Is your day complete yet?

They say you should learn something new every day. Since it will probably be Monday by the time you read this, and since nobody learns anything new on Mondays on their own, here's a something that came from (or at least through) the, ahem, great center of learning that is Pennsylvania State University.

(Unofficial motto: "You can't spell 'Penn State' without B-I-N-G-E")

Surprisingly, this PSU contribution to mankind's collective intelligence does not involve the consumption of alcohol. (At least not directly. I'm sure a lot of alcohol was involved indirectly!)

I'd present it without further ado, but I recently received this cool You-Tube video that I found really cool. So here is the further ado:

And now back to our story.

If you're a fan of baseball, you may think of an "upper decker" as a home run ball hit so hard that it lands in the upper tiers of seats. Well, the guys (and I am quite sure this was figured out by guys) at Penn State determined that upper deckers can involve a pastime other than our national one.

You see, there comes a time when a guy may feel a need - a really pressing need at that - to torment some other person in an unpleasant manner. It may be an act of vengeance, or it may be an act of social acceptance (sometimes it's hard to tell whether you get treated worse by guys who are friends or those who are foes). Either way, a prank is an important ritual in the life of a collegiate male.

But to be effective, a prank has to be memorable.

Of course, one way to make something memorable is to make it disgusting. And one seemingly endless source of disgusting material is the human digestive system, specifically in its final stages. In terms of disgustingness, number two is number one on most lists.

Odds are, you've used (or even owned) a toilet that is filled with blue water. That color comes from a cleaning solution that is placed in the tank. On each flush, the bowl is emptied and replenished with tinted tank water. This is typically a cleansing process.

The guys at Penn State came up with a new way to use a toilet in a prank, and it involved no cellophane whatsoever.

See, cleaning solution is not the only thing that can color the toilet water. In fact, virtually anything water soluble in the tank will wind up in the bowl on the next flush. (If you really want to confuse someone, sneak into their bathroom with a packet of Kool-Ade. You don't need college football to have an orange bowl.)

Without getting too crass, we'll explain the upper decker as such: "the deposit, usually as a prank, into a toilet tank of that which would normally be deposited into the bowl."

A poo bomb.

And now you know something you didn't know before. Your day is complete.

There's always a catch

It wasn't my favorite, but it will do.

The greatest play in Super Bowl history now joins the ranks of the Immaculate Reception, the Catch, the Holy Roller, the Music City Miracle, the Miracle at the Meadowlands, the Hail Mary, Ghost to the Post, Wide Right, and several others (See: NFL Lore). The play now has a name:

Catch 42.

Of the other suggestions that received mention, my personal favorite was "The Boston Strangler". But I can see how that one could draw some criticism, what with the trivialization of mass murder and all.

I found another one to be incredibly funny, but it would never have worked as a play name. More likely, we'll see this on You-Tube soon. Imagine if you will three replays of that final catch - one from each angle - timed to match the audio from everybody's least favorite commercial. (You know the one where the woman just repeats the product name and slogan three times in a row.)

Head On:
Apply directly to the forehead.

My entry, "The Maracle" failed to earn any mention, which is about as much mention as it deserved. I'm like that guy in Not Another Teen Movie who's lifelong ambition was to inspire group applause by being "The Guy" who starts clapping slowly in those first moments after somebody has borne their soul to someone else in a public setting when the bystanders are too stunned by what has just transpired that they don't know how to react. Three or four times during the movie he starts it up - clap ... clap ... clap - only to be told that it was not the time. Finally, when the time does come, he gets all excited, readies his hands, and then gets upstaged by some other guy who starts the slow clapping.

The point of that rambling analogy was to say that I'm a pretty creative guy until there comes a time when creativity is needed. Oh well, I guess there's worse things than not getting the clap.

So I missed getting to name the play ... at least my list of titles for the Patriots season got read on NYGiantscast, which means I get some street cred out of this!

