Elevator Music

No, I have not finished this week's post (which, in my humble opinion, sounds a lot less incriminating then "I have not started this week's post").

While I sort out the details, I strongly encourage you to satiate your appetite for incessant ramblings by reading the latest article by Mike Oppenheim, esquire. (For the record, you should say that "Mike Oppenheim, esquire" in your best Keanu Reeves accent, with one hand against your chest and the other stretched out like Hamlet, cradling Yorick's skull, in true Bill & Ted fashion. Yes, this applies to you at work. In fact, even more so.)

Land Line

"I have begun using a “land line” because I don’t get good cellular phone reception at “The Farm House,” here in Iowa. By “not good” I mean that in order to use my cellular phone I have to climb up to the north eastern most point of this house’s roof, Green Acres style, wearing a homemade suit of aluminum foil. Then, clutching the drain pipe of the roof with my left hand and the cellular phone in my right hand, I must hoist my body as far out above the ground as I can safely manage, all the while holding my body in a position that would make an enlightened Yoga Master lose his “Zen” with jealousy, and if I do this just right, well, then I can get a half bar of signal for 22.3 seconds, which is just enough time to send or receive one text message. Oh, and I can only do this during certain portions of an extremely complicated lunar cycle that I discovered after researching Vedic Astrology in a secret basement room in the Library of Alexandria..."

Read the whole article here

We're Going to Disney World!

We're going to Disney World!

You, me and our closest 658 friends.

(In case you were wondering, that was the Hawaii State Board of Education's answer to the question, "You've just found out that you have to cut one million dollars from your budget, what are you going to do?")

In a decision that can only be described as mind bogglingly stupid (I swear, it's the ONLY way to describe it. Nothing else would suffice. Take that hyperbole to the bank.), the BOE decided to deal with a budget deficit by cutting the budget of High School sports by nearly 10%. Then, since one bad decision deserves another (otherwise they get lonely), they decided to address the budget reduction by cutting JV sports completely. For sake of argument, I'll overlook the fact that studies have linked physical activity to improved brain function. I'll kindly glaze over the studies showing that kids in organized school activities are far less likely to do drugs or commit a crime. What I refuse to ignore is the Board of Education sending 680 people on a paid vacation to Disney World, in a year when they need to make 10 million dollars in budget cuts.

Yes. That's right. The Board of Education sent 680 people to Orlando, Florida and justified it as a business trip to check out a model school.

I'm sure there's a model school in Orlando. I'll take it on good faith that all 680 people visited the school and learned valuable educational lessons that they have since applied to their own school district in Hawaii. But the thing I can't possibly understand is why they sent 680 people to do a job that could have easily been done by five.

My first thought was that they wanted to send someone from every school in Hawaii to visit the model school. That sounds quasi-logical, right?

Except, of course, for the fact that there are only 280 schools in Hawaii. That means the BOE sent approximately two and a half people from every school on the island to do a job they could have accomplished by paying for the principal of the model school to come visit. Hell, they could have paid for the entire school administration and all the teachers to fly to Hawaii and still have spent less then they did to ship everyone off to the third Happiest Place on Earth. (The second being Disney Land and the first, of course, being my pants. Sorry, that joke sounded better in my head.)

The whole debacle reminds me of the Bud Light Commercial where the guys don't have enough money to pay for their groceries and have to decide between beer or toilet paper, only instead of beer they chose cocaine and instead of toilet paper they gave up their child's future and instead of making you laugh it made you want to bang your head into a wall and sob.

(Author's Note: For the most part, I try to maintain a fair measure of journalistic integrity here in the JBorhood. That said, the goal is to inform AND entertain, so I opted for a more sensational approach to this story. In truth, the story deserves a more gentle touch and a fair amount of research. In the interest of fairness, I will learn more about the trip to Orlando as well as the Department of Education's budget so that I can provide more substantive feedback on the story. In the mean time, can you believe they sent 680 people to Orlando????!?!?!?!?!?!?!!)

Wait a second...Colt Breannan is Awesome? Get out of town...

I hate to say I told you so (Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I love being right and I love letting everybody know about it, but humility seems to be all the rage these days, so I'll play along.), but Colt Brennan is an amazing Quarterback. In his debut for the Redskins, Colt went 9/10 for 123 yards and 2 touchdowns, completed passes of 20, 26 and 34 yards, and scrambled out of the pocket on a play when his protection broke down, strung the play along for about 10 seconds before finding an open man in the end zone. Vintage Colt.

Meanwhile, Joe Flacco went 0/3 for 0 yards and 2 sacks in his debut and began updating his resume. Don't worry, Joe. Frank's House of Pancakes will always be there for you.

(Author's Note: Browse to Google.com, enter Flacco "House of Pancakes" into the search box and click "I Feel Lucky". The JBorhood: The definitive source for information regarding Joe Flacco and the House of Pancakes. I couldn't be more proud.)

Paris Hilton for President? That's Hot.

I usually refrain from commenting about anything remotely involving Paris Hilton. I'm not a fan of shooting fish in a barrel and it's far too easy to poke fun at a spoiled debutante, whose claim to fame is enormous wealth and a sex tape. That said, I'd like to give a JBorhood tip-of-the-cap to Paris for her video retaliation of John McCain's attack add, which negatively compared Barack Obama to Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton. Not only does Paris manage to laugh at herself in the video, she presents a forward thinking, coherent Energy plan and tops it off with "I'll see you at the debate...bitches."

