Underpants On The Outside

This weekend, I attended my first officially sanctioned Magic tournament on Saturday, followed on Sunday by a special surprise I’m saving for the last paragraph.  I’m not seeing Wonder Woman for a few weeks as she bears down to finish off her final semester of law school, so until then I won’t just be wearing my underpants on the outside; I’ll also be wearing a big pointy wizard hat.  (Note: I do not actually own a big pointy hat, so if anybody doesn’t know what to get me for my next birthday…) 

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Last season, I got into 24 quite a bit. Most people I know say it’s the best show on television, and I have to admit, I see their point. I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day. 

Jack’s day, 1–2 AM: At the beginning of every episode, they do a “Previously, on 24” recap.  After this many episodes, the recaps take like twenty minutes, but I can do it in nineteen words.  Jack had a recording of the President committing treason, but lost it to Robocop after Robocop stabbed the Buzzkill.  There.  (Also, on the cable menu, the info blurb on this episode reads: “Jack Bauer displays his interrogation tactics.”  I am very, very excited.)

His girlfriend has been stabbed, and Jack has lost the recording and the man he worked so hard (read: shot so many people) to obtain.  I understand that he’s frustrated and not thinking clearly, but for some reason, Jack goes after Robocop with the Buzzkill riding shotgun.  She’s lost a lot of blood; it seems like she should be waiting for an ambulance, not fighting terrorism.  I can’t think of a good use for her.  Even if it were the time for road head, she’s in no condition to give it.  When Jack was with Wayne, each time they stopped for so much as gas, Jack was like, “Hey, Wayne, why don’t you stay here?” but he’ll take Audrey as a sidekick??? Wayne was like six feet tall, 250 lbs and a Marine, but since he never saw combat, Jack would rather have a chick who weighs a buck twenty five and has been stabbed in an artery.  Poor Wayne.

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There’s no easy way to say this: I’m the perfect boyfriend, and it’s not because I give my girlfriend orgasms at the superhuman rate of three per month.  I have a certain way with words that tends to agree with women.

Take the other night, when I was on the phone with Wonder Woman.  She mentioned some guy who might have some interest in her, and when she joked that I have competition, I whispered this sweet nothing to her:

“Please.  You’re on my nuts like a barnacle.”

Hey, do you smell something?  Because that line reeks of love.  The best part was after ten seconds of listening to me laugh at my own joke, Wonder Woman asked, “This is going on the blog, isn’t it?” 

I was teaching my class the other day when one of my students made a mistake.  She felt bad, and out of nowhere I said,

“God gave you ten fingers so you could learn nine lessons.”*

That definitely came from one of the shady areas of my brain I don’t visit often. Nevertheless, I thought it was quite brilliant. I keep hoping it’s a line people will one day use for their email signature, followed by a little “-z”.

My student… not so much. “What the hell would you do with just one finger???”

I doubt she expected that I’d yell, “POINT, TYPE AND CARRY PLASTIC GROCERY BAGS! BOOM! What’s up now???”  She certainly seemed surprised when I spiked my dry erase marker right in front of her desk.

*I’m skeptical that this is an original line, but I’ve Googled it and haven’t found anything. My brother probably said it years ago; lucky for me he’ll never remember.  In any case, I like it, and I’d be thrilled to see it in a fortune cookie one day.

Last season, I got into 24 quite a bit. Most people I know say it’s the best show on television, and I have to admit, I see their point. I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day. 

Jack’s day, 12-1 AM: It’s nice to see those times when Jack seems less than superhuman; when he’s no better than the rest of us.  Even when it seems like Jack’s awful relationship is about to end, he can’t seem to let go, and he makes a late-night decision to stay with her that he will end up regretting.

12:05 Jack meets up with Bill Buchanan, his boss back when he was with CTU, and dumps Wayne off “for his own protection”.  He talks about Wayne like he’s not standing right there, and Wayne looks like he’s going to cry…again.  It’s ridiculous how much Wayne is getting beat on this season.  The man notched a couple kills; give him a break. 

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For the first time, a publication has paid for my drivel.  Check it out; it’s a Guide to Movie Quotes.  And while it didn’t pay enough to cover a month’s worth of comic book/magic expenses, I’m now technically a professional humor writer.  Take that, electrical engineering degree!

(Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I did not write the last entry.  If sitting around and watching the OC is gay, well, then I don’t want to be straight.)

Lost has a habit of setting up dozens of mind-boggling mysteries and solving NONE of them. My friend Jordan, whose use of imagery is nothing short of genius, describes the experience of watching the show as frustrating as “Dry Humping a Supermodel”.

This week’s Supermodel will be the healing powers of… sand or something.

Back in season one, my favorite character was John Locke, played by Terry O’Quinn. He knew how to throw knives, make traps, and he even made a dog whistle once. But he also had a very eerie calm about him bordering on creepy, because he insisted that miracles happened on the island. It looked like he was going to turn the island into Jonestown 2: South Pacific, but then, in one of the best episodes, we found out that Locke was a paraplegic until he woke up on an island in the middle of fiery plane wreckage and could wiggle his toes. You’d think that’d be pretty awesome. If I were in his position I’d be playing coconut soccer every waking minute of the day. Instead he kept it a secret and didn’t even do a fist-pump.

This is just the type of thing these supermodel posts are about. When we found out that Locke was a healed paraplegic, me and my roommate were stunned; absolutely hooked. How’d that happen??? Back then we were thrilled to be dry-humping a supermodel. We were brimming with optimism and we firmly believed that we’d be hitting it for real sooner or later.

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In the pursuit of nerditude, I recently decided to start playing Magic: The Gathering, after a ten-year hiatus. Let’s see how it’s going so far…

I went to another draft tournament on Monday, where lots of new faces were sitting around the table, clearly divided into “rookies” and “veterans”. As I do any time I meet new people, I made snap judgments about their personalities based solely on appearance.

On the veteran’s side there was the Know-it-all, Fat Guy in Sweats, and Guy with ADHD. I’ve met ADHD a few times now; he’s always helpful and he even coached me a bit during my first tournament. I like him, but several times during Monday’s tournament I could hear him shouting the name of his favorite card, “Runeboggle”, regardless of whether he was playing it. It’s not even that good of a card. He just liked howling “Ruuuuuuuneboggle.” Remember: all you need is a deck and a friend.

Then there were us rookies. Just as babies all look alike, we all had the same lost, resigned expression on our faces. We accepted that we’d never fully escape our nerd-dom, but we at least wanted to keep it at arm’s length. I still show up thinking, “I’m probably going to lose, but at least I’ll be the coolest guy in the room.” Then I see the thugged out Yu-Gi-Oh players and think, “Well, I’ll at least be the coolest MAGIC player in the room.” But unfortunately, in the “coolest magic player” contest, there are no winners; only losers.

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Check this out: Underpants on the Outside gets a quote in the newspaper.

I just high-fived myself.

Last season, I got into 24 quite a bit. Most people I know say it’s the best show on television, and I have to admit, I see their point. I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day. 

Jack’s day, 11-12 AM:  Jack’s gotta be feeling good at the top of this hour.  Sure, Evelyn is in the back seat and she’s been shot, but she tells Jack that she recorded a phone conversation between the President and Robocop, and it’s in a safety deposit box.  That seems relatively easy, given all that Jack’s been through today.  Almost… too easy.  Of course, it seems easy because I would hide out until morning, go to the bank in broad daylight when people can travel the streets freely and get the evidence then.   But I’m a big procrastinator; Jack’s the kind of guy who will get you results NOW.

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