~ whilst laying on the roof this weekend, we could hear dipshits screaming and hollering every time a football or baseball team whose game was being televised scored a point. we have always had a knee jerk aversion to anything related to organized sports: sports team jerseys, sports television networks, sports bars, sports fans, and pretty much surrounding sports, exlcuding the sport itself. we always presumed this stemmed from growing up too fat and slow to play sports, being too unpopular to be picked for a team, and adherence to the typical jock vs nerd/punk schema.

however, finding ourselves seated to a middle-aged man and his 6-year-old son at a cafe this morning, a one-sided conversation clarified for us the source of the mindless nature of sports fans. this child was not even old enough to play football, baseball, and certainly not hockey, yet his father was asking him which sports team was his favorite and to explain his choide; the kid doesn’t even understand what the sports are about, yet he is already being taught to take sides over something ridiculous. this sort of indoctrination is as offensive to us as the act of sending children to sunday school or forcing a carnivourous diets upon them. imagine if our fathers had forced us to listen to deep purple or the eagles – or to shout with glee every time brad pitt signed a new contract; that is how absurd it is cheer when someone who isn’t you makes a touchdown.

~ forecast! when that report by general petraeus that we have been waiting for all summer is released, it will say ‘some things in iraq have improved, and some things have not’.

~ forecast! steve fossett crashed his plane and is eluding rescuers, so that when he is ‘discovered’ after surviving in the desert for two weeks, he will look like more of a hardcore adventurer.

~ john mccain doesn’t discriminate, except when he does:

“McCain told sophomore William Sleaster he is opposed to any form of discrimination, but he supports the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy and he opposes same-sex marriage.”

didn’t we say earlier that john mccain is a bastard?

~ r.i.p. mike wieringo

wieringo is the nicest guy we ever have ‘met’ at a convention. whereas many comic idols are rockstars about their work, charging cash for sketches or refusing to sign books outside of specified ‘autograph hours’, we came across wieringo sitting alone at a table at dragon*con, politely sketching anything requested – the flash, robin, wonder woman – by an enormous line of fanboys. for us, he sketched out a spider-man mugshot, natch.

(no, this is not the sketch; this is from the cover to ‘sensational’ #10)

~ i still think that john mcain is a bastard, but journalists’ late efforts to make him look like a loser due to his broke and failing presidential campaign actually make him look like less of one (bastard):

“Now, the Arizona senator and Vietnam War hero travels without staff or with a single aide and rarely with national media crews. Last week, he arrived in Manchester, N.H., on a commercial flight. He carried his own bags through the airport and his top two aides in the state drove him to his hotel.”

wow! he carried his own bags! what a sap!