A lot of times for this site I think up a really funny idea for an update, put the title together, and then write a really ridiculously shitty article that completely wastes a good name.  This week, I decided to just write about five or six random unrelated things that I thought were awesome.  They have no unifying factor, no overarching theme - they're just fucking cool.  So instead of trying to tie it all together like I usually do, I'm going to switch the formula up.  I'm going to write a ridiculously shitty article that ALSO has a shitty title.  At least this way I'm not wasting a good name.

Pam and Kid Couldn't Take the Heat

Two weeks ago I wrote an update where I compared me and Andrea to every married celebrity couple I could think of and tried to determine who would win a no-holds-barred Texas Tornado deathmatch for control of the galaxy's last known energy source.  It probably speaks volumes for the low quality of the celebrity wedding pool out there (or maybe just speaks volumes about my own personal egomaniacal delusions) that I was 90% confident me and Andrea could take pretty much anybody out there in at least a best-of-five contest of wits, strength and skill.  I said that there was only one couple out there who were scrappy enough to be worthy of a duel, and thuggish enough to be able to defeat us:  The seemingly-unstoppable tag team duo of Pamela Lee Anderson Lee and Kid Rob Richie Rock.

A mere five days after the article posted to this site, Pam and Kid filed for divorce.  Coincidence?  Not fucking likely.

My guess is that Kid and Pam just couldn't take the pressure of being suddenly considered the most badass couple on the block.  The stress associated with that sort of thing can be overwhelming, and apparently it was so great that it drove the two of them apart.  I have also heard rumors that they were driven apart because Pam let her Tommy Lee sex tape be shown in "Borat", and Kid completely flipped out, but that's probably just the cover story they created in order to have a big-time break-up without admitting to the world that they couldn't cope with the fact that I thought they'd kick my ass in a fistfight.  Whatever the reasons, the fact remains:

Ben & Andrea	01
Pam & Kid	00

I guess when I wrote the article I didn't take into account Andrea and my superhuman powers of "not divorcing", which more or less puts us one-up on every celebrity couple ever assembled.  It's like our secret mutant power, and we're like the X-Men of being in a long-term emotional relationship (known in "the biz" as an L.E.R).  Seriously.  I mean even if the entire population of Hollywood formed together like a giant Voltron made out of silicon, hair gel and Botox they still wouldn't be able to match our awesome non-divorcing skillz.  Andrea and I will probably never break up, and especially not over something as stupid as a Tommy Lee sex tape.  Please.  Andrea wasn't stupid enough to videotape that shit anyways.

I'm sorry for your loss.

No More Funky Beats for Kim Jong-Il

Last week the United States announced that it was going to ban the sale of cool shit to North Korea.  iPods, fine drinks, cigars, plasma TVs and all kinds of crazy expensive luxury items will no longer be shipped to North Korea solely for the reason that Kim Jong-Il likes them and the US wants to fuck with him and be dicks.  Now THAT'S what I call passive-aggressive "sticking it to the man".  If only we'd denied Hitler access to Glen Miller records or told Saddam he wasn't going to get any more American-made VCRs maybe those two dictators would have fallen in line as well.  Shit, even if they hadn't it would have been really fucking funny.

Here's some more awesome ways we can fuck with this guy:

• Take a picture of the ENTIRE SENATE giving the middle finger, put it on a Christmas Card and mail it to him with a note that says, "Happy Holidays, you stupid asshole!  Love, The U.S.A."


• Instead of banning the shipment of ALL fine liquor and alcohol to North Korea, we should only give them the shittiest beers, like PBR and Mad Dog 20/20.  Or maybe just put PBR labels on bottles of Grade-A American Urine and ship those out.


• Don't allow any American TV shows to air in Korea except for one season of "The Surreal Life" and maybe like a couple episodes of M*A*S*H or something.


• Parachute some Navy SEALs into North Korea in the middle of the night and have them build a life-size statue of Kim Jong-Il fellating a horse.


• Fire a cruise missile into one of the windows of the Korean Parliament, but instead of having it filled with explosives it should be filled with confetti and paper shreddings from Enron that are cut so small that the vacuum cleaner won't pick them.  That way, if they want to clean the place they'll have to pick all the paper up by hand.


• Have a couple of B-2 bombers drop a shitload of dog food onto the streets of Pyongyang.  The next morning, seagulls and pigeons will eat it and shit all over the place and make a huge mess.


• Ban the shipment of all CD or DVD media to Korea except for Team America: World Police and used copies of StarCraft that don't contain the correct CD Key.


• Pass notes during recess that say mean things about Kim Jong-Il.

While the fact that the United States has decided to use its power to totally fuck with a foreign dictator is totally awesome and also sweet, it doesn't really seems like the best policy, does it?  I mean, this guy's already a really angry little man with a well-developed nuclear program and a handful of intermediate-range ballistic missiles... why would we want to piss him off any further?  Maybe the fucking vintage cognac and is the only thing keeping him from destroying the entire planet, you know?  I've certainly had days when I got home and was like, "holy shit if I don't get a drink soon I'm going to fucking kill someone".  Now imagine someone feeling that way, except they are actually capable of triggering a nuclear apocalypse.

