CREATURE FEATURE

We now join "If It Moves, Shoot It!" already in progress.

Cmd. Gray Samson- I hate the woods. Times like this, I feel like I'm still in 'Nam.

Grunt- Sir, we've traced the creature to here.

Samson- Where?

Grunt- Down there.

*low foreboding rumbling emanates from hole in the ground*

Samson- Organize your men. We're going in hot. Hot as hell. Which is exactly where we're sending that creature.

Colt Thompson- You're a special kind of stupid, aren't you?

Samson- Look nameless drifter-

Colt- It's Colt Thompson. Look, its stitched on my shirt. C-o-l-t. Coooolt.

Samson- The day I let some man with his name stitched into his shirt tell me what to do is the day I turn in my gun.

Colt- That monster, whatever it is, has already killed three of your special forces guys, the local gun nut-

Samson- Survival specialist.

Colt- Whatever, AND an entire sorority mid-pillow fight. The scientist already said conventional weapons are going to hurt it.

Samson- Science. This creature, whatever it is, is older than any of your science, son. So why don't you go cover your head with a little white jacket while we finish this creature once and for all. Saddle up men! We're going down!

Colt- You certainly are.

Samson- Look tough guy with a potentially shady and or tragic past, you're lucky you're not part of my unit. I'd have you cleaning latrines for a year.

Colt- I am lucky I'm not part of your unit, I don't enjoy being lead to my death.

Samson- Ehhhh darn hippie. Let's go men!

Grunt 2- Time to lock and load!

Grunt 3- Let's Get-r-done!

Grunt 4- Verily ho!

*gunfire and loud roaring come from hole. Soldiers begin running out at an alarming speed. Samson crawls his way out of the hole. Colt looks down at him*

Colt- Help you?

Samson- Give me a hand.

*Colt grabs Samson by the arm, only to have a giant claw come out of the hole, ripping the rest of Samson down into the dark. Colt holds the arm for a moment before dropping it and lighting a cigarette*

Colt- Looks like you gave ME a hand.
[Fade]

BECAUSE SHE DEMANDED IT

My editor has been on my case lately about increasing my output on this site. Most of our conversations go like this:

Her- Matt, we need to talk.
Me- Yipes! click!
Her- Matt, you didn't really hang up.
Me- ....
Her- Matt, I can hear you breathing.
Me- *holding breath*
Her- Matt, I can hear you holding your breath.
Me- -------
Her- You have to breath sooner or later. And I have 700 anytime minutes at my disposal.
Me- *gasp*
Her- Now then, you need to add content to your blog more often
Me- Cor. But I'm a hard hitting journalist, I don't just "add content". A weekly column takes time and patience and dedi-
Her- I know all about your two fisted brand of journalism, your Pulitzer Prize for Internet Journalism is still sitting in my office.
Me- I've been meaning to pick that up, but I've just been busy with this whole-
Her- None the less, it's imparitive that you start putting more things up, okay?
Me- Okay. Anything else?
Her- Yes, you've been misspelling the word imperative. You know how I feel about that.

So, faithful reader, because SHE demands it, expect more content coming your way real soon, including the exciting serial adventures of the man they call.... GUN RUNNER.

Cor. I gotta get an unlisted number.

WEDNESDAY WORD 3-29-06

Today's word is "corn". As in HOW CAN YOU BE AGAINST GAS MADE WITH CORN??

Seriously. Ethanol is the way to go right now. I could go on for some time about this, but I'll try to keep it short for you, the busy reader. It runs in most modern cars, it's just as fuel efficient as regular gasoline, and it's made of corn! So, not only do we help decrease our use of oil by diluting it with up to 85% corn juice, but the farmers of this country see a boom in corn demand. Farmers win, drivers win, animals that eat the edible corn by-product win. Everyone is a winner in this equation. Unless you really like paying 40 cents more for gas than you did a year ago. If you do, drop me a line, I've got a tank to fill.

Plus, just earlier this month scientists discovered they could create ethanol out of cheese waste as well. As we all know from the rhyme about Little Miss Muffet, when you make cheese you get curds and whey. Since there's not a big market for cheese milk, whey is usually just disposed of, at a cost to the farmer. Now that waste can instead be turned into fuel at the tune of 10 gallons for every 100 gallons of whey. Four to seven million gallons of ethanol could be made yearly by this process. Obviously that's not a lot compared to how much fuel we use every year, but it's still a start, right? And you've got to start somewhere.

How are people still against this?? Honestly, I'd like to know.

