For one year in college, I was an American History major. I only did it because this girl with an amazing set of, um, bald eagles sat in front of me and always wanted to study with me. After we had strayed from history into anatomy, she decided we shouldn't be study buddies anymore and I started taking journalism classes.

But one of the things I learned in those history classes was that after the Civil War, slaves were offered the opportunity to go back to Africa and live in a new settlement the American government created for them. This new area was called Liberia. Nowadays, Liberia is full of Internet scam artists and "Nigerian bankers" who have a lot of money for you if you're borderline retarded and have a bank account.

Also apparently in Liberia are assholes with too much silver on their hands. Not much offends me, and I've heard my fair share of 9/11 jokes, but anyone who actually buys these things should melt the silver down and make it into a bullet and then put it into their skull. Why? I don't know, tell them they're a werewolf. I have a feeling they'll believe it.

I don't care who you are, if you were born in a red state or a blue state, what social class your family belongs to or if you prefer the Stars & Stripes or the Stars & Bars, if you didn't like the Muppets as a kid, and you don't like them now, you might as well move back to Communist Russia. What's that? Russia's not Communist anymore? Well call Doc Brown and invent yourself a time machine because you belong in a Gulag.

Stars & Stripes FOREVER!

Listen, I don't own a Bible and I don't really know much about Jesus. I've heard he was a long-haired fella who wore sandals a lot. I'm guessing he was a huge Phish fan and ate a lot of Ramen noodles. But people like to tell me that he was born on December 25, and that's fine. This country gives you the right to have your own opinion, but it doesn't give you the right to be wrong. I'm no calenderologist, but if I had to guess (and my guesses are 99.9% correct with a +.1% margin of error) I'd bet that Jesus was born today. Because today is the most important day in the history of mankind.

So why not celebrate it with the greatest man in the history of music, Mr. Lee Greenwood...

When I was a wee lad, growing up among the big city elite and my father's Harvard influentials, I took quite a liking to America's game—that glorious whore they call baseball. And no other team has caught my fancy more in my lifetime than those lovable scamps in the Bay of Tampa, known as the Devil Rays. Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing on a score update that they had defeated the evil Red Sox of Boston to complete what some aficionados refer to as a series sweep.



(Yes, hand slap exchanges all around, good friends.)

This is an over-joyous time for me, as I have been a Rays fan for the past 30 years. Wait, 20 years. 15 years? 1998, eh? That's what I meant. I have been a Rays fan for the past 10 years, and my patience has finally paid off. First place, suckers! You can't hang with the large natural harbor and estuary on Florida's west coast, according to Wikipedia. Man, if my family ever decides to take me to Busch Gardens for a summer vacation again, then I am so going to see my favorite Rays player Greg Vaughn Fred McGriff Jose Canseco Wade Boggs Wilson Alvarez Vinny Castilla Ben Grieve John Flaherty Miguel Cairo Rocco Baldelli Carl Crawford live in action.

Yes sir, I sure am proud to be a Tampa Bay Rays fan. I look forward to seeing guys such as the one guy and that young fella take them to brand new heights this season.

NBA Dictator Czar Emperor Planet-eater Commissioner and all-around swell guy David Stern has hired and appointed former United States Army general Ronald L. Johnson to oversee the league's officiating.



("May God have mercy upon my referees, because I won't.")

Johnson's first job as a civilian, after retiring from active duty, will be to oversee the day-to-day operations of the NBA's officiating, including recruiting, training, scheduling and probably making sure none of the referees are betting on the games they're officiating.

"As I leave the military and return to civilian life, I can't imagine a more interesting and challenging position," Johnson said in a statement. "Although I don't have a basketball background, other than as a lifelong fan, I am confident that my experience as an Army commander and engineer has equipped me to bring leadership and innovation to the NBA's exceptional officiating program."

Of course this all stems from former NBA referee Tim Donaghy being busted for gambling on NBA games that he was officiating, and his revelations to the FBI that other refs were also in on the fix. Stern blew off Donaghy's accusations that veteran official (and notoriously horrible ref) Dick Bavetta had been a part of a plot to fix the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Sacramento Kings. Incredibly questionable calls were made in Game 6 of that series, leading to a seventh game and a Lakers victory. But, as always, when any reporters ask Stern about this accusation, he turns into a dragon and eats them.

The addition of Johnson has pleased some owners, including Mark Cuban, and that's a relief. Because when whiny billionaire owners are upset, I lose way too much sleep. Hopefully, Johnson will use his authority to finally prove that since Cuban is not a steer, then he can thusly be only one other thing.

Making fun of Paris Hilton these days is like making fun of Anna Nicole Smith. It's still very easy and still very fun, but there's really not much point. One's dead and the other should have died a long time ago. Normally I wouldn't waste my time and yours by making fun of this talentless CDC poster child, but I was catching up on my celebrity gossip last night and I came across this photo of the Queen of Protein:



(Marilyn: "Paris, could you possibly go stand next to another photo? Thanks.")

