Entry 436: How Much Are You Who You Were When You Were a Kid?

I haven't written much about politics on this blog in a while.  It's been a conscious decision.  With our current president dominating the ether (though, maybe, hopefully less so than before -- is his act finally getting stale?), I need a reprieve from all that when I'm writing this blog.  I am still paying attention though.  And I am donating to Democratic candidates to retake the House and possibly, though likely not, the Senate.  I recommend you do the same.  Dems are by no means perfect, but they really are the only choice for people who care about America's democracy.  Right now, they really are the only choice for anti-Trumpers.  And there are more anti-Trumpers than Trumpers, even if you add in the soft supporters -- the people who say, for social reasons, they don't really support him, but actually do, because they voted for him and they vote for all the other Republican candidates who cover up his misdeeds -- the people who think saying they "disagree" with one of his crazy lies is a courageous act of independence -- but the Trumpers hold outsize political sway because they vote more reliably, and because they have a huge demographic advantage, both through anti-democratic gerrymandering and unfortunate natural sorting (Dems are mostly packed into big cities).  But Democrats can overcome this disadvantage with just a bit of extra turnout at the polls.  We've seen this in special elections already.  And money can help with turnout by raising awareness (running ads, knocking on doors, etc.).  So, if you can spare time or money (and most people can) donate or volunteer with ActBlue or the DNC or your local candidate or something, and if you live somewhere where it matters, or even where it doesn't matter, vote!

In other political news, Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation went from being a done deal to being, well, still pretty much a done deal, in my opinion, but perhaps one that's more politically risky for a handful of Republics (e.g., Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski) than before.  The only chance Dems have of blocking that seat is to somehow delay a confirmation vote until after the midterms and then win the Senate, a prospect I give roughly 0.1% chance of happening.  For one thing, Republicans know this, so they are almost certainly going to vote before the midterm, and they are almost certainly going to vote yes unanimously (again, in my opinion).  There will be some hearings and a lot of talk about "standards of evidence," and then they will toe the line.  And even if they don't, even if they somehow don't have the votes to confirm, there is only a slim chance (maybe 1-in-3) of Dems winning the Senate in November, anyway.  They have to net two seats out 35 of which 25 are currently held by Republicans (or something like that).  So, even if the "blue wave" comes to pass (a big if) it still might not be enough, in which case, it might not be Kavanaugh, but it will be somebody just as bad.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Today's big question: Do you consider the accusations of sexual misconduct by against Kavanaugh, by a childhood acquaintance, Christine Blasey Ford, as disqualifying from Supreme Court confirmation?  I say yes, but I already would vote against him, if I could, for many other reasons, so I'm not impartial.  If I really liked his jurisprudence would I consider the accusations disqualifying?  That's trickier.  So far, there is just one allegation against him from one person at one time.  Is that enough?  It depends on, among other things, how credible it is, and this one does seem to be credible to me.  Ford is a well-respect professor, and there is evidence she's not just making this up now -- she told her husband about it years ago, as well her therapist, although she didn't name Kavanaugh explicitly to the latter.  Also, the man who was allegedly with Kavanaugh at the time, Mark Judge (not to be confused with the creator of Beavis and Butt-head), has written extensively about his escapades of blackout drunkenness, so it's certainly possible that the event happened and neither man remembers it.  It's also possible Kavanaugh remembers it and is lying when he says doesn't.  And of course it's possible Ford is lying or completely mistaken, but that seems much less plausible to me than the first two.

My opinion: I think something happened.  Whether it was an attempted rape or just kids doing stupid shit because kids do stupid shit, I think we will never know.  That's the other thing: Kavanaugh was not an adult when this was said to have happened.  That muddies the water a lot for me.  Kids often treat other kids inappropriately and cruelly, because their brains aren't developed enough to completely understand how their actions affect others and because they lack impulse control.  I've seen kids, ever older kids, 16-, 17-years old, do fucked up sexual things to other teenagers and didn't think it was wrong.  I even thought it was funny at the time.  Once a wrestling teammate of mine put his dick on another teammate's forehead while he was doing a bench press, as a "joke," (the funny part being that the guy couldn't do anything about it because he was holding 200-pounds in his hands).  I thought it was hysterical, everybody did, except the guy who the got the dick on his head.  He was mad and embarrassed, understandably so, in retrospect, because that's sexual harassment.  Obviously, something like attempted rape is a whole different ball of wax, but maybe that's not what was intended.  Maybe Kavanaugh and his friend thought it was all a joke or thought that that's what you do when you want to hook up with girl, because they were privileged, shelter, dumb-ass kids, who went to all-boys school and didn't learn how to interact appropriately with opposite sex.  Should this be held against them into adulthood, if there is no evidence they behaved this way as adults?  How much leeway should we give to kids to grow up?