One-derful

As a numbers guy, I notice when certain patterns emerge in seemingly random numbers.

For example, I found it quite memorable when my purchase at a convenience store, after sales tax, wound up being exactly $10.00. I also found it amusing when, after my winnings were applied, I wound up with 666 credits on a slot machine in Atlantic City.

I used to happen to glance at clocks at 11:56 (both am and pm) a statistically improbable number of times. Any '80s Giants fan recognizes those numbers ... Phil Simms and LT.

Needless to say, I found it notable that the last time I glanced at my watch, it was 1:11.

But there's a difference between notable and blogworthy, and three ones on a watch are not blogworthy. Unless, of course, you consider the last time I looked at my watch, which was 120 minutes earlier ... 11:11.

Lunatic Eclipse

This morning we were watching the early, early news - you know, the news they show before sane people wake up. The anchor, when covering last night's lunar eclipse, gave a somewhat unexpected analysis.

"An eclipse occurs when a giant dragon in space swallows the moon," he said, "or whenever the moon passes through the shadow of Earth, whichever you choose to believe."

Fit to be tied

OK, so this is not the final tally, and this doesn't count mailed ballots, disputed ballots, hanging chads, or any of the other things that alter the vote total, but it's fun none-the-less. The initial results from the Democratic Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious Tuesday primary vote in Syracuse, NY was:

Barack Obama	6,001
Hillary Clinton	6,001

Yep. A tie.

Close, but no Super Bowl ring

Possible titles
for the story of the
2007 Patriots:

Eighteen Wins and One Giant Loss
(Seen on T-Shirt)

Eighteen and D'oh!
(NFL.com)

Path to Perfection
- The Patriot's Journey to the 2007 AFC Championship

Eighteen and Uh-oh

Eighteen and Oops

Eighteen and Oh-F@&#!

Perfuct

One-defeated

Eighteen and Uh-Oh

The Giants won Super Bowl 42 XVII to XIV! In the process, they knocked off the golden boys of football, the previously undefeated New England Patriots. The much-maligned Eli Manning became Super Bowl MVP, the all-but-anointed Tom Brady became very well acquainted with the turf.

Shortly after the win in Green Bay, a friend of mine sent me an email saying he was seriously considering not attending our Super Bowl party. With my passion for the G-Men, he reasoned, regardless of who won the game, I would be insufferable. I am happy to report that I was, indeed, sufferable.

Well, I did get wrapped up in the game a little bit ...

Like in the fourth quarter, when the lead changed three times. My foot was twitching throughout, turning my sofa into the vibra-couch.

In the Giants drive following their first touchdown, Manning broke out of the pocket on third down and, while scrambling, tossed the ball over a defender to Plaxico Burress. The throw was off and Plax couldn't bring it in.

"Oh, deary me," I said.

My buddy, an Eagles' fan, tried to assure me. "What are you so concerned about?" he asked. "They've got the lead. All they have to do is keep up what they're doing."

"You don't know those Patriots," I said, "and you obviously don't know the Giants."

Sure enough, after the G-Men punted, the Brady Bunch proceeded to march all the way down the field and score, putting the Pats up 14-10.

But then, with just over two and a half minutes left, Eli and the Giants' offense began their drive into history.

SEE ITAn integral part of that drive was a play that will go down in Giants and Super Bowl lore. A furious Patriot pass rush came crashing through the Giant offensive line. The pocket collapsed around Eli, engulfing him. Yet somehow he managed to break free from the grip of a would-be sacker and he scrambled to the right. Looking downfield, he found David Tyree, a special teamer who fills in on certain passing plays. He threw a high pass Tyree's way. A Patriot defender leaped for the ball as well, and the two players each fought for the pass.

In what can only be described as indescribable, Tyree trapped the ball against his helmet with one hand long enough to get his other hand up there. Then, as they fell to the ground, he tightened his grip on the ball, maintaining possession and securing a key first down.

"Jolly good show," I said.

