The Brett Favre's Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints play today to decide who goes to that spectacle of spectacles, Thunderdome--I mean, the Super Bowl. These are two grand story lines of adversity: Brett Favre's age and New Orleans' hurricane. I don't know which I want to hear about less.

Brett Favre is 40 years old. He's retired and come back three years in a row. He's playing for a blood rival to his old team that he won a Super Bowl with (the Packers). He would be the oldest quarterback to play in the Super Bowl ever. What's not to despise? I can't think of anything worse than Favre going to the Super Bowl. Except if a 23-year-old rookie named Mark Sanchez also makes into the Super Bowl as the youngest quarterback ever. Oh, and maybe if the Saints win today.

Hurricane Katrina happened over four years ago, leaving thousands of New Orleans residents homeless. I swear I am not a fan of this. But it means we have to watch depressing images and sappy feel-good rebuilding stories every minute of the day on ESPN. Ugh. Sure, it could cut into Haiti's airtime. But it could also mean we'll have double the squalor and pop benefits on TV. I can't think of anything worse. Except maybe listening to AARP wax about Brett Favre until February 7 if the Vikings win today.

ESPN, in the two weeks coming up to the Super Bowl, will paste these story lines onscreen 24/7. So will every other news agency, even TMZ. And one must happen. One must win. I can't think of much worse.

Still, there is a bright side. There is a very fun drinking game pending for the Super Bowl, no matter who loses today.

Labels: Sports

This article may contain language too explicit for young children, the elderly, and women who are pregnant or may become pregnant.

2009: a year of hysteria: a year of calling each other Nazis and Communists and Intelligent (all are now dirty words) as economic and social institutions toppled. Stupidity and outrage reigned as i*********t thought. So, all in all, that made it a pretty normal year.

We had our share of abnormal problems: we had a slew of A Capella singing on television. We had a bout with #Swine Flu. Or, well, the @media had a bout with #Swine Flu. In truth, this #H1N1 virus didn't do much. Hand sanitizer appeared everywhere there was a door handle, yet door handles killed more people than the virus.

We always say the sensationalism in our culture can't soar any higher and get any worse. But it did. And it clouded the entire year in talking points and gloom. (Again, maybe it was just a pretty normal year.)

Sure, the United States fell into financial ruin. Little Timmy @Geithner oversaw the movement of thousands of trucks of money and let Turbo Tax handle these truck-based bailouts. Ben @Berwhatshisface, head of the #Fed, oversaw the "worst #recession since President @Reagan read his stock ticker upside-down." Berwhatshisface slashed interest rates to the point of getting named TIME Man of the Year. But that it wasn't enough to sway me.

No, this wasn't the year of financial ruin (even though it was). It wasn't the year of the Tea Party (even though it was). It wasn't the year of Michael @Jackson's death, or even Farrah @Fawcett's (even though it was... I saw the stirring tributes). This was the year the media threw everyone into further financial panic, dressed as Boston patriots to call for revolution, and got person-to-coffin interviews with celebrities. This was the media's #Apocalypse... #Ragnarok... #Armagedd-O-NINE! Yes, this was the media's year to claim:

EAGLIE'S FOUR HORSEMEN OF 2009!

Socrates was never one for calling people N**is, but they didn't exist then. Ancient Greek discourse might have been of a very different tone today if Hitler had existed, though I suppose Plato would have replaced C*******t with "Sophist Pig." And perhaps Socrates might have posed an i*********t question to one Glenn Beck, "Well, how is one a Nazi when their economics are the definitive opposite of a N**i, a C*******t? I wish to learn." And Glenn Beck--Loudmouth, N**i, and someone who makes Bill @'Reilly seem like an i*********t alternative to right-wing dogma--would answer, "Schmuck!" (Glenn didn't understand the Greek but wanted to answer anyway). Glenn Beck, you shall lead my pundits. You shall be my Horseman of Pestilence.

And who was to blame for taxes and ruin and evil itself, so said this sector of the media? The only non-media horseman of 2009, Barack @Obama. Elected on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009, President-elect Obama became the first black N**i C*******t bastard to take the Oath of Office. So I nominated him for this award last year in 2008. I mean, he wasn't any @George_W_Bush. THAT was a Horseman. But I'mma let Obama finish, as the young kids are saying these days. He won a worthless Pulitzer as well as a Nobel Peace Prize, which was odd since he hadn't written anything good recently and certainly wasn't planning on re-invading Afghanistan. Nosirree. That is why you, Mr. Barack Obama, are my Horseman of War. May you win many more in the years to come.

Twitter turned #green this year. But not from the cash it was making (which was #none). Tweeting proved itself capable of i*********t, useful stuff in its uprising against Iran. The highly informed Western public turned its pictures the color of Islam (green) in support of the opposition to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In return, Iran accused the U.S. government of inciting the peaceful demonstrations and vowed to put them down. In return-return, hashtags appeared, such as #freeiran, #iranishurtingitspeople, #iranishurtingmerightnow, and #iran(sofaraway).