THE MADNESS OF MARCH

I’d like to apologize, faithful readers, for being distracted lately. March is a very busy month for me mentally. First, there’s the build-up to Wrestlemania. My love for Wrestlemania is matched only by my love for the biathlon. In fact, that’s probably what next week’s column will be about. After all, John Cena versus Triple H AND Trish Stratus versus Mickie James in the same night! The word “slobbernocker” come to mind. Second, March marks the start of spring, and spring means opening day for baseball is approaching, and that means Brewer baseball is about to storm back into my life like the lover you swear you’ll never take back. Then suddenly they’re standing on your doorstep with baseline tickets swearing they really will try to finish over .500 this season and you’re letting them move right back in. Lastly, I’ve been focusing on the same thing as almost every other American the past two weeks; March Madness.

March Madness, for those of you who don’t know, is the slang term for the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament. Basketball, for my friend Tani, is the sport with the orange ball that you try to throw through a hoop. And no Tani, it still doesn’t have a goalie.

Knowledge about the tournament or the sport in general not withstanding, one thing everyone agrees on is that gambling on tournament brackets is awesome. Better yet, it’s American. As someone with a degree in history, I can tell you that one of the driving motivations for American independence was our forefathers’ belief that all men, provided they are white and hold property, should be allowed to wager on whether or not 13 seed Bradley could defeat 4 seed Kansas. (They could) It would take 8 years of armed conflict, followed by 78 years waiting for Kansas to become a state, topped with another 30 year span where the country waited for basketball to be invented by Doctor Julius “Dr. J” Erving, M.D., before Americans were able to once and for all gain this freedom, but the wait was well worth it.

Now, every form of gambling has some element of chance to it, except the Badger 5. [See last column- Ed] Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes your bracket grows legs, runs out an open window and bursts into flames after the first day. Especially when no one in the state of Iowa knows how to play defense in the last 3 minutes of a game.

When your bracket does go the way of the dodo, as it inevitably will when Wichita State goes on a hot streak, there are ways you wish to react. There’s anger, rage, explosive frustration, murderous rage and explosive murderous rage, to name a few. Sadly, none of these reactions are societaly acceptable in this hippie liberal day and age, despite the fact your entire Final Four has just been shot full of holes by Northwestern State. [The Northwestern of WHAT??- Ed] Instead, the police are usually called to intervene and there’s nothing more embarrassing than explaining to relatives three Thanksgivings in a row that yes, that was you on COPS getting shoved into a cruiser. So, to help you, my loyal audience, and to chop some time off my own community service obligation, I suggest this alternative: Write a letter. I’ll show you what I mean next week with a couple of examples I’ve already put in the mail.

Huh, next week. Guess I won’t be doing an article about Wrestlemania after all. Well how do you like that? Thanks for Nothing March Madness!

Stupid UConn.

WEDNESDAY WORD 3-22-06

Today's word is "irony".

Last night I overheard some friends talking and one of them said, "It's so hard to shirk responsibility, no matter how hard I try." To which I replied, "It's not really that hard."

Since I said that I've, OBVIOUSLY, failed to put up the Wednesday Word on time. I also was supposed to be in to work early today to do a radio bit and I forgot completely. No clue. Nada.

And just to stretch the definition of the word to its breaking point, there's no new Survivor on tonight because of the NCAA tournament, which is ironic because I have no chance of surviving my pools after the last weekend of tournament play.

IOOOOOWWAAAAAAAAA!!

GETTING RICH, GUARANTEED

People often say to me “Matt, you’ve done so much for me with your blog. I wish I could repay you, but my significant other won’t let me name a child after you.” My advice for these people has always been “leave your significant other.” While this solves one problem, the bigger question still remains for most: How Can I Repay Matt Worzala?

Worry no more faithful readers, I have finally come to a solution. And, generous as I am, not only can you repay me, but you can make yourself financially wealthy as well. Truly, Star Worz IS the gift that keeps on giving.

As you know, when I’m not winning awards for my hard hitting brand of two fisted journalism, I work for a radio broadcasting company. If you didn’t know this, it’s probably because this is the first time I’ve mentioned it, but please, try and keep up. You’re better than this. Like everyone who works in radio I am both wealthy and Jewish, and even though Yahweh knows I don’t need the money, my coworkers and I are often brainstorming new money making opportunities. I am about to share with you now the greatest money making idea in the history of mankind.

The Badger 5 lottery.

Now, I am an idea man, so if the genius of this plan isn’t immediately clear, allow me to explain. The odds of winning the Badger 5 are 1 in 170,000. Here’s the genius, you buy 170,000 tickets, at the cost of one measly dollar each, and you are guaranteed to win the jackpot. Guaranteed! Plus, as an added Star Worz exclusive bonus, you’re also guaranteed to win more than just the jackpot due to the fact that many of your other 169,999 tickets will contain combinations of the winning five numbers. I’m talking free money and all you have to do is wait until the jackpot is worth more than $170,000. My partners and I recommend waiting for the jackpot to reach at least $200,000. Don’t worry about all of the other suckers out there buying one ticket at the local Gulp ‘n Go or the collective of women buying a dozen through their quilting circle, you’ll have this locked up tighter than a Notre Dame football television contract.

