More Fun With Asian TV

I'm not sure what the funniest part of this is.
The song choice, the singing, the costumes???

I guess when it comes down to it Re Really are the Rorld.

Fox Sports Net Cincinnati Exchange

Tonight, heading into the top of the fourth inning of the Reds v Pirates, George Grande and Jeff Brantley had this exchange after the camera gave them a shot of the Roebling Suspension bridge pictured here.

George Grande: There is a nice shot of the Roebling Bridge.
Jeff Brantley: What's that word you called it?
GG: Roebling.
JB: Is that a special word for "blue?" I always just called it the blue bridge.
GG: No, it was architected by the name Roebling.

Really? "Architected by the name?" George Grande is easily my least favorite announcer ever. Luckily Brantley's 1.2 food references per inning average gets me through the game.

Letters of Apology I Probably Should Have Written a Long Time Ago

As my first post on this future money making empire, I would like to clear the air with some people I may have wronged in the past.

Throughout the course of our lives we all have experiences we look back on not so fondly, whether at home, in the workplace, or even in our personal lives. Too often, we simply let these slide by, realizing we screwed up, but not taking to time to either admit or apologize for it. So, much like an alcoholic in a 12 step program, I will try, in my own way, to make amends for instances in my life of which I am not very proud.

Dear Sir or Madam who lives at the corner of McDowell and Fontaine,

Hello, how are you doing? You probably do not know me, but I live a few blocks up from you at the corner of Catalpa and Fontaine. I think you may be surprised to find we actually have something in common, our interest in politics. No matter the time or election, we both like to show our support for our particular candidate by placing signs in our front yards. The difference, however, is I am a Democrat, and you are a Republican. You probably think I am some sort of communist who hates America and wants to ban God from our schools. I am not. I am simply the guy who peed on your “Bush/Cheney” sign during the latter part of summer in 2004.
Now, most of the time, I am all for everyone freely expressing his or her own opinion. I am one of those “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” kind of people. But, at 1:20 AM as I was walking back from an evening out, I could not help but show my displeasure for your choice in the Mayoral race by urinating on Bush’s sign. To be honest, it felt good, both physically and philosophically, but looking back I realize it was, possibly, a tad immature. You will be glad to know that since that night, I have resisted the urge to show my displeasure for your choice in candidates in this way. Although, I did bet my friend Dave $20 that he would not take a dump on your sign. You will be happy to know, he turned down the offer.

Yours truly,

Your relieved nieghbor




Dear Sir or Madam who lives on my street with the decorative Christmas front yard,

First off, I would like to thank you for the Christmas spirit you bring to our little street. Considering the number of “rentals” that live on the even side can be lax in the holiday spirit, it is nice to see the “owners” on the odd side pull more than their full share. The lights, the inflatable snowman, and the wooden reindeer leave no one in doubt that whoever lives at this house LOVES CHRISTMAS.
Before I continue with my apology, I have a quick question. What do you find funny? Are you a Woody Allen type with a sophisticated wit? Or maybe a crude/juvenile/fart joke type? Me, I am a little of both, but later in the night, I tend to lean toward the crude/juvenile/fart joke side. That is why I would like to apologize for placing your reindeer in what should probably be called a “compromising position”, but is more commonly referred to as “humping each other”.
Although I feel bad, you have to admit, that is kind of funny. Even now, thinking back on that night, I am laughing to myself. In fact, when I left my house the next morning to drive a friend home, they were still “going at it” so to speak and I had to pull the car over we were laughing so hard.
I understand you take Christmas very seriously and I am sorry I mocked your efforts to bring the spirit of Christmas to our street. But, look at it this way, it could have been worse, for instance, simply ask the lady with the Republican street signs that lives at the corner of McDowell and Fontaine.

