Rambling Rhodes

*sigh*

Thanks, Jimmo.

Smear The Queer

This post by Joshua jogged my memory back to the elementary school days of "Smear The Queer."

The premise of Smear The Queer was thus: ten or more of us would meet outside during noon hour (or during Friday night football games), and we'd have this ball, usually a football, but not always. The game, such as it was, required some brave soul amongst the crowd to rush in and grab the ball.

Once you were in possession of the ball, you became "The Queer." And, as the rest of the name indicates, it then became the goal of everybody else to "Smear" you, which was a fairly loose term that primarily involved tackling, but could also include tripping, kicking, punching or, in some cases, clotheslining.

As prejudicial as it sounds, we had no idea what a "queer" actually was, or at least I didn't. All I knew was that, whoever the queer was, they usually ended up getting violently smeared and would usually leave the game in tears. But they'd always come back eventually.

And, for some reason, I was unbelievably good at being the queer. I mean, I grabbed for that ball all the damned time. I would grab it, get killed, and be right back in there trying to grab it again.

I can still remember the exhiliration even today. There was something very primal about Smear The Queer: the fight or flee drama of the whole thing. I was never all that keen on tackling the queer, but I went for that ball every chance I got.

Dare I say it, I loved being queer.

Eventually, teachers heard us referring to the game as Smear The Queer and told us not to call it that any more. I wasn't sure why. So, we just opted to call it Smear, and teachers were fine with that, until they actually saw us playing it, at which point they tried to ban it all together. But, we came up with a clandestine way of playing that involved moving the game around the playground throughout the hour so the supervisor couldn't see us.

Smear, obviously, morphed into football once I entered the 7th grade, which I never found as genuinely fun as Smear. If ESPN started airing games of Smear The Queer, I'm pretty sure their ratings would skyrocket. At least I'd watch.

UPDATE: Argh! I'm a victim of a vicious Maureen Dowd attack!

Better Cheddar

I was out sick yesterday, and I'm still not feeling 100 percent, so I'll just answer the Cheddar X and be on my merry little way:

What's the best way to spend?

Fifty cents

You can actually buy something for 50 cents? I suppose I could buy a few plastic army men, and then melt them with a magnifying glass. Provided I had a magnifying glass, I mean.

A dollar

A really cheap magnifying glass.

Five dollars

I'd be torn here. I COULD by a $5 lottery scratch off ticket, but I could also put $5 worth of gas in my car. Sad thing is, though, that $5 can't even buy you a foot long sandwich at Subway.

Twenty dollars

Now we're talking. Now we're in case of beer territory. Now we're in hooker blowjob territory. Now we're in. . . um. . . never mind that last one.

One hundred dollars

This is grocery shopping money here. This includes a multitude of frozen pizzas, frozen chicken breasts, kitty litter, and the whole works. Mix in a large pan. Heat on high for 30 minutes. Serves seven.

One thousand dollars

Typically, if I have a grand saved up, chances are good my car will take a shit on me. So $1000 would probably go towards car repair.

One million dollars

No question about it, I'd buy one of these. Any money left over would go towards paintballs to feed that crazy machine.

One hundred million dollars

Best damned magnifying glass money can buy.

I've Played Paintball

But not like this. Sweet Jeebus, that is the coolest thing I've seen since I've started seeing cool things.

Via.

Those Damned Terrorists

They'll attack anything. Damn you, bin Laden! Damn YOOUUUUUUU!!!

You Heard it here first

Holy crap! Did anyone else know that there was actually some pretty obvious nudity during the Super Bowl halftime show this year? Really!

I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.

Wrestling Lessons

Back during my freshman high school year, at the age of 12 to 13, I participated in my first year of varsity wrestling. I was 112 pounds, and I had no problem maintaining that weight, because I was basically always 110 pounds, until a summer growth spurt, but that didn't happen until later, so never mind that.

I wasn't a great wrestler that year, but I didn't totally suck, either. I got destroyed by some wrestlers, mildly beaten by others, and I actually won a fair share of matches, so that my final tally at the end of the season was 16 wins and 19 losses.

Well, towards the end of the wrestling season, during the sectional playoffs, my team met up with the best team in the region, the Stewartville Tigers. So, it was the Harmony Cardinals versus the Stewartville Tigers and, as with most small avian versus large feline encounters, things did not go well for the Harmony team.

