Stereotypical Kiss Cams

Tonight I went to the Penn State basketball game with a few of my friends, and immediately became excited during a particular stop in play when I noticed they were going to feature one of my favorite media timeout entertainment events. It's a pretty much universal segment of the game that I'm sure all of you have seen at one point or another in your life, and it always elicits a great amount of reaction from the crowd. This leads me to believe that the masses are on the same page as me with their excitement.

Of course, I'm talking about The Kiss Cam.

If any of you haven't been fortunate enough to go to a sporting event in the last eight or so years, let me explain the kiss cam. It's pretty much what the name entails: cameramen across the arena or stadium focus their lenses on what usually appears to be a heterosexual couple, and then videoshot appears on the jumbotron. The couples are expected to squeeze in a quick smooch before the screen moves onto the next couple. Depending on the kissing performance of the couple mixed with their overall cuteness factor (more on this in a little), they get a congratulatory and usually satisfied cheer from the crowd.

(One of the reasons I love this is because it's almost like training for pornography. If you're able to kiss your significant other in front of 15,000 people, you'll eventually have less of a problem giving a woman a hot carl while being filmed by an Australian director on a bed in a studio. That is, however, neither here nor there. It's like tee ball before real baseball.)

So, I got all psyched for the kiss cam, watched it, and cheered with everyone else that was there. Afterwards, I tried to decide why I really always got so hot and bothered about the kiss cam. I immediately discerned that it wasn't because I felt I had a chance of getting on it, because I almost never take girls to sporting events with me, at least not a significant other. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, I rarely ever have a significant other. Secondly, I'd have to find a pretty good one to bring, that actually knew what was going on and would be enjoyable to watch sports with. (Not all women fit this criteria, believe it or not. No offense fair maidens, but I'm not dropping 80 bucks to take you to a Penguins game just so you can tell me the whole time that Fedotenko is sexy when you know if he wasn't a millionaire you'd say he looked like a Cabbage Patch kid.)

So, we've ruled out that I wanted my moment in the limelight. Other than that, I couldn't figure it out, and as I mulled it over I realized two things:
----I get way too excited, way too easily, about very unexcitable things. Like kiss cams, Angry Whoppers, and new episodes of Flight of the Conchords. (I lied, those last two things are very fucking exciteable.)
----The kiss cam almost always ends up the same.

It's true, no matter where you are, the kiss cam always has the same characteristics, night in and night out. (I'm basing this on the 40 or so games I've been at in the past few years that have included kiss cams. If you have seen something outside of what I'm about to describe, please e-mail me at srm5082@gmail.com and let me know that I should no longer stereotype.)

Here are a few of the usual couples you see on the kiss cam:

• There's always the normal couple, and they're typically in their late 20's to early 30's. Usually, the female half has to tap her man on the arm and point up to the jumbotron, because he's trying to get the beer man's attention so he can get another 8 dollar Coors Light. He looks up, gives that little close-mouthed smile and eyebrow raise that Jack from Will & Grace would flash when he saw a body builder, and leans in to give his better half a peck on the mouth. The crowd cheers, they both smile, and then the man goes back after the beer man. He's probably thinking, "I should keep buying these expensive Coors Lights while I can, because I still have money and it's good practice at being raped. This is important to me because I hear that 50 percent of marriages these days end in divorce, so I won't have money when that happens, and I'll already know what it feels like to be raped before her lawyers zap my cock with a cattle prod."
• There's always the guy and girl who look like a couple, but are merely friends. The guy is usually sitting there with his fingers crossed and his cock already propped up in his waistband, just in case the camera comes onto him and he gets to kiss the girl of his dreams. He's been waiting something like 8 years for this very opportunity, thinking that there's no way she'd deny the all-powerful kiss cam. The camera focuses on them, the kid bursts out into a brace-laden smile, and the girl immediately blushes to a shade of almost purple and commences to shake her head "no" in an emphatic fashion. This goes on for usually about 10-15 seconds, with the entire audience holding their breath, waiting for her to give in. They can't tell if she's just an uppity bitch, a Mormon, or both. They know that the issue's gotta be her, because they can tell from the dude that he would kiss anything, and that he just, in his head, offered his left testicle to whatever god he believes in if the girl will just lock lips with him. It eventually goes one of two ways: either the girl compromises and kisses the boy on the cheeeks, or she continues to shake her head no. Either one gets hearty boo's from the crowd, and more often than not, the cameraman will go back to them, hoping that the girl has had a change of heart or been slapped in the face for being such a prissy prude by someone sitting next to her, and the whole thing repeats itself. This time, the boo's get worse and she sometimes gets pelted in the head with a corndog.
• The parental married couple are usually in their late 30's to early 40's. They're both trying to get their kids to stop spilling nacho cheese on the people in front of them, so someone in the row behind has to tap them on the shoulders. They look up, the guy thinks about how this is about the most action he's going to get since last Valentine's Day when he bought her a Tiffany bracelet and Barry Mannilow collection, and the mom leans over and gives him a peck. She does this while keeping the angry look on her face, and is even more agitated now because she was bothered by some fucking cameraman that was trying to enhance the game experience for everyone. "Well, maybe he should try doing 8 loads of laundry and packing 3 lunches every fucking day, then," she usually says to her husband later that night in bed, when he asks if she's sleeping around on him.
• You cannot, I repeat, cannot forget the elderly couple. They are a staple of the kiss cam. I'm pretty sure the cameraman that finds the elderly couple gets a bonus for the night. There's not much to it, they just see themselves on the big screen, smile and look at one another with a look of love that has weathered the years. They lay a little peck down, and the crowd goes fucking NUTS. I guess this is because it instills a belief in people that love does actually exist, and that it can last through the years. Or, people can go senile. Same thing.
• The last one is the guy that I wish I could be if I was going to be on kiss cam. The guy that goes for it all. This motherfucker is usually in college, or someone around college age. They see themselves on the screen, and they're usually at least a little buzzed, or they're just one of those guys who aren't afraid of show-stopping. They immediately burst out of their seat and throw themselves onto their girl for a long, drawn-out and passionate kiss that lasts at least 10 seconds. The crowd also goes crazy. The only occurrence that gets a louder reaction is the occasional senior citizen that pulls this move. If you're at a game where this happens, go home and immediately put your ticket stub on eBay. It will pay for your schooling.
  