Saturday, Ms N and I decided to do our part to stimulate the economy; we bought a 42" LCD HDTV. Watching the Super Bowl on a screen like that is just shy of heavenly. Of course, it made for an interesting predicament towards the end of the game. I surprised everyone in the room on the final play of that Giant drive when I yelled "Touchdown!" as Manning took the snap from Shawn O'Hara. Sure enough, Eli lofted a beautiful 13 yard pass over Hobbs and into the sure hands of Plaxico.

"How did you know that?" I was asked.

"I heard the kids going 'Wooo!'" I replied.

Comcasts' HD signal is about 6 seconds behind the regular feed. The kids were in the other room watching on a regular TV; they saw the end of the play as we saw the beginning of it. I "banished" them into the living room with the rest of us for the remainder of the game.

The Giants went up 17-14, but they still left the Boys of Beantown 35 seconds and 3 timeouts, which is exactly the type of scenario that wannabe legends dream of. The defense still needed to hold one more time. In a game that is played six seconds at a time, 35 seconds is a long time for a storybook team playing out a storybook season.

Fortunately, the Giants defenders don't spend much time reading storybooks.

On that final drive, which featured three wonderfully defensed passes, unharolded Giant Jay Alford made a play on second down that seemed to be a tribute to all the teams that tried and failed to bring down the Patriots during the season. He broke through the middle of the offensive line and hammered into Tom Brady, lifting the hapless quarterback off his feet and pummeling him into the turf. It was the fifth sack for the Giants and the 14th time that Brady was knocked down during the game.

"That must smart," I said.

So now the Giants are Super Bowl Champions, the '72 Dolphins are still the only undefeated team in history, and the Patriots are now the "other guys".

Even worse (from their perspective - better for the rest of us), they become the answer to all sorts of trivia questions with negative connotations. And being that Giants fans tend to be Yankee fans while Patriots fans tend to be Red Sox fans, there is in some sense a feeling that the G-Men helped avenge those whose hearts were crushed in the 2004 ALCS, when Boston came back from a 3-game deficit to win the best-of-seven series 4-3.

In the grand scheme of things, losing after winning the first three games is not nearly as painful as losing after winning the first eighteen. The Yankees now have the second-biggest choke in recent sports history.

The Patriots are not the first team to go plus-17. The '72 Dolphins were the first to do that. They were not the first team to go 18-1. The '85 Bears did that. The difference, of course, is the Bears' loss came in the regular season (to Miami).

The Bears won their Super Bowl ... against the Patriots.

"Life with disgrace is dreadful."
- Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson

"Ha-HA!"
Nelson (from the Simpsons)

Tastier than kissing everyone in the room ...

... Just not nearly as fun.

Remember George Costanza's infamous double-dip debacle? Well that led to some honest-to-goodness scientific study on the health ramifications of double-dipping.

Thanks to Clemson University Professor Paul L. Dawson, the guy who debunked the mythological "five-second rule", we now know that double-dipping does indeed transfer microbial bacterium from mouth to dip.

So this Super Sunday, make sure you practice safe dipping habits and hope that your fellow partygoers do not suffer from Costanzitis.

Techonomics

Thanks to the guys at Technorama for finding this gem ...

Freudian, perhaps?

DISCLAIMER: While this post primarily picks on a single candidate in the current presidential campaign, I am not making any statements in favor of or against any candidate. This is commentary about the public actions of a public figure, not campaign promotion.

Given enough time, I will do my best to pick on all the candidates to the fullest extent possible.

Senator Hillary Clinton unleashed her Super-Dooper-Mega-Galactic-Mondo-Prima-Ultra-Wonder Tuesday ads upon the defenseless electorate recently and, in doing so, made a stunning admission.

The ad, seen here (at least until the campaign pulls the ad from You-Tube), is the standard run-of-the-mill political bit. About 22 seconds in (for those Hillary haters who can't bear to watch the whole thing, just drag the slider about three quarters of the way across), Hillary describes the various roles she has filled in the American political process.