My answers to these questions are that we should give people a lot of leeway and not judge them for what they do when they are kids.  Childhood, after all, is when we are supposed to learn from our mistakes, even our big mistakes.  However, with respect to Kavanaugh, there is a reverse Catch-22 for his detractors.  It goes like this: He is now an adult, and by categorically denying the charges against him, he is in effect calling his accuser a liar, impugning her character, and giving carte blanche to his supports to go after her.  If you believe Ford to be credible at all (which I do) then this is a disqualifying act.  It's not the original act he did as a child; it's the false denial he did as an adult.  However -- this is where the Catch-22 part comes in -- if he admits he did it, then instantly the public outcry would be so great, he would likely not to be confirmed anyway.  So, he now can't win.  (Unless enough people agree with him that his accuser is lying or wrong, in which case, he can win, and that's probably what's going to happen.)  What Kavanaugh could have said is that he takes allegations of sexual harassment seriously, but he doesn't remember this event happening, but he did drink as a teen and do stupid things he doesn't always remember now (like most people), so although he would never have tried to rape somebody, if he did touch somebody in an inappropriate, scary way, he's very sorry, and it's only because he was a drunk dumb kid, and that's not who he is today, and not how he ever behaved as an adult.  Furthermore, he's deeply troubled by the distress this has caused Ford over the years, and he's reaching out to her directly to try to make amends and reconcile the situation as best as possible.  That is the more human response, and one that would, I suspect, more accurately reflect the truth.  It's also the tougher row to hoe.  Would this be good enough for people?  Would he still get confirmed if he said this?  We will never know, because he didn't say this.  He took the easy way out, which, I think is also the dishonest way out, and this is the problem.  In general, forthrightness is not Kavanaugh's strong point, and this is another major demerit.  We should demand a higher level of rectitude from Supreme Court justices.  I mean, isn't Clarence Thomas enough?  We need another one?

Anyway...

I think that's enough for now.  Until next time...

Entry 435: Ain't No Cure for the Sunday Night Blues

The Sunday Night Blues are in full effect tonight.  You know that feeling of ennui mixed with sadness you get as a kid on Sunday night because you have to go back to school?  Well, I get that as an adult too.  It was really bad in grad school, because, like Susanna Hoffs, Sunday was my fun day.  It was the only day of the week I took a prolonged break from my research, and I would go to my local water hole and watch football with my friends all day.  When I returned home, I was still two-thirds drunk and crashing hard from my high of Miller Lite and Buffalo wings, and that's when the blues would creep up with a vengeance.  After getting married the feeling wasn't as intense, and since having kids I don't notice it as much (Who has a time to wallow in languor with kids?), but it still returns from time to time.

Today the conditions were perfect for a unwanted visit -- specifically, the weather.  Just like Scott Weiland, I think so much depends on the weather, and it has been brutal this weekend -- a relentless downpour.  It came at the worse possible time too because as I mentioned in my last post, I have Lil' S2 by myself right now, and not being able to go outside makes things so much more difficult.  Yesterday morning, we went to the park, even though it was very soggy, because it was the only two-hour block in which rain wasn't in the forecast.  As it turns out, we didn't even get that.  We got caught in a cloudburst and had to hurry home.  Only for some reason Lil' S2 refused to ride in the stroller, so we couldn't even hurry.  We meandered home in the driving rain, while Lil' S2 threw periodic tantrums because he didn't want to walk but also wouldn't get in the stroller.  We took about a half-hour to travel a route I could finish in literally three minutes if Lil' S2 would've just let me push him in the stroller.  We were both as drenched as you could possibly be.