Chris Kringle is a Man Crush

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An Analysis of Cosmopolitan Magazine

I, like any other boy or man I know, would like to understand women. Even just a little bit. This seems to be an impossible task, and I often wonder why women think in such a different (sometimes irrational and vice versa, to be fair) manner than us. You know that face Kobe Bryant makes when a referee makes a call he doesn't like or agree with? That's pretty much the way my face is after every argument I ever engage in with the fairer sex. "Defensive three-second violation" is to Kobe as "You're the asshole that doesn't want to date me just because I threatened to cut your penis off and donate it to Cher" is to Scott.

As far back as I can remember, no man has had an explanation for any of this shit, and virtually no progress has been made. Instead, elder males always say the exact same thing: none of us can ever understand a woman. That's it; all they say. They don't even make the effort to try, mainly because there's no real obvious way to do it. If they get pissed at you and you try to talk to them, they just cry then run away and call their mothers, which immediately turns it into a triangle match with a female alliance based solely on irrational thinking. Not only will you not understand what they're thinking or what you really did wrong, but you'll almost instantly have two people harassing you, when all you were doing was trying to gain some fucking knowledge. It's like trying to figure out the ending of Gone Baby Gone on your first viewing, except Morgan Freeman isn't spewing awesome sagely wisdom everywhere.

But I think I may have found a way to understand, at least a little more than most men do now. It came to me during an epiphany when I was at Wal*Mart the other day (kind of like the time I decided to mix ranch and ketchup together and dip chicken tenders in it...an epiphany of the highest order) waiting in line to pay for my Faded Glory flannel shirts and copy of Stephenie Meyer's teen romance novel, Eclipse --not a joke. I looked at the magazine rack and saw this month's issue of Cosmopolitan, or as those in the know call it, Cosmo.

I picked it up and started looking at it, becaus sometimes I do that. I do this because they often have sexual tips that girls are supposed to perform on their boyfriends (or whomever, Cosmo tends to bring out the inner slut in folks) that are just totally hilarious. At least until one of them is performed on you. Because you see, at least 60 percent of the sexual tips I've come across in Cosmo have been things I would not, under any circumstances, want any woman doing to me. Some of these things are so harrowing and frightful that I can't even think about them, much less write them down here. They're so fucked up that, months or even years after reading them, I still remember what they are, and they make me cringe. (Just for the record, too, I'm not a prude, so it's not like I'm overly sensitive to people trying to experiment sexually. It should just be stated that I have a very perverted mind, and I'm not some softy who cringes when he reads about someone getting a handjob in a movie theater. This shit is beyond that.)

I was just checking out the picture of Jessica Simpson on the cover--because, well, she's hott--and considering some of the odd things I've read in Cosmo, when I just absent-mindedly said to myself, under my breath: "Some of that shit is just so irrational."

That's when the lightbulb went off. Women and Cosmo have something in common: Sometimes they make no fucking sense. And you know what? Every woman reads Cosmo. You could call this a generalization, but it's an accurate one. Have you ever been to a public swiming pool in the summer? Well, I fucking have, and every woman brings their copy of Cosmo. This starts in the 7th grade (and the way things are going these days, will soon drift down to 3rd, kindergarten. By 2012 Cosmo may actually manufacture a version of Hooked On Phonics for pre-schoolers. Five year olds will be able to read and pronounce the word "clitoris" before they're tall enough to ride a roller coaster at Cedar Point.), when they sit there with their friends and review style tips and giggle over sexual tips. This continues for the rest of their lives, and they continue to sit there with their friends and review style tips and giggle over sexual tips. This is assuming they still have friends once they reach 20, because due to the brainwashing from Cosmo that turns them into dirty whores, they've hooked up with everyone's boyfriends in a cat's cradle kind of clusterfuck and they all hate each other. It's not unlike an episode of Melrose Place.

Anyway, all of that shit was running through my head, and I still had the magazine in my hand when I got to the end of the checkout line. I started to panic, but somehow kept my head and decided it'd be a good idea to actually purchase a fucking copy of Cosmo. I put it down on the counter and was pretty reassured that the cashier wouldn't think I was a total fucking moron. There was that copy of Eclipse, which is predominately read by girls, that complimented the magazine pretty well. She probably thought I was buying these things for a girlfriend, because there was also a flannel shirt, which is undeniably masculine.