There will be naysayers. All great ideas have those who are too shortsighted to see the genius involved. The wheel, the automobile, the hula-hoop, all had their detractors. This is no different. Some will say it can’t be this easy to become stinking rich. Guess what? It not only can be, it IS. Ask them which part of “guaranteed” they fail to comprehend. Then ask them how they’ll like mopping up your yacht every day after you win.

So, here is how you help me and help yourself at the same time. Most of my portfolios are tied up in land development and hydrogen fuel cells at the moment so I’m a little short on the capital needed to get this Badger 5 ball rolling. All I need is a few wise investors to help bankroll Jim and myself to victory. Or else 169,980 cautiously optimistic investors.

What a great time this is for you. Baseball season is right around the corner, you’re going to become rich beyond your wildest dreams and you get to repay your old friend Matt for all he’s done for you. Remember this is completely, 100%, written in stone guaranteed money. You can’t lose.

Unless someone else wins the jackpot too. Cor. We’d take a bath on this deal if that happened.

WEDNESDAY'S WORD 3-15-06

Today's Wednesday's Word is "Mo'"

As in "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems".

Perhaps one of the greatest rap songs ever, it's currently on the radio, which I am blaring at "louder than work appropriate levels." Ma$e before he became a preacher, Puff Daddy before he became insane about his name, and Notorious B.I.G. before the L.A. police conspired with the Yakuza to have him murdered by grey aliens.

Do yourself a favor today, before the night is over turn up your radio really loud at least once and sing along. It's Wednesday, you deserve it. So, do it.

NEW MEXICO'S GETTING HOT, HOT, HOT

As you already know from my profile, I’m from the great state of Wisconsin. If you didn’t know that, you can read my profile just over there to your right. If can’t read my profile, maybe you should be using the Internet to learn how, instead of looking for pictures of President Bush and monkeys. C’mon faithful readers, they weren’t all that funny the first time. What if people put pictures of you up on the internet and compared you to, I don’t know, a constipated whale or something. Yeah, I’m talking to you constipated-whale-face guy, don’t think there aren’t pictures of constipated whales out there to draw comparison to. It’s the Internet man, it’s got EVERYTHING. Including this very cool story from New Mexico.

New Mexico, from what I hear, is a lovely place to live, vastly improved over Old Mexico, as long as you steer clear of the rattlesnakes and radioactive scorpions. Last month, however, Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico got a whole lot hotter. About 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit hotter. That’s 2 billion degrees Kelvin if you’re really into science. 7.3 billion degrees Hobbes if you’re not. This temperature is the hottest ever created on the face of the Earth. The inside of the sun is only, ONLY mind you, 15 million degrees Kelvin. But that’s really more of a dry heat, so it’s like apples to apples that are on fire.

What the lab does is use a giant Z Machine to generate these high temperatures. The Z Machine, to put it plainly, is a giant gun. A giant gun that shoots tiny plates at incredible speeds. Example, if you were to put your mother’s good China gravy boat in the Z machine and pointed it straight up, the gravy boat would be passing Pluto by the time your brother could rat you out to your mother. The Z machine fires these plates into a wire mesh screen a quarter inch away and the resulting impact of super-speed plate on solid steel wire results in incredible temperatures that superheat the metal into plasma. For all my comic bookers out there, imagine The Flash running into The Juggernaut full bore. [Impossible, they exist in separate universes- Ed.] [What about 1997’s industry crossover Marvel vs. DC?- 2^nd Ed.] [NERD!- Ed.]

A magnetic field compresses the plasma into something the thickness of pencil lead, which results in the high temperatures. Normally, these temperatures are in the millions of degrees, but in February the lab reached a temperature four times hotter than any other result. And here’s the kicker, even though they’ve been able to repeat the experiment, they have no idea how it happened. It just Does.

“My goodness doctor, you replaced this man’s heart with a car battery and he’s still alive!”

“Yeah, I don’t know how that happened, just lucky I guess.”

“But you did it to four other people too!”

“Just very lucky I guess.”

As if all that weren’t bizarre enough, between the incredible temperatures and the inability to explain why it happened, this last bit kicks the oddness notch into overdrive. When the temperatures were reached, the ions were at the point where they should have been losing energy rather than gaining it. And the Z machine was putting out more energy than had been put into it.

I don’t know yet if we all should be worried or not. I’ve been consulting with religious leaders, but there’s nothing about it in any of their texts. All I know is that none of this happened while Arrested Development was on the air.

That's all I'm sayin'.