Bravo, Paris. Bravo.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Paying your Dues

Everywhere I go, I hear people say that Aaron Rodges has "paid his dues".

"He's paid his dues, put in the time, and been a good sport through it all" - www.sportsdatahub.com

"He has paid his dues, he has done what has been asked of him, and he has earned his keep." - bleacherreport.com

"He's certainly paid his dues...He hasn't had a chance." - Packer's Offensive Coordinator Joe Philbin www.jsonline.com

(In fact, searching Google for "Aaron Rodgers" "paid his dues", returns over 200 hits.)

Notice, no one is saying "Rodgers is awesome", "He's an amazing Quarterback", "He's the right man for the job" or, most importantly, "He's better then Brett Favre." The only argument in favor of making Aaron Rodgers the starting Quarterback of the Green Bay Packers is that he's "paid his dues." Simply put, Aaron Rodgers is the Daniel Akaka of Quarterbacks.

(Author's Note: The following is not meant as an attack, nor a slight against Daniel Akaka. I do not know him, nor have I ever met him. I do not harbor any resentment towards him. I have no political disagreements or philosophical differences that motivate me. I am simply speaking to the similarities between the situations of Aaron Rodgers and Mr. Akaka, when he was running for reelection in 2006.)

By all accounts, Daniel Akaka is a hard working, good, honest man. You would be hard pressed to find anyone either locally or in Washington who has anything bad to say about him personally. However, you would also be hard pressed to find someone who has anything good to say about his body of work. In 2006, Time Magazine coined him the "Master of the Minor" and ranked him as one of the five worst Senators in the country. His major accomplishment in the Senate is passing a resolution "by which the U.S. apologized for invading Hawaii in 1893." During his heated reelection bid against former Congressman Ed Case in 2006, whenever anyone was asked why they were voting for Akaka, they always replied...

"Because, he paid his dues."

No one pointed to a distinguished record of service. No one pointed out his ability to pass legislation. They simply said, "he paid his dues".

But what does that mean exactly?

"He paid his dues," is what girls tell their friends when they ask why they're going out on a date with their dorky longtime friend with a mullet and a lisp who brought his Care Bears lunch box with him to college.

"He paid his dues," is what they say when the 55 year old McDonald's worker with a 25 word vocabulary and a GED gets promoted from mop duty to the fries.

"He paid his dues," is what you say when you don't do laundry for 3 months, run out of clean shirts and justify wearing the ugly mustard yellow sweater your mother-in-law knitted you.

"Paid his dues" is just a nice way of saying that there's no other compelling reason to justify a decision.

In this case, it's a nice way of saying that Aaron Rodgers is not as good as Brett Favre. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Favre is one of the Top 25 Quarterbacks to ever play the game. He's loved by fans, feared by opponents and respected throughout football. Being a worse quarterback then Brett Favre is a like being a worse porn star then Kobe Tai. You don't beat yourself up too much, because not many people can take a pounding, get you excited and bring opponents to their knees quite like Favre or Kobe. (I've written a lot of metaphors in JBorhood, but I assure you, that was, far and away, the most fun metaphor I've ever researched. I was tempted to provide a link to inform the readers who are not familiar with Kobe's "body" of work, but decided to take the high road. Trust me when I say that searching for "Kobe Tai" in Google will more then suffice. You just might not want to do it at work...) So, calling Aaron Rodgers a worse Quarterback then Brett Favre is more of a testament to the ability of Favre then the shortcomings of Rodgers, but it still begs the question: Is Aaron Rodgers a little worse then Brett Favre or is he a lot worse then Brett Favre. Unfortunately for the Green Bay Packers, the answer is no one knows.

Yet, for some strange reason, the Packers don't want Brett Favre. They want "paid his dues."

In an vaguely similar situation (minus the over-dramatized comeback of a prima donna superstar), the University of Hawaii currently has a Quarterback who many feel should start because "he paid his dues." While Colt Brennan put up record setting numbers, Tyler Graunke patiently held his clip board, cheered from the sidelines and watched Colt lead the Warriors to the Sugar Bowl. Sure, Tyler had his moments of glory. He led the Warriors to victory on the road in Nevada when Colt Brennan was out with a concussion. He played decently against Georgia's third string in the third quarter of UH's blowout loss in the Sugar Bowl. But, the fact of the matter is, Tyler sat on the bench while Colt played because Tyler Graunke is no Colt Brennan.

Maybe Tyler Graunke is a stud. Maybe he completely outplays Inoke Funake and Greg Alexander in practice and earns the starting role. Maybe he has a better season then Colt Brennan ever did. (Maybe monkeys fly out of my butt.) Tyler Graunke might be an outstanding quarterback, my only point is that making him the starter simply because "he paid his dues," is absurd.

Because "Paid his dues," doesn't win football games. Laser rocket arms win football games. Sound decision making wins football games. Colt Brennan wins football games. Brett Favre wins football games.

You can have "paid his dues" if you want, but I don't want "paid his dues".

I don't want that stupid mustard yellow sweater.

I don't want Daniel Akaka.

I don't want Tyler Graunke.

I don't want Aaron Rodgers.

I want earned his dues.

I want to win.

I want Colt Brennan.

And I want Brett Favre.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pay my dues.