Either that, or she thought I was Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. If I'd had lotion in my cart, she probably would've made a joke about "putting the lotion in the basket," and, "it does what it's told."

My real intention in buying the magazine was to leaf through it (okay, read it cover to cover while wearing eye liner and spandex tights), and sort of analyze all of the things that made no sense to me. Then, I'd use my keen observational skills to see if any women were following the advice from the magazine, thus proving my hypothesis that Cosmo guides women in the wrong direction and--at least partially--contributes to their confusing nature that is often viewed by men as incoherent and irrational. So, here it goes.

Rationally speaking, the most justified way to start such a project would be with the cover. We all know the old adage that says people shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but this is not true as far as magazines go. You see, magazines always have "cover stories" that say what's going to be, allegedly, the most interesting articles in the magazine. So, I'll go from cover story headline to headline, then flip to the page the article is on and thoroughly analyze it for your reading pleasure. I'll try to be objective, or at least not completely mysognynistic. I'll start with least ridiculous and progress to most absurd.

Jessica Simpson: Even MORE uncensored: I chose this as least ridiculous because, well it's Jessica Simpson. She's pretty much a simpleton, so I just kind of figured, what damage could she really do? Then I opened to the interview, titled "Sexy Texan" and remembered that she is presently attempting to sing country songs and is failing more than miserably. Also, she's dating Tony Romo, who has a mole not unlike the dude in the third Austin Powers movie.

This interview was pretty insightful, in that it let me know why she's failing so miserably at country singing. She told Cosmo that she wrote most of the songs on her new album. Case closed.

About Romo and past relationships, she said (I'm not making this shit up) "I'd always fall for guys I wanted to save. For the first time, I fell in love with somone who saved me." I can understand the savior thing, because without Romo she may have ended up with fucking Pete Wentz, like her little sister did. This quote just struck me as ridiculous because it's one of those hokie ones you see high school girls sending to one another on Facebook bumper stickers. I learned from this article that she could've been a fucking staff writer for Sex and the City.

She also called him her best friend, and said it's nice to be in love with your friend. There's weird girl thing number one. Girls sometimes love eachother, and upon drinking a few martinis become what we call "barsexual." This is a brief amount of time where they like to make out just because they're best friends, and it's not supposed to be weird at all. Sure, it's enjoyable to watch for guys, but still different from the way we operate. I've been getting drunk with Evan since we were thirteen, and we've never made out (not entirely true).

She also calls him her rock. I've heard that one before.

Sexy vs. Skanky: This one was just pretty much pointless, I think. It was all obvious stuff, like it's sexy to smooch sweetly in public but skanky to have a tongue filled public make-out session. I did, however, find one extremely irrational portion. They wrote that it's sexy to "spread harmless gossip," but skanky to "spread STD's." Naturally, I agree with the latter assesment, but what guy have you ever met that is like, "Dude, I totally wanna wife that girl because she told me about that threesome Lenny had with those two Asian-American girls even though he had a girlfriend?" That's not sexy. Why the fuck would you tell a woman that it's sexy to gossip? Guys hate that shit, unless you're Perez Hilton, and I'm not totally sold that he's even a dude.

This was the bonus section of the magazine. What a ripoff.

18 Genius Ways to Make your Cash go Further: This one wasn't all that remarkeable, it just had the normal shit you do to save money when the country's in an economic crisis. You're not supposed to go out to eat as often or drive as much, and you're not supposed to buy Coach purses or berets made from the skin of starving children.

I was surprised to see that Cosmo didn't suggest the most obvious and simple way to make a woman's cash go further: Get a fucking boyfriend. Guys usually pay for everything, and, much to my chagrin, chivalry is not completely dead yet.

**Writer's Note: Apparently, when they passed Title IX, they failed to include a bullet that required women to go dutch on dinners, movie tickets, late night ice cream purchases, or Celine Dion backstage passes. Also, we're still not allowed to charge them for beer when they come to a party, or even hit them. This is like...okay I'm not even going to write the two analogies I had, because they're so inappropriate I don't even want to print them.

The Trick that Attracts Hot Guys like Crazy: First, they say not to disregard the basics. The basics: Dress like a slut and suck on a Tootsie Pop the entire night. Also, don't cut your hair like Natalie Portman in V For Vendetta. They then say to choose your wingwomen wisely. They throw out all of this shit about the girls needing to be outgoing; by this they mean keeps some fat, ugly bitches with terrible personalities at your side at all time. Eliminate the competition. They say to show off your neck and shoulders, and call this a stealthy tactic. Fuck that. Showing off half of your upper body is about as stealthy as Drew Barrymore is talented/appealing. Just take off the entire shirt and just rock a bra. Dudes like bras. Believe me. They go further, and say to subtly show off your lower half, which is just fucking redundant. Stealthily and subtly are synonyms. Waste less time, space, and paper and write "stealthily show off your entire fucking body."

Lastly, they say to put on your best game face. I was confused by this, but apparently Cosmo has a different definition of the game face than anyone who has ever seen Little Giants. My first impression was that they wanted women to take a tums and let it foam out of their mouth, and that they believed this would attract Kenneth Cole models. Apparently, they just think a game face is a smile. Needless to say, The Legion of Doom and Pooh's friend Eeyore never read Cosmo.

