What's Scarier On a Plane? Snakes or Fat People?

I know this story is already a week old but it had been on mind for quite some time. Last week Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest plane for being too fat. This isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, for many years now obese people have been paying for two tickets in order to fly and I think that is perfectly legit but this latest story has me concerned for two reasons.

First, I don’t think Kevin Smith is THAT fat. Sure, he’s kind of husky but I wouldn’t classify him in the his ass has his own congressman category where his rolls are spilling out in aisles and adjacent seats and what not. I’m sure he is quick enough to get out of his seat in case of an emergency, too.

To tell you the truth, I can conceivably see myself getting as fat as Kevin Smith someday. If I won the powerball or when Jumping the Shark surpasses Avatar in gross domestic proceeds at the box office or if I got married, then I would totally let myself go to Silent Bob-like proportions. But the humiliation of missing a flight because of a fondness for DCB’s worries me.

Bottom line, Kevin Smith should have gotten kicked off that plane for making Clerks II, not because he is a tubby bastard.

Second reason for concern, nothing to do with Kevin Smith, but the last time I flew, there was a delay because they needed someone to take another flight because the aircraft had exceeded some kind of weight restriction.

What the hell is that about? You mean the difference between lifting off safely or barreling off the runway and suffering a horrific fiery death is a couple hundred pounds? That’s the margin of error!? I’m sorry but that is terrifying.

What if you were on a flight and the majority of passengers were on-average, 10 lbs overweight? Not difficult to imagine since we are from America and we invented this thing:



If the plane could seat 100 people, then the aircraft could potentially be 1000 lbs overweight. You could kick a couple of people off and still be f’ed. I don’t like that. I don’t like that one bit.

How to NOT Get Robbed By Two Prostitutes This Weekend

Before we get into that, let me tell you about the rest of my crazy weekend. It started off really cool, my brother convinced me to do the Polar Plunge in Oshkosh and boy oh boy it sure was cold but it was for a good cause so…hmm…you know what? Gold jacket, green jacket, who gives a shit?

Let’s talk about them prostitutes!

So this story didn’t actually happen to me, but it happened to somebody I know very well. I’m not going to give away any name because it’s kind of embarrassing for him but I will give you a hint. He used to be the starting quarterback for Ashwaubenon High School, he graduated in 2000, and his name is Gregory Lorenzo Altmann.

Whoops. So anyways Gregory Lorenzo was out and about, tearing up downtown on a Friday night just like any other when he fatefully strolled into the fine establishment they call Stirrups on Washington Street. Upon entering the premises, he came across two attractive African American ladies so naturally he approached these two young ladies and said what anyone would have said in his situation.

“So……you girls don’t belong here.”

Only Greg could get away with that line. I can imagine the shit eating grin on his face when he said it.

After that immortal ice breaker, they ended up having a few cocktails and a few more cocktails after that until it was bar time. This is where it gets interesting.

Greg has a hockey buddy that lives in the apartments near Stirrups so Greg thought it would be a swell idea to get an A-bar going with these lovely ladies of the night. Keep in mind that he didn’t know they were prostitutes.

Well, to be honest, we can’t actually confirm they were prostitutes but when Greg suggested they go back to his buddy’s place to party, these girls suggested they go to an ATM first because cops don’t go to ATMs before “partying”.

Wow. That’s not suspicious at all.

But dipshit must have thought that this request was just par for the course because he drove them to the nearest ATM, took out a token amount of $10 from the machine, and then continued on their way.

Greg must not have known the solicitation jargon or something because when he dropped them off at their car, instead of following him back, they just went on their merry way.

Then today Greg discovered that his ATM card was missing. You know what else was missing?

$400 bucks from his checking account! Eh Oh!

Tonight we tried to solve the mystery of how the ATM card disappeared. He swears he didn’t hug them good bye or anything like that and they didn’t get close enough to him to physically take his wallet from his pocket. He still had cash, which is weird.

But Sherlock Wollin figured out the caper. There were two girls with him in his car so I think the one in the back seat got his pin number when he went to the ATM. The cop excuse was just a ruse. Then they created a diversion to get Greg to drive away before he could retrieve his card from the machine. These chicks are like the Danny Ocean’s of Green Bay bar time.

When I asked Greg if this sounded plausible he said yeah probably, but his memory is fuzzy because of the afformentioned cocktails that were consumed at Stirrups. After he dropped the girls off, they must have went straight back to the ATM machine. But I think they had a third accomplice waiting to snatch the card. I’m almost positive the third accomplice is the crotchety old man that runs the haunted amusement park two towns over.

I think we can all take away a valuable lesson from this. When soliciting a hooker, it’s wise to have a designated ATM card with only a little bit of cash on it when it inevitably gets stolen. I don’t know about you guys. That’s what I got out of it.

Aaron Vanlieshout is POOR Part II

People sometimes ask me what my personal favorite Brain Litter post of all time is and the answer to that is probably the Hottest Girls of Parkview Middle School because that lunch room map is pretty legendary. I hope they etch that goofy map on my tombstone some day. It really is my claim to fame as sad as that is.

But my second favorite post is easily Aaron Vanlieshout is POOR. That one cracks me up every time because of all those crude sketches of Aaron being poor and living in cardboard box so I thought I would revisit my Chemistry notebook for a couple more jabs at my good friend Aaron aka The Dude.


This one pretty much sums up the humor contained in my chemistry notes in a nutshell. I used to sit next to Dude in Chemistry sophomore year with Kris Kropp at the helm. We were the youngest people in class and it was kind of boring and we were also in gym class where he wore this tattered White Sox shirt so I would draw drawings like the one above because, hey, it sure beat learning stuff and it would make Dude mad.




