The Walter Grady Factor

If you haven't had the pleasure of watching Best of the Best II, then you probably missed the stellar performance turned in by Edan Gross and his unfortunate name when he breathed life into Walter Grady. Pure genius.

A few weeks after creating the Hollywood Battles list, I was sitting around ... bored (which generally means something interesting is poised to happen) ... when for whatever reason my friend, Frank, and I began wondering how our hero, Walter Grady, would fare in various combat scenarios. To be fair, we gave people the choice of who to team Walter up with in a battle to the death. Or to the pain. Whichever was more convenient. Here goes:

Walter and either:

Klinger or Inspector Gadget vs. Queen Latifa and Count Strahd

Deputy Dog or Colin Powell vs. The Pillsbury Doughboy and Gozer The Gozarian

Johnny Socko's Flying Robot or Grimace vs. Mr. Sulu and Potsie

Pele or Willy Wonka vs. Pinhead and Joey Buttafucco

Crocodile Dundee or Meatloaf vs. Beavis and The Hulk

Elmer Fudd or Dionne Warwick vs. Mike Tyson and Aeschylus

Wilt Chamberlain or Regis Philbin vs. Liberace and Fabio

Pauly Shore or Bob Newhart vs. Michael Bolton and The French

Ross Perot or The Professor vs. Vanilla Ice and Tattoo

Captain Kangaroo or Ptolemy vs. The Boz and Dinah Shore

Princess Stephanie or The Cast of F-Troop vs. Nostradamus and Aunt Jemimah

Tito Jackson or Ivan Boesky vs. Waldo and Sid Vicious

Juan Valdez or Terry Bradshaw vs. Napoleon and Heather Locklear

The Federal Reserve Board or Dick Van Dyke vs. William Shatner and Webster

Lorena Bobbitt or Mr. Ed vs. Howdy Doody and Doomsday

The Serbs or Flipper vs. Mr. Potatohead and Butros Butros Gali

Jeff Gilooly or The Construction Worker from The Village People vs. Spuds Mackenzie and Sandy Duncan

Ma Joad or Big Bird vs. Eli Whitney and Judas

King Henry V or Screwface vs. Copernicus and Jason

Claus von Bulow or The Smothers Brothers vs. Hamburgler and Vlad the Impaler

Thundarr the Barbarian or Abe Lincoln vs. Darth Vader and Stephen Hawking

Mariah Carey or Piglet vs. Ookla the Mok and Barney

Old Man Withers From The Haunted Carnival or Dr. Shoals vs. Bruce Lee and Chilly Willy

Albert Schweitzer or Spud Webb vs. Kojack and Hong Kong Phoey

Mr. French or Mr. T vs. Hannibal Lechter and Lyle Lovett

John Holmes or Scooby Doo vs. Don "The Dragon" Wilson and The Keebler Elves

Dracula or Charlie Tuna vs. John the Baptist and Mr. Clean

Heat Miser or Buck Rogers vs. The Great Pumpkin and Octavian

Space Ghost or The Nazi War Machine vs. Prince and The Borg

Agamemnon or Deputy Chief of Police Dwayne T. Robinson vs. Socrates and George "The Animal" Steel

Rick Roufus or Shazam vs. Tammuz and Sophocles

Carrie Nation or Ishtar vs. Constantine and Ravishing Rick Rude

Phillip of Masadon or Yoko Ono vs. Eric the Red and Ronnie Milsap

Curious George or Predator vs. Peter North and Tipper Gore

Sir Issac Newton or Thor vs. Garth Brooks and Tweekie

Hollywood Battles

Here's how it works: Many years ago, I was working a double shift at the fire department and bored off my ass. Boredom on my part generally leads somewhere fun. So I created a list of various Hollywood/TV toughguys and bad guys. Don't ask me why. I was bored, remember? I take no responsibility for any dumb, pointless things I might do at such a time. First, I had about 40-50 people submit fighters for consideration, then everyone ranked each fighter on a scale from 0 (worthless) to 10 (titanic) in seven categories: Intelligence (Int), Strength (Str), Conditioning (Cnd), Weapons Training (Wea), Martial Arts Ability (Mar), Fighting Intangibles (Fgt), and Creativity in Combat (Cre). Eventually I set a cutoff point at about 20 fighters, because after a while people like Axel Foley started showing up on the list.