By the same token, maybe the only thing keeping him from trying to fuck with the US was the fact that he loved American technology and gadgets and shit.  Maybe now he'll be like, "well now that the fucking dickhead Americans have cancelled my subscription to The Sharper Image I guess there's really no reason NOT to start firing ICBMs at San Francisco... I was really only holding back on doing that before because I didn't want to vaporize the Apple Computer Warranty Call center - they're very helpful when I'm having trouble getting my iPod to work properly."

Kim Jong-Il loves the phat beats.

I Bought One of the Greatest Things Ever

Now that those two interesting pieces of unrelated information are out of the way, I mentioned on the crappy blog/news part of the site that Andrea and I moved to a new apartment a couple of weeks ago.  Well our new place kicks our old place's ass big time.  And I have to say that one of the things that makes our new domicile that much better than the hellhole we used to live in is the addition of a critical piece of home furnishing that we had been lacking for many many years.

You see, last weekend Andrea and I made the arduous trek through a Sea of Metal, braving miles of traffic, angry Bostonians and hot asphalt, and attempting to overcome the confusion of the Big Dig in our quest to reach that Holy Mecca of home furnishings, the IKEA store in Stoughton, MA.  Within that bastion of pre-fab corkboard and minimalist furniture we searched tirelessly for items which would make our home complete.  We battled throngs of humanity in our epic search as we fought through the labyrinthine halls of the massive fortress towards the inner sanctum of desk chairs and Swedish-built cabinetry.  No amount of umlauts or other bizarre obscure Scandinavian diacritical markings could deter us from our mission as we trampled children and shoved old men to the floor in our mad dash towards furniture bargains and low-cost housewares.  Many minions of evil fell vanquished beneath the unstoppable rolling wheels of our shopping cart as we pressed on into the darkest dungeons far beneath the monolithic spires of this ancient castle, pulling bath mats, pot holders and hat racks seemingly out of thin air as we marched on with looks of perseverance and determination across our steely, merciless faces.

And then I saw it.  The item which would forever change my life.

The handle stuck out from the end of a large metal bin like The Sword in the Stone, it's ominous black haft inscribed with decorative markings resembling the head of a large predatory snake.  It silently beckoned to me, it's inaudible call nearly deafening even over the murmur of the crowd and the din of the battle raging behind me, even as Andrea and another older woman were engaged in a life-or-death tug-of-war over a set of candle holders.  I moved towards it;  it's inexorable pull was unrelenting.  I closed my hand around the hilt, removed it from it's metallic sheath and held it aloft like Link when he receives the wooden sword at the beginning of The Legend of Zelda.  I could almost even hear the old man in the cave telling me, "It is dangerous to go alone, take this".  I took a few practice swings, testing it's balance and weight.  It was perfection.  It was a master-crafted work of art for only a dollar and eighty cents.

It was the greatest shoehorn ever.

Now usually I hate IKEA.  I hate how long it takes to get out there, I hate how crowded the parking lot is, and I hate how the entire store is almost constantly crawling with the lowest common denominator of human civilization this side of Wal*Mart.  I hate going there, I hate being there, I hate how gigantic the store is, I hate the stupid extraneous umlauts and accent marks, and I hate how you can never fucking figure out where the hell you are or how the hell to get out of the maze-like hallways.  I generally feel like I would probably gouge out both of my eyes with a staple remover if it meant that I could avoid going out to Stoughton and spending the day at that store.  Having said that, this fucking shoehorn is probably one of the top ten purchases of my entire life.

First off, the damn thing is like three feet long, so you can put your shoes on without even bending at the waist.  It's the greatest thing to happen to a lazy person since Telekinesis or the invention of the remote control.  I've been using it for all sorts of stupid shit, like putting on my sneakers or sandals, and working on my "trick shoehorning" - where I find new and interesting ways to put my shoes on.  I'm perfecting going behind-the-back, through-the-legs, and a more advanced one where I throw the shoe up in the air, catch it on the shoehorn, and then kick my foot up and pop the shoe on in mid-air.  The last one generally just results in my kicking my shoes across the room and breaking shit, but HOLY CRAP is it awesome when it works!  I totally feel like a cross between Jet Li and Mr. Rogers when I pull that one off.  Also, you can swing the shoehorn like a sword and smack your wife in the ass with it when she least expects it (like when she's rolling her eyes at you for doing stupid shit).  Man I love that thing.

We No Longer Have to Deal with Those Damned BC Kids

Probably the best thing about moving is that we no longer live near Boston College and we don't have to hear fucking drunk asshole students screaming and yelling until two or three in the morning on a Wednesday.  The "Drunk Bus" doesn't pick up across the street from me, my upstairs neighbor doesn't blast Blink-182 at all hours of the night, and the lobby of my building is no longer permanently encrusted with several layers of dried beer residue, broken glass and the cracked shards of demonic souls.  In terms of location (as well as everything else), our new place is a total upgrade.

