Super Mitt, Olympics Savior!

Kristi Yamaguchi:   Mitt Romney brought a huge sense of hope to the 2002 Olympics. If it weren't for him, today I'd be waiting tables at some dive in a nondescript suburb of Philadelphia,  getting groped by overage losers like Perry Block. 

Jimmy Shea:  Mitt gets things done. He changed my life.  If it weren't for him,  I'd be pimping, dealing crack, and making loud inconsiderate noises in the public library.

Yes, when the 20o2 Olympics Games were in great danger, the call went out to: 

Super Mitt, Olympics Savior!

Faster than a speeding bullet!

More Powerful than a locomotive!

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!
(And then purchase them and lay off half the workforce.)

Look up in the sky!  It's a bird!  It's a plane!  
(No, it's a dog on top af a car.)

It's Super Mitt!

Yes, it's Super Mitt, strange visitor from another planet.
(You can say that again!)

Who came to Earth with powers far beyond those of mortal men.
(Especially the power to buy and dismember companies like mortal men buy and dismember fish.) 

Who can bend steel in his bare hands.
(And invest in it too, at distressed prices.)

Change the course of mighty rivers! 
(And decry the New Deal, whose dam building made changing the course of mighty rivers an unnecessary dumb ass power.) 

And who, disguised as Mitt Romney, anything but mild-mannered CEO of a great metropolitan equity investment firm, fights a never-ending battle for 

Truth, Justice, and the American Way!

(As interpreted by a vocal and lunatic fringe of the Republican Party.)

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"Super Mitt, thank God you're here!" 

"No need to thank God.  Just thank me - Super Mitt!  It's the same thing."

"Super Mitt, the Olympics are mired in debt!  What can you do?"

"If there's debt, we have to make draconian cuts in the budget.  We'll eliminate certain Olympic events." 

"Which events, Super Mitt?"

"Skiing, skating, ice hockey, ski jumping,  and snowboarding.  That's about it."

"What does that leave us with?"

"Curling.  Everybody loves Curling!"

"But, Super Mitt, that'll fly about as well as any one of your typical public statements."

"Okay, then we'll have to pare down the number of Olympians."

"Who can we pare down?"

"Well,  that annoying Kristi Yamaguchi for one.   Oh, and Jimmy Shea - what a moron!"

"No, Super Mitt, people want to see them."

"Well, we're not going to raise taxes on any millionaires to host the Olympics!"

"No one's suggesting that, Super Mitt."

"See that?  Super Mitt to the rescue!  Of millionaires!"

"Super Mitt, do you want to save the Olympics or not?!!"

"Yes.  And no."

"But you're talking out of both sides of your mouth!

"That is my greatest super power!" 

Despite all this, Super Mitt flew into action and did apparently  do a pretty decent job of getting the Salt Lake City Olympics back on track.

But why not?  He's a strange visitor from another planet.
(You can say that again!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I Am Curious (Red)

With the successful landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars this past Monday, the search is on.

That is, the search is on to find traces in the Martian soil of organic compounds or of liquid or frozen water so minuscule as to be insignificant even next to the musical talent of the "rock" group ABBA, the discovery of which might indicate that aons ago Mars supported some form of very primitive life.

"Only guy on the late shift again!"  NASA scientist Fred Bowers moaned last night as he examined the latest data sent to Earth from the Curiosity Rover. "Here I am scooping, sifting, testing ...  I feel like a judge at the Pillsbury bake-off!" 

"C'mon, Fred,  get it together, there's too much to do!   Say, who are those two guys who just came onto the screen? Funny, the monitor's color must be off kilter, they look sort of green."

"Greetings, People of Earth!  I am Xanthan Gum and this is Karra Geenan."

"Hey, fellas, Fred Barrows. Where'd you come from?"

"We live here on Mars, where our highly technologically advanced civilization has built a utopia which we have dedicated to peace,  love,  justice,  and science."

"Good for you!"

"Care to see our nearby gleaming futuristic city?"

"No, thank you, I'm kinda busy here."

"Whatcha doin'?"

"You probably wouldn't understand."

"Try us."

"Well,  the spacecraft you're standing next to is known as the Curiosity Rover, and its purpose is to look for trace elements of frozen or liquid water or compounds like carbon."

"Sounds like a waste of time."

"No, no.  You see, if we could determine that there once existed ....  umm .... I'm not sure how to explain this, it's kind of technical ...."

"No matter, Fred.  We could help you dig with our solar powered soil-moving machines. We use them to tunnel hundreds of miles underneath Mars to locate the minerals that give us eternal life, as well as giant penises for all the men." 