Remember, ladies, if you want to attract cute boys (and intellectual properties are totally out of the equation), just remember the old Dwight Schrute proverb: The eyes are the groin of the head.

You can also just be friendly, sensible, and funny. Believe it or not, you can get guys acting like yourself. I've seen it happen from time to time. People don't (usually) get married because a woman stealthily exposed her collarbone to the male at a bar once.

Total Body Sex: Finally, we get to the part where they tell you weird shit to do that guys are supposed to dig. There are a great deal of things that were disturbing about this, and they even mentioned the adrenal glands. To be honest, some of the suggestions weren't too bad. Some were actually pretty fucking rad. They said some things about the feet that moderately freaked me out, and they also said pinching a dude's nipples was a good idea. That's just downright scary to me, but I consulted a female source who claims to have experimented with this phenomenon and said there was no displeasure or fear evident during the process. I'm not sold on that, and I think further research may be necessary.

Props to Cosmo on this one thing, though. They taught me what the medical name for a taint is: the perineum. That's like the Holy Grail of anatomy names in that it's virtually impossible to find.

What He Thinks of Your Orgasm Face: I'm not sure if this even warrants an entire article. Basically, guys think of one of two things when they see the elusive O-Face: 1) Yes! I did it!!!!!, and 2) Is she faking it?

But Cosmo has an uncanny ability to state the obvious, kind of like John Madden when he's commentating a football game. Their first piece of advice for the woman is to breathe deeply, as if something like this is really in their control at such a moment. I'm pretty sure if you don't breathe deeply while reaching climax, you will start to grow faint and maybe go blue in the face. If this happens, then the guy will be frightened and maybe begin to perform first aid on you. They also might ask if you have asthma, and if so, should they retrieve your inhaler? They also say not to stifle your moans and groans. My question is why would you? Start cackling like a fucking hyena if you want to, men will dig it. This could be a bad idea, though, if you're doing the deed at a church lock-in at the local YMCA or you're in your bedroom "studying" while your parents are in the living room playing Yahtzee or Backgammon. If it's a situation like that, either stifle the moans and groans or put a pillow over your face...this could be a win-win if you're one of those girls that likes to refrain from breathing heavily. With a pillow over your face, they man will not see it turning blue. Also, if the guy has no visible reinforcement, he won't have the slightest clue whether you're faking it or not.

How to Outsmart a Date Rapist: I attempted to read this one, but when I saw the subline "Fight Like a Tiger," I just pretty much quit. Apparently, their definition of fighting like a tiger is to go for the soft spots, like the groin, eyes, knees, or nose. Apparently the Cosmo writers didn't bother to research the fact that most date rapes occur when the girl is under the influence of some sort of drug that renders them unconscious, which makes this virtually impossible.

So, to outsmart a date rapist, just don't go to raves or suspect frat parties. If you're at a normal party, don't be lazy and go get your own drinks. Keep your hand over the opening of the drink, and be vigilant. If someone drops something in your drink, don't consume it. There you have it.

Cosmo's Naked Quiz: They always have a fucking quiz. I figured I'd take it. Why not? This was a series of questions (obviously for women, but hey) that determines how comfortable you are being in the good old birthday suit. I scored in between the classifactions of, "You're a surface sex bomb," (whatever the fuck that means), and "You're unnerved when you're naked." Now, I know this is some stuff for girls, but allow me to be the first one to tell you that I am in no way unnerved by being naked. If you don't believe me, ask my roommates, who have seen me do naked lunges on more than one occasion--per week. This leads me to believe that Cosmo is giving girls the illusion that just because they don't parade around naked all the time like they're Carmen Electra or Angelina Jolie in Taking Lives they're overweight and should be uncomfortable with their bodies. Let me let you in on a guy secret: we like to see girls naked, and you are not as fat as you think (usually), and if you say you don't want to be naked because of your alleged obesity and we tell you you are not fat, we mean it. If we don't want to see you naked, we will either say something to that effect or will noticeably cringe when you disrobe.



So, there it is. My analysis of Cosmo magazine. I can't rationally say that it makes women act irrationially, but I also can't say it's giving them the perfect advice. There were a great deal of things in the magazine that astounded me, and a few portions that even forced me to unintentionally don the "Kobe" face. I do know that they should slow their roll a little bit, or maybe get the opinion of more male figures before publishing certain things, but then that might ruin all of the fun. Men will never totally understand women, and Cosmo is a conduit for that message.

This whole drawn-out analysis has made me believe that maybe Cosmo is a bit sensationalistic and that they cater to the female audience without really giving so much thought to what men like or what is truly a healthy direction to steer impressionable women in.

All of this could easily be my non-objective male viewpoint talking, though, and if it is I apologize for wasting your time.

I did learn one thing for sure, though. Men aren't meant to read Cosmo, just like adults aren't meant to read Highlights.

Socialism is really the answer.

There's an election coming up, in case you didn't know. It's been a constant subject debate amongst my friends (and also kids I really don't like at all) about who should become the next president. This is healthy and all, but I never really understood political arguments. No matter who is right, no one can ever be convinced that they're wrong, or voting for the wrong candidate just by something someone says in between shots during a game of Power Hour or while they're trying to beat Tom Morello in Guitar Hero. It's basically a fool's errand, so while my friends bicker incessantly about it, I kind of zone out and think about my own things, as I am so often wont to do in any situation that would require actual meaningful and serious thought.