For example, here are some sample submissions:

John Rambo 6, 8, 10, 10, 9.5, 15, 10
"First Blood"
Special Forces

Martin Riggs 6.5, 7 8.5, 10, 10, 10, 9.5
"Lethal Weapon"
Special Forces

Casey Ribek 6.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9
"Undersiege"
Navy Seal

James Bond 8, 5, 6, 8, 2, 10, 8
"Dr. No"
British SS

Marion Cobretti 0, 6, 6, 4, 3, 7, 7
"Cobra"
Zombie Squad

MacGyver 15, 5, 6, 8, 4, 7.5, 15
"MacGyver"
Special Forces/
Phoenix Foundation

Even tho the scale was from 0 - 10, the overwhelming majority of people responding found it necessary to have certain fighters break the scale in certain categories. After the fighters were ranked on individual merits, they were paired off and people voted on the outcome of three types of battles between the two combatants: 1) Each person, with equal weaponry, in a jungle 2) Battling in a major city 3) Hand-to-hand combat (no weapons whatsoever) in a locked cement room, 20' x 20'. There were four possible endings to each battle: 1) Person 'A' kills Person 'B' 2) Person 'B' kills Person 'A' 3) Mutual annihilation 4) One person is so hopelessly overmatched that he immediately commits suicide.

Before I give you the Top Ten (as decided back then ... clearly a new list will need to be constructed someday soon), voters were asked to assign further ratings to the now-ranked fighters. The rating system synopsis:

MASTER: The absolute pinnacle of knowledge, experience, and expertise humanly attainable in a given discipline. Only the most titanically gifted individuals have a prayer of reaching this supreme rank, and only then with monumental effort. One person (or in rare cases, two people) in the world actually possess this most lethal of skill levels.

GENIUS: The second-highest degree of knowledge, experience, and expertise. Attainable only if a person possesses tremendous natural ability in conjunction with a massive work ethic and desire to learn. Perhaps ten people in the world can achieve this vaunted skill level.

EXPERT: The highest degree of knowldege, experience, and expertise a non-gifted person can attain. Requires a colossal amount of drive, determination, and study to achieve. Less than a thousand such people exist in any given discipline.

PRO: A very respectable degree of knowledge, experience, and expertise. Basically anybody can achieve this level with intense study and above-average drive and determination.

BERSERKER: The complete vaporization of rational, coherent thought and subsequent transformation into a furious, murderous, doomsday engine of destruction. The mind fixates on one thought: KILL, at all costs. Pain tolerance, power, and stamina all explode through the roof as monsterous amounts of adrenaline flood the system. A person in this state is to be considered deeply insane and thus capable of absorbing tremendous damage and perform superhuman feats of strength.

BRAWLER: A person with massive natural talent for fighting, independent of any formal martial arts training. A Brawler fights completely on instinct, thus his attack sequences are impossible to predict.

SPEED DEMON: A person with cat-like grace and reflexes. His attacks are made with the speed of a striking cobra.

Below are the rankings. For something to appear as a comment, more than half the people responding had to agree to it.

1. John Rambo: Weapons Master. Master Berserker. Genius Marksman. Genius Brawler. Expert Thai Boxer. Undoubtedly the fiercest survivor, the purest warrior.
2. Bruce Lee: Jeet Kune Do Master. Weapons Master. Speed Demon.
3. Kenjo: Master Ninja.
4. Sam Beckett: Master Intellect. 5th degree blackbelt or above in Aikido, Judo, Taw Kwon Do, Hapkido, and Kung Fu.
5. Erik Kenner: Genius Samurai. Weapons Genius. Bushido Genius.
6. Martin Riggs: Genius Marksman. Tai Chi Genius. Genius Berserker. Weapons Genius.
7. Tommy Lee: Tae Kwon Do Genius. Hapkido Genius. Speed Demon.
8. MacGyver: Explosives Master. Chemical Master. Creative Master. Genius Intellect. Weapons Genius.
9. David Sanghai: Genius Samurai. Akido Expert.
10. Frank Dux: Genius Ninja.

