’t really notice until you’ve had three or four of them and are wondering why you can’t walk in a straight line anymore. Works equally well as a barbecue companion or a base for one of those ice-cream floats Holly mentioned last time. (Now that I think about it, you know what would go great in a glass of this stuff? A scoop of Cherry Garcia. Hold on, I’ll be right back.)

Comestibles.

Doug: Blue Diamond smokehouse almonds. A long time ago, back before airline deregulation allowed commercial aviation to turn completely into the equivalent of flying Greyhounds, Piedmont Airlines gave out bags of smokehouse almonds even on flights as short as Roanoke-to-Washington; these days, you’re lucky if the flight attendants shoot you a packet of pretzels out of one of those air cannons they use to launch T-shirts into the crowd at basketball games. (And sure enough, US Airways, which swallowed up Piedmont in ‘89, charged me two bucks for a fucking can of Coke when I flew out to L.A. last fall.)

But Blue Diamond’s resealable bags of smoky almond goodness are still available at better grocery stores everywhere, whether you’re looking for a gameday nosh or simply trying to recapture the wide-eyed days of your youth when it was still possible to get excited about something other than football upsets or getting to see a new pair of boobs. Not that I’ve been bitter about that lately or anything.

Holly: The fried dill pickle. You’d think in a sprawling metropolis with this many sports franchises there would be one bar that knows how to fry a goddamn pickle, but you would be gravely wrong.

It’s not hard, Viking campers. Pickles. Cornmeal. Buttermilk. Salt. Pepper. A little garlic or curry powder if you’re feeling real adventurous. Fry, drain, inhale. And for fuck’s sake, cut them into spears. No one wants to eat pickle pennies. When this entire state breaks off and slides into the Pacific, this travesty will be largely to blame.

Combustibles.

Holly: Bless you, YouTube title search. You give, and you give. Today, you give “Acetylene experiment goes badly wrong!”, and you are not lying.

Doug: “Going to the game on Saturday, Bob?”

“Man, I’d love to, but the wife’s been bugging me for six months straight to clean out the garage, and I promised her I’d finally do it this weekend. Problem is I’ve got this old F-4 Phantom jet that’s been sitting in there for ages, and I don’t have the first clue what to do with it. You got any ideas?”

“I think I might be able to help you dispose of that, yes.”

Transit.

Holly: In my recent copious free time, I’ve had far too many hours to spend honing my Wii skills. My beat is Mario Kart. My weapon, the Booster Seat.

It doesn’t look like much, but there’s something eminently satisfying on a spiritual level about throwing lightning bolts at giant killer apes and lizards from the comfort of a cartoon pram.

Doug: Keep your Royal Caribbean megaliners and the floating shopping malls Carnival tries to pass off as ships; nobody’s going to be intimidated by a vessel with a mini golf course on the lido deck (or, for that matter, by anything that has a “lido deck” to begin with). No, if you really want to be the king of the seas, you’re gonna want a Russian Typhoon-class nuclear submarine, which packs both enough supplies and amenities for a six-month cruise and twenty 200-kiloton ballistic missiles in its two-football-field length.

You want mini golf that bad, you sail this thing to Myrtle Beach and indulge yourself on shore, capitalist running dog.

Canon.

Holly: The BBC’s goofy-assed, completely inappropriate adaptation of Robin Hood. I knew they had something special when its arrival on American television three years ago was advertised as “A Different Kind Of Hood”. Though it’s ostensibly a period piece set during the Crusades, they’ll do things like stage a casino night in Nottingham Castle. The stunts defy credulity and are so poorly staged with such good humor you can’t help but howl. And each new scene is announced with the sound of an arrow thwacking into a target, like a “turn the page” tone for those read-along books . The whole undertaking is as anachronistic and derivative as it is completely fucking delightful.

The third and final season just wrapped up across the pond, and should be making its way to the States soon, but it’s the first year you want, before they started killing off characters who wanted to have movie careers and things got all serious. Pick it up and pop one in after the Saturday night WAC games this fall when you’re too drunk to move.