"Nice of you two,  but I've got everything I need here on Curiosity."

"Fred, we could share the minerals with the people of Earth.  No charge."

"I don't mean to be impolite, fellas, but I've got a desk full of work here."

"We'll leave you to your primitive devices then."

"Say,  just out of curiosity --- no pun intended ---  how do you guys speak English?"

"We monitor your radio and television broadcasts, of course.  Mars loves that King of all Media!  But why does anyone listen to ABBA?"

"Nobody really knows.  Bye now."

"Damned nice guys," thought Fred Barrows, as he turned back to the myriad computations he had to run on the latest excavated square centimeter of Martian soil. 

"Wish I had more time to talk. If Curiosity doesn't get me anywhere today, maybe I'll stick 'em in a footnote in my report."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The True Olympic Gold

All my appreciation of the Olympics, be it XXX or any X at all, comes in many parts, its acts being seven stages.

Stage One:  The Olympics are on next week? Does anybody care?

Stage Two:  Wow, these opening ceremonies are fabulous!  All this pageantry, all these nations I've never heard of, look at all the cute girls!  Now they're lighting the torch! Awesome!

Stage Three:  I've been watching the Olympics every night!  We've got a new America's Sweetheart, Gabby Douglas!  And Michael Phelps has now won more gold medals than anyone ever! 

Stage Four:  Yeah,  watched me some beach volleyball last night but after a bit I switched over to That Seventies Show.

Stage Five:  Isn't there anything else on other than the Olympics? 

Stage Six:  Wow, these closing ceremonies are fabulous!  All this pageantry, all these nations I've never heard of, look at all the cute girls!    Now they're extinguishing the torch!  Awesome!   

Stage Seven:   "Gabby Douglas Soars with Smuckers?"  How many damn products can one person plug?!!!

But however you feel about the Olympics,  there is one thing about them that is undeniably great: they succeed in making us all feel like underachieving losers.  And that's good.  Because the more we're humbled by what we see, the less likely we'll act like what we are.

Rude, inconsiderate assholes.

Sitting home watching Douglas twirl and spin or Franklin and Locte rocking the water, I realize I must have missed half a dozen or more positive mutations along the evolutionary trail.  Considering my crustacean-like worth, how dare I ever freak out on you if you spill coffee on me, step on my toes, or shoot me in the back for my poke and leave me for dead?

And as these incredible athletes excel before the world,  Donald Trump mopes about unable to speak, Charlie Sheen becomes modest and shy, and Mitt Romney treats his dog better.  

That's the true Olympic Gold! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Appreciation Day for Croak-fil-A

"We do Dead Chicken Right!"

The Unfortunate Slogan and Logo of Croak-fil -A 

One of the least successful of America's fast food eateries is finding itself in a controversy these days, one that --- pardon the pun --- just won't seem to fly the coop! 

Since its founding in 2007,  Croak-fil-A of Kretschmer WI has stumbled in a number of marketing areas beginning with its questionable premise of focusing on the deadness of its chicken rather than its tastiness. 

In addition to its logo (shown above)  coupled with the catchphrase "We do Dead Chicken Right," Croak-fil-A's  menu items include: 

The Quarter Corpser

Finger Lickin' Fatal Fries,

 and

Very Cold Wings

Sales at Croak-fil-A franchises have been flat (completely flat!) with most customers being assorted goth types and really over-the-top fans of Quentin Tarantino. 

Recently, however, Croak-fil-A got itself in even deeper trouble when its CEO, Dan Patty,  made the statement that "We're inviting God's judgment on us when we think we know better than him the shape of the planet he made.  The Bible doesn't say anything about the Earth being round!"   

"I  prefer the idea of a flat Planet Earth,"  said Mr. Patty. "If I ever have to fly to England, I'll be a lot less nauseous without having to go round any sharp curves.  Plus I can't wait to see me that waterfall at world's end,  I'm so saving up for the trip!"

Given Croak-fil-A's moribund financials, Mr. Patty's got a lot of saving to do.  A  so-called Appreciation Day for Croak-fil-A yesterday had lines at its three locations stretched one deep around the entrance way.   

Should  Mr. Patty be free to express his personal and sincerely held beliefs openly in America?

Of course.

But thinking the world is flat isn't so much a belief as a delusion, a wish that the world would be something other the way it is. Wishing the world and the people in it to be something other than the way they inherently are doesn't make them so.  

It just makes you dead wrong.   

Dead as a Croak-fil-A chicken! 

~~~~~~~~~~~