Back in Black

The move from Cali has long since been over, and getting settled in MI is taking some getting used to. Of course when it's nice out, the weather is hard to beat . . . but it likes to rain about 80% of the time! Or if it isn't raining, there are hurricane-force gale winds and grey skies. Ug. I'm surprised the suicide rate here isn't 95%. Today is a perfect example. It's been raining for, oh, the past forever ... ground is mush ... wind is cold ... about the only thing to do on a day like this is curl up and die.

The Lip Squish

Ok work with me here . . . picture this: You're walking down the hall someplace - let's say at work - and you pass someone. The two of you make eye contact. You don't say 'hi' before the person walks by you because either:

1) you don't know the person and would feel uncomfortable doing so.

or

2) you already walked past this person earlier and did say 'hi'. You have a finite number of 'hi's to use each day, and you certainly don't want to waste a second one on the same idiot.

What to do?

The lip squish!

Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. You squish your lips together and give a slight nod of the head. Now the nod is crucial. The lip squish and the head nod must be done concurrently ... they go together like peanut butter and jelly or guns & ammo. If you leave off the nod, at best, the other person will assume you've got some type of bizarre facial tick ... at worst, you get your ass kicked.

My question is this: When did the lip squish (with accompanying head nod) become a suitable form of greeting? Was there ever a time when one existed without the other? Does it actually replace 'hi' . . . or is it a polite way of saying, 'I reluctantly acknowledge your presense, now please get the hell out of my line of sight so I can retreat once more to my universe.'

Mr. & Mrs. Sanchez

MEXICO CITY - A Mexican husband and wife were recovering separately after a marital spat got out of control and saw them firing guns, throwing knives and hurling homemade bombs, Mexican daily Milenio said Monday.

In scenes taken straight out of the hit romantic comedy “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Juan Espinosa and Irma Contreras fought until their house blew up in a homemade gasoline bomb explosion, Milenio said.

Police called to the home in the indigenous Mayan Indian town of Oxkutzcab in the southeastern state of Yucatan arrested Espinosa. Contreras was taken to hospital with third-degree burns.

A local police official confirmed the report but declined to provide further information.

In the violence-filled movie about the fictional Smiths, Pitt and Jolie play married assassins ordered to kill each other.

Espinosa told reporters he was glad his wife had suffered burns, while Contreras said she was only sorry she had not “hacked off his manhood” during the fight.

This is why I scan cnn.com and msnbc.com on a daily basis. You just can NOT find better entertainment anywhere!! I learned long ago not to underestimate the stupidity of Average Bob and Jane. Could you imagine being the nextdoor neighbor of these idiots?! I'll bet the neighborhood watch captain was shitting his pants. Making sure people don't leave their garbage out for too long, that's one thing . . . preventing them from launching a full-out assault on each other and the surrounding houses . . . that's a whole 'nother stretch of road.

It's too bad they hadn't given each other more time to prepare . . .

The Gilligan Defense

Just when I thought I'd heard it all, along comes something like this:

March 14, 2006 - In what many experts are calling a high-stakes legal strategy, former Enron CEO Ken Lay testified at his trial today that a coconut fell on his head while he was running the Texas energy company, causing amnesia that wiped out all memory of anything that happened during his tenure there.

While most trial watchers expected Lay's defense team to use inventive tactics to secure an acquittal for the embattled former CEO, few expected the coconut-falling-on-head explanation for Lay's claim that he was out of the loop during the entirety of Enron's multibillion-dollar fall from grace.

As the trial resumed this morning, Lay's defense attorney used a diagram, a pointer and a coconut itself to dramatize the incident in what legal experts are already calling "The Gilligan Defense."