(This video did not appear in the actual show, but it would not be a bit out of place, if that tells you anything.)

Doug: As the first Connery-less Bond film, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” has been criticized by fair-weather 007 fans as a lightweight entry in the series: It starred an Australian fashion model (George Lazenby) as our man Bond, and featured an extended sequence with Bond going undercover as a foppish genealogist wearing a kilt and a puffy shirt even Seinfeld wouldn’t be caught dead in. But if you’re actually paying attention, OHMSS is about as dark and cynical as it gets in the 007 oeuvre, at least until you get around to the brooding Daniel Craig era: Bond contemplates leaving MI6 for good; the villain gets away; and Bond finally finds a woman he wants to settle down and spend the rest of his life with, only to lose her to a Blofeld-masterminded drive-by on their fricking wedding day. Tell me that even the world’s suavest, most iron-willed secret agent wouldn’t be reduced to quivering Spam by a suckerpunch like this:

It’s made all the more tragic by the fact that the woman Bond snagged and then lost was expert-skiing, stunt-driving, shit-hot Corsican mafia heiress Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo, played by ex-Avenger Diana Rigg. Strike me down right now if she doesn’t rank as one of the top five Bond girls in history, even without a leather catsuit at her disposal. At any rate, for showing that even the great James Bond is not immune to nihilism-inducing, faith-in-a-benevolent-God-ending misery, OHMSS is an indispensible part of any Digital Viking’s film library.

NARRATOR (V/O): You’re watching “When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong.” Percy Harvin was one of the most talented athletes in college football history: A five-foot, eleven-inch receiver out of Virginia Beach, he broke records as an all-purpose offensive player for the University of Florida, totaling 32 career touchdowns and helping to revolutionize the role of the wide receiver in the modern-day spread offense. He was drafted in the first round by the Minnesota Vikings and signed a five-year contract worth more than $14 million.

Scene: A classroom in a Florida high school. A dozen or so high-school football players are seated at the desks; PERCY HARVIN, flanked by the high-schoolers’ coaches as well as some of his own former coaches, stands behind a podium at the front of the room.

NARRATOR (V/O): Harvin had a speaking engagement at a high school in Florida to tell some potential Florida recruits about his time at the university and how it prepared him for the NFL, when one of the students asked him a fairly innocuous question.

STUDENT 1: So, like, I know the football program at Florida is one of the best in the nation, but what’s it like outside of football? Do they let you go off and have any fun?

NARRATOR (V/O): As one of Florida’s biggest stars, Harvin was used to making public appearances and giving pat, innocuous answers to the media about practice or upcoming games. As an NFL player no longer bound by the athletic department’s strict rules, however, he felt he had the freedom to talk more candidly about his time as a college student, particularly if it might help “sell” the university to an interested youngster. In other words, Harvin decided to “keep it real.”

HARVIN: Oh, hell, man, Gainesville is a blast. Let me tell you something, brother, high as the football program is ridin’ these days, people on campus know you play ball, you are the king. There ain’t nothing you can’t do down there: Go to bars, go clubbin’ until four in the morning, and the girls — good lord. They jump on you the minute you walk in the door, I mean, if you wake up in the morning and you got less than six girls in your bedroom, you weren’t even trying, son.

FLORIDA COACH (hurriedly): Yes, well, there’s time for socializing and everything, but the strongest bonds you make as a Gator are with your teammates, wouldn’t you say, Percy?

HARVIN: Oh, no doubt. Me and the guys, if we didn’t go out we’d just sit up in someone’s apartment, firing up jays and drinking and playing XBox — man, have you ever played 2K9 on weed? It’s hilarious! Me and Brandon Spikes were going up against each other one night, and he was acting the fool and –

STUDENT 2: They let you smoke weed?

FLORIDA COACH: Oh, no, no, that’s not a –

HARVIN: Let me? Man, they can tell you not to do it, but when it comes right down to it, what are they gonna do, babysit us every second we ain’t at practice? I mean, yeah, there was that one coach who barked at me because I was late to practice and showed up all bloodshot and everything, and I guess I kind of went off and choked him and whatnot, but it wasn’t like anybody was gonna let that get out. Trust me, you keep bringing home those SEC trophies, they’ll take care of you.