Yours truly,


Your Christmas loving, but not as much as you, neighbor



Dear girl I did not call back, after I told you I would call back,

This is actually a two part apology, consisting of not calling you back and also my reaction upon the next time we saw each other. For the first part, to be honest, I try to carefully watch what I say in these situations. Being an English teacher and having several friends who are lawyers, I know the power of phrasing. You may have thought I said, “I’ll give you a call”, but it is more likely I said, “I’ll give you a call, sometime or later”. You see, “sometime” and “later” are the key words in this phrase. Those words are loopholes, giving me an infinite amount of time to call you. In fact, I could be calling you right now. But, I’m not. Anyway, the point is that I did not want to go out with you again, and this seemed like the easiest way to do it. Is it the most considerate? Not really, but then again, I don’t want to go out with you, so why should I worry about being considerate? To me, it is the best of both worlds, we don’t see each other again, and I am able to avoid what could be a messy confrontation. And to answer your question, yes this has happened to me before, but I didn’t sit around and cry about it, call someone’s house repeatedly and hang up, or bad mouth them to my friends. I simply filled up my time with political statements and Christmas decoration.
Now the second part of the apology is for those instances when we do see each other again, at a bar, restaurant, or a faculty meeting at work. You might think this would be awkward for me, but it actually is not. The conversation usually goes something like this…
You: “hey”
Me: “hey, how are you” (surprised)
Blah…blah…..blah….blah….
You: “So why didn’t you ever call me back”
Me: “I did. You didn’t call me back”

Do you see what I did here? Pretty underhanded, but you would be surprised at its effectiveness. The conversation will go back and forth until you walk away, either doubting yourself and re-thinking the nasty things you said about me or calling me an asshole. Either way, we are not going out again, which is the important thing.
For both of these, I am sorry. And, for the record, you didn’t call me back, so quit whining about it.

Yours truly,

The guy who YOU didn’t call back (See I did it again!)





Dear diner at Ruby Tuesday’s,

Wow! It has been awhile since I worked Ruby Tuesday’s, and probably longer since you ate there. But I’m sure you remember the moderately priced chicken fingers you enjoyed in our friendly and casual dining atmosphere.
Before I continue, let me ask, have you ever worked in a restaurant before? If you haven’t I heartily recommend it. I think everyone should wait tables at least once in their lives so they understand what it is like for the server. If we all did this, tips would be much higher. Also, you would understand certain “rule” we in the food service industry live by. Actually, they are more like “guidelines”, but I think you will get the idea. For instance, if we forget to ring up something (like a bowl of soup) or screw up a special order (like leaving off tomatoes) we will simply blame it on the kitchen. If you have ever yelled “I said no tomatoes!” or “This isn’t medium rare!” at your server their response was probably as follows. 1. Look shocked and surprised 2. Segue into frustration and finally 3. Look knowingly at the customer and assure them that you punched it in right, but the kitchen must have screwed it up. This usually works, and the kitchen people are most often none the wiser.
Another little guideline we have is the “5 second” rule, although depending upon the evening it can be extended to the “7” or at the extreme “10 second rule”. The way this works is if I drop a piece of food on the floor, for example chicken fingers, and I can pick it up and place it back on your plate under the 5, 7, or 10 second time limit, than the food is OK. I am not sure what sort of magic or science goes into this, but it is a well established rule existing at restaurants all over. Although I cannot be positive, I would imagine a certain amount of scientific research went into this rule’s creation.
At this point, you may be wondering which of these rules pertain to you and your dining experience. Well, I am happy to tell you it was the “5 second” rule. You may be pleased to know that on the night in question, although we were operating under the “7 second” rule, I had those chicken fingers back on your plate in 4.2, 4.5 seconds tops. And yes “fingers” does mean more than one, but you probably do not want me to bore you with details.
Suffice to say, I would have mentioned something sooner, but I have been busy doing my part to hold down the Republican Party, creating Christmas pornography and avoiding girls who may or may not be your daughter.


Yours truly,


A man who no longer has to wait on tables

The Kentucky Primary: Eastern Kentucky's Unintentional Self-Parody

Are you sure this isn't one of those Onion news reports?



The highlights:

Time 0:32 - Re: not voting for Obama: "I just don't want to vote for a... I'm not racist or anything like that ... but I just don't want someone in there like that."

Time 1:12 - An auction for second-hand household supplies: "Got a Manwich for a dollar ten."

(Incidentally, freedom isn't free. No, there's a hefty fucking fee. It's about $1.05. Apparently, a can of manwich is more valuable than freedom in Eastern Kentucky)

Time: 2:15 - Oakley Delong, sitting in the recliner in his doublewide. His end table? Two empty 30 packs of Milwaukee's Best.

Yiiiikkes!

And then there's this:

Last month, I saw John McCain speak in a tiny town, nestled among the
Appalachian coal hills of eastern Kentucky, called Inez. He was in the middle of
his Time for Action Tour of America’s “forgotten places” (including Selma,
Alabama; Youngstown, Ohio; and the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans).