"As you can see, a coconut that Lay kept on a high shelf of his office bookcase rolled off the shelf, landing squarely on his head, and causing total amnesia," Lay's attorney told a stunned courtroom. Moments after the coconut landed on the former CEO's head, Lay claimed that Andrew Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, ran into Lay's office, concerned, and asked, "Are you all right, little buddy?"

But under cross examination, Lay's story appeared to fray somewhat, especially when the prosecutor asked,

"If you had total amnesia, how could you remember that a coconut fell on your head?"

"Oops," Lay replied.

This defense would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that it's entirely possible some random group of drooling jurors would buy into it! Anybody remember the OJ trial? That's the platinum standard for idiots. The thing that drives me nuts (well, one of the things) is how shyster defense lawyers sit around and concoct the most asinine fantasy imaginable in order to explain away the facts and help their client dodge justice. A coconut?!?! You have GOT to be kidding me!! But the reason stuff like that happens is . . . it works!! Joe Average Juror is a complete fumbling, ignorant fool! And the defense lawyers know and depend on that!

The jury system only works if the jury pool isn't composed of complete babbling idiots. That's asking a LOT. Moron Bob and Dipstick Sally start tripping over their IQ when they attempt to wrap their peabrains around what "reasonable doubt" means. Is it possible that some anonymous, evil Columbian Drug Lord killed Nicole Brown Simpson? Wellllllll, I suppose that there is a non-zero chance, but it's pretty damn small. Is it possible that a group of Satanists killed Laci Peterson? Again, I suppose anything is possible. But is it reasonable?! THAT is where the simian dolts who comprise the vast majority of jury pools start having trouble. Just because something is theoretically possible does NOT constitute reasonable doubt!!! Jesus!!! How stupid do you have to be?!? Is it possible that purple cows are going to fly out my ass sometime in the next 10 minutes? God I certainly hope not, but perhaps in some alternate reality it might be. Joe Dumbass Juror is too dense to see the distinction. Sad.

It should be legally permissible for court members to hurl rocks, icepicks, and anvils at defense lawyers the moment something as ridiculous as the 'coconut defense' escapes their cakehole. Only a complete, utter jackass would believe something like that.

Microsoft Madness, Part I

I was bored last night and decided to poke around my laptop a bit. I'd heard at least a hundred times from a zillion different sources that Microsoft loves to hide your personal data - even from you - on your computer. While I never doubted it, I never really had the time or motivation to investigate it.

Until now.

I'm sure pretty much everyone who reads this has, at some time or another, clicked on Tools in their Internet Explorer, gone to Internet Options, and selected both Clear History and Delete Files (not forgetting to check Delete all offline content as well - in order to be totally safe). Do yourself a favor. Stop wasting your time. It's simply Microsoft giving you a cosmetic warm fuzzy.

To prove it, go ahead and clear your IE history and delete files (including offline content). If you're having a blonde moment, re-read the previous paragraph. Ok, first, you have to tell XP to allow you to see both hidden and . . . get this . . . "superhidden" files. That's mildly funny in a perverse Big Brother sort of way. Do this:

1. On your desktop, right-click on the My Computer icon and select Explore.
2. Click on the Tools menu.
3. Select Folder Options.
4. Click on the View tab. [it's almost over]
5. Select Show hidden files and folders.
6. Un-check Hide protected operating system files.

You'll get yelled at by XP. It'll tell you the world is going to end exactly 3 seconds after you do this. Ignore it. This allows you to see the superhidden files. If you want to do this step the hard way, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced and find the ShowSuperHidden entry. Right-click on it, select Modify, set Value data equal to 1, and click OK.

