Lou Dobbs Cheated on His Wife!

That's right. I recently uncovered overwhelming evidence that CNN commentator Lou Dobbs cheated on his wife: a guy I ran into on frozen foods aisle at a Publix in Brentwood, Tennessee, told me so.

This gutless, despicable act perpetrated by the newsman supposedly happened on July 26, probably while his wife was in church.

I have a signed statement from Kristin James backing me up on where I was Sunday (which was NOT cheating on her!). Answer me this: WHY has Lou Dobbs not supplied proof of his whereabouts? Why, indeed! I WANT MY PURE CNN BACK!

I'm a level-headed guy, but until Lou Dobbs answers these accusations himself, I'm forced to assume that there's something fishy going on, and that he is indeed guilty of adultery.

Until next time,
Tootles.



The preceding blog post has been intended as satirical comedy.

James Wants to BLAZE!

Kristin and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings last night, FINALLY. (I've been craving wings for literally about 3 weeks straight.) Check out the site and click the sauce bottle. It'll show the 14 flavors they have, from the Level 1 "Sweet BBQ" to the Level 14 "Blazin'."

I had half Hot BBQ (10) and half Mango Habanera (12). Allow me to recommend the Mango Habanera to spicy wing lovers. It's delicious. Hot AND sweet. Very nice combination.
But after this, I decided...

I'm going to do the Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin' Challenge.
What does that entail, you might ask?
You have to eat 12 of the hottest wings they make, in 6 minutes, with no fries, celery, or sauce to take the edge off, and oh yeah. Nothing to drink.



Why, in the name of Dante's Inferno, would I ever want to do this? Well, I'm glad you asked. (or didn't. just keep reading.) Because that happens to be the subject of today's blog.

The Top Ten Reasons James MUST Conquer the Blazin' Challenge

10 - I ♥ buffalo chicken wings!

Seriously. I love hot wings. It's a wonderful dish. It's chicken, it's tasty, it's kinda spicy, you have to get your hands dirty to eat it (it's literally finger-lickin' good!) and it goes GREAT with an ice cold beverage, if ya know what I mean.

Every time I'm on vacation, I like to do wings & beer for at least one meal. And that's partially because it's not very good for you, but hey! It's good for the taste buds. I know I'm probably atypical, but I would honestly go to Hooters for the wings. No really- I requested wings for my bachelor party and people snickered, so I specified that I'd prefer Buffalo Wild Wings, because they do trivia games. I'll gladly take some hot breasts and legs- but just make sure they come with celery and bleu cheese.

9 - I'm insane.

It's been documented.



8 - I need to prove my manhood.

A - Here's my history with sports: I quit buddy ball prematurely because I was scared of the person pitching to me- my own coach. I played basketball when I was little... church basketball. Aaaand hmm... I played soccer in high school- second string. But I was captain of the quiz bowl team... (picture me flexing what muscles I have.)

B - I majored in Communication. What real man communicates? Plus, the emphasis I chose in Communication was theatre. THEATRE. Nuff said. But I did blossom out of that into a promising career as a school teacher. Ohhhh dear.

C - I'm married now. Oh, and Kristin says I'm allowed to mention her name in this blog post. Kristin, for those of you who don't know, is... my wife, who giveth love and care and devotion, and in her wisdom, taketh away... all semblance of independent macho manhood. Kids, run out and get married as soon as you can. It's so liberating.

7 - Buffalo Wild Wings is a national chain.

That means that when I'm done, we can pull out proverbial rulers and do the time-honored manly tradition of measuring ourselves against each other! And also, it means if I do it, you have no excuse to not answer the call and prove yourself too.

6 - I'm running out of time.

Before you know it, I'll be 40 and won't have the patience or intestines left to try this. And I know, I know, 40's way off, but 30 isn't so far off anymore, and 30's worse, because then, I'll just be too lazy. If I have kids, I'll need any downtime I can get, for actual downtime. If I don't have kids, I'll be using the downtime to enjoy the fact that I have plenty of it. Then I'll wake back up at 40 and realize how much fun there still is left to be had, but I won't have the strong stomach lining that I've got now. So it's now, or never!