* * * *

Inez is the place where Lyndon Johnson came to declare war on poverty, in 1964. He sat on the porch of a ramshackle, tin-roof house, which still stands (just barely) on a hillside above Route 3, looking a little like a museum of rural poverty in a county that has recently prospered because of coal.

* * * *

John Preston, who is the county’s circuit-court judge and also its
amateur historian, Harvard-educated, with a flag pin on his lapel, said, “Obama
is considered an élitist.” He added, “There’s a racial component, obviously, to
it. Thousands of people won’t publicly say it, but they won’t vote for a black
man—on both sides, Democrat and Republican. It won’t show up in the polls,
because they won’t admit it. The elephant’s in the room, but nobody will say it.
Sad to say it, but it’s true.” Later, I spoke with half a dozen men eating lunch
at the Pigeon Roost Dairy Bar outside town, and none of them had any trouble
saying it. They announced their refusal to vote for a black man, without
hesitation or apology. “He’s a Muslim, isn’t he?” an aging mine electrician
asked. “I won’t vote for a colored man. He’ll put too many coloreds in jobs.
Colored are O.K.—they’ve done well, good for them, look where they came from.
But radical coloreds, no—like that Farrakhan, or that senator from New York,
Rangel. There’d be riots in the streets, like the sixties.” No speech, on race
or élitism or anything else, would move them. Here was one part of the white
working class—maybe not representative, but at least significant—and in an
Obama-McCain race they would never be the swing vote. It is a brutal fact, and
Obama probably shouldn’t even mention it.

Yeah, there's that.

Thank you eastern Kentucky, for embarassing us once again.

Oh Those Crazy Japanese

If this doesn't make you laugh you may as well kill yourself because you're already dead.

What a picture, and what a video!

Tell me again this guy "can't win" in the general election...

Obamania in Oregon. What a picture!

Bengals Redefine Hiring Policy to Exclude Impact Players, Negative or Otherwise

The May 19th release of Odell Thurman by the Cincinnati Bengals indicates a clear directional change by the team to revert to its hiring standards of the 1990s squads that included exceptional high school athletes like David Klingler, Ki-Jana Carter, and Jeff Query (and his mullet).

The Bengals stated in 2007, after a slew of their players had run-ins with the law, that they would target future personnel who would not have a negative impact on the team.

With the release of Thurman, who led the team in tackles and created all sorts of havoc for opposing offenses before his 2-year suspension for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy, the Bengals are signaling abandonment of any player who might have any impact on the team, negative or otherwise.

Mike Brown stated, "the Bengals organization cannot risk future embarrassment at the hands of its players criminality, so moving forward we will be looking to sign guys like David Klingler and Eric 'Sleeping with' Bienemy. A player with the talent of a wrecking maching like Odell Thurman will have no place at Paul Brown Stadium."

"For any young player out there," Brown expounded, "with aspirations of going to mass on Sunday before kick-off, volunteering at the soup kitchen on off days, and generally letting football take a back seat in terms of satisfying the fans, then we are your team."

Meanwhile, Roger Goodell has formed a committee to look into whether or not the Bengals management has fulfilled the NFL's Fan Abuse Policy enough times to reach their quota as defined by the Collective Fan-Bludgeoning Agreement of 1991 - an act signed and ratified only by the Bengals and Arizona Cardinals.

League sources believe that the Bengals management need to abuse their fans at least a handful of times still in 2008 to reach the incentives as defined by the policy.

Nani J. Cootsack reporting for Tricky Trail Sports

File Under: Actually, No, It's Not Satire

George Bush gives up golf as a way to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.

No, seriously.

The Decider explains his decision:

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to
acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.“I don't want some mom
whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he
said.

* * *
Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United
Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top
U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.
“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a
result of these murderers taking this good man's life,” he said. “I was playing
golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course
and I said, ‘It's just not worth it anymore to do.’"

Good grief.

UPDATE: Found this great pic at the Huffington Post:

UPDATE 2: Olbermann, as usual, nails it. Video and transcript here. Video embedding later.

UPDATE 3: As promised, the video:

The Stretch Report (#2)

=> Mulligans tavern owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he's peddling in his Marietta, Georgia watering hole, featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with "Obama in '08" scrolled underneath, are "cute." Norman, known for his not so P.C. sayings posted on signs in front of his establishment, insists he's not racist; "Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears, he looks just like Curious George."