7. Click on OK.

Now do this ... Open up your Windows Explorer and go to c:\Documents and Settings\[login ID]\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files. A whole bunch of cookies, nothing else, right? Well, not quite. I only learned this the other night, but apparently Microsoft just loves to store information regarding every single site you've ever visited in a file called index.dat. It's buried in this folder, but you still can't see it. If you want to change that:

1. In your Windows Explorer window, go up one level to the Local Settings folder.
2. Right-click on the Temporary Internet Files folder and select Send To.
3. From the menu that pops up, select My Documents.
4. Now go to the My Documents folder and you'll see the Temporary Internet Files folder there. Open it up.
5. See the folder called Content.IE5? Go in that.
6. Presto . . . one index.dat. It's probably going to be pretty huge. When I first did this last night, mine was about 30 MB. You can sorta open it with Notepad, but if the file is superhuge, be prepared to sit and wait for a loooong time before it fully loads. This file contains everything you've ever done online. Someone could generate a pretty good criminal profile of you by parsing thru this file.

So now just right-click on the file and select Delete. You're all set!

Yea, right.

You probably had about as much luck as I did. Got yelled at about "the file is currently in use by some other process" yadayada yakyak? Microsoft doesn't like you messing with them.

Now one of the first things I tried was opening up Notepad and creating a short cleaning script. This is what I put in the file:

cd %homedrive%%homepath%
cd locals~1\tempor~1\Content.IE5
erase /f/q index.dat
cd %homedrive%%homepath%
rd /s/q locals~1\tempor~1
rd /s/q locals~1\temp
rd /s/q cookies
rd /s/q temp
md locals~1\temp
pause

I then saved it as clobber.cmd and placed it in the XP Startup folder so it gets executed immediately when I turn on the computer. (The Startup folder is located: c:\Documents and Settings\[login ID]\Start Menu\Programs\Startup) I was feeling pretty good about myself at this point. I rebooted my computer, watched the script execute, and it still bombed out trying to get rid of index.dat. Now in the script's defense, I've got a ton of crap on my laptop, so something was grabbing the file before I could wipe it out. I messed around in msconfig for a while trying to track down the culprit, but that quickly got old.

Time to get serious. At this point, I really couldn't care less what that file contained, I just wanted to delete it for the pure satisfaction of deleting it. This worked:

1. Reboot the computer in Safe Mode. (press & hold F8 during reboot)
2. Do the steps in the above program manually
3. Start the computer back up normally, look for index.dat, and rejoice. Finally. You'll probably still find one, but it won't have the last 5,000 months of your surfing data in it. Instead, it'll have a few moments worth of data.

I'm sure there are a ton of other hidden files buried all over the place that need to be dealt with. But for the moment, I'm relatively happy.

GSP vs. BJP

Damn. Damn damn damn damn damn. I'm seriously pissed off right now. I just got done watching UFC 58: USA vs. Canada, and GSP squeaked out a split decision versus BJ Penn. Now most people would go by how the fighters looked at the end of the fight ... GSP looked beat to shit, and BJ looked like he just woke up from a restful nap.

I'm a HUGE GSP fan. He's awesome. In my opinion, he's the finest combination of stand-up fighter, grappler, and cardio-conditioned athlete in the UFC today. BUT, he did NOT win the fight against BJ Penn. At the same time, however, BJ Penn didn't win the fight either. After 3 rounds, I defy ANYONE to show me how either one clearly won! It was a draw!!! ARGH!!!

I wanted SOOOOO bad for GSP to kick BJPs ass all over the ring, but BJP proved himself (to me - like he cares) to be about the toughest bastard God ever dared create! He's a NUT!! Nobody lost that fight. Nobody.

My only hope is this: GSP kicks Matt Hughes ass in their rematch (provided Hughes is able to defeat Royce Gracie . . . good luck with that one), and then GSP and BJP get a championship rematch that goes FIVE rounds.

Damn. I hate watching fights in which there isn't a clear-cut conclusion.