Today I didn't even bother to try to leave the house.  It was raining so hard all day, we would have gotten soaked just going to the car.  And I didn't know what to do anyway.  A museum would require street parking (no thanks), and I'm not sure Lil' S2 would go for one of those indoor play areas by himself.  I could envision us going there and him not really being into it, and not interacting with the other kids, and just hanging on my pant legs.  So, we just stayed home.  I tried to make the best of it, but there is only so much you can do, especially when you have a kid who wants to be entertained all the time.  He's usually not like that -- he's the more independent one of the two -- but with S being gone, he's been super clingy, and I mainly indulge it because I know he misses his mom.  So, basically our day consisted of hide-and-seek for 15 minutes, ride scooters on our the deck for 15 minutes, read a story for 15 minutes, watch iPad for 15 minutes, lather, rinse, repeat.

Also, I was constantly checking scores of games on my phone, which is a terrible habit, and such a colossal waste of time.  I can't help it though.  I managed to curb my social media use drastically.  I never check Twitter anymore, and I only lurk on Facebook (I haven't posted in a long time) for maybe five minutes a day.  But I can't shake the compulsion to constantly look at sports scores on my phone.  I am in a super tight fantasy baseball match, which is my excuse today, but there is always something for which I can make an excuse.  At some point I just need to put down my phone and not pick it up.  I somehow managed to make it through the first 35 years of my life as an avid sports fan without having to check my phone every 30 seconds.  It's just so depressing to look at the clock, realize I've been awake for six hours and the only thing I've "accomplished" is following my fantasy teams.  Now, to be fair to myself, it is hard to focus on anything of substance when your primary task is watching your kid(s), but still I could be doing something else.  Taking up crochet would be time better spent than what I do now.

Speaking of sports and time, this website is pretty fun if you're a baseball fan.  It tells you who the first younger player than you in MLB was, and who the last player older than you was.  The first player younger than me was a pretty good third baseman for the Pirates and Cubs name Amaris Ramirez.  The last player older than me is to be determined, because it hasn't happened yet, but it will likely be ex-Mariner closer Fernando Rodney who's got me a by a few months, and is still pitching pretty well.  (The only other option is Bartolo Colon who's 45 and kinda sucky.)  In the NFL, there's a decent chance it will be none other than the ageless wonder Tom Brady, who was born in the same month, in the same year as I was, a few weeks before me.  I feel like we're basically best friends because of this.  Actually, I'm not sure Brady would be such a great hang.  He had a MAGA hat in his locker and called Trump a friend, and he's also into some weird fitness shit -- the sports equivalent of Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP garbage -- so I'm not sure we would get along.  Although probably we would, I get along with almost everybody.  But given the opportunity, I think I would rather kick it with Aaron Rodgers.  He seems cooler. 

Anyway, I think that's enough of that.  Until next time...

Entry 434: Dinner and a Movie

I guess it was a movie and dinner, if you want to be chronologically accurate, but S and I actually got to go out tonight without our kids like real people.  We are finally done with daycare, after five years, now that Lil' S2 is in preschool, and when we stopped, the woman who runs our daycare gave us a gift certificate to a nearby restaurant and four hours of free babysitting -- some sort of customer appreciation gift.  It's a very nice gesture, especially from somebody who wasn't always the easiest person to deal with.  Let's just say, I appreciate the gift, but I appreciate being done with her daycare more.

We took the opportunity to see Juliet, Naked at our local "arty" theater.  I wanted to see it, because I read the book, and I'm always keen on seeing a movie after I read the book, even if the movie looks bad, or, as in this case, I didn't really like the book.  I mean, the book was fine.  It's by Nick Hornby, and I thought I really liked Nick Hornby, because I loved High Fidelity the movie and then I really loved About a Boy the book (the movie was solid too).  But then I read a few of his other novels -- How to Be Good (bad), Slam (decent), Juliet, Naked (so-so) -- and realized that maybe I don't like him that much.  But Juliet, Naked the movie was enjoyable -- cute is an apt description.  It wasn't brilliant, award-winning cinema or anything like that, but that's not what it was trying to be.  It was really good for what it was.  It was like a Judd Apatow movie (actually he produced it), without the too-clever-by-half dialogue and without being 25 minutes too long.  The three main actors -- Rose Byrne, Chris O'Dowd, and Ethan Hawke -- were all excellent.  I really like Ethan Hawke now, because I heard him on Bill Simmons' podcast, and he was super into talking about his career and his old movies.  He geeked out on them like a fanboy, and I like it when celebrities do that.  I get annoyed when they act too cool for school about their work.  It's refreshing when artists appreciate their art as much as you do (which, coincidentally, is a big theme in the movie).  After Hawke, Simmons had Denzel Washington on, and the difference couldn't have been more stark.  Washington was interesting, and he came off as a decent guy, but his attitude about his old movies was like "You still care about that?  Move on."  Anyway...