Yeah, doesn't sound racist to me either. I think Curious George is a very flattering likeness. In fact, I think if the marketing savvy Obama camp gets wind of these smartly designed little suckers, they should invest in a couple hundred thousand for their campaign. Nothing says "Leader of the Free World" better than a chimp and a banana, in my opinion.

=> VIDEO OF THE WEEK -- Remember when MTV actually played music videos? Well, me neither. But, there used to be a time when music videos were inherently campy. I mean, that was their whole appeal. Soon these campy videos made way for the big budget vids of today. The best part of 80s videos was their reliance on the absurd. And their reliance on the white screen -- which this little clip uses oh so well. Back in 1982, a brilliant little pop duo called 'Go West' formed in London. Eight years later, they released the smash hit "King of Wishful Thinking." This was 1990, but after you watch this, it's clearly part of the 80s. This video really has it all: Hockey (huh?), an orchestra, zebras, a helicopter an elephant and, of course, the Pope himself. There are also the prerequisites for any 80s video; bad hair, bad jeans, bad dancing and really bad suits. This all adds up to one incredible video. Enjoy.

W.W.J.D.?

What would Jesus do? Ahhh... the age old question that dates back as far as...... well as far back as some opportunist got the idea to sell ridiculous bracelets to Christian zealots (it's like shooting ducks in a barrel).

As if the W.W.J.D. bracelets weren't bad enough, now Jesus Christ, Inc. (the marketing arm of Christianity) has brought us this:

That's right: the Jesus H. Christ bobble-head doll. Apparently, it will be given away free to the first 100,000 Jesus fans 14 and under who attend the rapture.

But the shameless marketing of Jesus is not what I'm here to talk about today. I want to talk politics, and specifically the, um, "unique" logic of evangelical voters.

According to this article, younger evangelicals are leaving the Republican party. Apparently they are "down with" the GOP's stance on abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research, but "ain't got no love for" other issues such as social justice, environmental stewardship, the Iraq War, and the rabidly pro-torture position of the modern conservative movement.

Now, am I going to postulate what this all means for the political trends in 2008 and beyond?

No.

Am I going to get on my soapbox and lecture the evangelical readers of this blog (a demographic that no doubt numbers in the tens of thousands) that the Republican party has been playing the abortion card on you for 35 years, yet, remarkably has not brought about their stated goal of outlawing abortion through Supreme Court appointments and so forth, despite reminding you how much they share your views on the intrinsic value of human life in even-numbered (read: election) years?

No. Of course not. Everyone knows I am not that opinionated.

What I'd really like to focus on is the hilarious concept of trying to vote like Jesus. The best line of the article I linked to is this:

Tyler Braun, 23, a Portland seminary student who opposes abortion and gay
rights, said he'll probably vote for Obama because, since he'd would like to see
U.S. troops leave Iraq.

* * *

Braun, the seminary student, said he's not totally committed to any candidate
yet. "I just keep thinking, if Jesus were alive now, he wouldn't necessarily be voting Republican," he said.

Very good, Tyler! No, he wouldn't vote Republican, would he? After all there's that little problem that most evangelicals like to ignore: Jesus isn't an American. Kind of hard to vote in U.S. elections when you would be by birth and by citizenship, an Israeli. I know it's a pesky little fact, one that makes it harder to claim the moral high road as America declare elective wars against people with brown skin in the name of our blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, arayan messiah, who, now that I think about it, does look an awful lot like Fabio.

Hmm. That certainly puts Fabio's career in a whole new light, doesn't it?

Nani J. Cootsack: The Bird Whisperer

It's Spring at the Tricky Trail!

Right on Nani's front stoop, a deadbeat cowbird laid her egg in a finch nest and bolted, leaving Mama Finch to incubate another where 5 or 6 eggs already lay.

The cowbird is the only parasitic bird in Georgia; my parents upon hearing the story related this species to liberals leaching off conservatives (I could hear Bill O'Reilly commanding them in the background).

Anyway, as you'll see in the springtime miracle contained in the video below, Nani has a hidden talent: speaking the language of baby birds. Nani believes he ascertained this skill in sophomore-year biology when "Krumps" made his pupils practice calls of the feathered inhabitants of northern Kentucky.

