Category Archives: Culture And / Or News

June 12, 2013

Worse On A Plane: Crying Baby Or Foul-Smelling Adult? NO CONTEST

By Jeff Vrabel
girl-crying-on-plane

Ugh, and she’s got the cool window seat too.

GateHouse — Over the years I’ve had occasion to fly with my children, now ages 9 and 1.5, to various spots along the East Coast, which I’ve done each time for one very simple reason: The “government” apparently doesn’t let kids fly by themselves, as I discovered years ago during a particularly heated and revealing conversation with an O’Hare ticket agent.

(There’s also a second reason: I prefer flying because I’ve driven with these kids in cars. And in cars, they trouble only myself and my wife for hours upon endless highway hours; on a plane, it’s maybe two hours, and they also get to annoy everyone else, which is bad for the rest of the plane I guess but makes me feel like I’m sharing the burden, which is comforting.)

I bring this up because of a recent Harris Interactive study that asked 2,000 adults which airline seatmate would be preferable: A crying baby, or a foul-smelling adult. If you’ve flown with any regularity you’ve probably been exposed to both; you’ve possibly been exposed to them at the same time. You’ve possibly been exposed to a foul-smelling baby or a crying adult, which would actually be a much better survey question, actually.

Yet this choice really isn’t a choice at all. It’s zero content. Go with the baby. Duh.

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5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, Dad Stories, Humor Columns

April 29, 2013

Company seeks volunteers to live on Mars, arrive with Earth-shattering kaboom

By Jeff Vrabel
Pictured: Basically how all this is gonna go down

Pictured: Basically how all this is gonna go down

GateHouse — Having pretty well established over the past two or three weeks that things on Earth are pretty unsalvageably jerked up, I think I’ll go ahead and cut my losses and apply for this one-way flight to Mars thing. I don’t know much about Mars, other than they have an Olympus Mons and we shot a rover there one time, but I’m pretty sure that if 90% of people support something on Mars, the Martian Congress will figure out a way to get it done.

Last week a Dutch nonprofit company called Mars One, founded by an entrepreneur named Bas Lansdorp, because his parents couldn’t think of a more Dutch name to give him apparently, announced it was looking for people to volunteer to become the first humans to live on Mars. They don’t need a lot — just four initial colonists to shoot on over, set up a colony and then, of course, never ever come back. It’s kind of like an interstellar-travel version of a Carnival cruise.

It’s a one-way permanent vacation that probably requires at least a little bit of travel insurance but according to Mars One thousands have already applied because, again, I mean, (makes “I mean really just look around” motion). But there are naturally questions about whether any company can swing the technology and financing, which is estimated to be $6 billion for the first four colonists and $4 billion for each subsequent crew of four, although the 10th crew is free and you get a free colony on your birthday.

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8 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, Dad Stories, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Quote-Fingers "Science"

March 25, 2013

Thoughtful NCAA Tournament Commentary From A 9-Year-Old

By Jeff Vrabel
bob knight digger phelps applebees

The gentlemen on the left once got fired for choking a dude, and now he sells mall food.

GateHouse — As is customary, I’ve been watching a lot of the NCAA tournament with my sons: the 18-month-old, who for the second consecutive year failed to turn in a bracket I could read, and the 9-year-old, who is making observations nearly as astute as those offered by professional sports commentator people. (So, to recap, you need to come back *after* halftime and play another 20 minutes? Will you need to shoot baskets during this time?) Several of them follow:

• I graduated from Indiana, so naturally they’re the house favorite. But the 9-year-old seems to consider a 1 seed as an incontrovertible golden ticket to guaranteed dominance, not only this in tournament but basically those in the next four to 30 years. And no evidence can convince him to the contrary, because 9-year-old minds are not equipped to process logic; happily, they make up for this shortfall by also being 100% unchangeable. I once had an argument with this kid about which pronunciation of the word “tear” I was supposed to be reading. I cannot tell you how right I was in this argument, nor can I convey how badly I lost it. I guarantee you he’s still upstairs shaking his head sadly and calling me a nincompoop.