5 - I am American.

I've become a fan of Adam Richman and his show Man v. Food. Why? Because even though Man v. Food is a train wreck freak show of an event, it teaches us something very important: that when you're an American, you have such dominion over all the animals of the earth, that you can not only challenge them in their natural habitats, but you can also challenge them again on your plate.

4 - I hate myself a little.

Okay, so the truth comes out- I'm a little masochistic. And I don't think anyone can succeed at this challenge if they don't enjoy pain a little bit. Because there will be pain.

Here's a little source of inspiration- when I was at MSU, one of the occasional eyepopping events was witnessing my friend and former roommate Will Cooper "eat the insane sauce" at Zaxby's. And whenever you mentioned it, if anyone thought that it sounded kinda vague, that was the clue that they'd never seen it before, and you'd grab their arm and make sure they came.

Will would order a usual order of chicken fingers and fries, with Zaxby's insane sauce (hottest they have) on the side. But he wouldn't eat it. Or the fries. Until he was done with the chicken. And then, to the amazement of the crowd before him, he would take up the fries as the implements of his own destruction, and eat the insane sauce as fast as he could. The entertainment was watching him wipe his eyes and desperately struggle to get water into his mouth, but seeing it run down his face because he couldn't feel his lips. Ahh, memories.

I saw him do that at least 3 times. And if gentle, loving Will can hate himself enough to power through that, imagine what I can do! Three wings in, I'll be shouting at myself "You did this! You got me into this pain!" and then I'll be so pissed off at myself I'll stuff another wing into my mouth.

3 - It's a clocked event.

What a perfectly constructed competition!

A, I either or make it not. There's no gray area.
B, I will have a numerical representation of how manly I am, and what you have to beat in order to be more manly than me.
C, I tend to be good at doing things I love, in just a few minutes. Ask my wife.

...

she gets annoyed that while watching TV I can make it through all the channels so fast. What?

2 - I ♥ hot stuff.

Ohh, this one is no joke. Part of the excitement of any wings joint is eating something hot to me. I would not enjoy it if I had wings that didn't kick me in the tongue (And I did a couple of weeks ago, from an unnamed chain restaurant... that's why that didn't count as having wings). Before going to a wings place with anyone, I'll usually say, "Now, I don't know how hot this stuff might be. So if I tear up, or if I reach for water every other bite, have no fear. I am still enjoying myself."

At sushi places, I usually use up almost all of the wasabi mixing it in with my soy sauce. A night out for sushi is not successful unless my nasal passages get cleared out a few times. But unlike pepper spiciness, wasabi burns hot and goes away quickly, right? ... I think maybe 3 of you understand what I mean.

Fact: Kristin's parents prefer everything very un-spicy and straight. Everything- chili, Mexican dishes, you name it. So I actually keep a jar of jalapenos in the fridge to add to about half of the dishes, to spice it up for myself.

I am working my way up to this challenge. Right now, I'm at the Mango Habanera level (12 out of 14). Next, I'm going to have half Mango Habanera and half Wild (13). I'm going to get acclimated to this stuff.

1 - The t-shirt.

I get a free t-shirt commemorating the fact that I have been insane enough to make this happen, that I have proven my manhood, and that thank God, I never have to prove it again.

I recently discussed the challenge with my friend Aaron who also loves spicy food, and he said he doesn't believe he'll ever do the Blazin' Challenge. We'll see how he feels after I wave my shirt in his face.

All joking aside, I can't be too cocky, because of the two of us, he's the one who's actually tasted the Blazin' wings before. And he doesn't want to subject himself to it.

BUT, he said, there IS the t-shirt.