See ya later, fucker.

I should mention here that not living near BC has also change my outlook on their collegiate athletics program, and has shaken things up a little bit in terms of which sports teams I hate the most.  Please refer to this chart, which I've done in the style of many an internet-based pretentious sports writer cockmaster absolutely convinced that people actually give a shit about their completely subjective and utterly retarded opinions.

Amazing Ben's Week 15 Power Rankings: Sports Teams I Can't Fucking Stand

1. The University of Miami Hurricanes

2. The New York Yankees

3. The Dallas Cowboys

4. The University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish

5. The University of Southern California Trojans

6. The New England Patriots

7. The New York Jets

8. The Los Angeles Lakers

9. The Boston College Eagles

10. The Atlanta Thrashers

Please note that the Eagles have dropped from #4, just before Notre Dame, down to #9, solely by virtue of the fact that I don't have to sit in my apartment and listen to drunk jackasses "woo"-ing, crushing beer cans on their foreheads, date-raping chicks and yelling "fuck you" at each other at two o'clock on a Saturday just because the BC football team beat the University of Southeastern Kingstown State College for Women on a last-second field goal.  Hopefully the indestructible Doug Flutie will approve of my new rankings and cancel that retraining order he's issued against me.

Meet My New Neighbor, His Majesty, King Love II

This isn't to say that my new place isn't without it's quirks, however, the most noticeable of which we observed a couple weekends ago.  Andrea and I were returning home from grocery shopping when we saw on of the guys that lives on our street pacing up and down his front porch.  His house was perched high up on the crest of a large hill, and it was difficult to even see him through the trees situated between the street and his home.  While we couldn't make out the specifics, it was obvious that this was a very large black man and he was very agitated.  When we got out of the car, it was obvious that he was talking/yelling to himself.  What he was saying was unintelligible jibberish, but it didn't take long for us to deduce that this man was fucking crazier than a talking animated Arby's hat convinced it's been possessed by the spirit of Napoleon.  While the yelling was one indicator, what really tipped us off to this guy's mental instability was the fact that he was dressed up in a suit of chain mail, wearing a red tunic with a gold cross painted on it, carrying a plastic sword in his belt and proudly displaying a gold-colored plastic crown on his head.

What's even better is this:  Two days later we saw him pull out of his driveway in a beat-up 1970's-tastic Cadillac hoopdi with tinted windows and the phrase "BLACK TRUTH" written across the entire back windshield in sparkling rhinestones.  Basically this guy is the exact opposite of Dale (the crazy neighbor at my old place that I mentioned in a previous update), and it TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME.

Speaking of Kings...

Another unassailably awesome thing about my new dwelling is that it is in close proximity to the Kingdom of Burgers, home of the undeniably creepy-yet-likeable Burger King, and the spawning point for two of the best breakfast sandwiches ever created on Earth.

The Croissanwich

Every couple of weeks at Baur-Rama we would attempt to stay up until six in the morning so that we could go get Croissanwiches.  Of course, we would always inevitable wind up getting completely trashed and passing out in the yard or on the roof of his house or something, and sleep in past 9:15 AM or whatever time it is that they stop serving breakfast as fast-food joints.  I distinctly remember one time we made coffee in an effort to stay awake long enough to partake in some Croissanwich goodness.  I woke up face-down, sitting at the kitchen table with a half-finished mug of cold ass coffee in one hand, a highball glass in the other hand, a magazine stuck to the side of my face and a partially-chewed piece of beef jerky still in my mouth.  I don't think we ever, in the history of Baur-Rama, made a 6 AM drunken Burger King run, though we did aspire to do so on several occassions.  I guess we all can't have the superhuman drinking stamina of John Coffey (who by all accounts is the Randy "Macho Man" Savage of alcoholic beverage consumption).

I don't remember where I was going with this, but the Croissanwich fucking rocks balls like hyperactive bumpers in a pinball machine that's been possessed by Satan and is also on fire.  I think I could probably survive the entire rest of my life eating nothing but Croissanwiches and be happy. 

The Meatnormous Sandwich

You had me at "Meatnormous".  I don't even know what's in it, but I feel compelled by my duty as a man to eat it, and to eat the holy living hell out of it at that.  It's got meat, it's enormous... I mean what the fuck else could you ever possible ask for in a sandwich?  Sure, it's probably a heart attack waiting to happen, but I still feel like my life would be incomplete without eating one of these motherfuckers.

That's what you should be saying to yourself when you hear about the Meatnormous Sandwich.  Let me tell you this:  It is absolutely as awesome as it sounds.  It's got all the major food groups:  Ham.  Bacon.  Sausage.  Cheese.  Grease.  Cholesterol.  Saturated Trans-Fats.  Miscellaneous Animal By-Products.  Bread.  Eggs.  Just looking at it causes hardcore Vegans to break down into hysterical crying fits.  It's got all the artery-clogging goodness we men demand from our breakfasts, and it blasts you full of meat-tastic calories quicker than a shotgun full of lard.  It's so awesome that eating it makes you feel like a caveman.  A super fat caveman.