STUDENT 3: Can we go back to the girls for a second? Which sororities on campus are the biggest sluts?

HARVIN: Now y’all got your heads in the right place. Check this out: Me and Chris Rainey were driving down the street one afternoon and we saw all the AOPi pledges standing out in front of the house waiting on something, so he leans out the window and yells, “I haven’t seen that many white girls in one place since my . . . ”

FLORIDA COACH: OK, OK, thanks, guys! Thanks for coming . . .

NARRATOR (V/O): After being de-scheduled from Florida’s remaining recruiting visits, Harvin is back in sunny Minnesota, gearing up for his rookie NFL season with last year’s 25th-ranked passing offense. It doesn’t get any realer than the pros.

Scene: A quiet evening at Harvin’s condo. Outside, the weather is gray and drizzly. Harvin is on the phone with the Vikings’ offensive coordinator.

HARVIN: Yeah, you put me in wherever you want, man. Between me taking those direct snaps and then Favre throwing to me on those deep routes, we gonna be in the end zone so much we’ll be payin’ rent, baby. Huh? (pause) He didn’t? He’s staying retired? But I thought he was talking to . . . (long pause) Well, hell, who’s our quarterback, then? (pause) “Tarvaris Jackson”? Who the fuck is that, one of the Jackson Five? (pause) Whatever, man, whatever. Call me back later. I got weekend plans to make.

Harvin hangs up, pulls out a joint, and lights it. He then dials a number on the telephone.

HARVIN: Fuck Minnesota, I’m calling my boys down in Gainesville to see what’s up. I gotta go someplace real.

NARRATOR: Percy Harvin: Once a college superstar, today an ominous reminder of when “Keeping It Real” goes wrong.

FADE TO BLACK

The battery on TCOAN’s car died, so we’re off to the rescue, go-cup of Mai-Tai in hand. (When champagne comes in convenient can form–and we’re not talking that saccharine Coppola shit, either–we’ll take that instead.)

Quick things deserving address:

–Pac-10 Media Days, What! Watch the linked stream as every single coach and their players run back-to-back today. Steve Sarkisian, like Lane Kiffin, is a Carroll clone who speaks very quickly no matter the question. Oh, you can also tweet in questions here.

–Conference USA is having their media days in an all-virtual setting, and Graham Watson is doing an extremely entertaining job covering the spasms of doing a media event with live mikes and technical strokes happening all over the place. “One of the media members, maybe not know his line was open, just said, “This isn’t going very well.”"

–USF just became eligible for the Team Fulmer Cup award, and is now likely tied. No formal award yet, but if the usual one point suspended license sum applies, they would be tied at 17 with Hawaii. Since we don’t like ties, we’ll have to have some kind of method of breaking this unholy arrangement.

–Also: seen, and points to be assessed in separate entry.

Allison died when he fell under a wagon wheel and had his neck broken, and thus ended the life of a very mean man. However, he does earn a spot in Spicy Livin’s annals for the following headstone, among the greatest ever chiseled from the granite of our fine nation:

So, gunfighting, drinking and violence aside, he has a headstone reading “I AM THE BIGGEST BUT FAIREST BADASS TO EVER WALK THE EARTH.” Prost!

Drink.

Holly: From Dessert What Gets You Drunk, the finest of all food groups: Beer floats! We used these to get good and stumbly on the 4th (cherry stout with vanilla bean, for the record, and highly recommended), but the other day I heard it touted as a hangover cure, and — sweet, bubbly, carby, alcoholic — I can’t argue with this logic.

If you’re in the L.A. area, there’s a beer float contest this Sunday, and what do you know! They’re looking for judges! Make us proud, West Campers. (Don’t preach, now; it’s for CHARITY, which makes it practically an obligation, no?)

Orson: The Halemint, available at Leon’s in Decatur, where one menu item is “Bacon in a Glass” that you may order with optional peanut butter. Ginger Beer as a mixer is far more magical than one might think:

1 shot vodka

1 oz. mint infused pomegranate syrup (read: grenadine in a pinch, and not much of it.)

