Although most people, including myself, consider me to be a pretty well educated and knowledgeable kinda guy, I can also be pretty clueless at times. Here’s some things I recently learned…

1) Lake Titicaca is a real place, on the border of Peru and Bolivia

2) According to Ron Haynes of “The Wisdom Journal”, higher gas prices are actually good, because families will plan their summer vacations closer to home, like in their living rooms

3) The phrase “Pardon my French” is almost unheard of in France

4) Pesto is a sauce, not a drink. I think I had it confused with Post-um

5) Paul Reiser had a new show on NBC that got canceled before I ever heard that Paul Reiser had a new show on NBC

6) Einstein could barely speak until he was 9 years old. His parents thought he might be retarded

7) The average bank teller loses $250 per year…yeah “loses”

In America, plastic flamingos greatly outnumber real flamingos

9) Humans are the only animals that can draw a straight line. I thought humans were the only animals who could draw, period.

10) Humans with blue eyes are more sensitive to pain than those without blue eyes. I have blue eyes, so be nice to me

-MM

I’ve been battling to set up a new system at my office for weeks now and it’s just been a giant headache! First going form Entourage, then over to Outllook, now trying Google Apps, with sales reps telling me one thing, then tech guys telling me something totally different–I just want to throw all of them right in the garbage! What a scam!

I tell you, I think computers are ruining our lives–they’re just a huge time waster except for getting news stories, checking the weather, watching videos of cute kittens, porn, skype-ing people overseas for free, online video games, porn, saving on postage by using email, facebook, keeping all of your personal papers and information in one convenient place, fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy porn, instant access to recipes for the cooking-challenged, videos of men getting kicked in the crotch, blogging, porn, excel spreadsheets that do the math for you, ordering bowling shirts, sending the Mets ownership hate mail, photoshopping my boss’s face on the butt of a jackass, porn, more recipes, movie reviews, instant traffic updates, booking discounted airline flights, videos of dolphins playing with cats, porn, starting global geothermal nuclear war by accident, online banking, celebrity mugshots, and porn.

Except for that, computers are pretty much useless….

Attempting to Make a “Viral Video”

We all love watching viral videos, anything from a cat playing with dolphins, or a slingshot backfiring and hitting a woman in the face with a watermelon, or just some poor slob falling off a motorcycle and onto his face. What seems to be most common about these videos is they aren’t staged, meaning their popularity is somewhat of an “accident”. Then there are the other type of viral videos–the ones made purposely like that atrocious Rebecca Black “Friday” video. Many times when videos go viral, people make parodies of them in hopes that the popularity of the original video will rub off onto their own creations. This is what me and a few of my comedy friends tried to pull off with our parody of “Twin Baby Boys Talking to Each Other.”

My friend Edie Katz saw the original video and decided to write up a parody, with some help from Lou Stone Borenstein (you might recognize him from our parodies of “The Sopranos” and “The Big Lebowski”) and they needed to find two male comics willing to be in the video…while wearing diapers, of course. Their first call was to me (big surprise), and their second call was to Paul Murdock (“The Dude” from our “Big Lebowski” parody). After some scheduling conflicts, we found some time last Saturday and a friend to lend us her apartment for a few hours (thanks Jessica!) and we were off to work. The first little stumbling block was seeing that parodies of the original video had already been done, notably by Patton Oswalt and Michael Chiklis.

“Damn professionals with their big budgets and resources”, I said.
“Damn real comedians with their ability to do things in real time”, remarked Paul.
“Damn famous people with actual talent and name recognition”, sighed Lou.

Oh, well–we had come this far (all the way up to 74th street) so we had to figure something out. Paul and I changed into our diapers, which were surprisingly comfortable and chic, and went to work. Edie supplied the scripts, and Lou manned the camera. We decided on making our “babies” British, as (apparently) that hadn’t been done yet. After many takes, and much laughing in the middle of the whole thing requiring us to start again and again, this is what we came up with.

The things we do for a laugh…. enjoy!

Twin Baby Boys Having a Conversation–30 years later (British Version)

The NCAA Championship Game….what the Hell was THAT?!?

Well, that was the worst championship game I’ve ever seen… the UConn Huskies defeated the Butler Chuckers 53-41 in a game that had to have had the other 62 participants in the tournament thinking “Are You Kidding Me?!?!” At halftime, the score was 22-19…I thought football season was over a long time ago. With brick after brick being offered up by Butler, the boredom got so bad I started flipping around… oh, a re-run of Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” on PBS….flip some more; hey an episode of “King of the Hill” I haven’t seen in quite some time. Finally, I started thinking that anything would have been a better match up to watch than this…so I constructed my own Final Four scenarios which would have been much more exciting.

The National Championship of Condiments, Final Four

After a grueling few rounds of single-elimination competition, there were some surprises (bracket-destroyer Relish upsetting Salsa to advance to the Elite 8 comes to mind) but as predicted the Final Four came down to the pre-tournament favorites, Ketchup, Mustard, Salt, and Pepper. Here’s how the tournament finished….