WEDNESDAY'S WORD 3-8-06

Today's Word is "Celebrity"

I was out late last night playing Celebrity and when I came home the mouse on the computer didn't work. So that's why this Worzala's Wednesday's Word is late.

If you haven't played Celebrity yet, I highly recommend it. It's like Charades, only, oh, I don't know, a billion times better. There's yelling, cheering, threats of violence, threats of violence if there are any more threats of violence, mime and more.

Don't know how to play? E-mail me at worzala@gmail.com and I'd be happy to tell you how.

You won't be sorry.

Oh, and would it kill you to click on the ad?

A TWIST OF FATE

In Gold Hill, Oregon, David Thumler, 16, is currently finishing a four-day sentence at a juvenile detention center, after having already paid a $67 fine and serving three days community service. Why? Because David Thumler wouldn't write a letter apologizing for twisting another boy's nipple in July of 2005.

I'll give you a moment to re-read that last line. Thumler was fined non-Monopoly money, and had to do actual time in an actual juvenile detention center for giving a friend what the media has referred to as a "purple nurple". A "tittie twister". An "areole assault". A "Penderson Pincher Maneuver" (Northeast only). Ridiculous names for a ridiculous act. But apparently someone in Oregon doesn't find it ridiculous enough because Thumler has been convicted of; get this, offensive physical touching. A "purple nurple" is not offensive physical touching; offensive physical touching is carving a middle finger into an oar and then whomping someone on the head with said oar. A "purple nurple" is something fifth graders and frat brothers give each other. Talk about abusing the legal system, this is how that incident should have gone:

Thumler- Purple nurple!
Friend- Ow! My nipple!
Bystander- Hey! Are you a fifth grader?
Thumler- No.
Bystander- How about a frat brother?
Thumler- No.
Bystander- Then grow up and stop giving people purple nurples.
Thumler- *shame*
Bystander- And you, don't be such a baby. *grab* *twist*
Friend- Ow! My other nipple!

There, problem solved and everyone learns a valuable life lesson. Seriously, a twist of the nipple is now a fineable crime? You pay good money for that sort of thing in Vegas! ... uh, I mean... this guy I know did. Um, once.

Don't think I'm not sympathetic, because I am. Hard as it may be to believe, I was picked on when I was a kid. I had a brother, I wore glasses, I grew too fast for my clothes, but I sucked it up. I was on the receiving end of wedgies, atomic wedges, noogies, mega noogies, wet willies, dead legs, and yes, even the ghastly purple nurple. But you know what? You rise above it and you push on through. Just look at where I am today. I have my own blog! On the Internet! Look Ma, I've Made It!

Plus, to be honest, I gave just as good as I got. I had a brother, I was clever, and I was a lot taller than most of the kids at my school. My favorite was one my friend Jeremy and I used to pull. We'd walk down the hall side by side and then take turns hip-checking the other one into an on-coming freshman, slamming them into the pressboard wall outside of our school. If a simple twist of the nipple is offensive physical touching, then I would still be breaking rocks in juvie today. Or making license plates. Whatever it is they do, I'd still be doing it in "Little J", as the kids call it, instead of being out here, in the free world, a free man, with his free blog. [Which you can help support by clicking on the ads above- Ed]

Thumler didn't mean his friend any harm, he was just bored in line and did what high school boys do. Bust each other's balls. And not even literally. So the next time you or someone you know is on the receiving end of a "purple nurple", or a dead leg or a “Missouri Compromise” remember the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, "that which does not kill us, only makes us stronger."

"And give yourself two for flinching."

WEDNESDAY'S WORD 3-1-06

Today's word is "Finish."

Today is the first of March. Today marks the first day I can drink again after taking the entire month of February off. By my count last year the longest I went between drinks was 12 days, so to go an entire month without feeling tempted is something I'm proud of.

The idea first came up the last weekend of January. My friend Dan had gotten blasted out of his mind with his girlfriend and some others that Saturday night and Sunday he must have been regretting it, so he came up with this idea for a month of sobreity. He called my roommate who in turn called me and we all agreed to give up drinking for the month.

-Dan's girlfriend was out within a week.
-Dan was out on the 11th.
-My roommate admits to having 4 beers over the course of the month.
-I'm the only one that made it all the way to the end without drinking.

The last weekend I went to a wedding with free beer. My friends that were attending with me said I should drink. After all, the month was basically done, and the guy that came up with the challenge had already bowed out. What was the point?

The point was and is this, you don't run a race to quit just before the finish line. It wouldn't have made any sense for me to abstain all month and then just stop because no one else was doing it anymore. It would have just been cheating myself. Like Brad Pitt says in Snatch "You stay till the job is done."

Except when he said it it sounded like "You stattle jab dane." Which might be next Wednesday's Word... if I can figure out what it would mean.