Friday, January 31, 2003
Posted
4:10 PM
by Brian K
From The Brain of The Giant HeadFlying: Pack Spare Underwear Part 1I have a pretty strong fear of flying. Sure, I’m like everyone else once we’re in the air -- I close my eyes, throw on the headphones, and crank up some Ricky Martin on my Discman. Ah, if the actual flight was only as sweet as Ricky shaking his "Bon Bon." I’ve only flown 6 times in my life, yet I’ve wet my pants 8. One extra time involved a giant grizzly bear with enormous fangs and the other dealt with me mistaking my My Buddy doll for a burglar. And I made My Buddy wear my soiled draws for two days as punishment for scaring me. My hatred of flying doesn’t begin when I get on the plane; it begins when I check in and get my ticket. Usually I wait in line for 45 minutes, but each minute feels longer than watching an episode of Full House. And when I finally arrive at the counter and receive my ticket, I watch the luggage taker toss my suitcase onto the conveyer belt like it’s made out of foam rubber and impenetrable to damage. Then it gets whisked away down the magical shoot and sent to Los Angeles while the plane I’m boarding is heading for Pittsburgh. Note To Self: Always pack a spare pair of socks and underwear in your carry-on. The worst part is after the flight. Recently I traveled to New Orleans. While arriving at the luggage terminal, I watched the sticky black merry-go-round spinning round and round taunting me with luggage that I can only assume was intended to arrive in Guam. I’m not sure how many airports they have in Guam, but I’m sure an unusually large part of the population owns "I Love New York" souvenir t-shirts they found in American luggage. And to no avail, my luggage was nowhere in sight. Now I’m convinced that the airline industry has formed a multi-million dollar committee whose sole responsibility is to determine the most strategic location to hide the "Report Lost Luggage Here Booth." I learned that most people become so lost in the airport trying to find it that they are never heard from again. This happened to Jimmy Hoffa and my imaginary friend Mark. After three hours of trudging through the airport, in which I saw one man begging for change and another man selling the naming rights of his first born child to American Airlines for cab fare, I finally found the Lost Baggage Claim Desk. A small man that looked like the love child of Gary Coleman and Doogie Howser greeted me with a giant smile and an accent that made every word out of his mouth sound like "Osh-Kosh-Bigosh." To make it easier for you, I will do the translation. Lost Baggage Man: How can I help you today sir? Me: Well, I lost my luggage. Lost Baggage Man: Did you check the baggage terminal for your flight? Me: No, I did cartwheels around the airport for 4 hours assuming that my bag would magically land at my feet. Lost Baggage Man: Well sir, you are in for a treat as we have just installed a new luggage-tracking device and it will be able to determine exactly where your luggage is. Me: Perfect. Lost Baggage Man: Let’s see. According to the system your luggage went to Los Angeles, made a quick stop in San Fransisco, visited the giant arch in St. Louis and then finally made it to South Dakota. Me: Glad to hear it. My luggage had never seen the Arch before. Hope it enjoyed the trip. Will my luggage make its way home anytime soon? Lost Baggage Man: Of course sir. Me: How long? Lost Baggage Man: About six weeks. Me: Six weeks?! Lost Baggage Man: Well sir, I know it will be hard to believe, but South Dakota isn’t one of our most popular destinations and the next flight in isn’t for six weeks. Me: I’m never flying this airline again! Lost Baggage Man: Most people don’t. Have a good day sir. As I walked away from the baggage claim I noticed that the computer Doogie Coleman was looking at wasn’t even plugged into the wall. So he made everything up, much like my imaginary friend Mark used to do. Boy I miss Mark. So as you can see, claiming luggage at the airport isn’t the easy task that you young blokes of the world may think. And I can take solace in the fact that somewhere deep in the heart of Guam, someone is enjoying my "I Love New York" shirt. I just hope they send back my Spiderman Underwear. Come back next week for part two of The Brain’s series on Always Pack Spare Underwear.