To which I replied, that's interesting, because it's my #1 reason for wanting to do this, too! And that he completely understood. Because to a 2009 man, this challenge is me taking my spear into the jungle to face the darkness, and the t-shirt is the tiger pelt I wear back to the village.

The Media Problem

There is a terrible bias in today's media.
A nasty, cutthroat, unholy allegiance that our nation's news providers have, to furthering one agenda, and one agenda only.
Yes, I'm speaking of that terrible tendency to listen to the sweet sound of money.

When I tell my conservative friends that I, too, believe that there is a huge problem with the media, most breathe a sigh of relief and thank Jesus that I have seen the light- that the national media is liberal-biased and that Fox News is the only network willing to call them out on it.

Well, I may have seen the light, but I've also seen the light source, which is money. And I believe the pursuit of the dollar is a serious problem in the media today, which extends well beyond the borders of the liberal agenda-setters and includes the conservative territories as well. And quite frankly, it's THAT that I find scariest.

To be clear: There may very well be liberal media. But there are also conservative media. You'd be wearing blinders not to notice the bias on both sides.

Here's how it happened:

#1 - REALITY in this country has a progressive bias. Newspapers have always leaned progressive, because that's the direction the university intellectuals tend to lean, and (let's be honest) they're the ones most likely to read the papers (remember money?). The generation who freed the slaves shocked their parents, and the generation who gave blacks the right to vote shocked theirs, and so on and so forth with women's suffrage, and integration, and same sex marriage, and so on. In fact, I'd argue we'd be pretty foolish to assume that the people of 2050 won't be more lenient on social issues than we are.

And the great thing to me is that virtually none of us consider our current social boundaries a bad thing- who among us would like America to persecute gays more- call them names and such? Who'd like to bring back segregation? Should we go back to white male-only voting? Probably nobody agrees with any of that but the extreme fringe. So... to us in 2009... the progressive fights of the past are worthy... but we... we, children, are the most intelligent, most imaginative, most fair-minded Americans that will ever exist. In the future, there is only folly. Right? Nah... I don't think so.

#2 - Enter Stage Right, Enter Stage Left. It doesn't really matter who struck first, so I'll deal with both at the same time (as much as I can): The conservatives thought there wasn't enough conservative-feeding news on CNN and the networks, so somebody saw a fresh demographic and struck up Fox News. Then there were the liberals, who wanted a liberal network to counter the conservative swing, so you got MSNBC. I don't care what the excuses are, but conservatives, Fox News is biased. Liberals, MSNBC is biased. They're both telling you what you want to hear in order to make you think that you should only watch their networks. Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow are COMMENTATORS, and express only their opinions. The problem is that they frequently do so with a pompous air of "news anchorism" such that people think it's the God's-honest truth, when it frequently is far from it.

And there's the whole thing that Fox News doesn't have a liberal mind with the forcefulness of Olbermann, while MSNBC declines to hire a conservative commentator as sure of himself as Hannity. So they can say they're fair and balanced all they want, but when the only voice of opposition on your network is a straw man mouthpiece like Alan Colmes, it's nothing but propaganda.

Fun Activity #1: Watch your favorite network, and see how often you absolutely disagree with an opinion expressed. If it's not somewhere near 50%, chances are, that's not a "fair and balanced" network, is it?

Fun Activity #2: Go to the following two news websites (WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE URL) and see if you can spot which is MSNBC and which is Fox News by the spins they offer to their target demographics: Website A Website B

*These spins are NOT because one side is right more than the other. They're because YOU'RE likely to agree with one more than the other and therefore become a FAITHFUL CUSTOMER.
I'm serious. I'll test this blind. Whenever Barack Obama makes his next major speech or press conference or major announcement, watch Fox News' response. IT WILL BE SPUN NEGATIVELY. Watch MSNBC's. IT WILL BE SPUN POSITIVELY. And these are our "sources of news." Pathetic.