Try as I might, though, I was unable to steer my mind completely away from the presidential election, and I got to thinking about something: John McCain's wife, Cindy, is probably the hottest 54 year-old woman I've ever seen, and that's saying something. I've seen a lot of women over 50 in my day, and I am not really an age matters kind of guy--it's just a number, right?

Then, I thought about how fucking goofy John McCain is. This lady is (or at least used to be) actually boning him. And she's hott. I know girls that would pay to take it in the ass from Carrot Top that wouldn't touch McCain's penis. It's just absurd. I'm not saying this guy wouldn't be a great president (he wouldn't), but based on looks and personality, he should be a real bottom feeder.

My question was, how can one of the foxiest cougars roaming planet earth be banging the poor man's Manchurian Candidate? A guy that is thirty years her senior nonetheless? First guess would be money, but I guess her family has a shitload of it, so she didn't need any more of that. (Apparently, her pops owns some big beer distributing company, so maybe she's just drunk all the time and doesn't care who she's fucking. People like that do actually exist.) So, I came to the conclusion that she had tied the knot with this ugly and pretty lame man because he was powerful. They married when he was a Senator and his aspirations to become the president before he reached the age of 90 probably slipped in somewhere during pillow talk.

I was disgruntled by this, but not for long. I mean, all my life I've known that money and power can ultimately get a great many women to like you and become attracted to you. I'm not saying all women are materialstic in this way, but some are. (Maybe some guys are, also, but it seems like we're a different shallow. We just scope out hottness initially and then let the chips fall where they may. It doesn't matter how fucking out of whack they are, at least at first, we just follow our cocks like idiots.)

Think about it: hottness is sometimes based on societal status and position.

Girls will say a certain person is good looking, and I'm pretty sure it's because of their fame. It kind of cloaks their judgement and makes them attracted to something they wouldn't normally be into. One huge example of this that comes to mind is Michael Cera. I constantly hear women talk about how sexy Michael Cera is, and how they'd love to date him. That's cool and all, he makes good movies (even though he is the exact same character in every one of them, like a young Ben stiller), but he's just not equipped with an ass chicks would be trying to wax if he was a no-name and they ran into him at a dance club. If he hadn't been in movies, girls would walk by him on the street and not even take a second glance. They might make fun of him for being a nerd and wearing courdorouys. But, he's famous, so his image gets skewed to attractive. One of my friends even said, "I'd love for him to be my boyfriend, even though things would probably be pretty awkward in the bedroom."

If you look around, instances of this are all around. I constantly hear girls asking Sidney Crosby to put it in their five-hole. If they saw Crosby walking down the street and he wasn't the savior of hockey in Pittsburgh, they probably wouldn't think a thing about him. This one may be a little inaccurate though, because he really is fucking sexy.

To really nail this home, I'd like to say that Chad Kroeger is probably not a virgin, and has probably banged girls hotter than I will ever even kiss on the cheek. Think about it. Chad Kroeger. Have you seen his fucking hair?? Alt-rock chicks dig him because he's rich and famous. Someone out there probably thinks he's attractive, just like some people out there think you can build a boat out of an oak tree, ball of yarn, and love.

This kind of thing happens in high school, too. Kids that play and excel at sports are found attractive at least partially for that reason. Believe me. So this starts young, and it'll probably keep starting younger, just like everything these days. Pretty soon third graders will be blowing rails off of their recess lady's ass, and girls will be digging boys who can launch one out of the park during a game of kickball (while yakked out, which is impressive).

Is there a solution to all of this? I think so. In fact, I came up with two.

The first is to change our government to a communist/socialist regime.

I know, I know, you're like "You fucking idiot. There's no way we're going at shit like those fucking Chinese. They make great food at an economical price but their government sucks even worse than ours does! What the fuck is wrong with you?

Well, hear me out. This regime would have to be like a real socialist one, where everyone has the same amount of everything and everyone works equally as hard as their counterparts. Basically, everyone would be on the same level of prosperity, and what not. So, girls would see guys as really physically and/or mentally attractive without anything else standing in their way.

I'm pretty confident that if this would've been set in motion 20 years ago, David Hasselhoff would never have gotten a girl in his life.

I'm not proposing this because I think that I'm some sexy dude who should be ramming on Mrs. McCain or Megan Fox or anything like that, but because I like to see a fair fight. I've gotten to know John Mccain from the shit he says to me on TV everyday to know that I know a lot better people than him--both in looks and substance--and they should be the ones that get first cracks at that cougar wife he's got.

Something like this will never happen, and many girls will remain materialistic. Far too many, actually. There will be women (and men) out there for eternity who search only for financial excess and security or a pretty face to make them happy for the rest of their lives. The little things will continue to mean next to nothing to some people, but I guess there will also be people who rely on the little things and the right things for pretty much everything. If you're one of those people (female), let me know. Especially if you like really little things. (I was, of course, referring to my cock just now).

My second solution of the problem is to get rich and famous.