Oh, another great thing about Juliet, Naked is that it Matt King (aka Super Hans) had a bit part in it.  I love that guy.*

So, holiday tomorrow.  We have the pool or the beach on the docket.  I guess it's the last weekend for that type of thing.  I mean, with climate change the weather will probably still be really hot here for another couple of months, but Labor Day is usually when everything closes for the season.  I'm pushing for the pool, because it's easier/less expensive.  It's not my call, though.  Our friend is the one with the pool membership, so if she says she wants to go to the beach, then I guess the beach it is.  S said she will take the kids by herself, but I'm not looking for a get-away day.  I want to do something with my family -- just maybe something that takes three hours instead of eight hours, that's all.

Also,  I want to spend time with Lil' S1 because I won't see him for a few weeks.  S is taking him to South Africa with her for a work trip.  Her parents are also going, so it's a quasi-vacation.  I'm not super stoked about it to be honest.  I get really worried when I'm away from my kids for more than a day, especially if they are out of the country, and also it makes me nervous to be the only one around with Lil' S2.  I keep having these awful thoughts of me having a brain aneurysm, and him being trapped alone in our house until somebody somehow realizes I'm gone.  But, you gotta live life, right?  You can't seal your family off in a protective bubble.  And even if you could, what would you do if it ran out of oxygen?

And truth be told, the trip actually comes at a decent time.  When I'm the only parent in town, it's really hard for me to make my Krav Maga classes, which is usually very irritating, but I recently injured my shoulder and could stand to take some time off to try to get it right.  Getting old(ish) is a bitch.  I'm actually not that far off, performance-wise, from where I was in my 20s.  I'm nearly as fit and maybe even a bit stronger now, but I just get destroyed by injuries in a way I never did before.  Seemingly small things linger for weeks, and I can't seem to go longer than a month or two without something major -- pulling a hamstring, spraining my thumb, throwing out my back, fucking up my shoulder.  It sucks.  Maybe I need to start taking HGH.  Anybody know a good PED dealer?

But I really shouldn't complain.  I received news recently that one of my cousins needs a liver transplant -- another one.  He already had his original liver removed because it was cancerous, and now his body is rejecting his new one.  Apparently his chances of getting a different, better new one soon are decent, but still -- perspective.

On that cheery note... 

Until next time...

*Weirdly, I can't find Matt King being credited for being in this movie, but I swear he is.  He even has a line.  I suppose I could have mistaken somebody else for him, but I don't think so.  Also, there is no part listed on imbd that fits the description of his (?) role in the movie.  So, I don't know.

Entry 433: Five Quick Thoughts

It's 9:19 at night, which means I have about 15 minutes until I will struggle severely to string together coherent sentences.  So, I'm giving you five quick thoughts and then I'm out.

• In the past three weeks, I attended four kids' birthdays, two of which are my own.  They went fairly well.  Lil' S1's was especially nice.  We had it at a swim club at which our friends are members.  A pool is a good place for a six-year-old's birthday party.  It was not blazing hot (high 70s), so when the sun went behind a cloud it got a bit chilly in the water.  Kids just don't care though.  They'll be in the water shivering, teeth chattering, refusing to get out, "I'm not c-c-c-c-old."
  
• Speaking of birthdays, mine is coming up in a few days.  I might have a little celebration with the family, but nothing beyond that.  I'm very birthdayed out.  Maybe I will do something big next year for my 42nd -- my "Jackie Robinson Birthday," or if you're more into sci-fi than baseball, my "The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything Birthday."
  
• As you've surely heard, John McCain passed away recently.  Like most people who lean left, I have mixed feelings on him.  I never cared for his politics, and every time I heard him called a "maverick," I thought of the Mark Twain quote, "Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep 'til noon."  I was thoroughly underwhelmed by his fecklessness in the face of Trumpism, but he did shoot down Obamacare repeal, and he gave some good speeches, and he was way better than any current Republican politician I can think of.... so, you know...
  
• I started listening to a new podcast: the second season of In the Dark.  It's really good, but it could probably be cut down by about 20%.  That's basically my feeling on everything these days: good, but could have been shorter.
  
• The Mariners are falling out of the playoff race, and it makes me sad.

Until next time...