Normally I'll read a whole article before I bust into witty commentary, but I just couldn't get past this photo enough to even care what it was about. I guess Paris and her sister, who is really just a quiet slut, were at some museum event with their mom, who should give Peter a hearty laugh when she shows up at the Pearly Gates. These three have about as much business being in a museum as R. Kelly does in a middle school.

I'm guessing from the photo that Paris saw this image of Marilyn Monroe and said something like, "Hey people with cameras, come over here and take pictures of me posing next to this photo, while I make modeling faces and pretend to seem like I have emotional depth." And as I look at it, I see the image of a female icon—one of the sexiest and most important women in the history of pop culture. Then I see a girl who looks like she has a glass eye and smells like the bathroom at a Checkers.

There should be a law that anyone who owns a camera for professional use and uses it to photograph Paris Hilton should be deported. That's really all I have for this, not much of a story to report as much as just making it clear I wish this girl would be attacked by a grizzly bear.

(Photo: Associated Press)

Adorable old coot Wesley Clark, the Democratic Party's go-to guy when it comes to providing military experience, has taken attention away from Barack Obama's campaign after he said that John McCain's military experience does not qualify him to be president. General Clark, of course, ran for the Democratic nominee in 2004, but eventually lost to John Kerry, who possibly once touched a gun.



("Just because George Washington led our armies, it didn't mean he was qualified to be president.")

Clark set off the controversy Sunday when he said McCain's wartime experience as a Navy pilot and his command of an air squadron in peacetime did not provide him with experience needed to become president.

"I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," he added at the time.

McCain's whole schtick, obviously, is his military background and how he was famously a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton. Needless to say he's pretty pissed about this and has demanded that Obama not only dismiss Clark's comments but "cut him loose." And McCain has a good reason to be pissed, seeing as Clark's track record of support is a bit hypocritical. He's currently backing a man with very little political experience, as well as absolutely no military service. And in 2004, he backed Kerry, who was bitch-slapped in Swift Boat ads, as having wrongly glorified his own mediocre service in the Vietnam War.

Later, in a National Public Radio interview, Clark was asked about his statements in 2004 that Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, had "heard the thump of enemy mortars. He's seen the flash of tracers" and could lead in a time of war.

Needless to say, Clark's a bit of an idiot. According to this guy, I could be president if I kicked ass at Duck Hunt so long as I'm a Democrat  (I did and I am, call me, Clarky!). I respect the guy for his military service and heroism, but realistically I'll never get over the fact that this is the guy Madonna endorsed for president four years ago. I'm sorry, but that's credibility herpes right there.

In a news report that makes me beam with local pride, 60 cars were apparently vandalized in the parking lots of Orlando City Hall Saturday night, as the culprits spray-painted anti-Obama and anti-McCain phrases all over city-owned vehicles. Along with the graffiti were business cards left on each car with random political messages, some in support of Hillary Clinton and others that just made no sense at all.

The vandal or vandals appear to have political intentions; most of the vehicles were spray painted with anti Obama sayings, with ‘Obama’ misspelled several times.



(The next time I get into an argument with a Democrat I can now say, "Oh yeah? Well I read somewhere that Obama smokes crack.")

The vandals, who must've been F-ing ninjas, apparently pulled this off in the evening hours on Saturday because it first hit the news here in Orlando on Saturday night. Either way, I swear to Buddha that I was with friends who can verify my location and that at no point did I blackout and wake up with blue all over my hands. That only happened once, and Universal Studios promptly shut down the Smurfs attraction.

All of the gas caps were also removed from the cars, and it's still unknown if the vandals are a part of the new Central Florida growing trend of gas theft. I didn't think that gas theft could really be a problem when I first heard about it a few weeks ago, but then Tina Turner came to my door and asked if I knew how to get to the Thunderdome.

Also, if you read the story I linked, it obviously doesn't say that there were anti-McCain phrases on the cars as well. But there were. It was reported in one sentence of the Orlando Sentinel's 300 word article. It's just that nobody cares about the old white man, because that's not news. No, it's only fun to speculate who would scrawl anti-Obama and racist remarks on these cars and then speculate who could be so evil. Or at least allow readers and viewers to come to the conclusion that angry Republicans were behind this.

After all, it makes sense that Republicans would vandalize cars at Orlando's City Hall, on a day during a week and a month in which nothing of importance to national politics has occurred in Orlando, and they would leave cards behind with pro-Hillary remarks, as well as statements endorsing the legalization of marijuana. Damn those sneaky, pot-smoking Republicans.