1 oz. fresh lemon juice

crushed mint leaves

Top off with ginger beer, serve in Collins glass with big fat icecubes

The ginger beer is what morphs this from one of a zillion sugary drinks designed to get women into compliance mode, adding a bite that simultaneously covers the vodka while also validating the last shreds of masculinity you’re clinging to while drinking a mostly pinkish drink by shocking your tastebuds in just the right way. Commenters will note that the choice of ginger beer matters, too. You are correct, and to alleviate that you should get your hand on some Reed’s unless you’re a crafty dick who likes to brag about making your own, in which case you go, you effete urban survivalist, you.

Comestibles.

Orson: Whether it even qualifies as food or not, I don’t know. The devil played his greatest trick not when he convinced people he didn’t exist, but when he took human form, bought a shitload of animal hooves, sugar, artificial flavoring, and then concocted the candy/compulsion known as Mike ‘n Ikes.

I don’t even buy these anymore, I’m not to be trusted around them, capable of inhaling an entire box of them in seconds. What size box, you ask? Any of them at any time, though the evil fucking people who make these sell them in three inconvenient sizes:

Small: Contains enough to piss you of at their scarcity, a sum total of around 15-20 candies.

Diabetes-size: A box the size of a Claymore mine, and just as deadly for your bloodsugar. Contains 2,500 candies per box. Consumed just as quickly as Small box.

Suitcase: Consumption time stays steady. Resulting physical affects include seizures, driving from Atlanta to Baton Rouge in 5 hours, and THE FEAR. Number uncertain, as unit of measure is “roughly equivalent to one good sized toddler.”

Their fruity seduction keeps us from walking down the candy aisle period. If you need to hide valuable information from me or never want to encounter me in person, simply stay there and our paths will never cross.

Holly: Look, I can’t really think straight right now, let alone form a coherent paragraph (so what else is new?), let alone care that this will make the second time I’ve gone to the Alabama barbecue-centric well for your weekly Comestible, because about as soon as I finish typing this sentence, Fearless Leader Swindle and I and a bunch of no-account foobaw writerly types are all making a fast break for Dreamland and ZOMG OK BYE

Combustibles.

Holly: Presented without comment, and with much guffawing laughter, The Perils Of The Flaming Shot.

Orson: The Lego Flamethrower, ladies and gentlemen. Now with added trance music.

Transit.

Holly: The Italdesign Columbus, designed by Giugiaro for the 1992 Turin auto show to celebrate the 500th anniversary of whatever it was Christopher Columbus did.

Up in the forward bubble, the driver sits in the center, flanked by a seat on either side that will presumably be occupied by someone who will navigate or read the driver stories. In the rear compartment, you’ve got swiveling leather seats and presumably enough space for your Scrabble game or liquor stash or whatever it is you’re going to be entertaining yourself with back there. So never mind the fact that it looks like a Toyota minivan getting rear-ended by a Volvo station wagon; this car is the ultimate tailgating vehicle, with loads of cargo space and a massive tailgate upon which to mount your satellite TV, and it’s lounge-on-wheels comfortable for the 500-mile drive to Lexington, Fayetteville, or whichever shithole your team is being forced to play in in any given week. Italian-designed, BMW V12-powered, and America-sized for people who don’t own the road but want to take up as much of it as possible.

Orson: The Jeepney, the Filipino hooptie/mass transit mule showing that in all places influenced by both American and Spanish culture, people will inevitably begin slapping chrome, lights, outrageous paint jobs, Catholic icons, horns, and sculpted chrome animals onto their vehicles.