A Solution to all of our Problems as a Nation

I like to keep myself abreast about current events and issues, even if I don't always totally understand their significance or meaning. I just like to know so I can converse with people without sounding ignorant--though I'm sure most of the time I do, because it seems like us college kids only talk about the important issues when we're drunk and pretty much unable to spew out a coherent argument about anything at all.

There are three stories in particular that I've been following very closely. The first one is the current state of the economic crisis and how the government is preparing to make their first attempt to ratify it. Naturally, this kind of thing scares the piss out of me, because I'm not the kind of guy that can struggle through a depression. I like air conditioning and Internet (for pornographic reasons, mostly...referring to the internet, not air conditioning) way too much.

The next one is the discussions that have begun between college officials and other radical people out there who are lobbying for the legal drinking age to be changed to 18. At first, I was like "Hell, yeah, let's do that shit." Then, I got pissed because I've been flying under the radar with drinking since I was 14, and I really came out of my shell around 18 but have had to live in the drinking shadows until now, just over a month until my 21st birthday. Fuck those kids, they should suffer too, is what I thought. But, now, I've got to throw my hat in and say I'm for the drinking age changed to younger people, if only for the greater good. And there is a greater good. We will address that soon enough.

DISCLAIMER: This next run-on paragraph has nothing to do with the rest of this story. It's about the election, and if you're not that worried about it, don't read it. Fuck, if you are worried about it, still don't read it.
The third story is Senator McCain's pick for VP, Sarah Palin. This really doesn't have much significance to do with anything, she just makes me laugh and also makes me feel great because I'm probably smarter than the governor of Alaska, which is a pretty sweet place if you consider that Carlos Boozer and Trajan Langdon both came from there. If I became their Governor someday (maybe I'll take that woman's place if Maverick does win, but that'd be for naught since the country will go to Hell in the proverbial handbasket within a month of his election when people finally realize that he is in fact the Manchurian Candidate). I'm not a terribly political person, and I don't walk around shirtless with "Barack and Roll" buttons pinned through my nipples, but I do know a cheap trick and a stupid woman when I see one (the two often mean the same thing). If you're one of those people that say the VP doesn't matter, then fuck you. That's idiotic. Maybe they don't always matter so much, but they're the next person in line for the Presidency of the United States!! John McCain has already lived to be older than probably half of the people in America. To expect him to live four more years while doing the second most stressful job in the country (the first is working on any project with Andy Dick's stupid ass) is just stupid, and you cannot tell me that Palin would make a good president. Like Bill Maher said, she's more like a stewardess.

Now hear me out on this. I'm not a political or economical analyst, and I won't pretend to be, but I think I've got a tentative solution to this problem and a great deal of other problems that are plaguing America. Actually, this little idea I'm about to throw forth could very well solve most of America's problems, and it starts with the consumption of alcohol.

Sounds promising, right?

Okay. If you're in college as a freshman, sophomore, and probably the beginning of your junior year, you can't drink legally, which means you cannot buy it. You still get your hands on it, sure, but most of you can't find a way to make it happen every day of the week (because older kids will not buy it for you everyday), and you most certainly don't sit around your dorm room and drink a few beers while watching the hockey game, do you? No, when you get a chance to drink, you binge, right? More often than not, you'll go to a kegger, pay five dollars and just get wrecked, which is cool. I like that, but don't you think if it was legal, you'd probably do it every night, at least a little bit? Kids don't get so excited to do things to excess if they're allowed to actually do it (unless they suffer from alcoholism, which I don't think is really a disease, just a set of balls and an equal dose of apathy about things other than boozing), but they would be able to buy it on their own and do it whenever they want.

In these times that try mens' souls, facts must be faced. If you decrease the drinking age by three years, sales of alcohol will rise. Significantly, also, because college kids can drink more often than anyone else, because all we really do is pay for a bogus education that some of us really don't need in the first place. Things like that drive us to drink, and also alott the time to do such a thing constantly.

So, if we get the booze flowing into the mouths of the young legally, more money will be spent that, if proper legislation ensues, could very well go to the government to be distributed to stimulate the economy. I know this is very far-fetched, and the beer companies may lose a bit of a profit while we're pumping the former underagers weekly food budgets into the governments pockets to spend on liquidating mortgages or bailing out Morgan Stanley (who has two first names even though they're last names), but once everything's all straightened out, the booze makers will be profitting from an entire range of teenage drunkards. That's a win-win situation if I've ever heard of one. The only problem will be getting the alcohol distributors on board, because some of them are still feel a little slighted by the whole Prohibition thing back in the early 1900's.

Okay, I'm going to have to cut this a little bit short and provide more of an outline of my brilliant plan in the stead of a real good presentation, because I'm getting pretty drunk and won't be able to put together any good thoughts for a while. I don't think I'm really doing anything that out of the ordinary. Just pretend I'm the government.

Anyway, the young kids start drinking. Drinking makes people gain weight. We can somehow make an advertising campaign to endorse kids gaining weight, and make a muffin top the new definition of aesthetic beauty. Get them to drink heavy beer, because sometimes it's more expensive, and shit like that. Maybe we could do an ad campaign that tells them not to eat bad foods and drink beer, because then they'll do it. (If you've seen the ads about smoking pot, then you know that this will absolutely work with flying colors.)