Friday, January 17, 2003
Posted
5:17 PM
by Brian K
From The Brain of The Giant HeadKing James: The Chosen One And His HummerNot too terribly long ago, I celebrated my 18th birthday. I was a young punk and asked my parents for a car, preferably something I wouldn’t be too embarrassed to drive like a Honda or Toyota. Instead, they gave me a gift that dances in every child’s dreams. They gave me a blue ballpoint pen. And I used that pen to write my parents a thank you letter that included the phrases "You Suck" and "I’ll show you where you can shove this pen." If only I could play basketball well like LeBron. LeBron James is a high school senior with a gift known as "basketball skilz." This kid was better than everyone else in the country three years ago when he was 15. He knew it. His mom knew it. His high school began charging other schools $10,000 to play them because they knew it. And now the entire country knows how good LeBron is. Why? Politics and international affairs don’t sell newspapers like they once did. Now, LeBron has been making headlines all year, which is unusual. He is the first high school basketball star to gain national attention. He’s been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Every radio show has discussed him. He’s even had three of his high school games televised on ESPN2, and the ratings for all three games were higher than all but two collegiate games this year. Only one thought comes to my mind. What in the *#%$ were we thinking? Many people complain that we put too much pressure on young kids in sports, pushing them harder to live out our dreams of being the professional athlete we never became. Lucky for my child, I had bigger dreams of becoming a team’s mascot. So I will impose rigorous training in wearing giant furry costumes for 4 hours a day and have him practice falling on his face for a laugh. Maybe he can become the Reds new mascot (What the hell is that thing, anyway?). But a mascot is exactly what we’ve turned LeBron into. He’s not playing for the love of the game like he used to. He’s playing for his high school to exploit him for economic gain. He’s playing for ESPN to exploit him for economic gain. And the NBA (National Boring Association) is exploiting him because they know Air Jordan will be gone next year and without his Airness, no one will watch pro basketball because it sucks. That is, unless King James takes the throne. Although no fuss was made over the pen I received on the 18th anniversary of my birth, controversy erupted last week as LeBron’s mother, a poor woman that lives in a house the size of an egg carton, took out a loan and gave her son a brand new Hummer, equipped with 3 TVs and a video game hookup. A Frickin’ HUMMER!!! The high school athletic something or other is looking into the loan she received, because if the car was a gift from an outside source then LeBron loses his amateur eligibility to play in high school and in college. Though, everyone knows Lebron isn’t going to college. I wouldn’t either if I knew $35 million was awaiting my arrival in the NBA. Honestly, I’ve heard arguments from both sides about the car controversy. He should be suspended. He should be labeled ineligible. He should get to keep his car. He did nothing wrong. And after lots of deep thought over a bag of Cheetos, I think the kid deserves his Hummer and we should all just leave him alone like my prom date chose to do. Everyone else is making boatloads of money off the kid, and I stress kid, so why can’t he bask in any of the benefits? Why can’t he enjoy any of the cash generated from his "basketball skilz?" Why can’t he drive the ugliest car in the world, which exhausts gas quicker than a dad after eating chili, if he chooses to? LeBron may never make it in the NBA. And our expectations for him are so high that if he doesn’t duplicate the success of Michael Jordan, we will verbally destroy this kid and ruin his mind. And he’ll end up in jail with Bubba, his future husband. So let the kid enjoy what he can now, cause two years from now he could be collecting your garbage every Monday morning. And in retrospect that pen wasn’t such a bad gift for my birthday after all. I used it to poke holes in all the tires of the car my parents gave my sister for her 18th birthday.