• “No, see, Indiana is in the East even though they’re in the midwest, and Kansas is in the South even though they’re in the Great Plains, and there’s no North because the north sucks at basketball, and you’re right this doesn’t make any sense. This is why I haven’t explained the BCS to you yet.”

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5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, Dad Stories, Humor Columns

March 4, 2013

Right, Like The “President” Doesn’t Know What A “Jedi Mind Trick” Is

By Jeff Vrabel
president spock

As someone who was literally called “Spock” every day of my life from 3rd through 10th grades, this picture is highly gratifying.

GateHouse — Welp, late last week the President went on TV and mixed up a “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” things, and then the Internet died, keeled over, that very second, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Obviously we’re still hashing out whether this was a negative or a positive.

First things first: Here is what Obama said, and I warn you that if you thought his swearing on a fake Muslim Bible in his first inauguration was bad, the following may actually give you appendicitis: In a press conference about something having to do with a 400-year-long slap-fight with a sobbing John Boehner and those angry hobgoblins who work for the government who also hate the government, Obama started talking about science fiction movies, exactly all of which are more likely than a reality in which a theoretically functional government elects to install a land mine in its own front yard, then wakes up one morning and waddles right out on top of it. (That’s right: ALL sci-fi movies. “Lawnmower Man?” MORE LIKELY. “Spaceballs?” CONSIDERABLY MORE LIKELY. “The Running Man?” I’M PRETTY SURE WE HAVE THAT ALREADY.)

Obama, out loud, said the following:

“I’m presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow, you know, do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.”

For those of you who learned to unclasp a girl’s bra before the age of 27, this is a GRIEVOUS AND GHASTLY ERROR, on the order of that time he meant to write “Socialist” on his presidential paperwork and wrote “Democrat” instead, one that CONFUSES the “Star Wars” Jedi mind trick, most famously used by Obi-Wan Kenobi in order to get the galaxy’s most wanted teenager past the desert-planet equivalent of mall security, and the “Star Trek” mind meld, which is when Spock touches your brain and learns your bank passwords.

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12 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

January 22, 2013

Latest @NickMom: Things The Harbaughs’ Mom Probably Said To Them Last Weekend

By Jeff Vrabel
top-9-things-harbaugh-brothers-mom-probably-said-articleNickMom — And you thought your kids’ sibling rivalry was annoying.
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8. “Maybe you could compete to see who could get his high school crap out of my basement faster?”

5. “Did you know your other brother Jake is a heart surgeon? Now that’s a job with a future.”

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Read the full list at NickMom.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, Humor Columns, NickMom

December 12, 2012

The Mayan Apocalypse is coming. It’s probably time to call Britney.

By Jeff Vrabel
mayan-calendar

This image contains coded patterns which mystically herald the coming of the Apocalypse or some crap.

Island Packet (Stolen Hastily From November 2009) — ‘What do you think about this 2012 madness?” Paul Mitchell asks me via the newsroom’s instant-message system earlier this week. Paul Mitchell is a line of high-end hair care products, but he also is an actual human person who works in the newsroom. At one time Paul, being of a considerably younger vintage, failed to correctly identify Bruce Springsteen on the television. Illogically, we’re friends anyway.

The movie looks like silliness, I reply, but on the other hand, “Independence Day” was a pretty great movie in which many objects were indiscriminately exploded, such as the White House and Lone Star from “Spaceballs,” so it might be fun.

“Not the movie,” Paul says, an icy fear creeping noticeably into his online voice. “All I gotta say is I’m panicking if that mess comes my way in three years.”

Paul was, I surmised, referring to the Mayan prophecy that says the end of times will take place in the year 2012. It’s also the hook of “2012,” a new movie by destroyed-landmark fetishist and director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day,” “The Day After Tomorrow”) that stars John Cusack, both of whom, it turns out, appear in a strong percentage of Mayan prophecies. In their lore, Cusack is actually immortal.