Okay, so then kids will start to drink heavily constantly, and will probably die younger as a result. Eventually, this will solve the social security problem, along with the obesity problem. If it's hott, it's not a problem. Just ask Shia LeBouef. Dude can get a DUI and it's fine because he's cute, but if I got one my parents would string me up by the balls.

So, there you go. All we have to deal with now is Russia, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan. Oh, and Canada. The quiet kid is always planning something.

I've been slacking off as of late, and I have no good excuse. I've been too wrapped up in my own ventures (all pretty much pointless) to devote the time that my ever-expanding list of Man Crushes deserves. My devotion to them was supposed to be shown here in all of it's splender by way of a monthly essay describing a crush and why he was to receive the honor of Man Crush of the Month. I haven't done one since May of this year, and even that one (Sidney Crosby and every Pittsburgh Penguin) showed my acute distraction--I couldn't even narrow it down to one guy, so I sloppily rambled about an entire franchise sports team that consists largely of Canadian men.

I've basically smacked the ideal of the Man Crush in the mouth, and for that I must repent, and I've decided to do that with the biggest and most epic Man Crush event of all time. (Bigger than a David Hasselhoff music video.) This is what's going to happen: I will conduct a study of worthy men who could theoretically achieve Man Crush status. I figure the best way to do that is to have people tell me who their Man Crushes are, and I will document them. My e-mail address is srm5082@psu.edu, and my instant messaging screen name is smpbball23. You can throw me your votes right there, and none will go unheeded. From these votes, I will randomly assemble a bracket laden with chest hair, metrosexuality, and mustaches, and there will be a fucking showdown. If you're lost, just think of the March Madness basketball tournament. It will work that way; I'm even considering doing pre-tournament rankings, but I haven't thought out a way to completely make that work as of yet.

Hopefully, by the end of this, we will be able to have a man crush of the year. It's going to be a difficult process, because a Man Crush is a very subjective thing. Everyone has different ones, depending on personal taste, hobbies and interests. For example, I'm sure someone out there is crushing on Bob Costas. This is because some people are douchebags. But, that's just my opinion, you see? So, keep in mind that the Man Crush of the Year may not be your favorite man crush, but you will certainly have a say in it. That's why you have to rock the vote. This will be kind of a warm-up for the Presidential election in November, but I'm pretty confident the Maverick won't be on our ballot or bracket.

Women, you can vote too. Maybe we'll do a Lady Crush thing someday soon.

Fall: Quite Possibly My Favorite Season, for Ridiculous Reasons

Football season is coming, which means Autumn is also on its way. This is one of my favorite times of the year, and I'm sure many people share that same sentiment. Many enjoy this season because of the transitional period that has been made famous because leaves change colors and fall on the ground, forcing children doing community service to gather them up for the elderly. (My parents attempted to raise me Catholic, and I had to be confirmed whether I wanted to or not, and the congregation felt that me raking up leaves for five of my twenty required community service hours would do me a solid as far as getting in God's good graces. At the time I wasn't as brash as I've become, so I went about my business without questioning the authorities that were forcing it on me and raked up some leaves for elderly people, which is insane, because the only elderly people who give a baker's fuck about their lawns hire someone to care for it, which would make it a lot less than a neccessity for us to rake their leaves. So, we were raking leaves for people that didn't give a shit. If I'd had the same attitude then as I did now, I'd probably ask my Sunday school teacher why we had to rake the fucking leaves during the Steelers game while the priests were feasting on spinach dip and alter boys while listening to Myron Cope. Sorry that was such a long parenthetical rant. I dont' think I can do footnotes on here.) Then, sometimes little kids jump in the pile of leaves, scattering them about again and forcing the person who raked them to do it all over again.

Obviously, this isn't why I like fall. I could care less how pretty the colorful leaves are. My mother once suggested that we take a tourist's train ride through Pennsylvania to check out all of the colorfull scenery, and that was--allegedly--the first and last time I showed a woman my left hook.

Truth be told, I don't think football makes it my favorite season either, because I'm a much bigger fan of basketball and spend most of the football season brooding over my home team (the Steelers) decision to continue to pamper and play an overrated fuck with a butt-chin who happens to have a pretty hott sister (Ben Roethlisberger). I used to play football, but was never that great--I was a 2nd string quarterback at one point, so I can compare myself to Matt Sarrassin and Jonathan Moxie--and I still love to watch it, but I don't think it's what makes me love fall. The only sport that can make me fall in love with a season is women's beach volleyball in the summer, which is automatically discounted because I refuse to let a woman's sport be the reason that I love anything except hidden locker room cameras.

So then, logically, I move to my birthday--November 6th in my case, which takes place during the heart of Fall. Some people get really psyched about their birthdays, and I guess this year I kind of am...I'll be turning 21, which is the most epic date of birth anyone can experience--at least in my opinion, but I'm drunk right now, so what does that tell you?--but normally, I don't get too excited. Sometimes, I'm completely irrational, but I think my viewpoints on birthdays are completely understandable: why would you celebrate the day that you were born? You didn't do a fucking thing, really. It's like celebrating winning an Olympic bronze medal because the Polish guy who initially finished third called the judges fat fucks and threw his medal on the ground whilst on the podium, leaving them no choice but to award it to you, the fourth place finisher.