Entry 432: Petty Life Stuff

First full week of school here at the G & G household.  It's a year-round school, if you are wondering about the early start date.  I prefer year-round.  There's no reason in today's non-predominantly-farming-based society to have such a long break in the summer.  It makes more sense for college, because it gives kids a chance to go home and/or get a summer job, but I don't see the point for elementary school.  Also, I heard that kids retain knowledge better if their gaps in school are shorter.  I've never actually read such a study (or even read an article detailing such a study), but it intuitively makes sense.  So, I'll just go with that.

This year is Lil' S2's first at a proper school.  He's in pre-K3.  It's nice for me logistically -- one-stop drop, so I save about a half-hour on my morning commute -- but it's been rough on the little guy so far.  This morning was the first time I didn't leave him in tears, but he still had to be coddled by his teacher.  The weird thing is that when S picks him up in the afternoon, he throws a fit because he doesn't want to leave, so right now we are getting the worst of both worlds.  But it's temporary.  It's just the transition period.  It will all be okay, and in the meantime, he's building character.  Seriously.  Being willing and able to adapt to situations outside of your comfort zone can be a very useful life skill and one kids should learn early.  As somebody smart once said, "Half of life is showing up."  I agree with this quote, which is why I don't understand the backlash to the idea of "participation trophies."  Participating in something -- seeing it through to the end, giving it your best, even if you're not the best -- is laudable.  Why, then, are participation trophies so disparaged?  The real answer, I suspect, has little to do with the value of participation, but rather it's a way for an insecure older generation to denigrate the younger generation that will inevitably replace them.  It's just "Harumph!  Kids today!"-ism.  I hate the garbage.  But that's another story...

S is away for the weekend, so I have both boys to myself.  I can't say I'm particularly looking forward to it -- three and six is a tough combination of ages -- but it will be alright.  We thankfully have some events already on the calendar, birthdays today and tomorrow, so I'm not going to be at a loss for things to do.  The worst part is that I usually get to sleep in one day on the weekend and now I won't be able to.  The best part is that I will get to spend time with my kids and do things my way.  Sometimes it's actually easier for me to take care of the kids alone, because when S is around she wants everything done her way, even when I'm the one doing it.  One example of this is homework.  Lil' S1 gets homework now, which is fine -- I'm mostly anti-homework, but whatever -- but it's supposed to be his homework.  I'm not going to be the gatekeeper of it.  I don't see the value in that.  If he needs help or needs a little nudge or reminder from time to time that's one thing, but S is constantly getting on my case to get on his case about his homework.  And I don't want to do that.  If homework is not designed so that kids can handle it on their own, then it's not age appropriate and should be modified so that it is.  It should in no way be the parents' responsibility.  That's my take, anyway.

Another example is school lunches.  S is (or was until very recently: see below) insistent on packing a school lunch for Lil' S1 a few days a week.  That's fine, but she gives him, like, a seven-course meal, and he only eats a tenth of it, and then the rest of it goes to waste, and it's good food too.  It's not like Oscar Meyer bologna and Fruit by the Foot -- it's stuff that adults (e.g., I) would eat otherwise.  And our food bill is super expensive as is, we don't need to be throwing stuff away.  The other day she gave him two turkey meatballs, a Tupperware of black beans, a cheese stick, an apple bar, and an apple.  It would have been a decent lunch for a normal adult, let alone a finicky six-year.  When I cleaned out his backpack at night, there remained one turkey meatball, the entire container of black beans, the cheese stick, and the apple.  So, he ate one meatball and an apple bar -- and this is not an anomaly.  It's the norm.

The next night when I got home there was some chicken a la king left over from the kids' dinner and S asked me not to eat it because she wanted to give to S for lunch.  I insisted he wasn't going to eat it (no more than a few bites, anyway), and then this set off something between a fight and a good-natured disagreement.  I was saying it was just a waste of good food, and S was saying, well, a lot of things.  The thing is, she doesn't have a good rational argument, because her desire to pack huge lunches doesn't come from a place of rationality.  It's a Mama Bear, provide-for-your-kids mentality.  I totally understand that.  I'm not belittling it.  I do things that aren't rational all the time.  I will get out of bed sometimes and check the house alarm and check the door is locked, even though I remember checking those things already.  I still go into the kids' room before I go sleep to make sure they are still alive -- literally.  I will listen to them breath, and if I can't hear anything, I will actually feel for a pulse.   It makes no sense, but it's my primitive "protector" brain at work.