Jeepneys roll everywhere across the Philippine Islands, and would probably drop you off in the middle of your living room provided they could pick up someone along the way, you paid the proper fare, and if you didn’t mind the owner stopping to pick up a little bit of San Miguel on the way. You can flag them down anywhere at any time, and can leave at any point by slapping the roof, yelling “BAYAN!!!” (payment) at the top of your lungs, and then figuring out what you owe. Built on extended Jeep frames with benches installed in the covered bed, equipped with blaring mariachi horns, and endowed with the ability to survive the rutted rigors of even the most whorish tropical roadways, the Jeepney is a marvel to behold, even when a huge bump sends you skull into the ceiling and you come to in a Manila garbage heap without any ID or pants. (The Jeepney had nothing to do with that part, and you wouldn’t be alone in this situation, anyway. Plenty of people end up without ID and pantsless in Manila.)

Canon.

Holly: Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, an evolutionary biology book (SHUT IT) presented as a series of sex advice columns for bugs. To wit:

Dear Dr. Tatiana,
My boyfriend is the handsomest golden potto I ever saw. He’s got beautiful golden fur on his back, creamy white fur on his belly, he smells delicious, and he has ever such dainty hands and feet. There’s just one thing. Please, Dr. Tatiana, why is his penis covered with enormous spines?

And we’ve all been there, right?

Orson: Unsolved Mysteries. The most terrifying show of my childhood by far, Robert Stack in a trenchcoat remains the man who narrates my nightmares (the ones inevitably shot with a soft-focus filter over the lens at dusk and with bendy synths spooking me out in the back.)

Shot on a budget of fifteen dollars an episode, the crew made do with any story by shooting it in places where people might conceivably be found dead, go missing, or be killed in mysterious, painful ways. They made even the most mundane things terrifying by shooting segments in a vacant lot you half-remembered seeing off the interstate and thinking, “Well, that’s probably where someone got shot on a cold, dark night with plenty of ominous bendy synths in the back.”

They did DB Cooper, satanic ritual murder in Central Park, and other glamour cases, sure, but Unsolved Mysteries took special joy in making even clear cases of sheer stupidity seem terrifying. Once they did an entire segment about a man who pulled off the road in Utah and was never seen again. It was winter, and I’m thinking, “Well, he probably was just tired, and pulled off the road, and then went to pee and got lost.” Yet the segment had these eerie shots that–I shit you not–made it appear that at any moment, the Goat With A Thousand Eyes was going to take this poor actor playing the unlucky dumbass of the segment and rend his body and soul into screaming shreds. For a kid watching this, it led to you suddenly hearing Robert Stack narrating something as simple as your walk home: “11 year old Orson Swindle was walking home from school when he vanished,” a statement that in Robert Stack’s horrifically sinister voice all but included the phrase “because he was kidnapped and raped by Barbary Pirates until he exploded.”

The X-Files learned all of their tricks–the flashlights, the mist, the continual spookification of ordinary spaces–from Unsolved Mysteries, and even then it still wasn’t as scary. (Except for “Home.” You ruined Johnny Mathis for us forever, you bastards.)

Mangino is impressed by the teamwork. Sometimes a bar fight does wonders for team chemistry, a lesson easily picked up by watching The Replacements or any other sports movie where, in lieu of detailing the boring grind of establishing characters and chemistry, the team simply gets into a tremendous sprawling tavern melee. “When did you come together as a team, Star Playerguy?” “Well, probably when I threw that chair at a man, missed, and hit a defenseless woman in the face.” CUE SUCCESS MONTAGE AND FIVE GAME WIN STREAK IN 45 SECONDS.

Kansas reserve offensive lineman Jose Rodriguez helped his brother Cesar, a former KU lineman, remove a patron from the bar at 2 a.m. Saturday as part of their job as bouncers at the Cadillac Ranch, and must have been quite aggressive about it: both were booked for aggravated battery, giving KU three points in the Fulmer Cup for the transgression. Footage of the incident may be viewed here.

The Cadillac Ranch gets excellent reviews, by the way.

Greasy? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, VATO? [/thrown through plate glass window by huge lineman. again.]

E-i-e-i-oh. James McDonald had a beer, e-i-e-i-ho. And with this beer he had a shot, e-i-ei-oh. With a beer shot here/and a roadblock there/here’s a cop/there’s a cop/everywhere a cop cop/Two points for a DUI, E-i-e-i-D’OH.