Remember how anti-presidential criticism Fox News was in the mid-2000s? Now, it's suddenly okay to criticize the president constantly. Bill O'Reilly and his pals used to rail against anti-government rallies. But this year, they practically put their name on the Tea Party rallies. And liberal-leaning news sources did a similar flip flop when Obama took office, but in reverse.

#3 - Where's this going, James? I honestly believe that this is headed toward a new feature in which we will one day be able to customize our own personal news feeds. A news provider will give you a questionnaire, and you'll put in your demographic data and political leanings, and the issues you care most about, and you'll get a newscast customized specifically to your tastes. And that will be the end of intelligent discourse in America. Why? Because...

A- We tend to actively seek out information that supports what we already believe, anyway, and ignore all information to the contrary... the human brain tends to want to reinforce its status quo. It's actually physically and biologically HARD to be open minded and to be willing to change your mind. You have to fight human nature. And that's not something Americans do particularly well. And the money-making media know that.

B- It's really hard to effectively debate an issue if you don't understand both sides. I've said many times that to really get something done on an issue, you HAVE to be able to understand why a real, live, sane human being would oppose you. But our evolving media structure doesn't allow for that at all. The debates going on in the media today aren't fruitful examinations of issues. They're straw man jousts. They're just flimsy excuses for debates for the purpose of entrenching both sides into each network. And that's dangerous for America. Unless, of course, you're making tons of money off of people being dedicated to your network and thinking it's the bread of life. Then it's a great get-rich quick scheme.

C- The end result- Mind control? I doubt it. But we're probably not far from it. On this route, with each person having his own personalized, self-reinforcing news source, we'll end up as a completely polarized society with no common ground and absolutely no ability to ever comprehend a compromise or solution to any problem. And that's a society that might as well be under mind control.

Every time you watch the news, I just ask two things-

1. As you watch, look for bias cues. Ask yourself if you're being spoonfed not just the information, but THE WAY YOU SHOULD REACT to the information. If so, change the channel. Watch a rerun of Andy Griffith instead.

2. Ask yourself if the information you're getting tells you why perfectly sane Americans would be on the other side. *Side note: If said news source actually tells you that the other side is crazy, CHANGE THE CHANNEL AND WRITE AN ANGRY LETTER.

And look out for propaganda! Here's a list of examples from a great How Stuff Works article on how propaganda works. The red, white, and blue, the stars and stripes, the Patriotic imagery you see in your favorite news room... that's all designed specifically to make you think they love your country more than the other guys.

All the issues we debate are about helping people, helping Americans, helping neighbors. And we're ALL trying to gather information to help do that. So if you can't see why someone else would disagree with you on a particular issue, then maybe the information source you're using isn't giving you the complete picture.

Just one example of Fox News distorting facts and taking quotes out of context

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough talking about bias in the MSNBC news room

Where am I wrong?! Let me know! I'm open to it!

A Whole Slew of New Lost Stuff!

One thing I'm passion about is the ABC show Lost.
It's a rare occasion in TV history in which a show has been allowed to scatter puzzle pieces all over the table, and in January of next year, it will finally get the chance to snap every piece into place to complete the big picture. And I love it, as most of my friends and family know.

Anyway, for those of us who have been waiting for some Lost news, it has come today, in the form of the final Lost Q&A panel at San Diego's Comic-Con. Word is, it was an amazing, surprising, and hilarious panel, and that most everyone is hoping it makes it onto the DVD set of Season 6. Lost creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were there, of course, answering fan questions, as well as Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Michael Emerson (Ben), Nestor Carbonell (Richard), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), and (with literally a last second cameo) Dominic Monaghan (Charlie).

So on to the scoop! I wasn't there, so I'll revert to people who were (even though I followed live tweets from it as it happened... I know... dork alert code red)...

THR.com's recap

Entertainment Weekly's Doc Jensen's writeup

Digital Spy's report

Ain't It Cool News' live tweeting

Or... if you'd prefer to watch the 40 minutes of panel footage (the video segments got cut out) it's in 4 parts on Youtube, starting here.