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5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, Humor Columns, McClatchy-Tribune, Music Writing, Springsteen

September 4, 2012

Paul Ryan’s marathon lie: Great, here’s another politician who’s apparently not Kenyan

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: Congressman Ryan

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GateHouse — Let’s get this out of the way: Paul Ryan’s for-realsies marathon time — the four-hour one that an official timer clocked officially in official 1990 using an official 1990 stopwatch, which played Bell Biv DeVoe music — totally beats mine. Hell, Sarah Palin’s marathon time beats mine, and trust me, this is not information that makes it easy to get out of bed every morning.

We could spend the better part of the afternoon inventorying the politicians who have run faster marathons than me — it’s actually most o of them, with the exception of Al Gore, who I shall now take to calling “An Inconvenient Turtle.”

But that’s the point: We can do that because I remember mine. Everybody remembers their own PRs, whether they’re two hours or seven. We love them unconditionally, we spend loads of time awkwardly shoving them into conversations that go on to cover the status of our knees, the contents of our running mixes, the number of packets of nutrient-rich goo we forced ourselves to absorb, the emotional attachment we have with our shoes (the majority of which do not love us back), and if you’re really lucky, some details about bathroom breaks. Point is, PEOPLE REMEMBER. God, you could start a second Instagram with the number of shoe-pictures alone. (Note: <– OH GOD, NO ONE DO THIS.)

Which is why when Ryan told a radio host that he couldn’t remember his marathon PR — “under three, high twos, I had a two hour and 50-something” — my eyebrows immediately went up. And not just my eyebrows — which was good, as I burned most of them off in a 1996 silver-nitrate-related chem-lab mishap — but the eyebrows of my actual running friend Jamey, who has run Boston three times and has been to known to talk an awful lot about his socks. Which WICK MOISTURE! Y’all aren’t even ready for the amount of moisture they can wick.

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13 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

August 20, 2012

Innocent Mars rock becomes most famous space-laser-debut victim since Alderaan

By Jeff Vrabel

Actual footage

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GateHouse — Is there some reason the Mars Curiosity rover isn’t the lead news, the 720-point dominant headline, the screaming neon BREAKING NEWS ALERT of the day, all day, every day? Is anything else truly happening that resonates on such a primal, galactic, mysterious, steam-shooting-out-of-your-ears level? Paul Ryan? Preseason football? A guy from “Saturday Night Live” talking about tax policy? This is all you’ve got? Nothing else that can match, in pure wonder and damn-right impressiveness, a sedan-sized space car that we parked on a DIFFERENT PLANET? Oh wait, according to this Major American News Website, “Boy’s head lodged in guardrail.” Sorry, professionals! Get back to work!

Well, while the TV networks clamor to see if anyone might show up with a saw, here’s the latest news about the Mars Curiosity rover: It is shooting Martian rocks with laser guns.

To recap: Last fall, we sent a thing to Mars. Shortly after, it arrived at Mars. If this was the end of the story — Thing We Shot At Mars Actually Freaking Made It To Freaking Mars — it would be cause enough for a joyous celebration tinged with childlike wonder, the turning over of some cars, and, I don’t know, probably some half-naked frolicking in the streets of whatever place space people hang out most — I guess that would probably be New Mexico? Where do nerds hang out these days? Is GenCon still happening?

Yet you likely do not know this story, which appears currently on a Major American News Network’s Web Site next to another headline that reads “Man floats with dog to ease its pain.” Which is sweet, unless he’s floating with the dog by holding onto it, which I have to surmise would cause more pain that it would ease, what with all the thrashing and wet-dog smell.