Most of these drawings focus on poop. I hope that doesn't mean something.




This picture features a sweet drawing of Joe Barrie. The NCB stands for National Chemistry Board. This was part of a series with other famous people such as the Wu Tang Clan and Macho Man Randy Savage endorsing the NCB. It is completely nonsensical which leads me to this drawing:



I don't know why I think this is still funny but trust me, compared to some of the other weird shit I wrote at the time, this pic makes all the sense in the world.


This one is sort of an anomaly because Dude lives in a dumpster instead of a cardboard box. Those are flys buzzing by his head if you couldn't tell. You can tell I am successful in the future because I am wearing a tie, have great hair, and I am not portrayed as a stick figure.


Sometimes the Dude and I collaborated on projects such as the drawing above. Dude depicted a scene from one of the later seasons of Full House when Uncle Jesse beefed up his rock image by leaving Jesse and the Rippers and becoming The Vulture to bring a younger crowd to the Smash Club.

Don't remember that one, eh? You are very lucky. I'm ashamed that I have knowledge of that particular episode. Really ashamed. Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to wager that a lot of my peers grew up watching the trials and tribulations of the Tanner family but probably only me, Dude, and like five other people stuck it out to the bitter end of that series. I should have threw in the towel when DJ's boyfriend Steve became a featured character on the show. That guy was LAME. At least Kimmy Gibbler got hot.

But if anyone out there in internetland is interested, I have SIX PAGES of other Full House reenactments written by myself and the Dude and how those situations would probably play out in the real world. I hesitate to publish these pages, a lot of the gags are real hit and miss but I'll the gauge public interest and play it by ear.

Benny's the Big Winner!

Booyah! I made some serious bank this weekend, thank you for asking. A shout out to Drew Brees for that amazing performance, I would have been happy if you all just covered the spread but you went ahead and won the whole flippin' thing. Good for you guy. I only wish I could celebrate with you down on Bourbon Street, I'm sure it will be mardi gras squared there for at least the next couple of weeks.

I also hit a 6-7 pull tab and two of my numbers hit at the party I was at. Grand total so far...$163.

Which leaves me with my bets with Joe buds. We had about 20 different bets going on and at the end of the day, he was up on me one single dollar.

Until this morning, that is. I was reading a recap of all the ads and one winner was a Kia commercial featured a sock monkey. I had a one dollar bet that a monkey would appear in an ad before a caveman. Does a sock monkey count as a monkey? Survey says!?

Yes. A sock monkey is still a monkey, therefore our bets were back to even and I now owe Joe zero dollars. If Joe didn't call that audible at half time that Pete Townsend was going to smash his guitar, he'd still be in the money. But he got greedy and I hope he learned his lesson.

Not to change the subject, but I'm a huge fan of Bill Simmons on espn.com so I've decided that I'm going to write him an inane pop culture question every week until I get a letter posted on his page.

This week I've challenged him to name a better movie-inspired theme song than Weird Science. It's a trick question and I hope he picks up on it. A lot of people would say that the Ghostbusters theme song is the best, and that is the obvious answer but that would be incorrect. The correct answer is that there is no better theme song than Weird Science. Let's see if the Sports Guy knows his stuff. Or cares.

Gamblor's Got Me By His Neon Claws

It's Super Bowl weekend and you know what that means...wacky proposition betting time with my old pal Joe Daniels.

To recap, I have basically broke even between all my fantasy leagues, pick em leagues, number pull tabs, and zany side bets with some of Green Bay's most nefarious gamblers, mainly Altmann and Vang, going into the playoffs.

I got my butt kicked though betting on the Pack against Arizona and also had 22-1 odds on the Pack winning the super bowl. Hard to say no to ANY bet with 22-1 odds but alas I am now down some unless you count the value of all the free shots I've taken during Cropsey's 2009 bar dice season but that's sort of mixing apple and oranges.

To make a long story short, I need to make some bucks this weekend in order to come out ahead for the entire year.

My first big bet is being placed as we speak by my pops who is in Vegas this weekend. For a christmas present, my dad got me a two month health insurance policy to cover me between when my last policy expired and when my new policy kicks in with my new job. But unbeknownst to me, my dad forgot to send the check so I was running around town last month with no insurance. Hahaha Dad, good prank, you really zinged me good there.

In any case, he feels bad so he's placing a $50 bet on the Saints with a 5.5 point spread. If I win that baby, I'll be all good for the season. It'll actually be a double win since I did NOT get injured and bankrupted by medical bills these past two months. My dad is a riot, what can I say.

I will update this weekend once the bets are finalized but right now, we currently have a back and forth regarding The Who's set list for the half time show. Joe has picked the last two Super Bowl set lists correctly so forgive me if I'm a little worried about this bet. He's very good. I think he either has a working relationship with Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen or he is a gifted psychic. Or he knows how to use an internet browser.

This year we have two set list bets to spice things up. We agreed that the over/under for songs from CSI introductions is 1.5. I took the over on that one, knowing full well CBS is going to appease the CSI fanboys out there. And we both agreed that Baba O'Riley will get played since that song just kicks ass so that leaves one song to our choosing. My gut tell me Magic Bus and Joe is dead set on Who Are You but only time will tell.

More bets coming soon, if you can think of some good ones let me know. Does anyone have odds how many times Haiti and Vilma/Garcon will be mentioned together during the broadcast? My guess is a whole bunch of times.