Rule Pool

The Unlit Banana story has triggered a veritable avalanche of Muskegon memories. One of our (translation: my) favorite pastimes was 'Rule Pool'. My dad had a seriously nice pool table in the basement - seems to me it was a 9 footer, but after all these years, I'm not so sure anymore. Anyway, Rule Pool worked like this:

1. First you decide who gets to break. That was easy. It was always ME (unless I chose otherwise, see #3 below). At the time, I was the biggest, so therefore, I got my way. Pretty simple, right? I was a doctrinaire of the highest caliber, practicing the simple ideology of might makes right. Similiar to the political philosophy of Thrasymachus (the cynical Sophist of Plato's Republic) ... justice is merely the advantage of the stronger. The philosophical root of my double-standard: one set of rules for those in power (ME), another for the poor, huddled masses.

2. If you make three balls in a row, you get to make a RULE. Making balls on the break counts, hence my significant advantage.

That's pretty much it. Normally, I'd play Dan ... because he was the most fun to screw with, and also because he was a helluva good sport about it. So generally my first rule had to do with his cue. He could no longer shoot with a pool cue. Oh no. That would be too easy. I'd go find a safety pin, straighten it out, and have him shoot with that. Or, there was this smooth hunk of driftwood that my dad (or somebody) found a zillion years ago ... I'd have him shoot with that. I seem to recall replacing his cue with a chicken leg one time ... or was it celery? My second rule would always come directly out of space, whatever popped into my mind at the moment. Sometimes I'd go get the heavy bag (talking boxing here) from the garage and have him hold it in one arm while he shot (with his safety pin or hunk of driftwood).

3. I almost forgot. Rules tended to be cumulative. So in the second game, I might give Dan the break (because I'm that magnanimous) . . . but he usually had a difficult time generating any significant degree of power with his pinky . . . another one of my favorite cue replacements.

One Banana, Unlit (of course)

Circa 1982, give or take a year, I was spending the summer at my dad's house with my brothers. Typical summer in Muskegon, go to the beach a lot, pound on Dan as much as possible (including but not limited to inventing new, random tortures), watch Rocky movies 8,000x per day.

One day, we were all hanging out at the house and - for whatever reason - terribly bored. It wasn't just that I was bored, we all seemed to be out of it. Biorhythms or something. So we all went off in separate directions looking for something to fill time. I happened to come across a typewriter in the attic. Wow! This is great! What can I possibly do with a typewriter...? Hmm, well, I could probably throw it at Dan. That might be kinda fun. And informative, from a blunt-force trauma perspective. I could put one of Dave's toys (preferably his favorite toy) on the ground outside and toss the typewriter on top of it from our grandma's 3rd-story balcony (which at the time was still uncovered) . . . OR . . . I could type up an invoice! Brilliant! An invoice? An invoice for . . . what? Hmm . . . has to be something good. Preferably yellow. (no reason why) Good and yellow. What things are good and yellow? Well ... bananas are pretty good, and they're yellow! Ok, great! A banana then. And the banana certainly couldn't be engulfed in flames. So one banana, unlit . . . of course. That was what the invoice would be for!

I spent the next hour typing up an invoice for an unlit banana, making it look as professional as my teenage mind would allow. That and the 1877 Civil War Surplus Typewriter I was using. When all was said and done, I had a reasonable facsimile of an invoice and a decently ripe banana with a match taped to it (for future lighting, if one should so desire).

The mirth of creating the invoice quickly faded. What NOW had to happen is we had to have some unsuspecting nitwit sign for it! Who? Well that was easy. Just pick a house at random in one of the nearby neighborhoods. Next, who would go to the front door and attempt to get the signature? Certainly not moi . . . I didn't want to look like a complete jackass . . . I was perfectly content to be a jackass, but only behind the scenes. Dan? Definitely. Dave? Probably as a fallback position. Jaime? Nah, he'd never do it.

So Jaime takes the banana with the match taped to it, my impressive invoice, and a truckload of chutzpah to the front door of some random house. Knocks on the door.

Now here's where my memory begins to break down. Probably because I was too busy laughing my ass off from a distance, watching the comedy unfold. I think some old person came to the door, and I'm thinking it was a guy. But I could be wrong. Evidently he wasn't impressed with the invoice and was fairly certain he never ordered such a contraption.

We never got a signature, but we managed to fill up enough empty space until dinner. So it wasn't a total loss.