So, we all have our hangups.  The key, I think, is to keep them in check, so they disrupt other people as little as possible.  If I was waking up S every time I went to check the lock, or if I was waking up my kids whenever I checked on them, then I would force myself to stop doing it, because it would be affecting the family negatively.  In the case of school lunches, we are basically just throwing away a meal everyday, because of S's food hangup.  (And it's actually not just school lunches.  She almost always makes them too much food, and it ends up getting tossed.)  One of her arguments is that he would just throw away most the school lunch as well.  But even if that is true -- and we don't know that it is -- it's much smaller and less expensive and doesn't require us to do any work.  It's the far preferable option in my opinion.  Look, if the kid wanted a huge home lunch everyday, and he ate it, I'd be totally on-board.  But he doesn't and pretending that he does is not going to solve anything.

We did, however, have something of a break-through the other day.  I don't know if he actually ate the chicken a la king.  S cleaned out his lunchbox that night and didn't say anything about it one way or the other, and I wasn't about to ask.  (I'm not that dumb.  I'm not going to start a fight over nothing.  I'll just write about on my blog after the fact.  Much healthier... right?)  However, S gave him quiche the next day, and he didn't eat a bite of it.  This was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back, as S said me, "You know, I think I'm just going to have him get school lunch everyday now.  If he's not going to eat it, why bother?"  She said it, as if it was something new and not what we had just argued about two days earlier, but whatever.  I'll take it.

Well, I think that's about enough for this entry.  RIP Aretha Franklin.

You make me feel like a man's sure of a woman

Until next time...

Entry 431: On Problematic Crossword Puzzle Vocabulary

I wrote a post on my crossword puzzle blog about a word that is problematic for some people.  You may read it if you like.

Entry 430: On TV

For some reason TV seems to be a topic on a lot of the podcasts I've been listening to lately.  I'm really out of the loop on TV these days.  Although from what I understand, there is no loop anymore.  Streaming has ruined the loop.  There are so many shows -- so many good shows -- on so many platforms that everybody is watching something different at any give moment and there is no public conversation about a show the day after it airs like there used to be.  It's apparently one of the big laments of  hardcore TV fans.  I think there might be a push-back to binge watching on the horizon (if it hasn't started already), where streaming services drop episodes of their big shows periodically, instead of all at once, to build up the anticipation and make TV watching an event again.

For my part, I haven't given up on TV totally, but I'm pretty close.  It's a combination of two big factors: 1) I have little free time; 2) I'm daunted by TV now.  TV has gotten so much better over the past 20 years, and there is so much more of it, which in theory is a good, but in practice it probably makes me watch less of it, because I'm overwhelmed and when I actually do watch something, if it doesn't grab me immediately I think I'm wasting my time watching the "wrong" thing.  Because the bar is so high, I'm not willing to give anything a chance.  Also, the on-demand-ness of TV works against me too.  I like to watch with S because it's an easy way to spend time together at night when we are both tired (and it's actually a good way to bond: intimacy = shared experience), but she watches a lot of TV and since she can watch whenever she wants, she watches it all before we get a chance to watch together.

Anyway, one of the podcasts I listened to was a recap of the top 100 TV episodes of the 21st century, and it got me thinking what my list would look like.  So, I started to map it out in my brain, but what I found is that I can't really remember whole episodes, even of my very favorite shows, instead I remember moments of episodes.  So, I started to do my own list of "Top TV Moments," but in so doing I started looking up things on YouTube and I fell into a Simpsons rabbit hole.  So here's my new list...

Top 10 The Simpsons Jokes I Stumbled Across On YouTube

10.

He eats the pie anyway -- brilliant.

9.

"We went fishing."  Get's me every time.

8.

Perhaps the best movie clip parody ever.

7.

Do schoolchildren still watch 30-year-old videos on pointless topics?  Probably not.  They have the Internet now.

6.

"I don't know."

5.

THRILLHO: As somebody who named hundreds of fake players on Nintendo's Baseball Stars, I know the pain of limited character space all too well.

4.

This is probably the quintessential The Simpsons joke.  It starts off as a hackneyed sitcom gag and then finishes in a different direction.

3.

Üter at his finest.

2.

I still recite this one with my friend JY when I see him: "I sleep in a big bed with my wife."

1. 

I love this bit.  Hutz replying in the manner as written on his card is what takes from "solid joke" to "number one on the list."

Until next time...