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee-dee...

The skill must transcend regions, or, more likely, Nani may just be The Bird Whisperer.

Now that Nani has found his calling, Nani plans to chew up bird seed on a regular basis, let the magic of his oral enzymes break it down into a mush, and then slowly and lovingly drool mouthfuls of nourishment into the desperately opened beak of the cowbird youngster.

In recompense, the cowbird will be forced to live out its days perched upon Nani's shoulder spying for life's pitfalls.

One can't be too careful on the tricky trail.

Our Landscaper from the 1990s...

...who was Mr. Red in the 1980s would have never pulled a stunt like this.



C'mon Mr. Redlegs! Get with the program.

Shits and Giggles

The Tricky Trail is all about helping out its friends. Whether they be 2016 U.S. Presidential Candidate Herman W. Blacksmith, Steve Stinson, Lolita Jackson, the Johnsons who had a Christmas party in 1993, or even George Flush, Tricky Trail kin, past and present, will always get the Tricky Trail "bump" when needed.



Hopefully P.S. I Pooped will reap the same unspeakable rewards from the Tricky Trail bump, which also helped launch the careers of Alyssa Milano, Bronson Arroyo, and Alicia Rikter.

Bottoms up, George!

Bengals' Rookie Camp is a Hit (but not a punch).

I am happy to report that it has been weeks since a Cincinnati Bengal has punched a woman. Bengals rookies reported this weekend and, as of now, not a single (or married) woman has been injured. Before you dismiss this weekend's success as "just one weekend," you must know how tough it was for the rookies to hold back. Eager to fit in with the rest of the team, many rookies were seen practicing their technique on female mannequins at the downtown Macy's earlier in the week. And as the Flying Pig Marathon ran by the Bengals' practice fields this morning you have to imagine that a few players were tempted to leave the friendly confines of the fields to get their hands (or fists) on one of those uppity female marathon runners. Bengals rookie Jay Peck, seen here practicing a sucker punch, was one of the few that felt the urge, but somehow found a way to hold back. Coach Lewis has given every player a football to carry for the entire season hoping that when they do get around to punching a girl, and you know they will, they can at least try to pawn it off as a stiff-arm.

The Stretch Report (#1)

=> It was recently reported that seven-time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong, was secretly dating Ashley Olsen -- of 'Full House' fame. Normally a high-five would be reserved for this type of romance. Heck, it's a 36 year-old dating a 21 year-old. But, this one falls more on the "Woody Allen Creepy Scale." Ashley is probably better known more recently rather, for binging and purging -- or maybe that's her sister -- than her acting. By the way, aren't Mary-Kate and Ashley the same person?

Lance Armstrong's bio -- http://www.dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Lance_Armstrong.

=> This week the lovable (er... loathable), bottom-lip quivering, Brooke White, was kicked off American Idol. Can I get a collective "Thank God"? Brooke has never seen a Rated-R movie. Nor has she had sex with her husband (I am guessing on that one). She is as pure as the midnight snow. And golly, she's a Mormon. And we all know Mormonism is as close to God as you can get without actually pitching a tent in Heaven. Every time Brooke talked on AI, I wanted to puke. I found some really cool stuff about Mormonism though. Here's an excerpt:

"When the temptation to masturbate is strong, yell STOP to those thoughts as loudly as you can in your mind and then recite a prechosen Scripture or sing an inspirational hymn. It is important to turn your thoughts away from the selfish need to indulge. And just in case you're thinking about masturbating, don't do it."

Very well said, indeed. For the full transcript on how to stop masturbating, click here -- http://ldolphin.org/mormon.html.

=> If you like baseball, then you'll love this link -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9SdRitr5o0. This guy imitates every unique batting stance of the 1980s (and beyond). I mean, they're dead fucking on. I know we have lots of Reds fans among our 6 readers, so be sure to check out Pete Rose at 2:25 and Joe Morgan at 2:40 (love the arm pumps).

- Stretch, Mark

Sports Brief

Headlines from around the World of Sports:

Clemens: 'This Ms. McCready Must Have Misremembered the Past 17 Years"

City of Cincinnati to Execute Public Awareness Program, Issue Whistles to Halt Unruly Bengals

Bronson Arroyo's 'Together Again' Really Hopeful Ballad Yearning for BoSox Reunion

More to come...