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16 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Technology (Probably Apple)

August 3, 2012

Synchronized divers are the real Olympic heroes

By Jeff Vrabel

“Ew, you guys are terrible”

GateHouse — A few random thoughts about the Olympics, which I feel qualified to offer, as I spent a good part of my afternoon getting emotionally invested in the women’s weightlifting competition for what I’m pretty sure is the first time I was ever aware there was a women’s weightlifting competition. I’m not entirely sure how it ended, or who won, or if anyone won? I think the American ended up with a bronze, but of course it’s very hard to tell with all the grunting.

The Olympics, every four years, offer excitement, national pride and the cold inveterate knowledge that I work out for six hours a day for the 15 or so years I have left on Earth (a psychic once told me I’ll be killed by a hydrofoil in 2027, long story) and never be in a good a shape as people who played water polo at the *last* Olympics, let alone the Olympics currently underway. I’ll also never be in as good a shape as women’s weightlifters, which I’m making up for by grunting loudly while accomplishing menial tasks around the house, such as dropping the kids off in the morning, or perhaps making a smoothie.

But I’ve made up for this latest example of my physical inadequacy by becoming the planet’s biggest fan of synchronized diving, which combines two of my favorite things about the Olympics: diving, and two people doing the same thing at the same time for no discernible purpose whatsoever. I’d be deliriously happy if you synchronized literally everything about the Olympics: synchronized javelin, synchronized equestrianing, synchronized boxing, synchronized Bob Costas, synchronized godawful post-competition interviews, synchronized ruining the results of swimming with “Today” promos, synchronized Skydiving Queen Elizabeths, and SERIOUSLY why didn’t anybody think of that? SYNCHRONIZED SKYDIVING QUEEN ELIZABETHS. That happens one time, and no one would give a hot silly darn who “Michael Phelps” is. Frankly if they could synchronize the people who do the synchronizing, I would die a very happy man, via an apparently epic hydrofoil crash.

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5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

July 9, 2012

Chuck E. Cheese Replaces Mascot, A Nation Mourns Its Lost Innocence

By Jeff Vrabel

 

This guy needs replacing? Why?

GateHouse — I was in a Chuck E. Cheese one time, once, for a birthday party for the son of a friend we no longer talk to because he held his kid’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.

This was years ago, before I knew precisely what the phrase “having kids” truly meant, before I realized you could wiggle your way out of birthday parties at the last minute (if I ever tell you “the baby has an ear infection,” I am lying to your face), before I fully appreciated that “being a parent” meant “benefiting from astronomical, near-miraculous odds to be born at this age, in this time, and then burning the impossibly precious gift of life in a windowless hellscape filled with shrieking and pepperoni and aging robot mice who sing Beach Boys songs.”

In that few hours, I learned a lot of things about both Chuck E. Cheese and pain, mostly pain. But joking about that is silly, because that is the POINT of Chuck E. Cheese, that it makes you want to invent a way to beat yourself into unconsciousness with breadsticks and everyone knows it, but ugh “the kids like it” or whatever so you do it, because who needs $400 anyway?

Well, I’ve got news: Things are about to change. Get ready to forget everything you knew about Chuck E. Cheese. Well, except that part about the loudness, and the shrieking. And the wanting to brain yourself with breadsticks. And the dead-eyed robots singing iconic 1960s surf songs you know what, whatever, just remember everything but the mascot.

Chuck E. Cheese announced last week that it’s replacing its signature mouse, rebooting Chuck, re-mousening its brand, feeling that the current rodent is too outdated, because when your business plan involves group-plumpening kids by the dozens and then plugging their brains into shooting games, you want to stay current. According to the AP, Chuck E. Cheese’s parent company, which goes by the decidedly less funtacular name of CEC Entertainment, Inc., is launching a new campaign featuring, and I’ll just quote this because there’s really no way to improve upon its awesome: “a revamped image of Chuck E. Cheese as a hip, electric-guitar-playing rock star.” I will now pause to let this amazingly marketed horror of that sentence sink in for a minute, while I play some skeeball.

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228 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Humor Columns, GateHouse, Dad Stories, Culture And / Or News, Terrible Things People Eat

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