(Photo: FOX 35 News, Orlando; MyFox.com)

While we've admittedly been lagging yesterday and today (three out of four of us do work, you know) we had been tossing around ideas for another "He Said, He Said." But being the dipstick Houdini he usually is, Ruffeus Q. Bumplemeyer kept hijacking every email session with things like, "How fucking great does the Dark Knight look?" and "If Heath Ledger were still alive do you think he would let me do him?" Of course this eventually led to us all talking about how much we can't wait to see The Dark Knight.



(I smell an infringement lawsuit.)

Seriously, I'm looking at my inbox and it's roughly 38 emails between four of us, and at least 1/4th are about incredibly inappropriate things someone would like to do to Michelle Williams while watching this movie (looking at you, Spanklin). But why wouldn't we be excited? So long as reviews like this and especially this are coming in, we'll be sporting proper nerd wood until the day we finally lay eyes on it.

So we decided to take this opportunity to mix it up a little on this last Friday of June and share with our small but incredibly loyal fanbase just how excited about this movie we are.

Benjamin Spanklin: "I'll preface this by saying that I love my daughter, she fucking rocks and I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world. Unless Christian Bale called me and invited me to a premiere tonight, just me and him arm wrestling and talking about what Michelle Williams looks like naked. Because I'll openly admit it — I've got a mancrush on  Christian Bale. I would wash his car and do his grocery shopping if he asked me to. And then I'd call him late at night and ask him what he was thinking about and he'd say nothing and then he'd say, 'Hey Spanklin?' and I'd say, 'Yeah, Christian Bale?' and he's say, 'Thanks for being my best pal.' Yeah, I'd give my daughter a kiss on the forehead, put some change for the bus in her pocket and kick her ass out the door for Christian Bale."

(ed. note: the rest of us secretly agreed, that was the creepiest shit ever)

Admiral ROCKdale: "When I was younger, I couldn't wait to see the Batman movie with Michael Keaton. I think I was 10 or 11 when that came out and I asked my parents at the time if they would take me to see it, and they wouldn't because I didn't do my chores that weekend. So instead of soccer practice the next day, my best friend and I rode our bikes to the theater and saw it. This was quite possibly the dumbest thing ever done by anyone, because my dad was one of our coaches. So when we didn't show up for practice, they thought something happened and they called the cops. When we left the theater, there were cops everywhere and they swarmed on us like we were Pacman Jones at a Girl Scout meeting. My parents grounded me for two months after that. The other day I talked to my dad and asked him if he remembered that. He laughed and laughed and said that I was such a dumb kid. Well, guess what, you old dick! I'm putting you and mom in a retirement home, tooth-fucking-sweet unless you rent me a limo and send me to see this at a cinema and draft house and pay the manager to let me have an open bar and six strippers. Mark my words you venomous old dictators."

Ruffeus Q. Bumplemeyer: "Every time I'm watching TV and a commercial for this movie comes on, I ask my girlfriend if she loves me. And she asks why and I tell her because if she loved me, she would go see this movie with me on opening night. Then she gets all excited and thinks that I've opened a door into my life that I normally keep her the fuck away from. But what she doesn't know is that I need her to go, because I'm going to get so ridiculously drunk to the point that I'm screaming and throwing things in the theater like I'm at the Rocky Horror Picture Show or a Tyler Perry Movie and she's going to have to drive me home, either from the theater, the hospital or jail. And when we get home and I apologize and beg for her forgiveness, I'm going to cuddle her to sleep. When she's passed out, I'm going to put Joker makeup all over her face and go to town on her."

Burnsy: "When I simply think about this movie..."

I'm a pretty well-traveled fella when it comes to the continental United States, having been to a "bunch" of states and visited "lots" of cities. Those are qualified geographic and cartographic terms recognized by Rand McNally, and they register just under "buttload" and "shitload" in terms of greatness. But even as great of a traveler as I am - bigger than Magellan and De Soto and all of their children if they had gay butt babies - I've never heard of Barnegat, New Jersey. And that's a good thing.

Because everyone in Barnegat, New Jersey, is a fucking idiot.



(Michael Dudikoff would be disgusted by Barnegat, New Jersey, if he was still alive. He is? No shit.)

The city shut down all of its public schools for a brief period Wednesday after someone reported seeing a ninja running through the woods. A ninja. In Barnegat-fucking-New Jersey. Because that's obviously where ninjas would choose to start attacking should the ancient Japanese warriors decide it's time for them to strike. But rest easy, innocent citizens and ninja-fearing people of Earth, it was a false alarm.

Turns out the ninja was actually a camp counselor dressed in black karate garb and carrying a plastic sword.

Police tell the Asbury Park Press the man was late to a costume-themed day at a nearby middle school.

Yes, I think the concern here is certainly that a ninja could be lurking in the woods of Barnegat, New Jersey, and definitely not that a grown man is attending a costume party at a middle school. Apparently it took only a half hour for the police and school officials to determine that there was no threat. They said the ninja gave himself away when they saw his shozoku was made of acid-washed denim, reeking of Drakkar as he open-hand slapped his pregnant girlfriend.