Personally, I had to go up against a defending state champion, by the name of Dennis Bly. Now, whereas I was a diminutive 9th grader who had not yet sprouted much in the way of pubic hair, Dennis was a full-fledged senior who--while he was warming up for the match--did a quick shave and took a few belts off a bottle of Jack Daniels. Or it might have been a water bottle. . . I was too intimidated to confirm either way.

I was not what you would call. . . strong. My body was putting all its effort into growing bones rather than muscle mass. As such, I was long and lanky and uncoordinated and not particularly up to state champion form, to put it mildly. I was a Charlie McCarthy doll, to put it accurately.

Dennis, on the other hand, was awash with muscle. His 112 pound frame rippled with all sorts of muscular activity. His muscles talked to each other like close, personal friends. And all those muscles were in full agreement that it was time to kick my sorry little butt.

My coach and teammates all tried to encourage me, saying things like "he's not as tough as they say," and "he's just as afraid of you as you are of him," and "he doesn't really eat babies, just puppies, and the occasional kitten." None of their encouragement did much to convince me that I shouldn't just pee myself a little bit.

Here's the thing about wrestling: you can't blame anybody but yourself if you lose. You can't point at another team member and say you lost because of them. No, you pretty much have to point that finger at yourself, and that's a horrifying thing to admit when you're growing up, especially in high school, when everyone is out to make fun of everyone else for whatever reason they can come up with. So, it takes a special kind of person to go out on a wrestling mat at all, especially when they know, they KNOW, they're going to get their ass handed to them in front of a large number of hometown fans.

I went out to the center of the mat, and I shook Dennis's hand, and I looked him in the eye, and I could see that he absolutely knew he was going to tear me a new butthole. There was no doubt in his mind. He had all the confidence in the world, and I remember briefly wondering what it would be like, to have that kind of confidence.

"Good luck," I told him, as was my custom before each match, and I could see in his eyes, and in his talking muscles, that he needed luck about as much as he needed a second nose.

The referee blew the whistle, and I moved in to lock up with Dennis, and Dennis responded with something I had up to that point never experienced in all my wrestling days: he karate-chopped the back of my neck.

Technically, what Dennis did is considered a head snap--a perfectly legal wrestling maneuver meant to distract an opponent--but, make no mistake, what Dennis did was a karate chop, and I will maintain that until my dying day. The fat side of his hand connected squarely with the nerves between my shoulders and my neck, and I distinctly remember several stars entering my field of vision. I also bit my tongue with a substantial amount of force. To say it was a distraction is like saying a nuclear detonation makes a subtle popping noise.

What transpired after the karate chop is kind of difficult to remember. I think there was a double-leg takedown involved, followed by a rapid succession of movements that put me on my back and, two seconds later, a pin of some sort. I then kind of, sort of remember standing up and shaking hands and saying something like "good luck at state," or something pathetic like that. I really can't remember, exactly.

And, indeed, Dennis went on to repeat as a state champion that year, whereas I was pretty much annihilated after the first round of the section's individual tournament.

Perhaps the only saving grace about the whole encounter is that, today, I'm six feet tall and 180 pounds, whereas Dennis is probably still relatively short and 112 pounds. So, ha ha, Dennis.

And my neck still hurts.

Ass-Focused?

Yeah, probably, but I gotta play to my strengths.

Super Bowl

1.) Decent game, overall. Wanted the Eagles to win, just because repeating Super Bowl champs annoy me.

2.) Happy for Corey Dillon.

3.) What the hell was with the Eagles during that last quarter? Their time management skills were atrocious. Jeezum crow. A little hustle guys. It's the Super Bowl, after all.

4.) People who bet on the spread must have been pissed to the point of crapping themselves after that last touchdown.

5.) Best commercials? That Budweiser one when the pilot jumped out of the plane. Also, that one with the cat knocking over the spaghetti sauce, leading to an unfortunate series of events. Those made me laugh. A lot. The rest of the commercials? Stupid TV, be more funny! Especially Pepsi. Come on, Pepsi, you can do A LOT better than that.

6.) I'm not a fan of halftime shows, but Paul McCartney is a class act. The show wasn't overly flashy, and you didn't have Janet and Justin skipping around and tearing clothes apart, or Shania Twain dressed like Darth Vader. It was just a nice, enjoyable half-time show. About damned time.

7.) Unrelated, but Michael Moore did win an oscar, of sorts, thanks to the tireless Photoshop antics of Simon:

You know, I'm pondering a Photoshop contest on this, but I'm sort of scared of what would happen. My ass is becoming more familiar around the Internet than I am, I think.