Call me crazy, but shouldn't your mother be the one that celebrates this day? I mean, she did do all of the pushing and went through all of the pain for you to be born on this day, which I hear is pretty painful. Even your dad has more justification to celebrate than you, because he was in on the process and probably cut your umbilical (yeah, I actually spelled that right, I just checked) cord, so he can play a little cameo in the day's celebration. Then they had to put up with your shit for as many years as you've been alive. You shouldn't be getting presents on this day, you should be pouring out some drinks for your parents. So, birthdays are out.

I'll finally get to the point now, which is why I like Autumn: Halloween.

It took me a long time and an in-depth conversation with my friend Bryan to deduce that this is, in fact, the reason I love the season so much. As a younger child, I loved it because you had reason to dress up as someone that you weren't for one day out of the entire year. You could be an FBI agent clad in a Canadian tuxedo that carried a cap gun in a makeshift shoulder holster; you could be a Nascar driver; you could be the serial killer from Scream; you could be a fucking Power Ranger. (I was each one of these in my younger days.) You could even be a character from Sandlot with all of your friends, while one of them dressed as a gigantic dog and chased you around an urban area. (That's what I hope to do this Halloween.)

Oh, and you got free candy for being someone that you weren't. It's the most absurdly rewarding experience a child or adolescent could ever hope for. It was the pinnacle of the year, outdone only by Christmas, when you were celebrating someone else's birthday. That would be Jesus', which I guess is kind of acceptable because his birthday is different. His mother still went through labor and everything, I guess, but he was a miracle. That's way off point.

Then, as you got older, it was the one night when pointless and narcissistic vandalism was socially acceptable. You could throw eggs at the houses of the people who gave out carrot sticks and popcorn balls as treats, and on this night they were the evil miscreants who were to blame, not the kids plastering their siding with yolk.

Then, as you got to late high school and a college stage, and even into adulthood, there became another reason to love the holiday, which is why I love it so dearly now: Seemingly normal and non-promiscuous women were able to dress as complete and fantastic sluts, and it was socially acceptable.

Now, you might think that this is a terribly perverted and uncalled for reason to love any of the four seasons, but I don't think I'm alone on this. In college, dudes look forward to Halloween and put a lot of thought into what they'll dress as. So do women. They decide to dress as prostitutes thinly veiled as nurses, Catholic schoolgirls, secretaries (or sexcretaries, I coined that), ets. You get to party like a fucking mad person on Halloween, regardless of the day it takes place on in the week.

I was very skeptical about acknowledging my love for the holiday and Fall based on this simple matter, but during my freshman year it was proven to me clandestinely, and I didn't even notice it until years later. Initially, in college, I played basketball. We started practice on October 12th, and the worst experience of my life went on through the night of Halloween. The day following, we had a 6 am walkthrough, which consisted of my sadistic coach making us run around like fucking idiots before our 8 am class. And some people say that Halloween is the devil's day and is sacriigeous. I'm forever indebted to the Halloween of 2006 for convincing me that I loved viewing seemingly normal women dressed as pornstars and also convincing me to question certain religions that seemed hell-bent on extracting fun from the lives of teenagers. Shortly after missing any Halloween hedonism because I was asleep at 11 p.m. and dreading my early wake-up call from an inexplicable douchebag of a man, I quit the sport I'd loved for most of my life. I'd matured into a man that hated extremely unneccessary physical exertion and loved seeing women in short plaid skirts and tube socks. I've yet to look back.

Halloween gives young men hope. They see the girls that they have crushes on strutting about inches away from indescent exposure, and they feel that they may have a chance. They catch a glimpse of the inner sex kitten that encapsulates the minds of young women coming into their own. Regardless of how they act on the other 364 days of the year, guys can see that girls really want to let loose, and probably would if it wasn't for the whole slut/manwhore double standard, which will hopefully someday be miscredited by a fucking holiday that is really otherwise meaningless (except for the candy, toilet papering and mailbox bashing, of course). They get the feeling that they can somehow find that pseudo-slut that is hiding somewhere in most normal girls, and it is an undeniably beautiful thing. They know that these women are just like them in the way that they wouldn't dress up like Marilyn Monroe if some part of them didn't actually want to act like a chick that would bone a married United States President. Just like I wouldn't spend sixty dollars on a pair of PF Flyers and dress like Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez if some part of me didn't want to steal an autographed baseball from a blind man or steal homebase in adult hood after I grew a masterful mustache.

It goes both ways, too. For every normal and prudinistic (I'm fairly sure I just made that word up) woman, there is a contradiction. There are girls who embrace promiscuity year round, and are not afraid to show it. They show plenty of leg at any party they go to, and won't hesitate to wear a skirt with leggings--a weakness of mine--to a first-year seminar class. If you're out on Halloween and you're not feeling philosophical or daydreaming about what these one-day-a-year-skin-showers might be like if you got them into your dormitory shower, take this advice: the women that aren't scantily clad on Halloween are more often than not the ones that are extremely scantily clad the rest of the year. They're the ones that dress like they're looking to get paid to perform fellatio after Easter mass. These are the women who are not inclined to tease you, because they can do that with the rest of their year's wardrobe.

So, Halloween is a time when you can (usually) very easily tell the kind of person that someone is, and it's the one day in the year that effectively removes the gray area of wonderment that boys torment themselves over every other day. This is why I like Halloween.

And, this is why I love Fall.