Thursday, January 09, 2003
Posted
1:59 PM
by Brian K
From The Brain of The Giant HeadGod, I Love FOXAfter a nice hiatus of Christmas cheer, lots of great food and a few games of foosball, I’m back for this new day and age of 2K3. My mind is refreshed. My body is a’bouncing. And I’m ready to welcome you into a New Year of insightful humor from my Brain. Great news has been rampant over the first week of 2003 and there are about 8 billion things I could talk about from the economic woes of the United States to the Buckeyes national championship to possible war on Iraq. But out of all the latest news, the most prevalent issue I feel needs some poking is a brand new television show that has 20 eligible women, one handsome bachelor, and a love relationship based around the biggest lie since we landed on the moon -- which we all know was just a fictitious story to piss off the Commies. God, I love FOX. I’ve never been a fan of reality TV. Nothing interests me less than 30 people eating goat spleens to "survive" or 10 strangers trapped in a house without the annoyances of everyday life like Rosie O’Donnell, but FOX has finally created a show even I can sink my teeth into. Say hello to Mr. Joe Millionaire. In this twist of fate show, Joe Millionaire is a tall, handsome man that looks like a cover of GQ. And although his brain functions a little slower than the average Cabbage Patch Doll, his dialogue chirps and aspires as charm. I mean, if I was gay I’d date the guy. Especially if he was worth $50 million, right? To win his love, 20 lovely ladies made the trip to "his" castle in France and began fighting over him as soon as they arrived. Was it for his good looks and charm? Of course not -- they hadn’t even met Mr. Millionaire yet. Who they did meet was his butler, Paul Hogan (wasn’t that the name of the guy who played Crocodile Dundee?). The butler informed the sweet lassies that up until 2 years ago, Mr. Millionaire was a poor man who worked as a pooper-scooper for a zoo (or something like that), but then a rich relative died and he inherited over $50 million. The drool poured out onto their chins as they dreamt of wiping the drool off with million dollar bills. But of course, they all claim they are in it to find "true love." The best part about this show, and the reason I’m breaking my "I Refuse To Watch Reality TV Edict," is that there is no money. This guy is no millionaire. This guy picks up animal dung for a living and, last time I checked, that career path garners slightly more in salary than your typical microwave. But none of the femmes know. And none of them will know until the finale, when he picks his filly, tells her "You’re The One," and then says, "Oh, by the way, I don’t have millions of dollars and I clean poop for a living." God, I love FOX. A friend of mine sent me an email his brother wrote after watching the first episode. Both my friend and his brother graduated from my alma mater, Ohio University. This was too true and too funny for me not to share with all of you. Here’s what his letter had to say: "So there we were, enjoying the latest trash that Fox has puked onto our television sets, mindlessly staring at the godbox. All of a sudden, the flickering image ignited a synapse in my brain. Recognition occurred. "I know one of those girls!" "My girlfriend looked at me. ‘What?’ "‘Dude, that's Melissa! My roommate in summer of senior year!’ We looked on with baited breath. Yes, there she was -- her red hair unmistakable and her name at the bottom of the screen. We waited through the first "choosing ceremony" were Joe gives each girl a pearl necklace (Get it? Very subtle, Fox), but unfortunately (?) she wasn't chosen. "I feel the need to say here that she's a very nice, very good person. She subleased a room in our house, and turned a completely male pigsty inhabited by hockey players, skaters, and art freaks into a place that our girlfriends were no longer scared to stay. Her first day there, she put potpourri, flowers, and pictures of babies dressed like bumblebees in our very disgusting bathroom (that one baffled us for weeks). She was a cool girl. I would have never expected to see her on a show like that. "Interesting side note: She was a theater major. Do we question the legitimacy of the show now (or did we ever need to)?" -- Jeff C. As a fellow OU grad, I take solace knowing that other grads are going on to bigger and better things. And now we have another star graduate to add to the list of MacGyver, Matt Lauer and the guy who played Al Bundy. But I’m glad she got booted in the first round. And in retrospect, I bet she’s glad too. Every other reality show thus far has cast stardom on all its participants. Shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race promote endurance and skill and attempt to give each contestant a stage to light up. But not this network. Not this show. Joe Millionaire will let all of America see what people are really like. They aren’t cunning or smart or able to count to 20 even while barefoot. They’re mean. They’re greedy. And now they have a platform to display those qualities and humiliate themselves in front of millions of viewers for the next 2 months. God, I love FOX.
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