In her words, she has been "a public servant, an activist, and now, a senator".

Did you cringe?

For those who didn't (or for those aforementioned haters who were too busy cringing about Hillary in general and missed the subtlety), Hillary has just announced that she is no longer a public servant; she is now a senator.

To be fair, Hillary is not the only politician to get confused about the role of government – and, by extension, members of the government – in a democracy. It's a misconception that has plagued politicians for as long as there have been democracies. Lately, however, campaign managers have been savvy enough to a) keep their subjects sufficiently well heeled so as to reduce the risk that the candidate might blurt out their real opinions before the votes are cast, and b) take whatever steps necessary to bury, deflect, diffuse, or distract attention from such gaffes whenever they occur.

(At least until they get into office. At that point, all bets are off. Previous office holders were kind enough to leave behind a process that makes it tremendously hard to lose your office, no matter how incompetent you may prove to be.)

The Clinton campaign put this statement in the closing of an advertisement designed for Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Tuesday, the make-or-break day in the presidential primaries. An ad! That they paid for!

The United States of America is a republic. We are a representative democracy. Take special note of that word: "representative".

To borrow from a certain animated ogre, our government is like an onion; it has many layers (and often brings us to tears).

It is comprised of elected officials, appointed officials, and, of course, a whole bunch of government employees. This is just as true at the federal level as it is at the state and local level. It is easy for the average person to consider many government employees as "public servants". Trash collectors, firemen, and police officers, for example, serve the public very visibly. Soldiers serve the public. The Department of Motor Vehicles employees serve the ... well, they are supposed to serve the public.

(And, of course, the IRS serves the public, albeit on a platter.)

It should not be lost on anyone, though, that the "officials" – both appointed and elected – are also public servants. They are representatives of The People, chosen by The People (or the by the people chosen by The People) to manage the government, which itself exists to serve - not to rule - The People.

Unfortunately, the current administration disagrees, as does the party leadership on both sides of the aisle. The Republican and Democratic overlords have demonstrated through their actions in the White House and Congress (and in many governors' mansions, mayor's offices, and state and local legislatures nationwide) that while they certainly serve some people, they don't serve The People. But most of those same politicians at least pay enough lip service to public service during the campaigns to convince the voters that they are, at minimum, the lesser of the two evils on the ballot.

Representatives and senators do have a leadership role within the government, but since the government exists to serve The People, the Capitol Hillbillies' role in America is to flip the switches, turn the knobs, and pull the levers on the largest public service machine in the country. As the CEO of a multi-trillion dollar organization, the President has power. However, as a democratically elected leader (s)he does not own that power. The power comes with the office and the office is owned by The People.

The role of the President is not Public Leader, it is Head Servant. (And the previous president delegated that role to an intern!)

Regrettably, it seems that not only did Senator Clinton's statement make it out of her campaign headquarters unnoticed; it seemingly failed to attract scrutiny from the media and, at the time of this writing, hasn't seemed to cause much of a stir amongst the people. It may be that the public isn't paying much attention or is already suffering from campaign fatigue. Or it may be that people just don't know any better.

One could easily argue that the statement itself is innocuous. It sounds like it was part of a speech, and on the stump politicians often stumble through words. Petty bickering over grammatical technicalities from live public speaking events is futile, for there are too many opportunities for inadvertent slips of the tongue. Those gaffes are legitimate fodder for mockery, not serious debate.

But again, this was an ad … that they paid for.

After careful consideration, after paying for the production process, after getting their choice of words, footage, backdrops, message, etc., these are the words they chose to share with the voters.

I was a public servant, now I am a senator.

Also of interest:

The campaign also released their Spanish language ad Neustra Amiga, which embraces the stereotypical notion that if you are going to advertise to Spanish-speaking viewers, you must deliver your message in the form of a telenovela promo.