There were also a few video segments shot for Comic-Con that seem to suggest that Jack's plan worked, and that a new timeline was created. They could be a tease at what's in store for Season 6, or they could be a joke. Until January, who knows? There's an Oceanic Airlines commercial, a Mr. Cluck's Chicken Commercial featuring Hurley, and an America's Most Wanted segment on Kate Austen. Enjoy!

*Plus, for those of you who enjoy all of this extracurricular stuff to keep you entertained until Lost returns, check out THIS stuff!

Mysteries of the Universe: The Dharma Initiative - An upcoming series of webisodes by ABC on Dharma, shot to look like an informational special from the early 80's. If I had to guess, I'd say this is where the Lost creative team will reveal any hints or clues about Season 6, even though Season 6 won't be focused on Dharma.

Lost University - another extracurricular experience set to get unrolled this fall. From the looks of it, this one seems to be more of a worldwide community discussion group about different intellectual aspects of Lost. For instance, if I'm reading it right, there will be a video of real philosophy professors discussing philosophy in the show, and then everyone "enrolled" will be able to respond in web forums. I think.

Anywho, exciting stuff to chew on for the hiatus!

Health Care: James Weighs In

Health care is the issue of the day, it seems.
And that's a good thing, since an estimated 14,000 Americans a day are losing their health insurance.

I don't care what side of the political spectrum you're on (I'm in the middle), but I hear both conservative and liberal-minded Americans complaining about the cost (we spend over 4 times as much on our health as we do on national security), the stupid rules (like the infamous "pre existing condition"), and in general the inefficiency of the system, in comparison to what we're paying for it (in 2000 we had the world's #37 healthcare system, right under Costa Rica's and 49 nations have better life expectancies).

The way the system is set up, there are 47 million Americans who cannot afford basic health care. Michael Steele loves to point out that many of the uninsured are illegal immigrants and people who are eligible for government programs. But I know several who fall in that category who are extremely hardworking Americans with college degrees. I myself am struggling to afford basic health care. My personal examples don't necessarily add up to a significant statistic, but then again, why are we even comfortable just accepting that ANY hard-working, tax-paying American citizen might never afford to see a doctor? What country is this, again?

There are countries out there that cover everyone. And yes, there may be a bit of a wait involved. But I disagree with this idiotic notion that America will automatically be forced to adopt any country's model wholesale without adjusting it to our sensibilities- that we who wrote our own Constitution and every amendment to it, can't write our own health care plan, and instead will be forced to go to the World Walmart and just "pick one from a European country." I'm also not so self-important that I'm just not willing to wait a little bit longer so that everyone in my country can get a doctor's care.

You may not agree with President Obama's proposal, or the slightly different proposal being considered in Congress currently, and I have no issue with that. I agree that there are some problems with the model. But we live in a country where health insurance companies run the show. There are people in AMERICA who get denied coverage after paying their insurance for years, and why? Because all of a sudden, they actually need care! This should be punishable by jail time. But that's our system. Surely we as rational Americans can concede in the face of the facts (remember- high cost and low health) that A) we don't have the best health care system in the world, and B) we can do better. That America deserves and is capable of a better road to health.

So- calling out both sides- the way to do it, Obama, is not to shove the legislation through so quickly- I admire the resolve to get it done, and I admire the awareness that to do so will take deadlines, even if they aren't met at the first checkpoint. But this is a BIG issue, that's going to take time to fix. Involve us in the discussion! Take the reality TV lollipop out of our collective mouth, and give us serious meat to chew on at the water cooler.

Republicans- Stop standing in the way of progress. Obama is right about one thing- this needs to get done, and we really don't need all the medical lobbyists screwing it up. And we REALLY don't need lawmakers admitting that change needs to happen but then refusing to help with it, and instead waiting to see if Plan A fails so they look better politically. That doesn't help your constituents at all. GET THE RIGHT WING BASE IN ON THE CONVERSATION. Many are still just waving American flags, saying that health care reform is Socialist. Save that old trite mantra for an issue that doesn't REALLY need changing the way this one does.