Ketchup took on Pepper in a close contest. Although Pepper had the advantage of being a long-time powerhouse, Ketchup was able to neutralize Pepper’s bench-depth with an outstanding and creative game plan, which was able to beat Pepper’s classic sneeze-inducing defense. With the game tied at 86 with 3 seconds left, Individual Single-Serving Ketchup came off the bench and sunk two free-throws to put Ketchup up by two. With 3 seconds left, Pepper called a time out and devised one last play. Pepper tried to inbound the ball, but Squeeze Bottle Family Size Ketchup poured himself all over the court and drowned Pepper’s last second hopes, sealing the victory for Ketchup 88-86. Ketchup advanced to the Championship Game.

Tournament favorite Salt advanced over Mustard in a lopsided 98-66 contest. Salt opened the game with a 18-2 run, and never looked back. Mustard’s outstanding point guard Dijon was not a factor at all, and finished the game with only 12 points. The Spreading Yellows were over matched, with All-American forward Honey Mustard sidelined with bad case of the runs. Salt’s outstanding freshman center Sea Salt dominated the boards yet again in this easy victory. Salt advanced to the Championship Game.

The Championship Game was a classic, with perennial favorite Salt taking on the upstart Ketchup team. Ketchup’s razzle-dazzle offense pitted against Salt’s smothering defense and inside dominance. The game went back and forth, and neither team never led by more than 3 points throughout the contest. Salt’s freshman sensation Sea Salt had the best game of his career, besting Ketchup’s All-American center Sugar-Free Family Size. It was a close game until the end, but it seemed that Salt was the better prepared team; almost as if they knew what was coming. This makes sense when you realize that Salt is a critical ingredient in Ketchup. In the final moments, Ketchup attempted it’s patented “Smother Defense” but tournament MVP Loose Shaker of the Salt team was able to cover Ketchup completely, drying out their defense strategy while leaving a bad taste in Ketchup’s mouth. Final score, 92-89 with Salt winning the Championship. After the game, the Salt team engaged in its’ traditional Championship celebration; going out to the parking lot and pouring themselves over slugs, while the Salt’s ecstatic fans cheered them on. What a game!

The National Championship of Alcohol, Final Four

After stumbling through the brackets, we’ve ended up with our Final Four of Beer, Wine, Tequila, and this year’s Cinderella team, Jaegermeister. With some other surprises (a Whiskey forfeit in the elite 8–hungover) the tournament favorite Beer dominated the competition, winning each game by more than 10 points. Would this be Beer’s year again?

The first game pitted Wine vs. Tequila. It was a back and forth contest, with Eastern Conference MVP Cabernet leading the scoring. Tequila kept pace, though, with a great combination of shots, poppers, and mixed concoctions that kept the Wine team off balance for most of the game. By the last 5 minutes of the second half, Chablis, Cabernet, and Merlot had all fouled out–Merlot actually was ejected for launching a tirade of obscenities at referee Jose Cuervo Mezcal– Merlot was convinced was favoring the Tequila team with his calls. Oh well…as they say “en vino veritas”. With three of its’ starters on the bench in the final minutes, Tequila downed shot after shot to seal the win 74-65, then took a much deserved siesta.

The second game featured tournament favorite Beer versus the upstart Jagermeister crew. It was no contest. The combination of Pilsner, Ale, and the speedy Ultra-Light took looked completely unprepared for the assault of Jager bombs and the pinpoint accuracy of Jagermeister’s All-American point guard, 6 foot Redheaded Nazi. Although Beer’s dominate center Boilermaker was a force throughout the game, Jagermeister countered with 3 point Jager bomb after Jager bomb. The Beer team looked unprepared and winded, and with ten minutes left in the game had fallen so far behind they simply gave up. The Jagermeister’s cruised to an easy victory 88-54.

The Championship game paired Tequila vs Jagermeister. This was a fast and furious game, with Tequila’s point guard Sunrise nailing 3 pointers, and Jagermeister’s 6 Foot Redheaded Nazi countering with Jager bombs of his own. The game swung back and forth, until the final 5 minutes when the Jagermeister team suddenly looked disinterested and distracted by cheerleaders and the food vendors at courtside. Sensing something wasn’t right, Jagermeister Head Coach Area 51 called a time out, and consulted with the officials courtside. After some confusion, replays clearly showed referee Jose Cuervo Mezcal had spiked the Jagermeister team’s refreshments with alcohol-drenched Mezcal worms–a clear violation of tournament rules. The Tequila team was forced to forfeit the game, and the upstart Jagermeister team was declared the tournament champion. No one remembers the final score. Jose Cuervo Mezcal is now under investigation by the International Distilled Spirits Association, and the Tequila team has been banned from playoff competition for 4 years.

Hey, this was a lot more interesting than that “Dog” of a game last night!

-MM