The media ate this and Twitter up. Iran did, too, though in less violent fashion. Now every i*********t person is either making 140-character dissertations, so these Social-Media-lites can share the Horseman of Famine award. I'm sure there's enough award to re-Tweet.

I apologize beforehand: our Horseman of Death this year is a bit of a pun. Walter Cronkite for years served as the most trusted man in #America. @Uncle_Walter set the mood of the country, with his delivery of news and from time to time touching, i*********t commentary on the deaths of @JFK and the war in #Vietnam. And then, with his death, Cronkite became the coal-mine-dwelling canary of the field of journalism. But hear me out: picture his soothing baritone warning you the end is nigh (don't picture that replaced by Morgan Freeman's yet):

The end is coming, so said the Prophet Cronkite. And it won't be when a comedian is named the newest Most Trusted Man in America. It won't be when the blood runs as e-ink across Amazon Kindle screens. It won't even be in 2012 at the hands of Roland Emmerich!

Lo, the end will come, and it will be as no one but a handful will foresee! And it did come, for Sarah @Palin wrote a book, heralding the end of the printed word and therefore of civilization itself. With Glenn @Beck, Barack @Obama, @Twitter, and an @undead Walter Cronkite as Horsemen.

Labels: Four Horsemen, Longer Stuff

People tell me the decade ended over a week ago. I say the decade just STARTED.

Labels: Four Horsemen, Wordplay

More like forgot to fix something. Better rush and fix my image sources... Alas, poor banner.

Labels: Housecleaning

I do not write that title with any levity. I started writing this blog in the Aughts, or as I like to call them, the Ohs. And in, "Oh dear, it's not Oh-Nine anymore." And the Ohs started in 20-OH-OH! That's a lifetime ago! And in that time, needless to say, I've watched a lot of stupid things happen. And sometimes I've done stupid things. One thing that wasn't stupid? My "Horsemen" awards.

This "Four Horsemen" schtick (Four Horshmen?) has been a staple of my writing. All those years... 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008

I even did a recap last year. But what kind of gimmick can I come up with this year to prolong my finest annual work? And who really could've been the Four Horsemen of 2000? And 2001? And 2002? There are years here I didn't have a chance to make fun of because Blogger wasn't a glint in the eye of anyone important, especially not Bono! So let's start off this new decade by crapping on the last one.

Eaglie's Retroactive Post-Decade-ous Horsemen of 2000

• Choice for my 2000 Horseman of War: George Bush, Sr. Thanks, for both your sons and Florida and chads and the governor of Florida and the Supreme Court decision and Al Gore and did I mention George W. Bush?


• Choice for my 2000 Horseman of Pestilence: The ILOVEYOU computer virus proved the vulnerability of computers, and its heralding was the first time most people over 50 thought a computer had the flu.


• Choice for my 2000 Horseman of Famine: Computers across the globe, who disproved the vulnerability of computers when they didn't explode when the year rolled over to Y2K. (Remember that term?) This screwed with our minds, as the computers laughed about it all the way to the bank (after ordering all the world's boxes of champagne for themselves).


• Choice for my 2000 Horseman of Death: Charles Schultz, who wrote his last Peanuts comic and died the day it printed... eerie, appropriate, and good grief.

Eaglie's Retroactive Post-Decade-ous Horsemen of 2001

• War: DO YOU REALLY NEED ME TO TELL YOU?! I MEAN, YOU SAID YOU'D NEVER FORGET!!! (Never Forget. The greatest meme of our time.)


• Pestilence: Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, who installed a monument to the Ten Commandments at his Alabama courthouse. Which were removed, or not, or were. And the world was made safe from religion, or for religion, or from, whichever. A truly constitutional herald of the End Times.


• Famine: Wikipedia, which launched. God help us who use it to look up everything, including the research for this post.


• Death: Enron, which went bankrupt. With this Dot-Com Bubble officially burst and the Internet was never profitable again.

Eaglie's Retroactive Post-Decade-ous Horsemen of 2002

• War: Tom Ridge, Secretary of the new-created Dept. of Homeland Security. From here on in, America was forever safe from restaurant-goers not wearing shirts and socks.


• Pestilence: Michael Jackson, who dangled a baby over a ledge while changing his... what, too soon?


• Famine: Oddyssey, the rover on Mars, which found ice water deposits, but sadly no alien venison.


• Death: The European Union, which launched the Euro this year, the all-encompassing world-beating currency, now worth more than the American, Canadian and Australian dollars (not combined). Know now! This is the coming of the Beast! Beware the Anti-Christ leading the Revived Roman Empire, the evil King of the North allying with the King of the South and destroying Israel, REPENT OR SOMETHING OR OTHER!

By the way, did you think I forgot? Expect my NEW "Horsemen of 2009" soon. Very soon, the FINAL HORSEMEN. OF 2009!!! (Published in 2010.)

Labels: Four Horsemen, Longer Stuff