Anyway, that's a gripe at both sides. And let's not forget the other issue that will have to change as well, or all this health care talk is moot: our food. Our subsidized, cheap, greasy, food-like substances are just speeding us down the highway to the hospital anyway, so if we really want to see premiums hit the deck, it ain't gonna happen until we stop giving ourselves diabetes and heart disease. And as much as I hate to say it, that's not going to change without the government's help. But that's a conversation for another day. Tootles.

Croom's Folly

I feel so badly for Sylvester Croom tonight. Not because he doesn't deserve the criticism for one particular play call he made in tonight's game against Auburn (he does), but because I love him as a coach and as a person, and because he came possibly within one decision of being a complete mastermind once again for Mississippi State.

I've never been a huge fan of Croom's conservative offense. But I've respected it. It never seemed to make much sense to me to run up the middle three downs and then punt it, over and over, with occasional sprinkles of some bad passes of a quarterback off his rhythm. But somehow tonight, as a truly spectacular maroon defense began to hold its own, toe-to-toe with the #9 ranked Auburn Tigers, the genius of Sylvester Croom began to emerge.

Mississippi State's offense looked anemic. They just couldn't move the ball down the field, let alone score. But alternatively, as Auburn's touchdown-scoring tidal wave broke and broke on the rocks of State's defense, time and time again, Croom's game plan became perfectly clear: State didn't have to score on every one of their dozen or so drives. As long as their defense was playing the way it was, they'd only have to score on one of them. The running game was just wearing the Tigers down.

And according to that game plan, State was solid for more than 56 minutes of the game. Somehow, against an SEC doormat team that lost to Louisiana Tech, Auburn's top ten offense couldn't sniff the end zone long enough to get more than one lousy field goal. State just wanted to be in the game in the 4th quarter. And they did everything they had to to get Auburn exactly where they wanted them.

But somehow, inexplicably, with more than 3 and a half minutes left in the game, Croom chose to try for a 4th and 15 conversion from State's own 48 yard line. Why he didn't trust the rock solid defense one more time, especially when State couldn't make a 4th and 1 conversion earlier in the game, and didn't convert on 3rd down all game, we'll never know. But we went for it and didn't make it, giving Auburn the ball in excellent field position. What's worse, Croom completely abandoned his game plan.

True enough, Auburn fumbled 3 plays later and State recovered. Had the same result occurred after a 4th down punt, we would have arguably been in easy field goal range and had a pretty good chance to win the game, even with a pulseless offense. But we lost, an embarrassing 3-2.

Did Sylvester Croom singlehandedly lose the game against Auburn? Of course not. He kept us in it, and the players had chances upon chances to snatch up the victory. Would our defense have definitely won the game for us if he'd have chosen to punt? We'll never know. But I do know that if Coach Croom had stuck to his guns and carried out the game plan, trusted our defense, and saved a 4th down conversion attempt for a later drive, when we knew we wouldn't have gotten it back again, no one in that stadium would have thought about blaming him.

To see Coach come that close to genius and botch it on one play is tough to swallow. We'll get 'em next time.

We just got done with a honeymoon/vacation in New York City, so we thought we'd use what we learned to help other people planning a New York trip make the most of it.

Who we are:

- I'm James. My wife is Kristin.

- I was 25 at the time of the trip. She was 22.

- We were newlyweds (sort of) in our twenties (obviously). We were on a strict budget.

- Between our wedding and this trip was sandwiched a terrible job for both of us. We were predisposed to enjoy ourselves.

- Though we enjoy having a few drinks, we're not into the "clubbing" scene.

- Though Kristin likes shopping, neither of us is into buying name-brand or trendy clothes.